Boylan's fears were equalized now by the sudden dread of the man behind. If he slipped he would catch at Peter's body.
“Go slow—that's the trick!” he called. “Feel for your footing each time. It's there. I tell you it's there, man! We rise in a moment more—”
He felt the jointure with his feet—some renewal or stoppage of the timber. He halted, yelling at the man behind:
“Wait—something different! I'll get you through—”
It was the slight turn of the top timbers as they had reached the apex.
“It's the top of the bridge,” he yelled above the boom of the current, “—a turn like the peak of a low roof. A slight turn to the right. Now the climb—”
He put it in Russian somehow, making the words clear. His intensity was almost madness to keep the other's hands off.
A shiver passed through his burden. The water had whipped Peter's limbs. An added call for steadiness, but a gladness about it, too, since he was not carrying the dead.... Upgrade now. The soldier behind had passed the turn safely and was following.
...It seemed that he had walked hours, A thousand or more German soldiers were lost even as he. Their faces in the dusk passed him—to and fro—hoarse questions. The gray chill dusk was all about, quite different from anything Big Belt had known. His clothing had warmed to him from great exertion. There was a line that caked and dampened again down his left thigh, like an artillery stripe, from Peter's wounds. Night came on, finding him without a command—a strange sort of abandonment, and a certain fear of being overtaken by a Russian party. The character of his fatigue brought back ancient memories, when he had looked death face to face and was afraid.
“Who are you?” someone piped sharply in German.