today. ' Speaking quite clearly in a reasonable persuasive tone Saul
looked up at Sean, but his eyes were matt and the pupils shrunken to
black points.
'Get up. Get up!' The use of Ruth's name inflamed Sean.
He caught Saul's shoulder and shook him. Saul's head jerked crazily
and fresh blood seeped through his bandage. Instantly contrite, Sean
laid him back gently.
'Saul, please. You must try. Just a little farther.'
'Glossless,' whispered Saul. 'There is no gloss on it. I don't want
it. ' And he closed his eyes, his lips bulged open and his breath
snored through them in tiny bubbles of spittle.
A suffocating despair dropped down over Sean as he studied Saul's face.
The eyes had receded into dark plum-coloured cavities, leaving the skin
stretched tight across his cheeks and across the gaunt bony nose.
Not because I nearly killed him, not because I owe it to him.
But because-but because? How can you define your feelings for another
man. All you can say is-because he is my friend.
Then, because he is my friend I cannot leave him here.
Sinking down beside him, Sean lifted his slack body into a sitting
position, draped one of Saul's arms around his shoulder and stood up.
Saul hung beside him, his head lolled forward on his chest, and Sean
looked ahead. He could see the survivors from the bridge struggling
back through the village, dragging their wounded with them.
Across the whole breadth of the plain, singly and in twos and threes,
harried by shrapnel, beaten, broken, Buller's mighty army was in
retreat. And there, not a hundred yards from where Sean crouched in
the railway ditch, drawn up neatly in the grass, deserted, forlorn,
stood the field guns.
Quickly Sean averted his eyes from them and began plodding away from
the river. Over his shoulder he held Saul's wrist, his free arm was
wrapped around Saul's waist.
'Then slowly he was aware that the Boer fire was crescendoing once
more. Shell that had fallen haphazard among the retreating men began
to concentrate on an area directly ahead of Sean.
Behind him the rifle-fire that had popped spasmodically on the heights
now swelled into a fierce, sustained crackle like a bush fire in green
forest.
Leaning against the side of the ditch Sean peered ahead through the
mimosa trees and the storm of dust and bursting shell. He saw horses,
two teams in harness, men with them racing in through the thorn trees,
lifting pale dust in a cloud to mingle with the dust of the shells. Far
ahead of them, brandishing his cane, leading them in towards the
abandoned guns, galloped a figure on a big shiny bay.
'He's laughing. ' In wonder, Sean watched the leading rider disappear
behind a column of dust and high explosive, only to emerge again as he
swerved his mount like a polo player. His mouth was open and Sean saw
the glint of white teeth. 'The fool is laughing his head off!'
And suddenly Sean was cheering wildly.
man, ride!' he shouted and his voice was lost in the shriek and crash
