incoherent shouts and groans.
'Here the 21st. Form on me the 21st. ' 'Independent fire. On the
heights. Ten rounds rapid.'
'Stretcher-bearer! ' 'Bill. Where are you, Bill?'
'Jesus Christ! Jesus sobbing Christ!'
'Up, you men! Get up!'
'Come on the 21st. Fix bayonets.'
Some of them were head and shoulders out of the ditch returning the
Boer fire, a few were drinking from their water bottles already. A
sergeant struggled with a jammed rifle and swore softly without looking
up, while beside him a man sat with his back against the wall of the
ditch, his legs sprawled open, and watched while the blood pumped from
the wound in his belly.
Sean stood and felt the wind of a bullet slap against his cheek, while
low in his stomach the slimy reptile of fear coiled itself tighter.
Then he scrambled up the side of the ditch.
'Come on!' he roared and started running towards the hills.
It was open here, like a meadow, and ahead of him an old barbed wire
fence sagged on rotten poles. He reached it, lifted his foot and
kicked with his heel. The fence pole snapped level with the ground,
the wire collapsed. He jumped over it.
'They're not coming,' Saul shouted beside him, and Sean stopped.
The two of them were alone in the middle of the field and the Boer
rifles were seeking them eagerly.
'Run, Saul!' Sean shouted and snatched off his hat. 'Come on, you
bastards. ' He waved at the men behind him.
A bullet missed him so narrowly that he staggered in the wind of its
passage.
'This way! Follow us! Come on!' Saul had not left him. He was
dancing with excitement, and flapping his arms.
'Come back.' Acheson's voice floated across to them. He stood in the
drainage ditch, showing clear from the waist up.
'Comeback, Courtney!
The attack was finished. Sean knew it in that instant, and saw the
wisdom of Acheson's decision. Further advance over the open meadowland
below the heights was suicide. The resolve that had carried him this
far collapsed, and his terror snapped the leash he had held upon it. He
ran back blindly, sobbing, leaning forward, his elbows pumping in time
to his fear-driven feet.
Then suddenly Saul was hit beside him. It took him in the head, threw
him forward, his rifle spinning from his hands, squawking hoarsely with
pain and surprise as he went down skidding on his belly.
And Sean ran on.
'Sean!' Saul's voice left behind him.
'Sean!' A cry of dreadful need, and Sean closed his mind against it
and ran on towards the safety of the ditch.
'Sean. Please!' and he checked and stood uncertain with the Mausers
barking above and the bullets clipping the grass around him.
Leave him, shrieked Sean's terror. Leave him. Run! Run!
