Page:War, the Liberator (1918).djvu/156

 “I’m wounded, sir,” the man gasped as he ran.

The words steadied MacTaggart.

“All right,” he said clearly. “That’s the way home.”

The man climbed painfully out and vanished.

Down the trench slowly came the red-haired man who had fingered his bombs in the crater. He was weaponless now, and his hands clutched at the sides of the trench as he came on, bleeding and wild-eyed.

“I’m wounded, sir, I’m wounded,” he groaned.

“All right, out you go,” said his officer. ‘‘What was it?”

“Our own shells,” cried the man, his voice rising to a scream, and he, too, disappeared.

Now a great knot of wounded and panic-struck men came down, and MacTaggart thought “We’re done. They’ve properly caught us. No matter. We killed a good few in those two dug-outs anyway.” And gave the signal to retire.

From both sides the men streamed past and out, their officers watching them as they went. One wounded man came limping up, and stood feebly hesitating.

“Oh, get to hell out of this,” yelled the Senior Subaltern, and half-kicked, half-pushed him on to the parapet. Two sappers brought up land mines and laid them one in the dug-out, and