as supposed not to do. He would shave in
the front line when Fritz was shelling the trench and everybody else
was under cover. He had a big rifle; I don't know where he got it, but
it was bigger in the butt than most, and the bore was all worn out; it
had been fired so much that when he used to fire it the report was
deafening; he used to call it "Big Lizzie." When he was shaving and a
shell came close and threw dirt all over him, he would say, "All right,
Fritz, wait till I get through, I'll get Big Lizzie after you," and
he'd stand up and fire five rounds rapid over at Fritz in broad
daylight. Why he didn't get killed was a marvel--when shrapnel was
bursting (shrapnel shells are full of lead pellets and when they burst
they scatter forward about a hundred yards) he would look at them
straight in the face and remark, "That's right, Fritz, lengthen them
out a bit." He was out on a working party one day behind the trench,
filling sandbags, and there were one or two reinforcements with him,
when Fritz started slinging some "Whiz-bangs" over (these are small
shells about fifteen pounds full of shrapnel, but they come with an
awful speed, that's why they call them "Whiz-bangs," you hear the whiz
just about the same time that you hear the bang); well, Fritz was
sending quite a few over; I guess he had spotted the party and the new
men were kind of nervous. "Aw," says Mac, as he kept on working,
"don't bother about those things, there's nothing to 'em but wind and
noise--Ow!" and he jumped about a foot as a piece of shrapnel took him
in the leg. Mac was absent for awhile down at the Casualty Clearing
Station and had his leg fixed up; it wasn't bad. After he had been
there awhile the Sergeant asked him to wash the floor; Mac refused, "Do
you think I came out here to scrub floors?" says he; "I'm a fighting
man." The Sergeant was going to have him pinched, but while he was
away Mac sneaked out and came back to the battalion, absolutely
refusing to go back, and Colonel Embury, our Colonel, who was a good
sport, smoothed matters over and Mac stayed with the boys, and soon was
as "right as rain"--he was too tough to hurt. I will leave him for
awhile--it would take a book to describe all his tricks--and we will go
on to "Fat," who came about the same time. Fat was a big fat
good-natured kid, and he and Bink got quite chummy; they were both
farmers before the war. Fat had a great dislike for machine gun
fire--most of us ha