Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 128: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

118 beyond them. Between the two positions, the hillside had once been heavily forested, but was so‘no longer. Stumps, fallen tim- ber, splinters, and large holes in the brown earth had replaced the groves. Other débris there was, less pleasant to contemplate—I believe I mentioned that Fritz had been over—but the Candy Kid had seen so much of that sort of thing that he was past minding. Eyes on the ground, he trailed the crippled wire down the hill- side toward the first line. Occasionally a “Jack Johnson” screeched across the valley and plumped into the forest on a hill to the right, a few hundred yards across. Then the ground shook, and more trees fell. But Jimmie was used to that, too. So long as Fritzie wasn’t shelling his particular hill, Jimmie wasn’t worrying. Half way down a slope an American in- fantryman sat upon a log. His rust col- ored steel helmet leaned tipsily over one ear, and he had slumped forward over his knees, as though he were sleeping. But his rifle lay across his lap, and his hands were moving. He was looking fixedly at something which he held in his fingers— held as though it were quite heavy, though it was not. He saw Jimmie coming at about the time Jimmie saw him; and he let the object fall behind the log, and straightened clumsily on his seat. The Candy Kid turned aside from his pursuit of the wire, and went over. “Lo, buddy,” he greeted. “Lo,” responded the infantryman, meet- ing his gaze levelly. Jimmie saw that the spiral on his right leg had been torn jaggedly at the calf, and below the tear it was a damp dark-brown down to his shoe-top. The back of the heavy tan marching-shoe was red. Jim- mie’s eyes, traveling upward, noticed a small, neat hole just below the right breast- pocket of the blouse; and there again the olive drab was dark and dank. There were wisps of pinkish foam at the corners of the infantryman’s tightly-shut lips. ‘God, buddy, you’re all shot up!” ejacu- lated Jimmie. ‘I passed the ambulances a ways back there.‘ They’ll soon be along here and get you.” THE ARGOSY. “Me!” said the infantryman, scowling. “They won’t get me! Hell, I’m all right! I’m going on in a few minutes—over there.” He pointed across the valley ahead. Turning his head away, he spat; and Jim- mie saw that the saliva was crimson. “Guess you'll have to go back for re- pairs first, buddy,” opined the Candy Kid. ‘They got you pretty bad in that leg.” “ Hell, I’m all right, I tell you!” re- torted the infantryman, savagely. ‘“ They didn’t get me. I’m going on in a few minutes and get some of them, though— and you can bet on that!”’ He stretched out the wounded leg and looked at it, then bent and felt of it. His helmet fell and rolled along the ground. His hand came away red. “ They did get me a little, at that,” he admitted, straightening up slowly. “ But that’s nething. I’ll be out again in a few days—and I’ll get a Fritz to pay for that, by God!”’ Jimmie retrieved the helmet and replaced it. The sound of rifle volleys drifted back from the farther side of the rise beyond the valley. The infantryman heard it. ** Ain’t it hell,” he said querulously, ‘“ not to be over there?”’ “Say, buddy, is there anything I can do for you?” asked Jimmie, who had been watching his eyes. “Hell, there ain’t—”’ bewaih the other impatiently, then broke the sentence, and asked: “ Got a cigarette?”’ ’ Three cigarettes were in the Candy Kid’s packet. He shook out one of them, and was about to place it between the wounded man’s lips; but the infantryman seized it pettishly with his reddened fingers, and rolled it between his palms. “ Thanks, buddy—that’s good,” said the infantryman, inhaling the smoke with gasps which drew the fire along the paper a quar- ter of an inch at a time. Jimmie lighted one of the remaining cigarettes and squatted on his heels. “This bird’s just about all in,” he thought. Aloud he said: “ They’ll fix you up all right in the hospital, buddy. Those ambulance fellows ought to be along here pretty soon now.’ cComiclbooks.com