Shelled by an Unseen Foe Part 16

"I wish it would end," cried Zaidos pa.s.sionately.

Velo smiled.

"Don't do that!" cried Zaidos wildly. "You are not half tending to your work. Get busy with this man here." He knelt beside a soldier as he spoke, and tried to change his position so he could tie up a gushing wound. Zaidos, who had done all the heavy work, was almost exhausted.

His hands trembled a little. Time had rushed by, or else it had stood perfectly still since the first shot split the morning stillness. He had not eaten; he couldn't. On one of the trips with the heavy stretcher the doctor had given him something in a gla.s.s to take, but he had put it down for a moment, and Velo had spilled it. It had not seemed worth while to ask for more.

The battle roared around them. The enemy had pressed through the first wire entanglement, and a terrific hand-to-hand conflict was in progress. Then men charged with bayonet on gun in the right hand, a short, keen knife in their teeth, and on their left hands a band set with spiked steel knuckles. They leaped into the trenches, struck once with the bayonet, let the musket go, and continued the fight with knife and knuckles. The boys seemed to be the center of a horrible whirlpool or eddy of fighting.

"Give me a bandage!" screamed Zaidos.

Velo, all unconscious of the battle about, stood looking down at Zaidos. His bloodshot eyes were narrowed to slits, his lips drawn back in a wolfish snarl. In his hand was a revolver. He leaned forward a little. He spoke, but in the din Zaidos could not hear his words. He could read the twisting lips, however.

"I've got the papers!" was what he said. He took careful, open aim with the revolver, and before Zaidos could move or spring, he fired straight at Zaidos' face!

Then he stood looking at the fallen boy. Zaidos lay on his back, arms spread wide, knees partly bent under him. Somehow he looked very young. Velo, once more conscious of the roar of guns, looked about him. The battle raged madly. As if drawn by a magnet, his gaze traveled back to the face of his victim. Sure enough, he had killed him. Zaidos was out of his way forever. He felt in his blouse where the precious papers were, then, moved by some strange impulse, he took them out, and held them up before the unseeing eyes of his cousin.

"All here; all here!" he said thickly. "Now _I'm_ Zaidos; _I'm_ head of the house!" Still holding the papers in his hand, he threw the revolver far from him. It had done its work. He nodded to Zaidos.

"All here!" he repeated, fingering the pocket. "_I'm_--"

Something or someone seemed to strike him a violent blow in the back.

It surprised him. He turned to see the offender. There was no one near. The tide of battle had swept past. He looked inquiringly at Zaidos, and idly dropped the papers on the ground, as he put a hand to his breast. Suddenly he lost interest in everything but the cause of the blow. He wondered what in the world had hit him. Not a bullet.

Surely a bullet did not make you feel so numb and queer! He balanced back and forth as though he was walking a tight rope. Still staring at Zaidos, and still pressing a hand to his chest, he went slowly, very slowly, to his knees.

"That's strange," he said to Zaidos. Then without warning, he coughed.

It tore, and ripped, and rent him with mortal agony. He screamed aloud. He clutched with both hands at his breast, screamed, and screamed and screamed, and so went slowly down and down, a million miles into blackness, and lay without further motion, his head against Zaidos' knee.

CHAPTER XI

DAYS OF WAITING

Inch by inch, step by step, yard after yard, the enemy forced the English back. They reached the second line of wire entanglements, where for awhile the battle raged, while Zaidos and Velo, like other thousands of silent and b.l.o.o.d.y figures, lay in strange, distorted groups.

At the second entanglement, however, something seemed to happen.

Perhaps the enemy's charge had exhausted them, perhaps because a bulldog courage always fills the British. The tide turned. Once more the ground was covered. The first entanglement was reached and crossed. The havoc grew; the rout was turned into a victory. The Allies had won the day!

They followed the fleeing enemy, stubbornly hammering their rear as they retreated, while a thin sprinkle of Red Cross aids and doctors and nurses commenced to appear on that dreadful field. They moved here and there, clear stars in the dark sky of history.

One of them stopped to bandage a head where a clean line of blood showed a deep furrow in the side. When the wound was bandaged, the surgeon administered a dose of medicine, and in a moment Zaidos opened his eyes, and looked curiously up at the doctor.

"You are all right," said the doctor. "Nothing but a scratch on the head. Lie still and wig-wag the ambulance when it comes along."

He moved rapidly away, and Zaidos obeyed his parting order. In fact he was not able to move. Velo's bullet had cut close to the skull and Zaidos had lost much blood. He was conscious also of a pain in his broken leg, but could not move to see what caused it. Finally the aching grew so intense that it drove him to an upright position, although for a moment things whirled, and he was forced to close his eyes. When he looked he saw Velo, the anguish and pallor and amazement of death written on his face, lying doubled against Zaidos' knee.

Carefully he worked himself free, to find that a bullet had struck his leg while he was unconscious, and had broken the small bone below the knee. It was the broken leg, at that. He straightened himself as well as he could, and looked at Velo. He commenced to remember. It came back bit by bit; the fight, and Velo's treachery. Last of all he remembered what Velo had said. "I have the papers!" So it was Velo all the time! Zaidos could not imagine how Velo had secured them. He knew when he had lost them that night in the barracks at Saloniki.

Velo certainly had not been there. His hurt head beat painfully, and it was difficult for him to think. If Velo had the papers, however, he must get them. Velo was dead apparently. Zaidos knew that look. The papers were his. He must take them before someone came and carried him away. He knew what Velo's resting place would be, and shuddered.

Slowly, painfully, he shifted his position until he lay close at his cousin's side. Supporting himself on his elbow, with his free hand he felt in the blood-stained blouse. The pockets were empty. Zaidos felt again. Then it seemed as though he could feel a faint heartbeat. It was so feeble that when Zaidos laid his hand on the torn breast and waited, he could feel no stir. He managed to get at his Aid kit, however, and drop by drop coaxed down a dose of strong restorative. He pressed a pad of gauze against the wound, and secured it with adhesive tape. He could see that the wound came through from the back, but he did not dare turn him over. Presently a faint sigh parted the lips, and Zaidos administered another dose.

Velo lived!

He opened his eyes presently, and looked dully at Zaidos. Then he recognized him, and a wild look crossed his face.

"Didn't I kill you?" he asked in a whisper.

"No," said Zaidos. There seemed to be nothing else to say.

"I tried to," said Velo.

"Don't talk!" said Zaidos. He didn't know what to say to the boy who had nearly taken his life in cold blood. It was murder. The slow deliberation of the thing chilled him. He had read of things like that; of innocent people who injured no one being killed in order that someone might unjustly enjoy something they possessed. He had been ready to stand by Velo and see that he was all right always. And Velo must have known it. No matter what he had said, Velo must have known that! Yet Velo had tried to kill him. He had seen the leveled revolver, and besides, Velo had just told him, as though he didn't in the least mind his knowing. As a matter of fact, Velo did care; but he was so near the shadowy borderland that lies between the living and the dead, that there was nothing left for him but the truth. And because of that, he continued, "I'm sorry, Zaidos."

But Zaidos would not reply.

"I'm sorry, Zaidos," Velo said again in his thick, queer whisper.

"Will you forgive me?"

"No," said Zaidos suddenly. "No, I won't! What did I ever do to you that you should try to take my life? If I said I forgive you it would be a lie. Besides, you can't be sorry right off like that. As soon as you get well, you will try it again."

"Oh, I _am_ sorry!" said Velo. "You _must_ forgive me, Zaidos. I am too badly hurt to get well; you will not be troubled again. I know how I am wounded. So I am going to talk as much as I can. I wish you would take the papers. I stole them from you at the barracks. I got permission to go in while you were asleep. I thought you wouldn't be there, and I wanted to look for you and say that I couldn't find you, and so call the attention of the officers to your absence. The night your father died, you know. But you were there asleep, and I felt in your blouse, and found the packet. You had better get it out of my jacket now."

Zaidos unwillingly felt once more through the pocket. "It is empty,"

he said.

Velo thought a moment.

"I had it in my hand just now," he said. "Look on the ground."

The papers lay beside Velo's hand. Zaidos picked them up, and put them in his pocket.

"I have them," he said gruffly.

"I'm glad of that," said Velo. "Zaidos, I sold my soul for those papers. I have been a bad boy all my life, not because I had bad surroundings, not because I was neglected. Your father was as good to me as he could be. I just thought it was smart to be bad. I don't think I hated you because of all your money and your t.i.tle as much as I did because I knew you were square. I knew it as soon as you came into your father's house that night. I could see it in your face, and hear it in your voice, and feel it in your hand-shake. I knew you would never stand for the sort of life I led, and I hated you for it, Zaidos.

And so it went from bad to worse, until I shot at you. You _must_ forgive me, Zaidos!"

"I can't," said Zaidos stubbornly. "What's the use of my saying I do, if I don't?"

"Oh, you _must_ forgive me!" begged the dying boy. "I am so sorry, so sorry! You can't see anyone as sorry as I am and not forgive them.

Please, Zaidos! I can't bear it unless you do!"

"No," said Zaidos again.

Velo did not speak. When you are asked to forgive a wrong, and you refuse, it turns the punishment on you. Velo was silent, but Zaidos commenced to suffer. He could feel himself growing hard and cruel.

After all, Velo had not succeeded in injuring him much, and Velo himself was dying fast. He could see it. But something kept him silent. He could not say the words Velo had begged to hear, and he stared back while Velo looked at him with dumb and suffering eyes.

"Oh, forgive me!" begged Velo with a dry sob that racked him. "Zaidos, be as good as you can, but don't be hard! You can't tell what temptations people have. It is a terrible thing to be hard. Don't do it, Zaidos! There are so many hard people--hard teachers and hard fathers who don't know how fellows are tempted and how they suffer. I am dying, Zaidos, and I tell you don't be hard. Forgive me!"

"I do!" said Zaidos quite suddenly. "I do, Velo! I mean it!"