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uited for trench purposes, and, not being thoroughly familiar with its workings, he asked me to explain it to him, which I did. Then I blew out the light, opened the door, whispered "good-night," and started down the path. About a hundred feet away I heard Dave calling me back; I turned; he was standing in the doorway, with the candle light gleaming behind him. He called out, "Grant, I don't quite get this safety catch and bolt; would you mind showing it to me again?" "Blow out the light, you damn fool," I called. "All right," and he did so and I started back. As he answered me I heard simultaneously the report of a rifle and the whiz of a bullet passing me. When I got to the door I stumbled over the body of my friend Dave; he had received the summons through the head. While standing guard at the open door, before Dave came, with the light out, however, I suddenly got a start that frightened me more than anything else that has happened me in France: In the gleam of a distant flare, the white faces of two women peered around the corner of the building, looking at me through the open door. There was something so damnably uncanny in their appearance, and so startling, that a cold sweat broke out over me, and I snapped my rifle to the present. Had they not been women they would not have lived; a loiterer around headquarters takes his life in his hands. They had been there that same afternoon, saying they were the owners of the place, and that they had stopped to take away some supplies. They were permitted to take their goods with them, but were warned against coming there again. They did not heed the warning. I reported their presence to the O.C. and they were promptly arrested and handed over to the French police. What their lot was I cannot tell, but to this day I can't help thinking that in some way poor Dave owes his fate to those women. After two days' hard marching we reached Givenchy June 9, 1915, a little town in France lying thirty miles south of Ypres. Our battery of two guns took up its position immediately outside, on the southwest side of the town. A few civilians were scattered through the town, living in the cellars, the rest having fled at the German approach. We were ordered to put our guns in the very front-line trench for the reason that the opposing trenches being so close together, it was impossible for the guns to do justice to themselves without inflicting serious casualties on our own men.
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