But the major came and told the lieutenant, and he passed
the word to the company--the men who fired on us had used up all their
cartridges and moved from the ground before they had been accused of the
use of ball; no one knew, apparently not even themselves, who had fired
the dangerous shots. It might happen, you know, that a stupid or excited
man might load with ball and not be aware of it. As for me, I'm not
finding any fault, nor are certain others that I could name.

The march in to camp? To tell the truth, I don't remember much of it, for
I was thinking a good deal. One poor chap we passed as he waited for the
hospital truck to come along and pick him up, a disappointed man of
fifty, who held his head down and would not look at us as we tramped by
in sympathetic silence. As we entered the residence quarter of
Plattsburg, where people lined the streets, the whistles blew Halt and we
were waved to the two sides of the street: "Fall out to the right and
left." We dropped down on the grass all around a rock where two pretty
girls had ensconced themselves to see us pass; instead, we saw them run!
Then on we went through the town, marching at attention, with everybody
out on the streets to watch the last of the rookies of 1916.

But when we reached the post there was evidently to be a March Past, for
the band was playing ahead of us, stationed opposite the general and his
staff. We braced ourselves up, swung into line--and there was the captain
in front of us! Very pale he was, with a bit of white bandage showing
under the hat that had the hole in it. But he was firm on his feet. What
a yell for a moment we let out! Then like veterans we followed him with
his old familiar stride, and if there was a break in all our line--no, I
can't believe it. We saluted the general, the lieutenant broke us into
column of squads, and then we gave Eyes Right to the captain, who stood
at salute as we marched by.

The break-up was a heart-rending affair. So much had we been delayed by
the unexpected skirmish and the little investigation that there was only
the smallest amount of time to turn in our equipment, get our baggage,
and catch the trains that would not wait. So in the scrabble were no real
good-bys, no friendly little chats about the past and future, no
appointments for reunions. I did not even shake hands with Bannister as
he hurried to the boat that for some reason was his means of getting
away. There were just two little eve