"Get into line," and Bob ran after the disappearing file, shaking his
head helplessly.
The crash started again, and the hum of bees and the soft snap of the
leaves when bullets clipped them like blows with a rattan cane, and the
rattling sputter of the machine guns, and once more came that long, long
wait that tries the soldier's heart, nerve, and brain.
"Why was not something done--why?"
And again rose the cry for the hospital men, and again the limp figures
were brought in from the jungle, and he could see the tall doctor with
the bare head helping the men who had been dressed with a first-aid
bandage to the protecting bank of the creek farther up, to make room for
the fresh victims. And as he stood up once, Crittenden saw him throw his
hand quickly up to his temple and sink to the blood-stained sand. The
assistant, who bent over him, looked up quickly and shook his head to
another, who was binding a wounded leg and looking anxiously to know the
fatal truth.
"I've got it," said a soldier to Crittenden's left; joyously, he said
it, for the bullet had merely gone through his right shoulder. He could
fight no more, he had a wound and he could wear a scar to his grave.
"So have I," said another, with a groan. And then next him there was a
sudden, soft thud: "T-h-u-p!" It was the sound of a bullet going into thick flesh, and the
soldier sprang to his feet--the impulse seemed uncontrollable for the
wounded to spring to their feet--and dropped with a groan--dead.
Crittenden straightened him out sadly--putting his hat over his face and
drawing his arms to his sides. Above, he saw with sudden nausea,
buzzards circling--little cared they whether the dead were American or
Spaniard, as long as there were eyes to pluck and lips to tear away, and
then straightway, tragedy merged into comedy as swiftly as on a stage.
Out of the woods across the way emerged a detail of negro troopers--sent
to clear the woods behind of sharpshooters--and last came Bob. The
detail, passing along the creek on the other bank from them, scattered,
and with Bob next the creek. Bob shook his gun aloft.
"I can wuk her now!"
Another lull came, and from the thicket arose the cry of a thin, high,
foreign voice: "Americano--Americano!"
"Whut regiment you b'long to?" the voice was a negro's and was Bob's,
and Grafton and Crittenden listened keenly. Bob had evidently got a
sharpshooter up a tree, and caught him loading his gun.