ccumulated a nice litt

o think, to sleeping in the foul air of the dug-outs. The chief symptom is high temperature, and the patient

d shot. The frequency with which the duck walk at Abalaine had been shelled, especially

he had lived there for years and was, so far as anybody knew, a Frenchwoman in breeding and sympathies. She was in the habit of se

t and a blue one and several white garments, were on the clothesline in certain arrangement on the days when troops were to be moved along the duc

hat this woman was really French. She was, no doubt, one of the myriad

place called Mill Street. This was in reality a series of dug-outs along a road some little distance behind ou

ectable vapor came over in shells, comparatively harmless in themselves, but which loosed a gas, smelling at first a little like pineapple. When you got a good in

ss, and we all resorted to the regular gas helm

had had mine on for a few minutes I got faint. Very often I would keel over entirely. A good many of the men were affected the s

all my war experience was at Mills

re was a terrific explosion. Investigation proved that an unexploded bomb had been buried under the brazier, and that it had gone off

trust a bomb. If you have one in your pocket, you feel that the pin may somehow get out, and if it does you know that you'll go to glo

d all of us. Two of the men managed to "swing" a "blighty" case

t here about the psychology of the

be but because he has to be. He is a patriot all right. His love of Blighty shows that. He will fight like a bag of wildcats when he

ugh not to discommode him much and that will be bad enough to swing Blighty on. Sometimes when he wants very much to get back he stretches his conscience to the limit-and it is pretty elasti

one other. Issy was a tailor by trade. He was no fighting man and didn't pretend to be, and he didn't ca

bullet chugged into the sandbags beside my head. I whirled around, my first thought being that some one of our own men was tryin

e, Issy was at once under suspicion of a self-inflicted wound, which is one of the worst crimes in t

int. My thimble finger is gone. My thim

that I couldn't accuse him of shooting himself intentionally. I detailed a man na

asked about Bealer. It seems that after Issy had b

he matter

dreaming of something

he doctor, "speak

ed and jumped and

id the surgeon.

it up and was tagged for Blighty. He had it thrust upon him

ady to go over the top the next day. At first there was the usual grousing, as there seemed to be no reason why our compan

at I got my first dose of real honest-to-goodness modern war. The big push had

hey had been pushed back from and of which they had the range to an inch. We went up under that steady fire for a full hour. The casualties were heavy, and the galling part of it was that we couldn't hurry, it

ck Watch, and they encouraged us by telling us they had lost over half their men in that trench, and that

re and never saw so many afterwards in one place. They were all over the place,

ated. And their dead lay in the trenches and outside and hanging over the edges. I think it was here that I first got the real m

the pointing finger that they use to advertise Liberty Bonds. We would cover them up or turn them over. Here and t

hing tangible. Ugh! I immediately grew dizzy and faint and had a mad desire to run. I think if I hadn'

The Germans were five hundred yards away, and there was but little danger of a

my hand and thrust it into a slimy, cold mess. I had found a dead German with a gaping, putrefying wound in his abdomen. I crawled out of that shelter, gagging and retching. This time I simply couldn't smother my impulse to run, and r

ells shook me up with, "Hi sye, Darby,

es. I thought of everything from a Zeppelin to a donkey engine but couldn't make it out. Blofeld ran around the

en out of the gray blanket of fog waddled the great steel monsters th

forward, slow, clumsy but irresistible, nosing down into shell holes and out, cr

ttled out of the way, and the men let go a cheer. For we kn

secret had been guarded so carefully even in our o

ould be effective. One look was enough to