cheeks, Acheson hobbled after them. He fell over the parapet and lay
face down on the corpses that lined the trench.
A hand shaking his shoulder roused him and he sat up quickly and tried
to control the breathing that shuddered up his throat.
Dimly he recognized the man who crouched beside him.
'What is it, Friedman?' he gasped. But the reply was drowned in the
arrival of another shell, and the delirious shrieks of a man wounded in
the belly in the trench beside them.
'Speak up, maul' 'Heliograph message from Sir Charles Warren,'
shouted Saul. 'You have been promoted General. You are in command of
the peak. ' And then with a dusty sweat-streaked grin he added: 'Well
done, sir.
Acheson stared at him aghast. 'What about General Woodgate? ' 'He was
shot through the head two hours ago
'I didn't know. ' Since morning Acheson had known nothing that was
happening outside his own small section of the line.
His whole existence had closed down to a hundred yards of shrapnel- and
bullet-swept earth. Now he peered out at the holocaust around him and
whispered,
'In command! No man commands here! The devil is directing this
battle.'
'Sir Charles is sending up three more battalions to reinforce us,'
Saul shouted into his ear.
'We can well use them,' Acheson grunted, and then,
'Friedman, I've sprained my ankle. I want you to lace up my boot as
tight as you can-I'm going to need this foot again before the day is
done. ' Saul knelt without argument and began working over his foot.
One of the riflemen at the parapet beside him was thrown sideways.
He fell across Acheson's lap, and from the wound in his temple the
contents of his skull splattered them both. With an exclamation of
surprise and disgust Saul pulled back and wiped his face, then he
reached forward to drag the body from Acheson's legs.
'Leave him. ' Acheson prevented him sharply. 'See to that boot.
' While Saul obeyed, Acheson unwound the silk scarf from around his own
neck and covered the mutilated head. It was a wound he had seen
repeated a hundred times that day, all of them shot through the right
side of the head.
'Aloe Knoll,' he whispered fiercely. 'If only we'd taken Aloe Knoll. '
Then his tone dulled. 'My poor lads. And gently he eased the
shattered head from his lap.
'They are ripe now, let us pluck them!' With five hundred of his
burghers Jan Paulus had left the shelter of Aloe Knoll and worked his
way forward, crawling belly down through the jumble of rocks, until now
they were crouched in a line along a fold of dead ground below the
false crest. TWenty yards ahead of them was the right-hand extremity
of the English trench. They could not see it, but clearly they heard
the incoherent cries of the wounded; the shouts of
'Stretcher-bearer!
Stretcher-bearer! ' and
'Ammunition boys, here!' and above the splutter of musketry, the
