rselves and wished friend self a long
good-by. We looked at the sun and said "Tra-la-la" to it, and we wondered
in a flash of thought what the old world would be like without us. We
wondered where we would "light up."

All this passed in a moment of time, and then we decided that it would be
better if we paired up, two men taking one box of ammunition. This offered
a smaller target for the busy enemy, and also made for increased speed in
covering the remaining ground.

We sprang up once more and dodged and doubled as we leaped through the rain
of bullets, machine gun and rifle. How we lived I don't know. I was sharing
a box with a lad whom I heard the fellows call Bob. He was no more than a
boy, but we were much of a size and ran light. We were the only two of the
twenty-nine left on our feet. To-day I am one of five of that bunch left
alive.

About fifty yards from the trench we dropped for a last rest before the
final spurt which would decide the whole course of events in the next ten
minutes. Would we reach that trench and turn in our box of ammunition, or
would we "get ours" and would the boys so eagerly waiting for us be
surrounded and captured? Or would many of them do what they had threatened?
"If it comes to surrendering," several had said in my hearing, "I will run
a bayonet into myself rather than be taken."

When a man is lying close to the ground there is not so very great a chance
of his being hit by bullets. They pass overhead as a rule. It is when a man
is kneeling or standing, or between the two positions that the great danger
lies. The lad Bob and I were just in the act of rising when mine came
along. I felt no more than a stinging blow in the right shoulder, a searing
cut and a thud of pain as the bullet exploded in leaving my body. I fell on
my face and blood gushed from my shoulder.

"Hit hard or soft?" queried my companion, as he threw himself down beside
me.

"Don't know," I gasped.

"You're hit in the mouth," he said, as the blood poured from between my
lips.

"No, by gum, you're hit in the back!"

I gasped, nearly choked, and spluttered out: "You're a liar; I'm not hit in
the back." But there was a gash in the back where the exploding missile had
torn away and carried out portions of my lung and bits of bone and flesh.

I closed my eyes. Then from a distance I heard Bob speak.

"I'm going to fix you," he said, and knelt beside me. He got into such a
position that his own body shielde