Page:Lieutenant and Others (1915) by Sapper.djvu/66

 “Tell the gunners to fire. For God’s sake get ’em to fire. Their infantry all over the place, and we’re getting about one shell of ours to twenty of theirs. Oh, God, this is awful!” and he tore at his collar.

“I’ll go and find the general at once,” said Gerald.

The officer nodded. “Good. I’ll stop here till I’m better, and then I suppose I must go back to the boys. Poor devils! and I’m away out of it.” He croaked hideously. “My men never budged, and now they’re being shelled to bits—and they’re helpless. Get reserves, man; get reinforcements. For Heaven’s sake, hurry. No one seems to know what’s happening—and it’s been awful up there.”

And so Gerald left him sitting by the side of the road, his eyes staring fixedly at nothing, periodically wiping the froth from his lips with a hand that left a crimson smear wherever it touched. And there the stretcher-bearers found him ten minutes later—one of hundreds of similar cases reported so tersely as “suffering from gas poisoning.” And here—having staggered across our horizon—he passes out