Up to that time I had been careful; but then, forgetful of everything but that my friend, our loved Chaplain, was lying there unsheltered, I threw off caution and hurried to him. He was alive but apparently desperately wounded. His head, legs and arms seemed unhurt, but I saw a gaping hole in his coat through the right side. Tearing away the coat, with my stock of first aid lint and bandages I stopped the bleeding as best I could. The smoke was clearing, and I must act quickly.
Lying down, I got him on my back, and on hands and knees backed away towards a shell hole a few yards distant. I made it. Then, believing that the enemy would conclude that I would remain there, I gathered him in my arms and ran to another shell hole still nearer our lines. Before reaching it the bullets hummed around me like angry hornets. There I rested a little, and then ran on to another more distant depression in the ground.
Up to this time I did not know that I had been hit, though I had felt something like a sharp blow strike my hip. Now I felt a warm trickle of blood down my leg, and knew that I was wounded and that I must reach our sheltering lines in one desperate run, if at all. If my strength would only last!
With a full breath and with desperate resolution, I ran with my burden, the hum of bullets from snipers saluting. [I gripped my nerve and shut my teeth. Could I reach a place of safety?] I had made good progress, but my eyes blurred and I began to waver in spite of all my will. At last as I swayed and fell, I heard the welcoming shout of comrades. Then I fainted.
When I recovered consciousness I found a surgeon fishing around in my hip for bullets.
“How is the chaplain?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” said the surgeon laconically; “another surgeon has his case.”
“I must see,” I said, trying to get to my feet; for I felt, as wounded men often do, that my wound was not a serious one.
Next it occurred to me that I was again under a surgeon, and that another starvation time was before me; and it made me mad.
“Let me alone!” I cried, “I want you to understand that I am not dead yet. I want to find out about the Sky Pilot!”