He fell back exhausted.
The stretcher bearers who had been sent for arrived and placed him on a stretcher. They started to carry him to the dressing station.
“Wait a minute there, buddy.” A muddy, wizened-face soldier, advancing with an open razor in his hand, snipped a button from the German’s tunic. “There, that goes home to my gal.”
The platoon had been subjected to heavy bombardment since, two weeks earlier, they had occupied the ravine, but upon this particular afternoon there was a force, a spitefulness, an overwhelming, dull, sickening insistence to the dropping, exploding shells that made each one of the men feel that, as any of them would have expressed it, “one of them seabags has got my name marked on it in big letters.” The shells hammered over, shaking the sides of the ravine as they broke and sending particles of flying steel through the air, to land with a “zip” on the ground. Men called for stretcher bearers until there were no more stretcher bearers, and, as it seemed, as if there were no more men to call. And meanwhile the thick, pungent smoke from the exploding shells was filling up the ravine and seeking out the throats and eyes of the men, to blind and choke them. Before it was over there were men, ostrich-like, with their heads in their burrows as far as they could get them. Many of them were blubbering, not so much from fright as from nerves that had broken under the insistent battering of the shells. But when it ended they were ready at the call to stand by to repel an enemy of any size.
It was felt certain that this time there would be an attack by the Germans to regain the woods from which they had been driven. The men were working the bolts of their rifles, or trying to check the tears that flowed from their eyes, inflamed by the heavy smoke. But while they were making ready to stand off the attack the company commander sent a runner to Lieutenant Bedford, telling him that the platoon would be relieved for the night by other men, and that they were to return farther back in the woods and rest in case there was no attack.
Gasping and choking, the platoon made its way out of the ravine and up the hill. Exhausted, they dropped into the holes, slightly deeper than their own, that the relieving men had occupied. The captain, with his orderly and his runners in holes around him, was lying back on the ground, peacefully smoking a cigarette.
But the attack which the officers had anticipated failed to be made. The sun withdrew from the scene and a pale gold moon took its place, stars peeped out like eyes, and the air became thin and chilly. The men were beginning to feel that they were to enjoy a night’s sleep.
Far off a faint whining began. Nearer and nearer it came, growing louder and awe-inspiring. It was as if some high priest of the elements were working himself into a frenzy before hurling an incantation at his supplicants. It grew to a snarl, a bitter snarl full of hate, and it seemed as if the high priest had bared his teeth, which were long, narrow, and sharply pointed. The tree limbs bowed in fright, and against the dull-blue sky the leaves turned under, curling themselves up. Like a hurricane the shells descended, and with terrific noise they threw out splashes of reds and yellows, in the light of which the trees seemed to cringe.
“We’re in for it,” thought Hicks, trying to co-ordinate his jangling nerves. He sought more closely to press his body against the clayey side of his burrow. Sharply and frighteningly another salvo of shells struck and burst in the little patch of woods. Hicks bit at the leather strap of his helmet. The tree limbs crackled and falling branches fell hesitatingly through the foliage to the ground. Other shells burst. “Oh, my God, I’m hit!” some one cried. And before he had ended his words another group of shells pounded over. Hicks’s spine felt bare with scorpions parading along the flesh. “I won’t get killed. I can’t get killed. I’ve got too much to live for,” he thought, as the bursting shells continued and pieces of their steel casing ripped past and viciously over him. “Oh, God, don’t let me die.” The shells mocked him. “Shall I pray? What shall I say? Oh, it wouldn’t do any good!” But he formulated an incoherent prayer between interruptions of his fancying that among the trees was a huge black animal with fiery eyes and hoofs of brimstone that were kicking and prancing all over the woods. The animal’s head was above the trees, and it snapped at their limbs with its long, punishing jaws. Hicks felt as if his eyes would pop from his head and that his temples would split. The animal’s hoofs kicked nearer him, and he closed his eyes and twisted his neck in fear. Red, purple, white lights danced before his eyes. He turned round to face the monster, forcing a grin over his stiff face. Then he began to cry and then ... blackness, all was blackness.
The morning sun sent wavering rays through the boughs of the trees, and exposed the white stumps whose tops had been blown to the earth by exploding shells. Tree limbs, with ghastly butts, lay dead-still on the thick, calm grass. Steel helmets, spattered with blood, were now and then encountered on the ground. On the space where the captain had been lying there was a blood-soaked shoe and a helmet, turned bottom up, and neatly holding a mess of brains. Near by lay a gas-mask which would never again be used. And near it the sleeve of a coat.