He was cleaning his equipment in front of his billet when an "H. E." (High Explosive) dropped just across the street from him and close against an old wall. He cut the "Kaiser's party" in a hurry. A shell dropped in the old pool, two just to the right of the entrance, and several others did spring ploughing in the abandoned garden hard by. But not a man was scratched, and not a missile reached its objective. The "doves of peace" from Germany presently stopped coming over, and we breathed more freely.
While we were giving our friend of the lonely shoe some unsolicited advice, a sergeant came in and told a thrilling tale of an alarm that had been distributed along the road by a wild-eyed "runner" holding his nose and yelling, "Gas!" at the top of his voice.
At six o'clock Heints came back. He was as fresh as a daisy and as happy as a lad just arrived "out to old Aunt Mary's." It was with a pang of regret that I surrendered the place to him. It was not easy to go away. Always I shall remember that dark place and treasure my recollections of it. May all the men I knew there come safely home!
It was a long jaunt back. In one village we passed through, the clock in the church tower had stopped at 4.30 P.M., when the first shell hit it; in another at 2.25 P.M. Both had been silenced in the early days of stern fighting before Toul. When will they start again? Ah, no! that is not the question. "How soon shall the power that turned back the clock of civilization be stopped?"—that is the question. That question America is answering with her treasure and with the best of her breed.
By a long line of trucks and wagons we ran,—two hundred of them,—ready to go on in under cover of darkness. In another place fifty-seven ambulances were ready for quick action, and by them a hundred fresh artillery horses were watering.
That night I slept again in the house by the cathedral. I dreamed of muddy men and bursting shells, of scampering rats and a phonograph, and I awoke—disappointed.