When I next regained consciousness Sinclair told me that the enemy had again reached the Route Nationale. "But don't you worry, sir," he said, "we'll stick it all right; they won't come any farther."
Just after midnight the order came to retire.
Sinclair and the other occupants of the trench lifted me out, this operation coinciding with a fusillade from the enemy, who from their position on the road were firing volleys into the night--a great waste of ammunition. Still, the bullets must have been close overhead, for the men put me back into the trench, jumped in after me, and waited till all was quiet.
The second attempt to get me out was more successful. I was laid on to a greatcoat and lifted up by six men. It is probably not easy to carry along such a burden in the dark, and they made a very bad job of it. Some one suggested that a substitute for a stretcher could be made with three rifles, and the suggestion was at once adopted with most painful results. I still remember the agony caused by the weight of my body pressing down on my neck and the small of the back, while my head, just clearing the ground, trailed among the wet beetroot leaves. The distance to the little wood was not great, but to me the journey seemed to take hours.
As the men struggled along with their awkward burden, shadowy forms of the retiring company passed close by in the pitch darkness of the night. "Lend a hand here, some of you chaps," said Sinclair; "here's a wounded officer. Come on, Ginger." Ginger, a big stout fellow, volunteered to carry me on his back, and asked me if I could hold on. He got me on to his back, and I held on with my left arm round his neck; but we did not go for more than a hundred yards or so--the dead-weight was too much for his strength--when the party came to a halt.
During the whole of that night I was only intermittently conscious of what was going on around me. The only men I remember speaking to after I had been laid down are the Regimental Sergeant-Major and Lieutenant Houldsworth. The Regimental Sergeant-Major laid his mackintosh on the ground for me to lie on. To Houldsworth I said what a fine thing it was the men carrying me out of the trench; and he replied, "It is nothing at all, but very natural," or words to that effect.