I had fallen face downwards. I experienced a sensation of shattering and laceration. My eyes closed. I made a convulsive effort to get up. Impossible! But where was I wounded? My head was swimming, everything was turning round me. I was dying. "Your leg, isn't it?"
I succeeded in opening my eyes again.
Guillaumin!
"Yes—I think so!" I stammered.
"Hurts a bit, what?"
I tried to lift up my head and spit some soil out. Everything grew dim again. I caught sight of a clown's face—Judsi, leaning over me, too.
"Carry on! Carry on!" I murmured.
They disappeared from my field of vision. I saw another line of men pass in skirmishing order, then another. Was my brain affected? Why did I think I was back in camp at Mailly and once more taking part in the parade before the Bey of Tunis?
By some strange instinct, I dreaded being helped. I preferred to die in peace. For I thought my hour had come, and abandoned myself unregretfully.
Meanwhile, some time passed. Instead of agonising, I recovered my wits.
[Pg 479]
It was my right leg that had been hit—the bone to a certainty! For the moment, the pain was not so intolerable. I felt as if my leg had been substituted by a mass of lead.
Ah! The sun! Already high in the heavens!
I now began to wish for help, but the plateau was abandoned. Quite near me there was a dead body—poor Prunelle—fallen in the posture of an oriental suppliant. Farther on Gaufrèteau was drawing his last breath.
A tree stood a few yards off; a minute rise in the ground blocked out all the horizon.
I was thinking, longing to find out what really had happened. I struggled obstinately to turn over onto one side. At last I succeeded. By raising myself up on my elbow, I was able to examine my leg. It made a hideous angle under the trouser. The foot turned back towards the knee. There would have been reason enough to shudder, if that inert mass had not literally seemed a thing quite apart from me.
I thought of dressing my wound, but my strength was not up to undoing my pack and slitting up the cloth round my leg.
What was the result of the engagement? Everything tended to show that our masterly stroke at dawn had been successful. But were we following up our advantage? And how far? If only I could have dragged myself as far as that tree! I calculated the distance. What hope possessed me? I succeeded at the cost of real torture in getting into a sitting position. Now my plan was made. I must move backwards, propelling myself by my fists!
Oh! what a ghastly journey that was! I watched the removal of my leg. It was throbbing, but did not[Pg 480] cause me acute pain, and seemed as if paralysed; mis-shapen and swollen, like a great ball, pinning me to the ground. I was as weak as a baby. Ten tim............