The complaining note increased in the other's voice.
"He's at the foot of that tree. Hear those guns? They're just zipping a few while they wait for someone to get to him."
"Pull your company together," George said with an absurd feeling that he spoke to Mrs. Planter. "I'll go along and see that we get him and those nests. They're spoiling the entire afternoon."
The lieutenant glanced at him, startled.
"I can do it——"
"You haven't," George reminded him.
He despatched runners to the flank companies and to regimental headquarters announcing that he was moving ahead. When the battalion advanced, like a lot of fairly clever Indians, he was in the van, making straight for the tree. He had a queer idea that Mrs. Planter quietly searched in the underbrush ahead of him. The machine guns, which had been trickling, gushed.
"You're hit, sir," the lieutenant said.
George glanced at his right boot. There was a hole in the leather, but he didn't feel any pain. He dismissed the lieutenant's suggestion of stretcher bearers. He limped ahead. Why should he assume this risk for Lambert? Sylvia wouldn't thank him for it. She wouldn't thank him for anything, but her mother would. He had to get Lambert back and complete his task, but he was afraid to examine the still form he saw at last at the base of the tree, and he knew very well that that was only because Lambert was his friend. He designated a man to guide the stretcher bearers, and bent, his mind full of swift running and vicious tackles, abrupt and brutal haltings of this figure that seemed to be asleep, that would never run again.
Lambert stirred.