At the crashing blast of the discharge, the rifle fire was hushed for a
moment; Ainsley saw the chance and shouted to his men, and, as they
scrambled clear of the wire, they jumped to their feet, rushed back
over the flat, and dropped panting in the shelter of the ditch. The
rifle fire opened again more heavily than ever, and the bullets were
hailing and splashing and thudding into the wet earth around them, but
the bank protected them well, and they took the fullest advantage of
its cover. Because the depression they were in shallowed and afforded
less cover as it ran towards the British lines, it was safer for the
party to stay where they were until the fire slackened enough to give
them a fair sporting chance of crawling back in safety.
They lay there for fully two hours before Ainsley considered it safe
enough to move. They were, of course, long since wet through, and by
now were chilled and numbed to the bone. Two of the men had been
wounded, but only very slightly in clean flesh wounds: one through the
arm and one in the flesh over the upper ribs. Ainsley himself bandaged
both men as well as he could in the darkness and the cramped position
necessary to keep below the level of the flying ballets, and both men,
when he had finished, assured him that they were quite comfortable and
entirely free from pain.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97