rap was our senses back and it
was easy enough to spot about where our own lines would be. So after we
figured it out, and taking Fritz, the one prisoner, along, we commenced
to start off that way and you can bet the poor boob was glad to go with
us. You would of thought he had wanted to be with us all the time. Just
like after a election at home. Cant find anybody who didnt vote the
winning ticket. Which joke you may not understand, sweetie, being a
lady, and I will not now stop to explain.

Well, we started back alright and as we come, I got the story which I
want to tell you which commenced really when we come to that old barn.
Only I had to explain how we come to be there or you wouldnt get the
idea of what I am driving at for you to make your Ma understand.

Ever since I fell out of my airplane and was in the hospital and
reenlisted the only place they'd take me back was in the infantry, I
done a lot of thinking--and some of it stuff which might mebbe sound
awful queer coming from me, especially after some of the language I have
been known to use in my day, and while I hope I aint become mushy, I
certainly do believe there is more to religion and such things than we
have thought. Take it or leave it, mighty few fellows have lived through
this war, far less fought through it, without getting religion of some
kind out of it. I wonder can you get me? And make Ma get it too. So I'll
tell what happened and you see if miricles is over yet or not for this
is a true fact and not a story somebody told me.

Well, after we cleaned up that machine gun nest and had a cute little
live German prisoner of our very own, we took him down the hill with us
the best way we could in the dark and it full of holes and what not.
There wasn't a bit of light--no moon nor stars nor nothing, and a wet
sort of smell that made us wish for a smoke the way hardly nothing else
is ever wished for, except mebbe a motion-picture salary or a drink of
water after a big night--not on the desert.

Well we got on pretty good because we was nearly sober now and Ceasare
he knew where we was going, and this time he really did, and so we kept
up pretty good. It commenced to rain a little and the big drops felt
awful nice against my cheeks which was burning hot. Made me think of
when I was a kid back in Topeka and digging out to school and a pair of
red mittens I had which my mother had made them--good knitting and well
made like the sweater I had on that ve