Lucy glanced across to see that Alex had been lifted down and was lying on the fire-step. ‘What about Lex?’ she asked, pointing to Alex’s body.
‘She’s dead. We’ve the living to attend to before we give the dead any thought,’ John said. ‘I’ll get her body back to the CCS as soon as I can. Now get out of here.’
She followed the stretcher-bearers along the trench in silence. What was she going to say to Tubs?
The German shelling resumed as they made their way to the regimental aid post and the ground around the trench was a mass of flying dirt and shell fragments. The bearers were following a communication sap where they were protected from most of the flying shrapnel, but they had to tilt the stretcher to manoeuvre it round some of the corners of the traverses. At a new section, where the
