later. And
Zaidos, filled with the frenzy of the battle, did not care. He was not
afraid of Velo. He put him aside as though he was something that might
be attended to later.

A sort of mental illumination came to Zaidos. He cared for wounded men
with a quick skill that he had never known that he possessed. He grew
so weary that he staggered under his part of the stretcher's load. His
leg pained him so that it was like a whip, keeping him awake and at
work when all his body cried to drop down and sleep.

Once when he waited in the opening of the First Aid shelter, he was
conscious that someone asked, "Have they broken our lines?"

"Not quite, but they are through the barbed wire. Our troops are
massing along the first trench."

"If we can hold out until dark we are all right," said the first
speaker, a captain with one leg gone at the knee, awaiting his turn
with the doctor without the quiver of a muscle.

"The chaps over there beyond are pretty well tired out. I can tell by
the way they are fighting. They are trying to save men."

Zaidos hurried out and lost the rest. It seemed to him that the whole
world was in conflict just ahead there. The bomb-proof shelter was
crammed with reserves. On and on and on went the fighting; for years
and years and years it seemed to Zaidos. He did not know that the day
waned and night was near. All he knew was that at last, while he and
Velo waited in the First Aid for the stretcher to be emptied, silence
fell, a silence punctuated with scattering explosions. The darkness
had ended the fighting, and the enemy had only reached the first line
of trenches.

"It is over!" said the doctor, glancing up.

Velo sank down on a plank and covered his face with his hands. Zaidos,
standing, closed his eyes.

"Let those boys rest for five minutes," ordered the doctor.

Nurse Helen gently pushed Zaidos down on a bench. He toppled over and
she put a folded cloak under his head. Then for thirty happy minutes
he lost consciousness of everything. When an aide shook Zaidos awake,
he came to himself with as much physical pain as though his body had
actually felt the shock of wounds. He groaned involuntarily. Velo was
sobbing dryly from fatigue and pain.

"Come, come, boys!" said the doctor. "Finish your good work! Here,
take this." He mixed something in a glass, and gave it to Zaidos, and
then repeated the dose for Velo. It braced them at once, and after
they had visit