agger back swathed with first-aid
rolls, dodging shells and machine-gun spirts; or, and in some ways that
was hardest of all to watch, to be led by some bandaged ones, blinded
and vomiting from gas.

He had no consecutive sleep. He never got his clothes off. He snatched
food from a tin can. He suffered from the universal dysentery. He was
under constant fire. He lay in shallow funk holes, conferring with his
company and platoon commanders. At best he sat in the cellar of a
smashed house, poring, by the light of a candle, over maps and
complicated orders. Most of the time he wore a gas mask which had the
advantage, however, of shutting out the stifling odour of decay. He
never had time to find out if he was afraid. He reached a blessed state
of indifference where getting hit appeared an inevitable and restful
prospect.

Driggs Wandel arrived surprisingly on the day the Germans were falling
back to the Aisne, at a moment when most of the artillery fire was
coming from the American side, when it was possible to sit on a sunny
bank outside the battalion dugout breathing only stale souvenirs of last
night's gas shells.

"_Bon jour_, most powerful and disreputable of majors!"

George held out his hand.

"Bring any chocolate, Driggs? Sit down, you idiot. Jerry's never seen
such a nice new uniform."

Suddenly he lost his temper. Why the devil couldn't he get some pleasure
out of this extraordinary reunion? Why did he have to greet Wandel as if
he had seen him daily since their parting more than three years ago on a
dusky pier in New York? He had heard that Wandel, with the declaration
of war, had left the ambulance for a commission in the field artillery.
He saw him now wearing the insignia of a general staff major.

"Just attached to your corps headquarters," Wandel said. "Didn't want
the job, would rather have been a fighting man with my pretty guns.
Suppose some fool of a friend of the family brought the usual influence
without consulting me."

"Glad to see you, Driggs," George muttered, "although I don't seem able
to tell you so. How did you get here?"

"Guide from regimental headquarters. Wanted to see how the submerged
heroes live. Nasty, noisy, smelly spot to be heroic in."

"A picnic to-day."

"I've always suspected," Wandel said, "that picnics were unhealthy."

"Better have come," George grinned, "any other day we've been here the
past few weeks."

Wandel laughed.

"Don't think I didn't pick my day.