A British battery at work on the Peninsula[ToList]
We had to go two miles before the stretcher bearers could exchange the blanket for the regular stretcher. The trenches were narrow, and on one side a little ditch had been dug to drain them. The recent wet weather had made the bottom of the trench very slippery, and every few minutes one of the bearers would slide sideways and bring up in the ditch. When he did the blanket swayed with him, and my shoulders struck against the jagged limestone on the sides. To avoid this as much as possible the bearers had to proceed very slowly. Those two miles to me seemed endless. I had now become completely paralyzed, all control of my muscles was gone, and I slipped about in the blanket. Every few yards I would ask Hoddinott, "Is it very much farther?" and every time he would turn around and grin cheerfully, and answer, as one would answer a little child, "Not very much farther now, Gal."
At last we emerged into a large wide communication trench, with the landmarks of which I was familiar. I was suffering severely now, and was beginning to worry over trifles. Suddenly it came to me that I was still a couple of miles from the dressing station, and when we came out of the communication trench on to open ground that had been torn up by shrapnel, I was consumed with fear that at any moment I might be hit by another shell, and might not get aboard the hospital after all, for by this time my mind had centered on getting into a clean bed. A dozen different thoughts chased through my mind. I was grieved to think that in order to get at the wound it had been necessary to cut the fine great-coat that I had so much wanted to take home as a souvenir. I asked Hoddinott what they had done with it, and he told me that part of it was under my head as a pillow, but that it was so besmeared with blood that it would be thrown away as soon as I arrived at the dressing station. From thinking of the great-coat, I remembered that before I went out with the digging party I had taken off my raincoat and left it near my haversack in the trench, and in the pocket of it was the little diagram I had drawn of the position of the sniper I had seen the night before. Again I called for Hoddinott, and again he came, and answered me patiently and gently. "Yes, he would tell Art about the little diagram." Where a fringe of low bushes bordered the pathway at the end of the open space, Hoddinott and Pike turned. For the distance of about a city block they carried the stretcher along a road cut through thick jungle. At the end of it stood a little post from which drooped a white flag with a red cross. It was the end of the first stage for the stretcher bearers. A great wave of loneliness swept over me when I realized that I was to see the last of the men with whom I had gone through so much. I was almost crying at the thought of leaving them there. Somehow or other it did not seem right for me to go. I felt that in some way I was taking an unfair advantage of them. Hoddinott and Pike slipped the straps from their shoulders and lowered the stretcher gently. Under the blanket Hoddinott sought my hand. "Good-by, Gal," he said. "Is there any message I can take back to Art?"
"Yes," I said, "tell him to keep my raincoat."
Since the moment I had been hit, I had been afraid of one thing—that I should break down, and not take my punishment like a man. I was tensely determined that no matter how much I suffered I would not whine or cry. In our regiment it had become a tradition that a man must smile when he was wounded. One thing more than anything else kept me firm in my determination. Art Pratt had walked just behind the blanket until we came to the communication trench. Even then he was loath to leave me. He could not trust himself to speak when I said, "Good-by, Art, old pal." He grasped my hand, and holding it walked along a few feet. Then he dropped my hand gently. There are some things in life that stand out ineffably sweet and satisfying. For me such a one was that last moment of farewell to Art. I had always considered him the most fearless man in a regiment whose name was a byword for reckless courage. Of all men on the Peninsula I valued his opinion most. No recommendation for promotion, no award for valor, not even the coveted V.C., could have been half so sweet as the few words I heard Art say. With eyes shining, he turned to the man beside him and said, almost savagely, "By God, he's a brick."