“I’ll be back, Lieutenant and find it. Come along, you Dutchies! Start ’em, Merritt. Now then, march!”
“Come on, Merritt, we’ll catch up with the rest of our bunch,” Herbert said, well satisfied with what had just taken place, but glancing woefully at the inert German lying among the rocks. The lieutenant climbed down to the bottom of the little hill, his soldier after him; they reached the more level ground, parting the branches ahead before proceeding. A flash and the crack of a gun almost in Herbert’s ear, the poking of the muzzle of another weapon through a thick clump of bushes all but in the young officer’s face. Quickly he stooped low with bending knees and at the very same instant a mauser blazed forth its fire, tearing away his hat. The boy fired his pistol directly in line with and beneath the enemy’s weapon and the rifle fell among the bushes. Herbert was about to rise when down on top of him came the weight of a falling man. He caught Merritt in his arms, straightened up, then saw that his khaki-clad comrade’s face was ghastly and that he was unconscious. Something warm, sticky, dark spread over the lieutenant’s hands and with a gasp the soldier lay still. Herbert had liked Merritt, a boy only, no older than himself; thoughtful, studious, delightfully versatile, a writer of beautiful verses, many of which had been published, as had also some of his songs. Here was a youth of great promise, but war, red war, was surely no respecter of persons.
“They’ve got to find him and get him out of here, and save him,” Herbert said aloud, at the same time looking sharply about to see if any more Hun muzzles were being poked through the leafy screen. The boy tenderly placed his comrade on the ground, gazed apprehensively for a moment at the white face, then turned to find someone to go seek stretcher bearers, if such were yet near.
Herbert ran back toward the edge of the woods; a minute or two would thus be consumed. A man in khaki was coming toward him; with the parting of branches and the rounding of a young spruce the two came face to face. The other, Herbert knew at once as the grouchy liaison sergeant whom he had met half an hour ago out on the hill.
“What, not running away, are you?” There was something more than a sneer accompanying this speech. Instantly Herbert lost his temper.
“Keep a civil tongue! I’ll make you eat those words in a minute! You chase yourself back and bring the brancardiers here for one of my men!”
“You can’t give me orders, Lieutenant. I get mine from men higher up. I’m on my way now to you from the field staff. Stop your men and withdraw; they’re the orders. Pretty much everyone has them but you, and they are all halting the charge.”
“You can’t be correct. The orders were to go on till the bugle recall; then to——”
“Changed then. What can you expect, anyway? You heard what I said and if you know what’s what you’d better obey.”
“Something wrong about this. Give the orders to my captain, Captain Lowden.”