a little prayer in German, but everybody sort of
felt as though they understood it, and of course some did. And then he
put his helmet back, and shook hands very straight and stiff with our
officer, and said, 'Auf wiedersehn,' and turned away. And everybody
shook hands and went back to their own trenches, and long after dark
they kept calling to each other 'Good-bye! Good-bye!'

"Well, fellows, that was the end. Next morning they were peppering
away at each other, struggling like a lot of dogs to get a throat hold.
Seems sort of queer, don't you think so?

"I don't believe this could happen now, because they have been fighting
so long that they hate each other now. I think at first that they were
like dogs that someone sicks into a fight. They do it because they
want to be obliging, or because they think they have to mind. They
would just as soon stop and wag their tails and go to chasing cats or
digging for rabbits together. But they have fought now until the
bitterness of it has entered deep. I can't guess what the end will be.
I don't believe anybody can.

"You had better stir up everybody over there about it, and 'rustle the
requisite' as Main always said. _Everything_ for field hospital work
is badly needed. Seems to me you could send a few hundred dollars of
stuff over, well as not. You, Corky, you had better sell that car of
yours. You know the Commandant doesn't half approve of it, and Baxter
can give up that motor-boat. You will drown yourself, Baxter, sure as
sure! And think how much better you would feel to stay alive, and help
a lot of shot-to-bits poor fellows in the bargain.

"Things look so different when you are right on the ground. What they
tell me about some of the shot wounds that come to the hospitals makes
me wonder if I have enough backbone to stand up under it, when the
fighting really commences. I believe I am getting scared!

"The English fellow told me that after the first shot or two you didn't
seem to mind anything; you just went right ahead, and tended to work as
though, as he said, it was a May morning in an English lane. I suppose
he thought that was about as near Paradise as he could imagine, but the
finest place _I_ can think of is--Oh well, fellows, you know. I wish I
was close enough to the gang to have you pound me on the back, and to
kick that big brute of a Mackilvane for trying to stuff me under the
bed. I'd like to hear some of Gregg's rag-time, and see M