Occasionally, as the day advanced, a man would labor over the opening of a can of Argentina beef with the point of his bayonet. And then the contents would be exposed, green and sepulchrally white, the odor mingling and not quite immersed in the odor of decaying human flesh. Laboring over the small blue can, sweat poured down their chests, the streams dislodging particles of dirt and sweeping them down their bodies. The air was dead. The sky was suspended not high above the earth. The odors had ceased to move; they were massive, grotesquely shaped objects fastly rooted to the earth. The silence was elephantine. And somewhere in the everlasting silence a frightened, hurt, bewildered voice broke tentatively forth: “Landsmann. Oh, Landsmann! Kamerad. Hilfen Sie mich.” Hicks and Pugh, their heads peering over the crest of the ravine, started, then listened, their ears like terriers’. “Mein Gott. Ich bin gewundet. O-o-o G-o-tt.” The voice floated through the heavy stillness. Pugh put the butt of his rifle to his shoulder. “Watch out; it’s one of their damned tricks.” “Put down your gun, you fool. Nobody could fake a voice like that.” While they were talking the voice once again reached them. In the stillness it seemed as if it were at their sides. “Landsmann, Landsmann, hilf mich bitte.” “The poor fellow must be half dead. Kruger! Oh, Paul, there’s a wounded Squarehead out in front here. Talk to him, will you?” A bleached but eager-faced Kruger came out of his burrow and commenced to talk in German to the wounded man. “What does he say, Paul? What does he say?” A group had gathered around the scene. “He says some of you guys shot him in the guts and that he’s pretty bad off.” “Well, let’s go out and git him. We can’t let him lie there all day.” “Is he all right, Kruger? I mean is he a good guy?” “How the hell do I know? He sounds all right.” “Kruger.” Pugh insinuated himself closer. “Kruger, let’s you and me go git him? Huh?” And Jack Pugh, from Meridian, Mississippi, Jack Pugh, the gambler, who could make a pair of ivory cubes cakewalk and tango, was the first man to volunteer to rescue the wounded German. The German had to be moved very carefully. Directly above the wide leather belt that he wore around the waist the gray uniform was soaked with blood. Pugh and Kruger carried him from the field and lowered him to the bottom of the ravine. “Now what do you think of the Kaiser, you damn Squarehead?” “Bet, by God, he wishes he’d stayed home drinkin’ beer.” “Hell, these Dutchmen git beer right in the trenches.” The speaker passed his tongue over his dry lips. “Shut up. Can’t you let the poor devil alone? He probably hates the Kaiser as much as the rest of us.” The wounded German raised himself on his shoulder, gasping with pain. “Kaiser. Gottverdammt.” He fell back exhausted. The stretcher bearers who had been sent for arrived and placed him on a stretcher. They started to carry him to the dressing station.