After that it was just a long stumble. I was falling like a clown at almost every step. I would faint and awaken to find myself flat on my back or on my face. But in the end I huddled in a narrow pathway so near a Canadian trench that I could hear some chap singing. It didn’t help me any that he was singing a hymn and singing it most lugubriously. Daylight had come. My whole thought and effort now were in gathering sufficient strength to utter a yell loud enough to carry to that trench. I was panting. It was agony for me to move my lips. And weak! Good heavens, I would have fallen over at the kick of a rabbit! I breathed hard, tried to fill my lungs and after a wait of nearly ten minutes, I am sure, let go my “yell.” It was the most pitiful “yell” ever made. It was as slight as a sick infant’s cry. What I had tried to shout was “Oh, Canadians!” Of course, none heard it. So I waited there, resting another fifteen minutes. I tried again to shout. To my surprise my voice came out strong and loud: “Oh, Canadians!” With my last strength I repeated the cry and it came loudly again: “Oh, Canadians! Oh, Canadians!” “Who’s there?” I tried to answer and couldn’t. Then a tall fellow with set bayonet ran down the pathway. He saw my helpless condition readily enough and strode straight for me. “British officer,” I was able to whisper. “Wounded.” “Cheero, sir,” he answered. “Lots of help for you here.” He lifted me, got a long, strong arm under my shoulders and began leading me along the little path. And just then the damned battery of the Huns, from which I had so laboriously, painfully and at times helplessly fled, opened up an intensive fire. Not this battery alone, but scores all along the line. But I thought only of that particular battery just then. And no sooner had I thought of it than a shell burst almost upon us. We were slammed to the ground. A burst of light swept the entire position. My companion’s sturdy support fell from me and he uttered a scream. I stared toward him as the dust and smoke cleared away. Simultaneously with the shock or the shell explosion a sniper’s explosive bullet had struck him in the left arm. The dum-dum bullet tore the arm completely from his shoulder. He was looking dazed but conscious. “See, I’m hit!” he said in child-like astonishment. “Sorry,” I whispered at him. “Sorry that I was the cause.” He nodded and tried to smile. “It’s all in the game,” he answered and fell over. There came a rush of men out of the trench to our rescue and they carried us both into its protection. They pushed a cigarette between my lips, the first thing that’s always done for a wounded comrade in the trenches, but I was too weak and sick to want that small, immediate comfort. The cigarette hung on my wounded lips. I tried to thank them, but could say nothing. I was making a desperate fight to hold on to consciousness. CHAPTER XIX BLIGHTY