Ikey blushed and answered:
"French told me when he got back to the trench. You see, he carried the officer back through that fire, because the stretcher-bearers took too long in coming out."
Yank asked Ikey how Corporal French, being wounded himself, could carry Leftenant Williams in, when he must have been a dead weight.
Ikey answered, "Well, you blokes give me the proper pip, and you can all bloomin' well go to hell," and he shut up like a clam.
Hungry got up and silently withdrew from the circle. In about ten minutes he returned, followed by a tall, fair-haired Corporal, who wore a little strip of gold braid on the left sleeve of his tunic, denoting that he had been once wounded, and also wore a little blue and red ribbon on the left breast of his tunic, the field insignia of the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
Hungry, in triumph, brought him into the circle an' handed him a fag, which he lighted in the flame from the candle on the mess tin, an' then Hungry introduced him:
"Boys, I want you to meet Corporal French."
We shook hands all around.
Ikey got red an' was tryin' to ease out of the candle light, when Sailor Bill grabbed him by the tunic and held him.