“No—” he admitted. “You didn’t dream that. You did see me. I just wondered, though, when Vyvy insisted that you were in Wakeham that noon.”
I laughed at him. “Don’t let that worry you,” I told him. “And you can report to my aunt that I’m doing very nicely—miles and miles from any danger!”
We both laughed at that simple crack and he said something about “fighting the battle of Cognac Hill and the Siege of the S.O.S.”
But the General appeared at that moment and I was only too glad to use the excuse to break away. Not, however, before he had informed me that he was going from Tours to Le Mans. Wasn’t that sweet fortune for you!
He would probably go to Le Mans, bump into Leon, and the beans would be spilled for fair. If there were a million men in Le Mans that he could see without hurting me at all, the chances would still be a million to one he’d meet Leon. That’s the kind of a gink he was—could be depended upon to do whatever you least wanted him to do.
I didn’t like him in the least any more. An able bodied man like him masquerading and dodging danger by supervising the people who entertain in the camps and rest areas. He was less of a hero than Leon: the latter, at least had finally come through with a vengeance—though without regard for my safety. Well, I could only pray that they did not meet. I hadn’t the least idea how to reach Leon. I cussed him for not writing to me. You see, blaming and cussing him was a habit of long standing.
CHAPTER 11
Fair Enough in Love and War
—1—
American casualties were beginning to come down from the sector around Château Thierry. There had been a bloody battle in progress up there. Reports had it that the Americans were advancing on Soissons, pushing the enemy back from Paris. At last it began to sound as if we were actually doing something.
It’s funny how jokes came with wounded men: you’d think of anything but a joke when you saw one of them, but it’s true that the more the casualties the more jokes about them. Once, I recall, I heard two fellows talking in a hospital and one of them was telling about a louie asking him questions, and it really was funny.