I carried him in and placed him on a stretcher on the floor. At the moment the doctor was busy with another case.
"Chummy," said Barty, as I was moving away.
"Yes," I said, coming back to his side.
"It's like this, Pat," said the wounded boy. "I owe Corporal Darvy a 'arf-crown, Tubby Sinter two bob, and Jimmy James four packets of fags—woodbines. Will you tell them when you go back that I'll send out the money and fags when I go back to blighty?"
"All right," I replied. "I'll let them know."
CHAPTER XX
For Blighty
"The villa dwellers have become cave-dwellers."—Dudley Pryor.
The night was intensely dark, and from the door of the dug-out I could scarcely see the outline of the sentry who stood on the banquette fifteen yards away. Standing on tiptoe I could glance over the parapet, and when a star-shell went up I could trace the outline of a ruined mill that stood up, gaunt and forbidding, two hundred yards away from our front line trench. On the left a line of shrapnel-swept trees stood in air, leafless and motionless. Now and again a sniper's bullet hit the sandbags with a crack like a whip.