A bursting shell threw Dick backward into a small crater that had been made earlier in the day and knocked the breath out of him for a few seconds. Frank Sacobie picked him up. The colonel gave the signal to double, and the right flank of the 26th broke from a walk into a slow and heavy jog. Sacobie jogged beside Dick.
"Just a year since we came into the line!" shouted Dick.
"We were pa'tridge shootin' two years ago to-day!" bawled Sacobie.
The colonel turned with his back to Courcelette and his face to his men and yelled at them to come on. "Speed up on the right!" he shouted. "The left is ahead. The 25th is in already. Shake a leg, boys. If they don't move quick enough in front, blow right through 'em."
At the near edge of the village a number of New Brunswickers, including their colonel, overtook and mingled with the second line of the 22d. Our barrage was lifted clear of Courcelette by this time and set like a spouting wall of fire and earth along the far side of it; but the shells of the enemy continued to pitch into it, heaving bricks and rafters and the soil of little gardens into the vibrating twilight. Machine guns streamed their fire upon the invaders from attics and cellars and sand-bagged windows. The bombs and rifles of the 22d smashed and cracked just ahead; and on the left, still farther ahead, crashes and bangs and shouts told all who could hear the whereabouts of Hilliam and his lads from Nova Scotia.
Dick Starkley saw a darting flicker of fire from the butt of a broken chimney beyond a cellar full of bricks and splintered timber. He shouted to his men, let his pistol swing from its lanyard and threw a bomb. Then, stooping low, he dashed at the jumble of ruins in the cellar. He saw his bomb burst beside the stump of chimney. The machine gun flickered again, and spat-spat-spat came quicker than thought. Other bombs smashed in front of him, to right and left of the chimney. He got his right foot entangled in what had once been a baby's crib.
There he was, staggering on the very summit of that low mound of rubbish, fairly in line with the aim of the machine gun. Something seized him by some part of his equipment and jerked him backward. He lit on his back and slid a yard, then beheld the face of Hiram Sill staring down at him.
"Hit?" asked Hiram.
"Don't think so. No."
"It's a wonder."