"Bring a stretcher, quick, two of you! It's Flynn! Dear old Roy! I believe he's alive! Yes, yes; he's still alive! Come on, you fellows, quick!"
[CHAPTER XV]
Wing Shooting With a Rifle
The blessed, the brave, the indispensable Red Cross! Just back of the pit, exposed to the vicious German fire and yet intent only upon the duty of mercy, the panting ambulances were being loaded with their precious, their pitiful human freight soon to be billeted in warm, clean, homey hospitals far in the rear where German shells, even from the biggest guns, might seldom reach. And laboriously through the mud the springy cars went away, one at a time.
"Herb, I'd like to have been with ye to help stop those devils, but I couldn't. And if ye can't, how can ye? Now I mebbe never can. It's a fine, good, hard, tryin' old world, it is, Herb. As me old granddad in Ireland used to say: 'Whurrah, me lad, but life's mainly disappointin'.' I know what they'll do to me, me boy. They'll leave me go round as if I was playin' hop scotch as long as I live, but faith, no longer. Me leg'll have to come off, Herb; I know it will. But what of it? It's all in the game."
"I don't believe it, Roy, old man; I think not," the corporal made answer, sick at heart.
"Come see me at the hospital, Corporal," groaned Smith, rolling his eyes, that told of suffering, toward his chief. "That is, if I'm still sticking round there when you can get relieved. If I'm still above ground I'll look for you."