SENT TO THE REAR
Roger Barlow, who was slightly behind his comrade in their queer
progress back toward the shell hole near which the Polish lad had been
seen to fall, observed his fellow sergeant come to a halt.
"What's the matter--hit?" cried Roger anxiously. And this well might
have been the case, since, though there was a lull in the fighting
immediately in front of Company E, there were plenty of stray bullets,
not to mention pieces of shrapnel and bits of high explosive shells,
that might have reached the crawling lad.
"Hit? No, not yet," answered Jimmy. "I'm going to try, if it's safe,
to make a little better progress than this, though. This is too slow.
Poor Iggy may be dead before we get to him."
"Probably is," commented Roger.
"Oh, can the gloomy stuff!" snapped Jimmy. Afterward he admitted that
his nerves were pretty well strained. In fact that was the condition
of all of them. "You're almost as bad as Franz," went on Jimmy.
"Well, I don't want to be too hopeful," returned Roger. "But what are
you going to do, anyhow?"
"This," answered his chum. He drew his rifle up close beside him, took
off his tin hat, stuck it on the end of his bayonet, and cautiously
raised it well above the ground. It received no bullets, as might have
been expected.
"Come on, we can run for it!" cried Jimmy.
"What makes you think so?" asked his chum. "Didn't the lieutenant tell
us to lie on our faces?"
"Yes, but that was before the fighting ceased in front of us. Fritz
is having all he can attend to on either wing of our advance, and,
for the time being we're not being molested. If the Huns were in any
strength directly ahead of us, or to our rear as we are now, that tin
helmet would look like a sieve by this time. It's safe enough to get
up and run for it. And we've got to hustle if we want to save Iggy."
"All right, just as you say!" murmured Roger, as he began to rise.
It was not without a natural feeling of timidity that he cautiously
elevated himself first to his knees and then to his feet. As for
Jimmy, he had impulsively stood upright.
"Come on!" he yelled above the din of battle. "Come on!"
He started on a run over the shell-torn ground, with what remained of
the barbed wire entanglements here and there.
"I'm coming!" answered Roger.
He expected any moment to receive a bullet, or to be utterly blasted
from the earth by some terrible shell explosion. And Jimmy confessed,
later, that he felt the same fear. But these fears did not hold back
the Khaki Boys from continuing on to the rescue of their comrade--if
he was in a condition to be rescued.
"Where's the place?" cried Roger to his chum, when they had covered
several yards in a hasty rush toward the rear.
"Must be somewhere around here," answered Jimmy, looking about
him. That part of No Man's Land where they then were, seemingly was
deserted by all save the dead. If there had been any injured they had
been taken well back behind the lines by stretcher bearers.
For a time Roger and Jimmy feared they might be considered deserters,
coming toward the rear as they were doing, and away from the fighting,
and aside from mere scratches neither of them showing any wounds.
Though if they had been hurt that would have been an excuse for making
a retreat.
But no one observed the two--there was no one to observe them, in
fact. They were some distance from their own trenches, and immediately
back of them--toward the German lines--there had been a division in
the fighting, so that the battle waged on either wing, as it were.
"Look in all the shell holes!" directed Jimmy. "The shell burst right
in front, or to one side of poor Iggy. He was blown into a shell hole,
of that I'm pretty sure."
"There's a hole--a big one, too," said Roger. "But there's no one
in it--only dead!" and he turned away, for some of those dead were
comrades who, the night before, had been in the trenches with him and
his chums.
But the Khaki Boys were hardened to scenes like this now. Too many
times had they seen the dead and dying. There was no time to nurse
one's feelings.
"Come on! Come on!" cried Jimmy feverishly. "We've got to be quick!
Iggy may bleed to death if he's hurt anything like I think he is."
"Yes, and this place may be a regular lead hail storm, soon," added
Roger. "I can't see why our company was held up! Why couldn't we keep
on giving the Huns what they deserve?"
"Orders are orders, my boy, we learned that long ago. And when the
lieut. wouldn't let us go on, there must be some reason for it. I'm
just as anxious to give Fritz his medicine as anyone. Hello, there!
Did you hear that queer noise!"
"Yes. Sounded like a groan. Listen!"
The tide of battle was away from them now, and they were able, above
the distant roar, to hear ordinary sounds, which had not been the case
when the attack started. The sun was well up now, and the day gave
promise of being a fine one--hot, too. And on such a scene the sun
shone! Death and devastation brought on by human beasts!
"There it is again!" cried Roger, "It sure was a groan."
"Somebody around here is alive, at any rate," said Jimmy.
There were a number of terribly mangled bodies near them, and it was
hardly believable that the groan came from any of those poor forms of
what had once been living men.
"Over here!" cried Roger suddenly. "The sound came from down in that
shell hole!"
He pointed to one, on the sides of which was fresh earth, showing that
the explosive had recently fallen.
"There's no one down in that hole," declared Roger, taking a look.
"Yes there is!" asserted Jimmy. "See that shoe sticking out!"
He pointed to what seemed but a mound of dirt and stones in the very
bottom of the shell crater. And Roger observed that the dirt did not
altogether cover a leg and foot. An army shoe was sticking out.
"Come on!" cried Jimmy, and the next moment he was sliding down the
side of the shell hole. Roger followed, and the two began to roll
aside the larger stones that had fallen on the body. The Khaki Boys
leaned their rifles against the side of the crater, and took off their
gas masks, from where they lining ready for use, in order to work more
freely.
"The wind isn't right for a gas attack," murmured Roger, as he
temporarily deprived himself of this necessary protection.
As the boys feverishly worked to uncover the form they heard another
loud groan coming from beneath the dirt.
"It doesn't seem possible anyone can be alive--like this," panted
Roger as he labored at a heavy stone.
"Don't talk--work!" snapped Jimmy. "If he's alive, whoever it is, he
needs help quick."
"Wonder if it's Iggy?" went on Roger.
Jimmy's hands flew as do the legs of a dog when he is digging out a
buried bone, nor was Roger behind his comrade. They labored at that
part of the pile of earth and stones which covered the face and head
of the unfortunate soldier.
"There--he can breathe if he's alive still!" gasped Jimmy as he
straightened up after having lifted aside a board that had fallen over
the face of the Sammie they were trying to rescue. And it was
this board that undoubtedly saved the unfortunate from dying by
suffocation.
For the piece of plank had fallen in such a way, being supported on
either end by resting on two stones on either side of the man's head,
that it kept the dirt and stones away from the face.
And that it was a face which they had uncovered, was not at all
certain to Roger and Jimmy at first. For so covered with blood,
streaks of dirt and powder stains was the countenance that it
resembled nothing human.
"He's alive--whoever he is!" declared Jimmy, for the unfortunate
was observed to breathe--and breathe deeply as the air came in more
abundantly to the parted lips.
Roger began digging in the dirt again, working down to the man's
hands. And when he had brushed aside the dirt and stones he lifted up
a limp wrist. One look at the identification tag chained around it,
and he cried:
"It's Iggy! We've found him all right!"
"Sure enough--it _is_ Iggy!" cried Jimmy, as he, too, looked at the
metal disk.
"Ach! Yes! Water!" faintly moaned the Polish lad. His voice was
a moan, but it was his voice. He opened his eyes, looked almost
uncomprehendingly at his two chums and smiled faintly.
"So, come you haf!" he murmured. "Think I did dat you would!"
His head, which he had raised, sank back limply.
"Here!" cried Jimmy, opening his canteen. "Drink this!"
Poor Iggy did, gratefully enough. Some of the water trickled over his
face, and when Roger wiped it away some of the blood and dirt went
with it.
"Why he isn't hurt much--not up here, anyhow!" cried Jimmy. "I thought
sure his whole head was blown off the way he looked."
"Well, let's get him out of here and look at him afterward," counseled
Roger, and they resumed their work until the Polish lad's body was
all exposed. Then he was lifted out, and in a little while it was
ascertained that he was not seriously injured--at least outwardly. His
arms and legs were whole, and there was no big wound, though he was
terribly scratched and bruised.
"But why stand up can not I!" asked Iggy, for Roger and Jimmy were
supporting him with their arms around him down in the shell hole.
"I guess he means why can't he stand up," translated Roger,
for sometimes their foreign Brother misplaced his English words
considerably.
"Sure! Why can't not I stand?" went on Iggy. "My legs--they is got no
business to 'em. Like paper legs they is!"
Roger and Jimmy looked apprehensively at one another. This loss of
feeling and muscular power in Iggy's legs might indicate that his
spine was injured--that his whole lower body was paralyzed!
"We've got to get him to the rear--to a hospital," said Roger in a low
voice, as the Polish lad's head drooped weakly on his shoulder.
"Yes," assented Jimmy. "But can we carry him?"
"Got to!"
They looked about for some means of getting Iggy to the top of the
shell hole. That would be the most difficult part of the rescue. Then,
to their surprise, the two who had come back to seek their friend,
heard a hail on the rim of the crater above them.
"What's the matter down there?" came the cry. "Do you want help!"
"You said it!" voiced Jimmy, vigorously.
"All right. Wait a minute. We'll be right down!"
It was two stretcher-bearers who had hailed, and, a little later,
Ignace Pulinski was being carried to the rear. He had fainted when
brought to the top of the shell hole.