And the Coil of Carne, cut by a stray British shell, lay shattered about the eastern slope of Sebastopol.
[CHAPTER LXVI]
PURGATORY
Jim came to himself in purgatory. It seemed to him that he came slowly out of a dead black sleep into a horrible wakening dream.
He was in a vast room, low-roofed, with massive arches which obstructed his view and lay like weights on his brain. Small, heavy windows let in a murky light. All about him were dismal groanings, and mutterings, and curses, and a most evil atmosphere, which turned his stomach.
He tried to move, and was seized with grinding pains up his right side and arm and shoulder.
He tried to grope back into the meaning of it all, and suddenly he remembered the shell.
It must have burst and wounded him. His right hand shot suddenly with burning pangs.
He wondered how Jack had fared. He could not remember whether he had succeeded in pitching it down the slope or not. He had done his best; but he remembered that the fuse was very short. . . .
Was he really alive? . . . or was he dead, and this hell? . . . The groans and curses . . . that awful smell of blood and dead men! . . .