Page:Armistice Day.djvu/400

378. Then he collapsed and lay still, the stain on the rock telling its own grim story.

There was a slight depression a few feet away. To it the corporal dragged his wounded mate. His first-aid kit was torn open, and the hurt, a ragged groove across the chest, quickly and skillfully dressed.

"Right-o, matey!" and one who had heard the blasphemous utterances would not have recognized the voice, its tones soft and gentle as a woman's. "Right as a top, my old brancher. Lie doggo, w'ile I give the bleeders wot for."

Clinging like a limpet to the rock, he moved cautiously forward, an inch at a time, till he could reach the ankle of the dead signaler. He pulled the body forward till it lay, a parapet of flesh and bone, along the edge of the depression. With a sudden spring and rush, he reached the gun, picked it up, and slid into the depression, the bullets from the Turks' weapon singing about him like angry wasps. With quick and capable hands he adjusted the piece, straightened the belt.

Many and long were the hours when, cursing the sergeants mentally, filled with hot, blind rage at this intangible, compelling something called discipline, his eyes burning, his face grimy with sweat and powder-smoke, his throat smarting with the pungent fumes, he had fired at the butts on Salisbury Plain. Now he thanked whatever