For some inexplicable reason I now tried to get away. By seizing a tuft of grass in the left hand I could move along a few inches at a time. After advancing in this manner about a foot along the edge of the road, I collapsed from exhaustion, and drew the greatcoat over my head. I do not know how long I had been thus covered up when I heard a shout, and peeping through one of the holes in the coat saw a German soldier standing on top of the bank. He was gesticulating and pointing to his revolver, trying to find out if I was armed! but he soon saw I was past further fighting.
He offered me a drink from his water-bottle, and pointed to the Red Cross on his arm. I can never hope to convey to any one what a relief it was to me to see the cross even on the arm of an enemy. The man asked me if I could walk, tried to lift me up, and when he saw I was paralysed said he would go for a stretcher.
"You will go away and leave me here," I said.
"I am of the Red Cross," he replied; "you are therefore my Kamarad and I will never leave you."
I gave him my whistle. Before going off to seek for help he stood on top of the bank looking down on me where I lay, and pointed once more to the Red Cross badge. "Kamarad, Kamarad, I will come back; never fear, I will come back."
I covered up my head again and fell into a semi-conscious stupor.
The sound of a step on the road aroused my attention, and for a brief instant my eyes seemed to deceive, for they showed me the tall figure of an old man dressed in a white overall. Behind him were two youths carrying a stretcher.
The figure spoke in French: "Are you a wounded British officer? There are three that I am looking for; do you know where the others are?"
I told him our trenches were close behind; and as he and his acolytes were off at once for further search, leaving the stretcher on the road, I added, "First put me on the stretcher." To lie on the stretcher after the hard ground was inexpressible relief to my paralysed limbs. Soon the white figure returned. "We have found them, but they are both dead, et un d'eux a l'air si jeune." The sun was shining with vigorous warmth. One of the boys shaded my head with his cap, and we were about to start when my friend of the German Red Cross appeared on top of the bank with a stretcher. At the same time our little group was joined by a young Uhlan officer. The German Red Cross man wished to transfer me to his stretcher, and the old man in white was determined not to let me go. The beginning of a discussion instantly ceased on the arrival of the German officer, who, speaking French with ease, turned first to the old Frenchman, "Where is your Red Cross armlet? What authority have you to search for wounded?"
The old man drew from his pocket a Red Cross badge, which seemed sufficient authority. The officer, sitting on his horse between the two stretchers, then looked down at me, "Choisissez," he said.