Hazelton raised his great head; a red mounted to his face; his old sardonic laughter boomed out through the ward. With a sharply indrawn breath of pain: “Oh, la—la!” he shouted. “’Cré nom! ’Cré nom! What luck—imperishable! I’m dying—your right hand—your right hand!” He sank back, his ironic laughter drowned in a swift crimson tide.
The nurse beckoned to an orderly to bring a screen....
Tears of grief and weakness streamed down Raoul’s face. To the last his ill luck had held. He hadn’t been able to make his friend understand, or to make amends. His right hand was wounded, and he could no longer serve France.
The sister looked at him with pity. She tried to console him.
“Death is not always so mercifully quick with these strong men,” she said.
[THE WHITE BATTALION]
By FRANCES GILCHRIST WOOD
From The Bookman
Copyright, 1918, by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.
Copyright, 1919, by Frances Gilchrist Wood.