The Khaki Boys Over the Top | Page 7

from beneath the dirt.
"It doesn't seem possible anyone can be alive--like this," panted Roger as he labored at a heavy stone.
"Don't talk--work!" snapped Jimmy. "If he's alive, whoever it is, he needs help quick."
"Wonder if it's Iggy?" went on Roger.
Jimmy's hands flew as do the legs of a dog when he is digging out a buried bone, nor was Roger behind his comrade. They labored at that part of the pile of earth and stones which covered the face and head of the unfortunate soldier.
"There--he can breathe if he's alive still!" gasped Jimmy as he straightened up after having lifted aside a board that had fallen over the face of the Sammie they were trying to rescue. And it was this board that undoubtedly saved the unfortunate from dying by suffocation.
For the piece of plank had fallen in such a way, being supported on either end by resting on two stones on either side of the man's head, that it kept the dirt and stones away from the face.
And that it was a face which they had uncovered, was not at all certain to Roger and Jimmy at first. For so covered with blood, streaks of dirt and powder stains was the countenance that it resembled nothing human.
"He's alive--whoever he is!" declared Jimmy, for the unfortunate was observed to breathe--and breathe deeply as the air came in more abundantly to the parted lips.
Roger began digging in the dirt again, working down to the man's hands. And when he had brushed aside the dirt and stones he lifted up a limp wrist. One look at the identification tag chained around it, and he cried:
"It's Iggy! We've found him all right!"
"Sure enough--it is Iggy!" cried Jimmy, as he, too, looked at the metal disk.
"Ach! Yes! Water!" faintly moaned the Polish lad. His voice was a moan, but it was his voice. He opened his eyes, looked almost uncomprehendingly at his two chums and smiled faintly.
"So, come you haf!" he murmured. "Think I did dat you would!"
His head, which he had raised, sank back limply.
"Here!" cried Jimmy, opening his canteen. "Drink this!"
Poor Iggy did, gratefully enough. Some of the water trickled over his face, and when Roger wiped it away some of the blood and dirt went with it.
"Why he isn't hurt much--not up here, anyhow!" cried Jimmy. "I thought sure his whole head was blown off the way he looked."
"Well, let's get him out of here and look at him afterward," counseled Roger, and they resumed their work until the Polish lad's body was all exposed. Then he was lifted out, and in a little while it was ascertained that he was not seriously injured--at least outwardly. His arms and legs were whole, and there was no big wound, though he was terribly scratched and bruised.
"But why stand up can not I!" asked Iggy, for Roger and Jimmy were supporting him with their arms around him down in the shell hole.
"I guess he means why can't he stand up," translated Roger, for sometimes their foreign Brother misplaced his English words considerably.
"Sure! Why can't not I stand?" went on Iggy. "My legs--they is got no business to 'em. Like paper legs they is!"
Roger and Jimmy looked apprehensively at one another. This loss of feeling and muscular power in Iggy's legs might indicate that his spine was injured--that his whole lower body was paralyzed!
"We've got to get him to the rear--to a hospital," said Roger in a low voice, as the Polish lad's head drooped weakly on his shoulder.
"Yes," assented Jimmy. "But can we carry him?"
"Got to!"
They looked about for some means of getting Iggy to the top of the shell hole. That would be the most difficult part of the rescue. Then, to their surprise, the two who had come back to seek their friend, heard a hail on the rim of the crater above them.
"What's the matter down there?" came the cry. "Do you want help!"
"You said it!" voiced Jimmy, vigorously.
"All right. Wait a minute. We'll be right down!"
It was two stretcher-bearers who had hailed, and, a little later, Ignace Pulinski was being carried to the rear. He had fainted when brought to the top of the shell hole.

CHAPTER IV
A DOUBLE LOSS
After waiting a moment on the ground at the top of the shell crater, to see their comrade being carried to a first-aid dressing station at the rear, Jimmy and Roger started back to join their two friends who were still, it was to be hoped, waiting for orders to advance.
"S'pose he's much hurt?" asked Roger, something like a dry sob choking him as he thought of poor Iggy.
"I'm afraid so--yes," answered Jimmy. "That business of his legs feeling numb is a bad sign. It's a wonder he lived as long as he did, after what happened to him."
"I'll say so!"