The long day came to an end at last. None of those who had taken part in or even witnessed the glorious taking of the Turkish trenches would ever be likely to forget the experience.
All the wounded had been carried to the temporary hospital. If a vessel could be summoned by wireless they were to be removed to some other place, where they might be nursed, and brought back to health without constant danger of being under fire.
Many of the dead had also been buried. The work in this respect, proving too stupendous a task for one day, had to be dropped for another time. Besides, it was really of greater importance that the safety of the living be looked after than the disposal of those who were out of the fight for good.
The boys had done all they could to lend a helping hand. On every side they received words of gratitude and praise. It heartened those valiant fellows from the antipodes to find American boys standing by them in this emergency. Small although the circumstance might seem to them, it meant much, for they chose to feel that they had the moral backing of the vast majority of Americans in their struggle against the military ideas formulated by the Teuton ruling families.
And now the sun was setting. It went down like a great glowing ball of fire, as though in keeping with the terrible work of the day. It somehow made Jack think of an interesting story he had read in a paper, concerning a famous battlefield where thousands had fallen, and telling how, in the following year, the ground was a mass of fire as innumerable red poppies bloomed. The superstitious peasants declared that the earth had refused to hold all the blood with which it had been drenched on that awful day.
Although both Jack and Amos felt somewhat tired after so strenuous an afternoon, at the same time this was not going to deter them from trying to reach the camp of the New Zealand troops further up the shore by a mile and more.
The Colonel had given them his promise, and they believed he was one who always kept his word, no matter how much he might regret it. They had seen him at intervals during the rest of the afternoon, but never to talk to, for he was always hurrying this way and that, personally seeing that the newly acquired trenches were being put in a state of defense so that no matter how fiercely the Turks attacked they would be beaten back.
“I wonder,” ventured Amos, as they watched the big orb dip lower and lower until its rim was hidden beneath the watery horizon that lay in the far west, “I wonder now if I’ll be with Frank when the sun peeks up again tomorrow.”
“There seems to be a pretty good chance that way, I’m ready to admit,” Jack told him. “In fact, it strikes me we must by this time be pretty near the end of the long trail. First we missed connections with him in Belgium; then came that chase through the French war trenches; and at last the trip to the Dardanelles. Believe me, you’re going to lay hands on Frank this time, anyway, Amos. You need something like that to put new heart in you.”
“Well, as a rule I’m not so easily discouraged, Jack, and you know it; but again and again I’ve been cheated out of even getting a glimpse of my brother, and it wears on a fellow, you see.”