From Place to PlaceCobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
General
From Place to Place
Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
Fiction; Short stories
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 ridden in a careening, bumping vehicle for
what seemed to him hours and hours. Finally, when he was striving to
reorganise his faculties for the utterance of a protest, someone put
something over his nose and he went sound asleep.
Ensued then a measureless period when he slept and dreamed strange
jumbled dreams. He awakened, clear enough in his thoughts, but beset
with a queer giddiness and a weakness, in a hospital sixteen miles from
where the mix-up had started, though he didn't know about that of course
until subsequent inquiry enabled him to piece together a number of
fragmentary recollections. For the present he was content to realise
that he lay on a comfortable cot under a tight roof and that he had his
full complement of arms and legs and could move them, though when he
moved the right leg the ankle hurt him. Also he had a queer squeezed-in
sensation amidships as though broad straps had been buckled tightly
about his trunk.
Upon top of these discoveries came another. Sitting up in the next-hand
cot to his on the right was a member of his own company, one Paul
Dempsey, now rather elaborately bandaged as to his head and shoulders,
but seemingly otherwise in customary good order and spirits.
"Hello, Dempsey," he said.
"Hello, sarge," answered back Dempsey. "How you feelin' by now--all
right?"
"Guess so. My ankle is sprained or something and my side feels sort of
funny."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account