ve left it
so far behind them. Yet returning to it the men did not perceptibly
hurry their steps. They retreated without evidences of disorder--almost
reluctantly--as though by this very slowness of movement to signify
their disgust for the supposed fiasco that had enveloped them, causing
them to waste lives in an ill-timed and futile endeavour.

Ginsburg reentered the covert of birches with a sense of gratitude for
its protection and let himself down into the trench. He faced about,
peering over its rim, and saw that his captain--Captain Griswold--was
just behind him, returning all alone and looking back over his shoulder
constantly.

Captain Griswold was perhaps twenty yards from the thicket when he
clasped both hands to the pit of his stomach and slipped down flat in
the trampled herbage. In that same moment Ginsburg saw how many
invisible darting objects, which must of course be machine-gun bullets,
were mowing the weed stems about the spot where the captain had gone
down. Bits of turf flew up in showers as the leaden blasts, spraying
down from the top of the ridge, bored into the earth.

Well, somebody would have to bring the captain in out of that. He laid
his rifle against the wall of the trench and climbed out again into
plain view. So far as he knew he was going as a solitary volunteer upon
this errand. He put one arm across his face, like a man fending off rain
drops, and ran bent forward.

The captain, when he reached him, was lying upon his side with his face
turned away from Ginsburg and his shrapnel helmet half on and half off
his head. Ginsburg stooped, putting his hands under the pits of the
captain's arms, and gave a heave. The burden of the body came against
him as so much dead heft; a weight limp and unresponsive, the trunk
sagging, the limbs loose and unguided.

Ginsburg felt a hard buffet in his right side. It wasn't a blow exactly;
it was more like a clout from a heavily-shod blunt-ended brogan. His
last registered impression as he collapsed on top of the captain was
that someone, hurrying up to aid him, had stumbled and driven a booted
toe into his ribs. Thereafter for a space events--in so far as
Ginsburg's mind recorded them--were hazy, with gaps between of complete
forgetfulness. He felt no pain to speak of, but busybodies kept
bothering him. It drowsily annoyed him to be dragged about, to be lifted
up and to be put down again, to be pawed over by unseen, dimly
comprehended hands, to be r