Shelled by an Unseen Foe Part 12

"Come, come, boys!" said the doctor. "Finish your good work! Here, take this." He mixed something in a gla.s.s, and gave it to Zaidos, and then repeated the dose for Velo. It braced them at once, and after they had visited the cook house and had taken some hot soup, they prepared to go out on the field again and look for wounded.

The night seemed very dark as they stumbled along. The dead lay piled everywhere in hideous confusion. There seemed to be no wounded. Man after man they scanned with their flashlights. The unsteady lights often gave the dead the effect of motion. As they sent the ray here and there they thought they saw eyes open or close, arms move, legs stretch out, or mangled and tortured bodies twist in agony. But under their exploring hands the dead lay cold.

They reached the first line trench and pa.s.sed beyond it. Here lay ranks of the enemy, mowed down under the pitiless English fire.

"There is someone living over here," said Velo. "I heard a groan."

They turned and found a group of men; three dead, and across their bodies two who surely moved.

Zaidos propped his light on the breast of one of the dead soldiers and lifted the head of a young officer whose shattered leg held him helpless. He was quite conscious, and spoke to Zaidos in a weak whisper.

"I'm gone!" he said. "See what you can do for the man lying on my leg.

I would have bled to death long ago if it hadn't been for his weight."

Zaidos looked in his kit anxiously. It was almost empty and the bandage was all gone.

"Velo, get back to the station and bring me a fresh kit," he ordered.

"I'm going to hold this artery until you get back, and see if I can't keep a little blood in here." He sat down and pressed a finger on the fast emptying vein. With his free hand he held a flask to the lips of the almost dying man. Velo disappeared in the dark.

"Really, my dear chap," said the wounded officer, "it's a waste of time for you to do that. I wish you would jolly well leave me for some other chap. I'm done; and I don't care in the least, so you need not trouble your conscience about me."

Hurt to death as he was, the officer smiled; and Zaidos was all at once filled with the conviction that he was someone whom he had met. But where?

"That's nonsense!" said Zaidos. "We will fix you up if you will make up your mind to hang on to yourself."

"I've been hanging on for a good while," said the officer pleasantly.

"I've been here for a year or two, I think. I only came down from London for the night, you see. Not very long, eh, old chap?" He nodded his head.

"You what?" said Zaidos stupidly.

"London, you know," said the officer. "I came down right away. I couldn't be sure it was true. Seemed sort of unofficial, don't you know?" He smiled again. Zaidos understood. He was delirious. He went on muttering disjointed sentences which Zaidos paid no attention to; but every time the man smiled his gay, light-hearted, unconscious smile, Zaidos felt the strange sense of acquaintance. He could see that the man was almost gone. He had lost almost all the blood in his body, and Zaidos did not dare to move him, nor even shift the weight of the unconscious but living man who laid across the shattered leg.

Zaidos felt sure that he would die before Velo returned. And he was still more convinced that the man was at his end when after a few moments of stupor, he opened his eyes quite sanely and looked at Zaidos.

"That was a pretty bad blow for me, wasn't it, old chap?" he said quietly. "I think I won't make out to stop much longer. I've been here since eleven this morning. Pretty long for a man hurt like this.

I am glad you ran across me. There's a lot of papers in my blouse.

Would you mind sending them to the address on the outside envelope?

And I wish you would write to my father. Tell him it's all right.

Tell him not to let Frank enlist if he can help it. He's too young.

And if you can mark the place they put me, it would be a mighty kind thing. Mother would be so glad if she could have me safe in the church at home, some day. Will you do this?"

"Of course I will," said Zaidos. "But I think you have got a chance."

"I don't want it," said the wounded man. "I could not fight again, and there are reasons--I really don't care a hang about living. Just send those letters for me. And one thing more," he tried to lift his hand to his throat, but was too weak. "Will you kindly take off the chain under my blouse," he said, "before anyone else gets here?"

Zaidos felt for the chain with his free hand, still pressing the artery with the other. As he found the chain, a large locket was released from the man's blouse and, swinging against his b.u.t.tons, sprung open.

Unconsciously Zaidos looked at it.

"Send that with the rest," said the officer. He closed his eyes.

"Here, you!" cried Zaidos. "Quit that! Don't you _dare_ go and die!

Do you hear me? Don't you do it! Do you hear? I want to talk! I don't need to send this anywhere. If you just hang on, you will see her! _Helen is here_! Don't die now! You want to see her, don't you?

I know who you are! You are Tony Hazelden!"

"Helen here?" gasped the man.

"Yes," said Zaidos. "She is a nurse over there, a few yards away."

"Helen here?" said the man again.

"Yes, I tell you!" cried Zaidos. "Hang on to yourself! You want to tell her why you did not answer that letter she wrote you; don't you?"

"I never received a letter," said Hazelden, for it was he.

"That's what I told her," said Zaidos. "Now you just hang on to yourself. Don't you let go! Do whatever you like afterwards, but don't make me go back there and tell her you have gone and died before I could get you in hospital. I'd like to know where that Velo is with my kit! Here, take another drink of this!"

He pressed the flask once more to Hazelden's white lips. The man seemed sinking into a stupor. Zaidos watched him with secret terror.

After the miracle of finding Hazelden here, when he was supposed by Helen to be far off in France, and after the brief joy of thinking that he might be the one to reunite the parted lovers, it was too hard to face the loss of his man. Zaidos kept calling him by name.

Finally--it seemed a long, long time--Hazelden opened his eyes again.

"I can't see just how it is," he said. "Are you sure Helen is here?"

"Yes, she is here, I promise you," said Zaidos. "And you want to brace up for her sake. For her sake, do you understand? Her heart is about broken. Don't you go and die now after all the trouble you have made."

Hazelden gave Zaidos a straight look.

"What are you thinking of?" he said in his weak whisper. "You don't suppose I could die _now_, do you?"

"Here's my kit," said Zaidos, as Velo came hurrying up.

He fastened the artery rudely but well, and lifting off the unconscious soldier, they carefully placed Hazelden on the stretcher. Many, many times that day Zaidos had been thankful for his steel muscles and man's stature, and now he was more thankful than ever. With all the care possible they carried their burden over the rough, uneven ground back to the First Aid Station.

Zaidos' heart sang within him. The impossible had happened. He was bringing Tony Hazelden back to the girl who loved him, and Hazelden loved her. Zaidos knew that, not only because of the picture Tony carried, but because no one could have seen Hazelden's face when he spoke Helen's name and not know that his heart was breaking for her.

Zaidos knew that Hazelden's life hung on the merest thread, but he stoutly believed that his love for Helen would keep him alive until he reached her, at least, and after that Zaidos was willing to trust Helen to do the rest. Zaidos watched his helpless burden with anxiety as they approached the shelter. When they arrived he gave the word to Velo and they gently lowered the stretcher to the ground.

"Stay here a minute," he ordered Velo, and slid down into the underground room. There was a lull in the dug-out as all the men had for the minute been cared for and sent back to the rear, which always is done as much as possible in the darkness.

The doctor and his aids, resting on the hard planks that served as seats, sat upright against the dirt wall, sound asleep. Nurse Helen stood at the white table cleaning the instruments. Zaidos scarcely recognized her. She was haggard and worn as a woman old in years.

Color, energy, life itself seemed to have been drained out of her in the terrible ordeal of the past day. Zaidos hesitated. He was filled with fears all at once. It seemed so like planning the meeting of a couple of ghosts. Hazelden, unconscious and at the point of death, and Helen f.a.gged out, worn, and looking like an old woman.

He went to her, tenderly laying a stained hand on hers.

"Helen," he said, speaking rapidly, "I've no time to break the news to you. The most impossible sort of a thing has happened. You have got to hear it all at once, because there is a man almost dying out there and I've got to hurry. You know the reserves that came in to-day? Now hang on, Helen! Captain Hazelden was with them. Oh, Helen," as she wavered and almost fell, "if you go to pieces you will always regret it!"

"Dead?" she murmured.

"No, but he's outside awfully shot, and he has been keeping himself alive just to see you. You will have to help, Helen, if you can."

He left her standing beside the table. She could not call the doctor.

She could not speak. They came in with the stretcher, and as she saw its ghastly burden and gave a quick professional glance at his maimed body, the tender woman and the trained nurse struggled for the mastery.