‘A fifteen-inch, begob!’ exclaimed Hagan, seizing the orderly by the shoulders and dragging him into the open air.
The atmosphere outside was still reeking with heavy black smoke and dust. A cavern in the road, large enough to conceal a motor-bus, yawned in his path. The heat of action was upon him. Handing over the orderly to other hands, he did not hesitate. There were wounded men to be rescued. At any moment a second shell might follow the first, or more walls might fall. A feeble, muffled call for help, emanating from the very centre of the wreckage, arrested his attention. He knew that bland, cool voice only too well. The available orderlies were already struggling to remove the wounded and unearth their officer.
Hagan dashed forward. He was a strong man, and in the best of condition. Without argument, he took command.
To remove the smaller masses of mortared brick was the work of but a few moments. The men worked at fever heat. The cries from beneath grew feebler, almost ceased. It was the weight of long rafters which formed the main obstruction. Without axes or saws, its removal might be a matter of hours.
Wiping the sweat from his face, Hagan set his teeth and urged on his party to final effort. But their combined strength was without avail to clear the rafters. The victim beneath seemed nearing suffocation with every breath he drew.
Hagan could see only one way, and he took it.
Throwing himself on his face, he insinuated his head beneath the rafters, and by herculean efforts forced his shoulders to follow. Tearing away the loose stuff with his hands, whilst the orderlies endeavoured to ease the weight above him, he at length was able to gauge the situation accurately. A great beam lay across the chest of the officer, whose body supported it.
Tim Hagan sweated in an agony as he looked. He had seen hundreds of men killed in action, but to see his late persecutor being slowly crushed to death before his eyes was more than he could bear.
From outside the cries of men with axes reached him. Immediate action, however, was what was wanted. An instant’s thought, a whispered, guttural prayer, and he proceeded with his task.
Rolling with difficulty upon his back, he wriggled himself, inch by inch, close up beside his now silent antagonist, and with all the strength in his body pressed upwards until he managed to relieve the pressure on the other’s chest. Inch by inch he shoved the unconscious man aside and replaced the latter’s body by his own. Then, with ears at acutest tension, he listened to the crash of the axes and wondered how long he could last—how long it would take him to die.