n out in a bad hailstorm you
can perhaps form some idea of how thick the bullets are when Fritzie
turns on his guns and sweeps a road. Well, I had only been working an
hour or so underground when I heard some one at the top of the shaft
calling my name. I answered and he said, "Come on up, Jack, I want
you." I hurried up the ladder and found one of the 28th boys waiting
for me. I said, "Hello! what's the matter, old chap?" He said, "Jack,
little Mac's got it." "Little Mac, oh no, not little Mac!" I cried.
"Why, he was here with me only a little while ago." "Yes, I know," he
said; "he was on his way back with the first load when it got
him--still, he isn't badly hit, and he sure did act funny when he got
it. This is how it happened: we were walking down the road with our
loads when Mac stopped suddenly and said, 'Boys, I believe I'm hit; I
felt a stinging pain go through my leg.' He felt around and walked a
few steps, and said, 'No, I guess I'm all right. But, gee, it was a
close call!' He hadn't gone far when he felt something trickling down
his leg, and slipping his hand inside his trousers he moved it around
the spot where the pain had been, then he pulled it out and held it up;
it was covered with blood. As soon as he saw the blood Mac grabbed his
leg and limped like everything. He dropped his load right there and
made a bee-line for the dressing station. As he hobbled down the road
he called, 'Good-bye, boys, it's Blighty for mine.'" Of course I
laughed at what the boy told me of little Mac, but all the time I felt
an ache in my heart, for something told me I would never see my brave
little pal again, and I never did. He did not get a "Blighty" after
all, but was sent to our base hospital at Le Havre. When he came back
to the lines I was gone, and he went back to the battalion; he "went
west" from Vimy Ridge, where so many of our brave boys fell.

Well, I hunted up Skinny and told him about Mac, and when the shift was
over and we started off to our rest billets we both felt mighty blue;
if we had known that we were to be separated the very next day we would
have felt still worse. But that's one thing that's good about the
Army--you never know what's coming, and after it has happened there is
no spare time for regrets. When I said "Good-bye" to Skinny, he said,
"It's a bleedin' shime that you 'arve to go, mite. Those bloomin'
'Eadquarter blokes doesn't know what they're doin' 'arf the time. It's