again; but each of them that was flung up saved one of us.
The hedge is destroyed, the rails of the light railway are torn up and rise stiffly in the air in great arches. Someone lies in front of us. We stop; Kropp goes on alone with the wounded man.
The man on the ground is a recruit. His hip is covered with blood; he is so exhausted that I feel for my water-bottle where I have rum and tea. Kat restrains my hand and stoops over him.
“Where’s it got you, comrade?”
His eyes move. He is too weak to answer.
We cut off his trousers carefully. He groans. “Gently, gently, it is much better———”
If he has been hit in the stomach he oughtn’t to drink anything. There’s no vomiting, that’s a good sign. We lay the hip bare. It is one mass of mincemeat and bone splinters. The joint has been hit. This lad won’t walk any more.
I wet his temples with a moistened finger and give him a swig. His eyes move again. We see now that the right arm is bleeding as well.
Kat spreads out two wads of dressing as wide as possible so that they will cover the wound. I look for something to bind loosely round it. We have nothing more, so I slit up the wounded man’s trouser
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