Page:The Marne (Wharton 1918).djvu/138

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130
THE MARNE

come, and saw that the sergeant and the rest of the men were disappearing to the right; then he ramped forward again, forward and forward, till he touched the arm of the motionless man and whispered: "Hi, kid, it's me. . . ."

He tried to rouse the wounded man, to pull him forward, to tow him like a barge along the beaten path in the wheat. But the man groaned and resisted. He was evidently in great pain, and Troy, whom a year's experience in ambulance work had enlightened, understood that he must either be carried away or left where he was.

To carry him it was necessary to stand up, and the night was growing transparent, and the wheat was not more than waist high.

Troy raised his head an inch or two and looked about him. In the east, beyond the wheat, a pallor was creep-