Herbert stopped and turned. "Hit, old man? Where?"
"Go on, Corp! Get out of this, or they'll get you, too!"
"And leave you? Not for all the Boches. Arms all right; are they? Get 'em around my neck and hold on! Honk, honk!"
It was a long, hard struggle. The wounded man, the last private of Herbert's second squad, was a heavy fellow. Herb was still unhurt, and he managed, though sometimes seeing black, to get into cover again, and there he could go more slowly, though he dared not stop. It seemed like hours, perhaps, instead of minutes, and the torture of struggling on and on with a weight greater than his own upon his back appeared a thousand times worse than anything of endurance that he had ever known on gridiron or long distance runs. Still he kept right on going, with ever the thought of the avenging Huns behind.
And at last he knew not how far he had progressed and had begun almost to lose interest in the matter, having the mad desire to get on and on, fighting another mad desire to rest and ease his straining muscles, when in his ears welcome sounds were heard.
"Drop him, fellow! You've done enough. We'll take him. Hey, Johnny, I guess we'll have to carry both of 'em!"
Not an hour later Herbert saluted Captain Leighton in the trench. The rapid firing of guns, big and little, was everywhere; the counter-attack of the Boches had successfully been repulsed and the new drive was scheduled to take place, following another and very terrible barrage. The captain grasped the boy's hand.
"Splendid work, Whitcomb! Put out of business about two hundred of them; let her go just at the right time. Cartright has given me an account of it. And your bringing him in was great! No; he isn't badly wounded. Gone back; left grateful remembrances for you. But that's not the matter in hand—feel all right now? Good! Well, then, I have been empowered to brevet a lieutenant for this platoon; Loring was killed yesterday. I have chosen you and you ought to know why; reasons are too numerous to mention. Your commission will arrive soon. Probably you'll be the youngest commissioned officer in the army. Well, come with me."
They walked down the trench, stopping here and there where the officers of squads waited with their men for the word to "go over the top and at 'em!" To each group the captain's words were pretty much the same: