The surgeon was off to visit his other patients and, after a few puffs, Hamilton extinguished his cigarette and was ready to sink back into sleep.
IV
It was from Miss Meadows principally that Hamilton learned the details of his rescue. It was from her that he learned, for instance, that it was McCall who had helped the negro, Williams, to save his life. Where was McCall? Meadows would not tell, although she hinted that it was near-by. He guessed that it was in an adjoining ward and that she was afraid that if she told him how close, he would attempt to visit him before his full strength had returned. Meadows had heard part of the story from McCall himself and part she remembered from a newspaper account, although names of places and persons had been carefully deleted. There were other details that Dr. Levin supplied.
Apparently Hamilton had proceeded beyond his objective and fallen wounded at the edge of Chartreux Woods just before the enemy began to lay down a box barrage upon it. Hamilton wondered how he had got there. His last memory had been of advancing upon a line of trenches. Chartreux Woods lay beyond and to the left.
“Probably out of your head,” explained Dr. Levin. “You know there was a slight wound on your scalp. Probably a machine-gun bullet.”
“Must have been that,” agreed Hamilton. “Only an idiot would have done it otherwise.”
At any rate, it seemed, Hamilton had reached the last line of trenches assigned as his objective and, while his men were still mopping up, had blundered on. At the edge of the forest, weak from loss of blood, he had fallen.
It was there that McCall, whose company was lying entrenched opposite the wood, ready to advance when the signal should come, saw him the next morning, through the first gray of a drizzling dawn—the body of an American soldier lying in the open a few feet from the first row of trees and a hundred yards away. He did not know that it was Hamilton, only that it was a wounded American. How should he guess that it was Hamilton, who was supposed to be holding a position to the right and rear of his own?
And now McCall had let himself lightly over the top and was running swiftly through the mud toward his goal. Suddenly the barrage upon the forest broke and McCall flung himself to the ground. In a general way he knew that the lowness of the ground would probably shield him from observation, but to expose himself needlessly would be folly. He began to crawl forward slowly. He would continue this way for a few feet, then dive into a shell hole or behind a stump.
Across the narrow field high explosive shells were shattering the trees with thunderous roars. Projectiles screamed and whined overhead. Somewhere a machine gun chattered. A light drizzle was falling and all these sounds seemed like a thousand angry thunders following a thousand devastating lightnings. Once McCall threw himself into a puddle a second before a high explosive shell struck the earth a hundred yards away with a terrible crash that shook the earth and spattered rock, earth and metal as from a volcano’s mouth. McCall noticed with relief that Hamilton lay protected by the sweep of the terrain.