'We're awa' this time, by Goad!' yelled Willie in his friend's ear.
And Macgregor laughed wildly and wrung his friend's hand.
XXI
'HULLO, GLESCA HIELANDERS!'
Like a trodden, forgotten thing Private Macgregor Robinson lay on
the Flanders mud, under the murk and rain. A very long time it
seemed since that short, grim struggle amid the blackness and
intermittent brightness. The night was still rent with noise and
light, but the storm of battle had passed from the place where he
had fallen. He could not tell whether his fellows had taken the
enemy's trench or retired to their own. He had the vaguest ideas
as to where he was. But he knew that there was pain in his left
shoulder and right foot, that he was athirst, also that he had
killed a man--a big stout man, old enough to have been his father.
He tried not to think of the last, though he did not regret it: it
had been a splendid moment.
He was not the only soldier lying there in the mud, but the others,
friend or foe, were quite still. The sight of them in the flashes
distressed him, yet always his gaze drifted back to them. His mind
was a medley of thoughts, from the ugliest to the loveliest. At
last, for he was greatly exhausted, his head drooped to his
uninjured arm, his eyes closed. For a while he dozed. Then
something disturbed him, and he raised himself and peered. In the
flicker of a distant flare he saw a shape approaching him, crawling
on hands and knees, very slowly, pausing for an instant at each
still figure.
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