my eyes open to save myself from being thrown off and having my precious
neck broken.

To prevent in some measure the rain trickling down my neck, I took a
rubber sheet, used to cover the horses, tied the two corners together,
making a sort of cape of it, and put it round my neck.

Then I settled myself down to hold on to the limber and think at the
same time of the great game of which I had become an infinitesimal
part. I was sitting on the right hand side of the limber close to the
wheel and, before long, the effort to think and hold on at the same time
was too much for me, and I fell into a fairly sound sleep, Sergeant
Johnson, my companion, doing likewise.

While dozing, the string from the end of the cape engaged itself with
the axle, wound itself round and round and started pulling me down. When
I awoke it had a grip on me and every moment I was being drawn closer to
the wheel. I yelled to the driver to stop the horse, but the rattling
and rumble of the limber and the gun carriage drowned my call; neither
he nor the Sergeant heard me. Numb with cold, absolutely helpless, my
head almost down to the wheel, I gave one more yell for dear life. The
Sergeant suddenly and providentially woke up; he thought he had a
nightmare. I was almost choked and could hardly breathe, but managed to
make him understand, and he whipped out his knife, cut the string and
released me from what in a couple of seconds more would have been
instant death, as I would have been pulled from my seat and crushed to a
jelly between the wheels. This was my first close shave from death. I
had no horseshoe or four-leaf clover with me, and I can account for my
escape in no other way than that it was my lucky star that has
accompanied me throughout the long months of times that try men's souls