he
billets for relief. I had to go through a marsh to get to that place
where he fell. I thought I'd sink, but I didn't.

"When I got there I saw his machine was all crumbled up, and he was all
mixed up with the wires and he was dead. I was going to give him first
aid if he wasn't. But anyway, he was dead. So then I searched him and he
had a lot of papers. Some of them were maps. I knew it wouldn't be any
use to take them to billets, because the wires were all down on account
of the rain. So I started through the marshes to get into the road to
Rheims. Those marshes are worse than the ones we have here. Sometimes I
had to swim. It took me two hours, I guess. Anyway, if you _have_ to do
a thing you can do it.

"When I got to the road it was easy. I knew that road went to Rheims
because when I was in the Motorcycle Service I knew all the roads.
Pretty soon I got to a place where a road crossed it and there were some
soldiers coming along that road. I kept still and let them pass by and
they didn't see me. I knew there were more coming and I could hear the
sound of tanks coming, too. Maybe they were coming back from an attack.

"All of a sudden everything seemed bright and I saw a fellow right close
to me and then there was a noise that made my ears ring and dirt flew in
my face and I heard that fellow yell. As soon as I took a couple more
steps I stumbled and fell into a place that was hot--the earth was hot,
just like an oven. That was a new shell-hole I was in.

"I just lay there and my arm hurt and my ears buzzed and there was a
funny kind of a pain in the back of my neck. That's how shell-shock
begins. I heard that fellow say, 'Are you all right?' I couldn't speak
because my throat was all trembling, like. But I could feel my sleeve
was all wet and my arm throbbed. I heard him say, 'We must have had our
fingers crossed.' Because you know how kids cross their fingers when
they're playing tag, so no one can tag them? The way he says things in
this letter sounds just like the way he said. He's happy-go-lucky, that
fellow, I guess.

"There was a piece of the shell in there and it was red hot and by that
he saw my arm was hurt, and he bandaged it with his shirt. He saw my
scout badge that I wore and he asked me my name. That's all he knows
about me. Pretty soon something that made a lot of noise moved right
over the hole and I guess it got stuck there. He said it must be a tank
that got kind of caught there. Pretty so