, if not happy, those seven
thrilling days at sea. "Some swell place" would be Buddie's comment on
the tossing waves of mid-Atlantic; and usually having been well, and not
used to see sickness, he was easily prone to seasickness!

[Illustration: IN RUE DE BELGRADE--LULL BEFORE BATTLE.]

One day private Barry, 64th Infantry, came to me. "Chaplain, I am in
great trouble! Before leaving Camp Merritt my best girl and her
mother called to see me off, came from away back home to say good-bye.
Now I am not satisfied with the details of that parting; I am just crazy
about the girl, and what worries me is the thought that, in the
excitement of leaving, I may not have made it perfectly clear to her how
much I really love her. Now, Chaplain, I want you to write her a letter,
make it good and strong, and tell her how much I love her. Will you do
that?"

What else was I to do? I was his Chaplain, his big brother, friend and
pal. His comrade in arms, climbing with him even then the road to
Calvary's hill! "Sure thing--leave it to me, old man--but say, tell me,
just how did you act and what did you say to her in parting?"

He told me. "Well, that looks pretty convincing; I think she saw you
loved her all right--however, I will write the letter provided you help
me."

We sat down on a coil of rope and together wrote the letter,
collaborating in the most unique, most compelling, missive ever written
on board the Leviathan!

How he treasured that letter! How carefully he guarded it, how
prayerfully, in due time he followed its journey from Ponteneuson
Barracks, Brest, back to Chicago. Was it successful? Here's to you,
Barry, old top, now happily married, in your snug little home in old
Chi--and my best regards to Mrs. Barry.

One day in mid-ocean, with a fresh gale blowing abeam, and the three
troopships rolling and throwing spray high in the air from a heavy
white-capped sea, the cry rang out "man overboard from the Northern
Pacific!" A soldier had slipped on the watery deck; and, before his
mates could reach him, was overboard.

Alarm was at once sounded, lifebuoys thrown toward him, the vessels came
about and circled diligently around, but no sign was seen of him. His
untimely and tragic death deeply affected us all; and though the ocean
was his grave and the spume of the sea his shroud, his memory abides
with us in the sanctuary of our prayers.

On the morning of the sixth day, a flotilla of destroyers bore down on
us. So