oked through the oats eighteen inches into Hartzell's face. I saw the
look of horror on it as he looked into mine.

Twenty minutes later, after crawling painfully through the interminable
yards of young oats, we reached the edge of the woods and safety.

That's how it feels to be shot.

CHAPTER XVII

"GOOD MORNING, NURSE"

Weakness from the loss of blood began to grow on me as Lieutenant
Hartzell and I made our way through the deepening shadows of the wooded
hillside in the rear of the field on which I had been shot. In an
upright position of walking the pains in my head seemed to increase. We
stopped for a minute and, neither of us having first aid kits with us, I
resurrected a somewhat soiled silk handkerchief with which Hartzell
bound up my head in a manner that applied supporting pressure over my
left eye and brought a degree of relief.

Hartzell told me later that I was staggering slightly when we reached a
small relief dugout about a mile back of the wood. There a medical corps
man removed the handkerchief and bound my head with a white gauze
bandage. I was anxious to have the wound cleaned but he told me there
was no water. He said they had been forced to turn it over to the men to
drink. This seemed to me to be as it should be because my thirst was
terrific, yet there was no water left.

We stumbled rearward another half mile and, in the darkness, came upon
the edge of another wooded area. A considerable number of our wounded
were lying on stretchers on the ground. The Germans were keeping up a
continual fire of shrapnel and high explosive shell in the woods,
apparently to prevent the mobilisation of reserves, but the doctors,
taking care of the wounded, proceeded with their work without notice to
the whine of the shells passing overhead or the bursting of those that
landed nearby. They went at their work just as though they were caring
for injured men on a football field.

Hartzell stretched me out on the ground and soon had a doctor bending
over me. The doctor removed the eye bandage, took one look at what was
beneath it and then replaced it. I remember this distinctly because at
the time I made the mental note that the doctor apparently considered my
head wound beyond anything he could repair. He next turned his attention
to my arm and shoulder. He inserted his scissors into my left sleeve at
the wrist and ripped it up to the shoulder. He followed this operation
by cutting through my heavy kh