Unfortunately for me, my guard did not come with us, nor did I ever
see him again. One of the others reached over and took my knife,
cutting the string as unconcernedly as if I wanted him to have
it, and I remember that this one had a saw-bayonet on his gun, as
murderous and cruel-looking a weapon as any one could imagine, and
he had a face to match it, too. So in the first five minutes I saw
the two kinds of Germans.

When we were out of the worst of the shell-fire, we stopped to rest,
and, a great dizziness coming over me, I sat down with my head
against a tree, and looked up at the trailing rags of clouds that
drifted across the sky. It was then about four o'clock of as pleasant
an afternoon as I can ever remember. But the calmness of the sky,
with its deep blue distance, seemed to shrivel me up into nothing.
The world was so bright, and blue, and--uncaring!

I may have fallen asleep for a few minutes, for I thought I heard
McKelvey saying, "Dad always told me not to let this happen." Over
and over again, I could hear this, but I don't know whether McKelvey
had repeated it. My brain was like a phonograph that sticks at one
word and says it over and over again until some one stops it.

I think it was Mudge, of Grand Forks, who came over to see how I was.
His voice sounded thin and far away, and I didn't answer him. Then I
felt him taking off my overcoat and finishing the bandaging that the
German boy had begun.

Little Joe, the Italian boy, often told me afterwards how I looked
at that time. "All same dead chicken not killed right and kep' long