No answer.
“Done for! And just when we had become friends,” Clem murmured. But upon the instant an arm that he had been unconsciously lying across gave a twitch. Clem lifted himself and looked into the other boy’s face.
“Hey, Don! You’re not dead, are you?”
Don Richards opened his eyes. “If I am, it’s right comfortable, except something’s the matter with my shoulder. Was I hit? Oh yes; sure, I know. I came over to help you; didn’t I? Then I got mine. Head feels queer. Must have gone to sleep. Knocked out, eh?”
“Something like that. But, glory, I’m glad you weren’t killed! I thought you were.”
“The Huns haven’t got a real bullet with my number on it. This was only a fake one made of corn pith. Say, let’s make the ambulance and get out of here.”
It was now a still slower and sorrier procession than before, but pluck and mutual helpfulness got the two boys over most of the way until brancardiers came to them. One of these latter could drive a car, and he offered to run the ambulance to the dressing station.
Two hours later the two boys, both swathed in bandages, lay on adjoining cots, following operations. Two days later the big, roomy Red Cross base, with its abundant light, comforts, attentive nurses and absence of flies, received them. As they left the evacuation tent for this delightful place, Major Little, still on duty, said to Don:
“I always believed you’d get hit, my boy. You took too much risk. Came pretty near ending you. Just missed the lung by about one inch. But you’ll be all right and so will your friend, the corporal, here. Well, I want to say your work has been admirable and I think they will have something to say about that at the base. Good-bye and good luck!”
And at the base they did have something to say about it, but not alone to Don. A month later some French and American officers visited the hospital and they came direct to the easy chairs occupied by Clem and Don on the wide veranda of the old château which had been turned into a convalescent ward.