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70 THE WHITE COMRADE

BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER

our curtain of fire,

Over the clotted clods,

We charged, to be withered, to reel

And despairingly wheel

When the signal bade us retire

From the terrible odds.

As we ebbed with the battle-tide,

Fingers of red-hot steel

Suddenly closed on my side.

I fell, and began to pray.

I crawled on my hands and lay

Where a shallow crater yawned wide;

Then,—I swooned....

When I woke it yet was day.

Fierce was the pain of my wound;

But I knew it was death to stir,

For fifty paces away

Their trenches were.

In torture I prayed for the dark

And the stealthy step of my friend

Who, staunch to the very end,