Presently Herr Offizier came creeping along, bent to the waist and peering through the bush. We looked squarely into each other's eyes as we fired, less than ten feet separating us. Being settled and ready for him, my gun had about a second the better of his. I aimed at his mouth, allowing for the rise of the bullet from the "kick." As he fired I actually felt the concussion against my face, we were so close; then a hot, sharp pain in my right forearm, as if some one had suddenly pushed a white-hot knife blade along under the elbow when I hadn't been looking.
Munson and Herschowitz fired too, and there seemed to be shots from the second boche. My own particular duelist dropped back limp after my first shot, although I got off four in quick succession.
Now we made for the thick of the woods. My resolution was to stick to them though they should be thick as fish glue. Under good cover Munson dressed my wound. My fingers had begun stiffening up a bit, and I worked them to keep the trigger finger in good trim, thinking at the time what a ludicrous shot I'd be with the left hand. A thought for soldiers in training: Are you ambidextrous? I've never fired a shot with the left.
The wound itself was a puzzler. Almost at once the arm swelled until it seemed that a duck egg had been inserted under the flesh. But, feeling around it, there was no hard substance beneath. The sleeve showed two holes within three inches of each other where the cartridge had gone in and out. What probably happened was that my shot had diverted his aim and his bullet had passed under my crooked elbow and armpit, merely searing the forearm in a caressing sort of way. The blood was negligible. Altogether, it was a "cushy blighty," as the Tommy puts it. We reloaded our revolvers to wait for nightfall. There was a bit of stale bread in the bottom of my gas mask, forgotten until now. I split it into three parts, about two mouthfuls for each, and dug out some half-soaked cigarettes.
"We'll have a smoke, Jack" (military rank is forgotten sometimes), "if it's the last," I said, and he agreed with a wan sort of smile. Herschowitz whispered that he didn't smoke, and dropped asleep as the words left his mouth.
None of us had water. And we were very thirsty. The boys had white, sticky saliva in the corners of their mouths, and, from the feel of mine, I knew that I had too.
To the inevitable monody of machine guns, we dozed until dusk came. Then with compass and revolver, one in each hand, I started again upon the eternal crawl. My arm had grown in circumference until the sleeve was tight upon it. Crawling added nothing to its comfort, for to do the crawfish stroke the elbows are pushed out ahead and upon them as anchors the rest of the body is then drawn up. As yet it was not necessary to go so carefully. But when, after hours, we came to a clearing as grateful as I was for the chance of unhampered movement, I dropped to hands and knees. Ten minutes of thus shinning passed without event. Then suddenly a boche voice called out, a little to our front: "Bist du Deutsch?" That much German I understood. We flattened. As it happened, we were at the foot of a tree at the base of which grew brush. We lay motionless. Again the voice, with its demand in intonation.
Then the bolt of a rifle clicked clearly and the owner of the voice fired. The flash was clear against the night. From the right and left of the flash, and close to it, came other flashes. The bullets whined harmlessly above us.
Was this a small, mobile party? If so, they would be slinking about. But during half an hour of their intermittent firing the position of the flashes never changed. That looked like funk holes! And if it was a case of funk holes, by all the nasty little elves of tough luck, we had stumbled right into a German position!
By watching the direction of the flashes I tried to determine their front. Cupping my hand over the radio-lighted dial of my compass, I studied it in connection with their bursts of fire. They seemed to be firing north. But north was our own battalion front, and theirs, according to the military logic of things, south, unless—unless they had swung in from our flank behind us and had dug in facing our rear!