"How did you get yours?" I asked another lad, from Kansas, for I saw at
once that it eased them to talk about it.

"I was in a trench when a big Jack Johnson burst right behind me. It
killed six of the boys, all my friends, and buried me under the dirt
that fell from the parapet back of me. I had sense and strength enough
to dig myself out. When I got out I was kind of dazed. The captain
told me to go back to the rear. I started back through the
communication-trench and got lost. The next thing I knew I was
wandering around in the darkness shakin' like a leaf."

Then there was the California boy. I had known him before. It was he
who almost gave me a case of shell-shock. The last time I saw him he
was standing on a platform addressing a crowd of young church people in
California. And there he was, his six foot three shaking from head to
foot like an old man with palsy, and stuttering every word he spoke.
He had been sent to the hospital at Amiens with a case of acute
appendicitis. The first night he was in the hospital the Germans
bombed it and destroyed it. They took him out and put him on a train
for Paris. This train had only gotten a few miles out of Amiens when
the Germans shelled it and destroyed two cars.

"After that I began to shake," he said simply.

"No wonder, man; who wouldn't shake after that?" I said. Then I asked
him if he had had his operation yet.

"It can't be done until I quit shaking."

"When will you quit?" I asked, with a smile.