ngines kicking back they had her off at daylight. After that, with
Doc on the bridge, everything seemed to go all right. The mate said he
must have come over the side with a medicine-chest full of horseshoes.
By eleven o'clock next morning they were taking on a pilot outside
Havre.

Havre is a regular French port with jetties leading down from the heart
of the residential places almost. The people, seeing her coming, she
bearing the evident marks of her late battle, crowded down to greet her.
About five minutes was enough for her story to circulate. The bluejacket
gun crew, being in uniform, caught their eyes first. They cheered them,
the brav' Americains. And then the wounded came. Oh, the pity! Three or
four of the wounded, who had all that day been cavorting around deck,
saw the dramatic values and assumed most languid poses. Oh, the great
pity! Whereat two more almost fainted.

The worst wounded one--there was no pretense about him--had to be
carried down the gang-plank. Doc went with him. Good nursing was what he
needed; and he was going to see that he got it.

He got it in the port hospital; and then Doc and his two assistants
turned in and slept sixteen hours by Doc's illuminated wrist-watch.

After cabling and getting his orders, Doc headed for his base. Their
journey back by train and steamer--the two men in dungarees and
life-vests, and Doc in sea-boots and one of those sheepskin coats they
wear on destroyers--was noteworthy but not seagoing, so it is passed up
here.

Doc made his port. We met him in the King's Hotel smoke-room, and he
told us all about it. We had had it already from the quartermaster and
the hospital steward, but Doc was to have a little touch of his own.

"There she was, a little down by the head, but safe in port," concluded
Doc; "and while I was waiting for my orders I had a look around the
place. There was a little square there with little cafes all around the
square, and I sat in front of one of them and had my coffee."

"So this was France," I kept saying to myself. All my life I had been
reading more or less about France, and it used to be a sort of dream to
me to be thinking I might some day get there. And there I was--only a
little corner of France, but it was France, and a pretty sunny little
place after our week to sea.

"And while I sat there people came up and looked me over. I thought it
was my needing a shave, but it wasn't. I had my cap on, and by my cap
they knew me