“They’ve got me,” gasped Billy. “My Christ, it do ’urt.”
“Lemme look,” said Pug quickly. “Let’s ’ave a field-dressin’, one o’ yer.”
Simson’s shoulder was already crimsoning, and the blood ran and dripped fast from it. Pug slipped out a knife, and with a couple of slashes split the torn jacket and shirt down and across.
“I don’t think it’s a bad ’un,” he said. “Don’t seem to go deep, and it’s well up on the shoulder anyway.”
“It’s bad enough,” said Billy, “by the way it ’urts.”
Kentucky also examined the wound closely.
“I’m sure Pug’s right,” he said. “It isn’t anyways dangerous, Billy.”
Billy looked up suddenly. “It’s a Blighty one, isn’t it?” he said anxiously.
“Oh, yes,” said Kentucky; “a Blighty one, sure.”
“Good enough,” said Billy Simson. “If it’s a Blighty one I’ve got plenty. I’m not like you, Pug; I’m not thirstin’ enough for Germ ’elmets to go lookin’ any further for ’em.”
One of the sergeants came pushing along the trench, urging the men to get a move on and clear out before the next lot ran across the open for the shelter.
“Man wounded,” he said, when they told him of Billy Simson. “You, Simson! Well, you must wait ’ere, and I’ll send a stretcher-bearer back, if ye’re not able to foot it on your own.”
“I don’t feel much up to footin’ it,” said Billy Simson. “I think I’ll stick here until somebody comes to give me a hand.”
So the matter was decided, and the rest pushed along the narrow trench, leaving Simson squatted in one of the bays cut out of the wall. The others moved slowly along to where their trench opened into another running across it, turned down this, and went wandering along its twisting, curving loops until they had completely lost all sense of direction.
The guns on both sides were maintaining a constant cannonade, and the air overhead shook continually to the rumble and wail and howl of the passing shells. But although it was difficult to keep a sense of direction, there was one thing always which told them how they moved--the rattle of rifle fire, the rapid rat-tat-tatting of the machine guns and sharp explosions of bombs and grenades. These sounds, as they all well knew, came from the fighting front, from the most advanced line where our men still strove to push forward, and the enemy stood to stay them, or to press them back.