One morning as we were preparing to go over the top, and the men
were a little jumpy and nervous, I heard a shot behind me, and a
bullet chugged into the sandbags beside my head. I whirled around,
my first thought being that some one of our own men was trying to
do me in. This is a thing that sometimes happens to unpopular
officers and less frequently to the men. But not in this case.

It was Issy Epstein. He had been monkeying with his rifle and had
shot himself in the hand. Of course, Issy was at once under
suspicion of a self-inflicted wound, which is one of the worst
crimes in the calendar. But the suspicion was removed instantly.
Issy was hopping around, raising a terrific row.

"Oi, oi," he wailed. "I'm ruint. I'm ruint. My thimble finger is
gone. My thimble finger! I'm ruint. Oi, oi, oi, oi."

The poor fellow was so sincerely desolated over the loss of his
necessary finger that I couldn't accuse him of shooting himself
intentionally. I detailed a man named Bealer to take Issy back to a
dressing station. Well, Bealer never came back.

Months later in England I met up with Epstein and asked about
Bealer. It seems that after Issy had been fixed up, the surgeon
turned to Bealer and said:

"What's the matter with you?"

Bealer happened to be dreaming of something else and didn't answer.