“It just occurred to me. He didn't want to take all my time. I whispered his name several times—no answer. Once when I was leaving, his hand reached up and touched my coat.”
“Is he hurt badly?”
“Not a thing in the body. It's between his throat and his eyes.... You know I saw him last night after the shrapnel as he lifted—it was just a sheet of blood. Afterward it was covered in cloth. I don't think he knew until this morning, when he started to talk.”
“He was all knit to the little man,” Boylan said. “As good a pair as I ever met afield.... Oh, I say, eat something—”
Peter smiled at the big fellow and turned to his soup and black bread. He didn't say what he thought, but it had to do with his own field companion this time.
* * *
...Midnight. Boylan had gone back to quarters. Peter's ward was low-lit and still. ...The wounded man's hands waved before his bandage, as if to detract attention from the windy blur of his utterance. Samarc wanted to die.
“You know it was because of me that he came—” he repeated.
“But you mustn't suffer for that. Really, Samarc, a man couldn't have been a better friend than you. Spenski would tell you so if he could. These are times for men to live. I wanted to kill myself this morning. You know I was behind you on the hill, too. That, and the tragedy all about, and then they were murdering spies and martyring real Fatherland men out in the court—as if there wasn't enough death afield. It was too much for me. Old Boylan helped me, but if I hadn't come in to work, I'd have shot my head off. Here—men dying hard and easy; men and women serving; so much to do,—I got better. Death isn't everything. I'm not a genius or a dreamer, man. I'm so slow at dreaming and brotherhood and all that, that a woman once ran from me. But I saw to-day that death isn't all. I don't know what else there is, but this is a sort of long night, this war. A few of us are awake. If we are put to sleep—that's all right—I mean knocked out, you know. But so long as we are not, we've got to watch and root for the dawn. God, man, there is much to do. We've got to make our lives count—”
He was bending forward talking very low. He thought from the pressure of Samarc's hands that he was gaining ground. It was queer and laughable to himself—this line of talk that came to him. He knew so well the pangs of that suicidal suffocation, that he could talk for the very life of the other. He added: