Jim tried to obey. Then he saw that Wally was staggering, and flung his arm round him; but the arm was suddenly limp and helpless, and Wally pitched forward on his face and lay still, gasping. Jim tried to drag him up, fighting with the powerlessness that was creeping over him. Behind him the roar of artillery grew faint in his ears and died away, though still he seemed to hear the steady spit of Garrett’s machine-guns. He sagged downwards. Then black, choking darkness rushed upon him, and he fell across the body of his friend.
[Illustration: “Jim Linton sat on a small box outside his dug-out . . .”]
“London’s smoke hides all the stars from me, Light from mine eyes and Heaven from my heart.” DORA WILCOX.
THE lift came gliding on its upward journey in a big London hotel, far too slowly for the impatience of its only passenger, a tall girl of sixteen, with a mop of brown curls, and grey eyes alight with excitement. Ordinarily, Norah Linton was rather pale, especially in London, where the air is largely composed of smoke, and has been breathed in and out of a great number of people until it is nearly worn out; but just now there was a scarlet spot on each cheek, and her mouth broke into smiles as though it could not help itself. At Floor No. 4, a fat old lady threatened to stop the lift, but decided at the last moment that she preferred to walk upstairs. At No. 5, no one was in sight, and Norah sighed with audible relief, and ejaculated, “Thank goodness!” At No. 6, two men were seen hurrying along the corridor some distance away, and shouting, “Lift!” But at this point the lift-boy, to whom Norah’s impatience had communicated itself, behaved like Nelson when he applied his telescope to his blind eye, and shot upwards, disregarding the shouts of his would-be passengers; and, passing by No. 7 as though it were not there, brought the lift to an abrupt halt at No. 8, flinging the door open with a rattle and a triumphant, “There y’are, miss!”
“Thank you!” said Norah, flashing at him a grateful smile that sent the lift-boy earthwards in a state of mind that made him loftily oblivious of the reproaches of neglected passengers. She was out of the lift with a quick movement, and in the empty corridor broke into a run. Her flying feet carried her swiftly to a sitting-room some distance away, and she burst in like a whirlwind. “Dad! Daddy!”