hile we were back in billets, I was "warned for leave" (a
week in England), and little Bouchard, my particular protege and
warmest friend, was to go along.

You people who have stayed at home can never realize what "leave"
means to a soldier after eight months in the trenches and I, for one,
will not attempt the impossible by trying to describe the sensation.

We packed our kits and hiked to Poperinghe, where, after sitting up
all night, we took train at four o'clock A.M., arriving at Boulogne
about noon and were in "Blighty" by four in the afternoon.

"Oh, ain't it a grand and glorious feeling!"

CHAPTER XV

BLIGHTY AND BACK

In London we found things running along about as usual and proceeded
to enjoy ourselves. Oh, the luxury of having clean clothes and being
able to keep them clean: to sleep in real beds and eat from regular
dishes and at white-clothed tables. It seemed almost worth the price
we had paid to be able to get so much downright enjoyment out of the
merest "necessities" of ordinary civilian life. The theaters were all
running and we took in some show every night, but I derived the most
satisfaction from taking my young companion around to see the museums
and many old historical places in and about London. He was a stranger
and I was fairly well acquainted.

But, when the time drew near for us to go back, I began to experience
a feeling of depression. While I had not noticed it before, I suppose
the cumulative effect of the experiences of the last eight months was
beginning to tell on me. I noticed that Bouchard appeared to be in
about the same condition. He would sometimes sit for an hour or more,
in our room at the Cecil, gazing into space, never uttering a word.
Poor boy, while of course he could not _know_ that this was to be his
last trip, I believe he had a presentiment that such was the case.

I found myself now and then "checking up" my own physical and mental
condition. I had been slightly injured several times--two scratches
from bullets on my left hand, a bullet in my right elbow, two pieces
of shell in my shoulder, a knee-cap knocked loose and a fractured
cheek-bone from the fuse-cap of a "whizz-bang." None of these had put
me out of action for more than a few hours and I had managed to keep
out of the hospital. (I had an instinctive dread of hospitals.) But I
knew, right down in my heart, that my nerve was weakening. Thinking
over some of the things we had done, I believed I c