MacTaggart turned to see his own bombing Sergeant, come back for him through the No Man’s Land again. Suddenly he felt ‘‘This is all right. I’m going to get through. We’re all going to get through. And isn’t wee Macdonald a damned fine chap to come back for me like that?”
“Come on, Macdonald,” he cried, and together they dragged the man to the point, and rolled him up on to the parapet.
Once again they went back for the boy. His brown eyes were dull now, but he whispered, ‘‘You clear out, sir, I’m done.”
“Rot,” said his officer, and up to the point they dragged him and tried to lift the dead weight to the top.
All at once MacTaggart’s strength seemed to leave him, and his arms were powerless to move the heavy body.
“Oh, God! I can’t shift him,” he gasped. “Charlie, come and help.”
Charlie MacRae set his arms to the work, and his senior staggered into the open to drag MacNeil, the man with the pulped leg and arm, into an old trench, which ran down to their own line. The German guns were bursting shrapnel all along their parapet now, but he did not notice except in a curious, unthinking way, as if his mind was dulled to danger. He was filled with a hysterical rage against the Germans for
