uited for trench purposes, and, not being thoroughly familiar
with its workings, he asked me to explain it to him, which I did. Then I
blew out the light, opened the door, whispered "good-night," and started
down the path. About a hundred feet away I heard Dave calling me back; I
turned; he was standing in the doorway, with the candle light gleaming
behind him. He called out, "Grant, I don't quite get this safety catch
and bolt; would you mind showing it to me again?"

"Blow out the light, you damn fool," I called.

"All right," and he did so and I started back. As he answered me I heard
simultaneously the report of a rifle and the whiz of a bullet passing
me. When I got to the door I stumbled over the body of my friend Dave;
he had received the summons through the head.

While standing guard at the open door, before Dave came, with the light
out, however, I suddenly got a start that frightened me more than
anything else that has happened me in France: In the gleam of a distant
flare, the white faces of two women peered around the corner of the
building, looking at me through the open door. There was something so
damnably uncanny in their appearance, and so startling, that a cold
sweat broke out over me, and I snapped my rifle to the present. Had they
not been women they would not have lived; a loiterer around headquarters
takes his life in his hands.

They had been there that same afternoon, saying they were the owners of
the place, and that they had stopped to take away some supplies. They
were permitted to take their goods with them, but were warned against
coming there again. They did not heed the warning. I reported their
presence to the O.C. and they were promptly arrested and handed over to
the French police. What their lot was I cannot tell, but to this day I
can't help thinking that in some way poor Dave owes his fate to those
women.

After two days' hard marching we reached Givenchy June 9, 1915, a little
town in France lying thirty miles south of Ypres. Our battery of two
guns took up its position immediately outside, on the southwest side of
the town. A few civilians were scattered through the town, living in the
cellars, the rest having fled at the German approach. We were ordered to
put our guns in the very front-line trench for the reason that the
opposing trenches being so close together, it was impossible for the
guns to do justice to themselves without inflicting serious casualties
on our own men.