“But the wounded, General. The field is alive with wounded—” came from Doltmir.
“I can't send troops out there again—” The voice was thick and hoarse with repression. “We'll get them at nightfall.... Gentlemen, we may now withdraw.”
Boylan was one of the last to leave. He saw the aged legs disappear up the earth-rise as the rear door opened. The legs jerked and twitched spasmodically, as if taking an invisible spanking.
Boylan was actually afraid of his thoughts, lest they be read in his face—the shocking personal business on Kohlvihr's part. “A little shrapnel or two sends him quaking home, and they went out five times for him into the very steam of hell.”
His brain kept repeating this in spite of him, so that he did not try to overtake the staff.
And they—the poor last fragment of them—were piling back toward Judenbach, leaving their wounded behind.
Chapter 3
Goylan was back in Judenbach. It was four in the afternoon. He had searched everywhere for Peter Mowbray. The whole war zone was getting blacker and blacker to his sight. He had even gone to the Grim House to look for the white-fire creature who had taken his companion to her breast, figuratively speaking; but neither she, nor the weak-shouldered little chap who had brought the hospital steward's blouse, was there. There remained Dabnitz, who more than any other was aware generally of what passed. Big Belt returned to headquarters and waited. Darkness was thickening before the Lieutenant came in.