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Page 41
"Over on th' right. I got separated"--began the youth with
considerable glibness.
But his friend had interrupted hastily. "Yes, an' he got shot in
th' head an' he's in a fix, an' we must see t' him right away."
He rested his rifle in the hollow of his left arm and his right
around the youth's shoulder.
"Gee, it must hurt like thunder!" he said.
The youth leaned heavily upon his friend. "Yes, it hurts--hurts
a good deal," he replied. There was a faltering in his voice.
"Oh," said the corporal. He linked his arm in the youth's and
drew him forward. "Come on, Henry. I'll take keer 'a yeh."
As they went on together the loud private called out after them:
"Put 'im t' sleep in my blanket, Simpson. An'--hol' on a minnit
--here's my canteen. It's full 'a coffee. Look at his head by
th' fire an' see how it looks. Maybe it's a pretty bad un. When I
git relieved in a couple 'a minnits, I'll be over an' see t' him."
The youth's senses were so deadened that his friend's voice sounded
from afar and he could scarcely feel the pressure of the corporal's arm.
He submitted passively to the latter's directing strength.
His head was in the old manner hanging forward upon his breast.
His knees wobbled.
The corporal led him into the glare of the fire. "Now, Henry,"
he said, "let's have look at yer ol' head."
The youth sat obediently and the corporal, laying aside his rifle,
began to fumble in the bushy hair of his comrade. He was obliged
to turn the other's head so that the full flush of the fire light
would beam upon it. He puckered his mouth with a critical air.
He drew back his lips and whistled through his teeth when his
fingers came in contact with the splashed blood and the rare wound.
"Ah, here we are!" he said. He awkwardly made further investigations.
"Jest as I thought," he added, presently. "Yeh've been grazed by a ball.
It's raised a queer lump jest as if some feller had lammed yeh on th'
head with a club. It stopped a-bleedin' long time ago. Th' most about
it is that in th' mornin' yeh'll fell that a number ten hat wouldn't
fit yeh. An' your head'll be all het up an' feel as dry as burnt pork.
An' yeh may git a lot 'a other sicknesses, too, by mornin'. Yeh can't
never tell. Still, I don't much think so. It's jest a damn' good belt
on th' head, an' nothin' more. Now, you jest sit here an' don't move,
while I go rout out th' relief. Then I'll send Wilson t' take keer 'a yeh."
The corporal went away. The youth remained on the ground like a parcel.
He stared with a vacant look into the fire.
After a time he aroused, for some part, and the things about him
began to take form. He saw that the ground in the deep shadows
was cluttered with men, sprawling in every conceivable posture.
Glancing narrowly into the more distant darkness, he caught
occasional glimpses of visages that loomed pallid and ghostly,
lit with a phosphorescent glow. These faces expressed in their
lines the deep stupor of the tired soldiers. They made them
appear like men drunk with wine. This bit of forest might
have appeared to an ethereal wanderer as a scene of the
result of some frightful debauch.
On the other side of the fire the youth observed an officer asleep,
seated bolt upright, with his back against a tree. There was
something perilous in his position. Badgered by dreams,
perhaps, he swayed with little bounces and starts, like an old,
toddy-stricken grandfather in a chimney corner. Dust and stains
were upon his face. His lower jaw hung down as if lacking strength
to assume its normal position. He was the picture of an exhausted
soldier after a feast of war.
He had evidently gone to sleep with his sword in his arms.
These two had slumbered in an embrace, but the weapon had been
allowed in time to fall unheeded to the ground. The brass-mounted
hilt lay in contact with some parts of the fire.
Within the gleam of rose and orange light from the burning
sticks were other soldiers, snoring and heaving, or lying
deathlike in slumber. A few pairs of legs were stuck forth,
rigid and straight. The shoes displayed the mud or dust of marches
and bits of rounded trousers, protruding from the blankets, showed
rents and tears from hurried pitchings through the dense brambles.
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