French guns were carolling away; the arrives were coming in. It
seemed to Henry and me that we were not so badly frightened as we
knew we were. For we kept a running fire going of airy persiflage--which
was like the noise of boys whistling through a graveyard. Henry
said: "That German gunner is playing by ear! His time is bad, or
else it's syncopated." Then to Major Murphy: "Nice sightly location
that Hill 304; but I noticed real estate going up a good deal in
the neighbourhood!" And to the assembled company in the dugout he
remarked as he pulled out his pipe, a short Hiram Johnson, bulldog
model that he had bought on the Rue de Rivoli, "If you gentlemen
will get out your gas masks now I'll light my dreadnaught!" Which
he did and calmed his iron nerves. So in a few moments we came out
of the post and went to our ambulance which would take us back to
Recicourt. Clouds had blown across the sky and as we passed the
gay little cemetery by the dugout, we were shocked to see the body
of a French lieutenant laid ready for burial. He had met death
while we played the fool in our twenty minutes' walk.

We rode to Recicourt greatly sobered, and it was hours before we
could get back our spirit. Of course, eventually, kind hands pinned
up the rent in the corsage of those khaki trousers. They used a
dozen big steel safety pins as large as railway spikes. And that
night as we were preparing for bed in a shack near a hospital,
Henry gazed curiously at the job as it glittered before him in
our corner, when, his friend's tunic being removed, the wealth of
metal was uncovered. Henry was impressed. "Bill," he said gently,
as he gazed admiringly at his friend's armour, "I don't know as I
ever saw a man before with so much open plumbing on him as you're
wearing these days!"