d at it. It was covered with blood. As I looked at it,
I was not aware that my entire vision was confined to my right eye,
although there was considerable pain in the entire left side of my face.

This was sufficient to send me on another mental investigation. I closed
my right eye and--all was dark. My first thought following this
experiment was that my left eye was closed. So I again counselled with
myself and tried to open my left eye--that is, tried to give the mental
command that would cause the muscles of the left eye to open the lid and
close it again.

I did this but could not feel or verify in any way whether the eye lid
responded or not. I only knew that it remained dark on that side. This
brought me to another conclusion and not a pessimistic one at that. I
simply believed, in spite of the pain, that something had struck me in
the eye and had closed it.

I did not know then, as I know now, that a bullet striking the ground
immediately under my left cheek bone, had ricocheted upward, going
completely through the left eye and then crashing out through my
forehead, leaving the eyeball and upper eyelid completely halved, the
lower eyelid torn away, and a compound fracture of the skull.

Further progress toward the Major was impossible. I must confess that I
became so intensely interested in the weird sensations and subjective
research, that I even neglected to call out and tell the wounded officer
that I would not be able to continue to his assistance. I held this view
in spite of the fact that my original intentions were strong. Lying
there with my left cheek flat on the ground, I was able to observe some
minutes later the wounded Major rise to his feet and in a perfect hail
of lead rush forward and out of my line of vision.

It was several days later, in the hospital, that I learned that he
reached the shelter of the woods beyond without being hit again, and in
that place, although suffering intense pain, was able to shout back
orders which resulted in the subsequent wiping out of the machine gun
nest that had been our undoing. For this supreme effort, General
Pershing decorated him with the Distinguished Service Cross.

I began to make plans to get out of the exposed position in which I was
lying. Whereas the field when I started across it had seemed perfectly
flat, now it impressed me as being convex and I was further impressed
with the belief that I was lying on the very uppermost and most exposed
curv