and jerking, his body
hitching and holding still, exactly as if he too crawled out there and
dragged at the stretcher.

And then when it seemed that the worst was over, when there was no more
than a score of feet to cover to the barbed wire, when they were
actually crawling over the brow of the gentle rise, discovery came.
There were quick shots from one spot of the German parapet, confused
shouting, the upward soaring of half a dozen blazing flares.

And then before the two dragging the stretcher could move in a last
desperate rush for safety, before they could rise from their prone
position, they heard the rattle of fire increase swiftly to a trembling
staccato roar. But, miraculously, no bullets came near them, no
whistling was about their ears, no ping and smack of impacting lead
hailed about them--except, yes, just the fire of one rifle or two that
sent aimed bullet after bullet hissing over them. They could not
understand it, but without waiting to understand they half rose, thrust
and hauled at the stretcher, dragged it under the wires, heaved it over
to where eager hands tore down the sandbags to gap a passage for them.
A handful of bullets whipped and rapped about them as they tumbled
over, and the stretcher was hoisted in, but nothing worth mention,
nothing certainly of that volume of fire that drammed and rolled out
over there. They did not understand; but the others in the trench
understood, and laughed a little and swore a deal, then shut their
teeth and set themselves to pump bullets in a covering fire upon the
German parapet.

The stretcher party drew little or no fire, simply and solely because
just one second after those first shots and loud shouts had declared
the game up, a figure sprang from the grass fifty yards along the
trench and twice as far out in the open, sprang up and ran out, and
stood in the glare of light, the baggy scarlet breeches and gray shirt
making a flaring mark that no eye, called suddenly to see, could miss,
that no rifle brought sliding through the loophole and searching for a
target could fail to mark. The bullets began to patter about 'Enery
Irving's feet, to whine and whimper and buzz about his ears. And
'Enery--this was where the trench, despite themselves, laughed--'Enery
placed his hand on his heart, swept off his cap in a magnificent arm's
length gesture, and bowed low; then swiftly he rose upright, struck an
attitude that would have graced the hero of the highest clas