While Rifleman Carr was busy with first-aid dressings, Sergeant Fortescue was pondering over the situation. He had lost touch with the advance. It was a vain sacrifice to attempt to push on with a mere handful of men. He decided to sit tight and await developments. Reserves would be speedily coming up; of that he felt certain.
"Can we get him out of this, Fortescue?" enquired Malcolm, indicating his unconscious chum. Fortescue shook his head.
"No," he replied. "'Gainst orders. Sorry!"
It cost the man an effort to refuse, but the sense of discipline had the upper hand. He, too, knew that once a wounded man was left in the depths of the battle-swept wood there was little chance of his being removed before it was too late. Yet if the rule were broken, and every unwounded man took upon himself to succour his disabled chum, the advance would be jeopardized.
Out of the smoke stumbled a wounded man, hesitatingly, as if not certain of his bearings. His shrapnel-helmet had fallen off, revealing an unbandaged bullet wound extending over both eyebrows. From his waist downwards he was literally caked with plastic mud.
"This way, chum!" shouted Fortescue, seeing that the man was partly blinded by the flow of blood, and as likely as not dazed by the nature of his wound.
"Look out!" exclaimed the wounded Digger, as Joliffe and Henderson assisted him into the emplacement. "We've copped it properly up there. The boys floundered into a bog, and were shot down like rabbits. And the Boches are counter-attacking. They'll be along here in half a shake."
It was bad news. The main attack had inclined away to the right, while the thinly-held line between the New Zealand division and the English regiments on the left had been stopped, not by the Huns, but by the impossible condition of the marshy ground. Into the gap a strong body of German troops, who, having previously held the wood, knew how to avoid the treacherous swamp, came hurriedly, with the intention of driving a wedge between the assaulting troops. It was one of those minor operations which, if successful, might turn the fortunes of the day.
"By gum!" ejaculated Fortescue. "We're up against something. Any of you fellows know how to handle these?"
He indicated the two captured machine-guns, in one of which a fresh belt of ammunition had just been placed when the Diggers upset Fritz's preparations.