Jennings was heard then to roll over on his improvised couch of moss-lined rock and remark, decidedly sotto voce:
“Don’t know’s I’m so durned glad they didn’t ketch on to us. They’d ’a’ been two more dead Huns right sudden. I could ’a’ got ’em both by myself before they could ’a’ hollered ’donner vetter!’ and I would ’a’ done it, too, soon’s I seen their eyes a stickin’ out when they ketched sight of us.”
“Sho! You’d been so scared you’d forgot you had a gun,” Gill bantered his fellow scout and buddy.
“Well, then, I’d ’a’ reached over an’ grabbed ’em an’ fetched ’em in here an’ held ’em so’s you could ’a’ bit their ears.”
“Quietly there, men, for the love of Uncle Sam! Levity is usually admirable, but this is an exception,” Herbert cautioned, hearing the subdued laughter that went around.
“It might be a case of being tickled ’most to death,” Don remarked.
“We might vary the monotony of this existence by having a bite to eat all round,” Herbert ordered. “Rations, boys, but limited to half that you want. Hard, I know, but perhaps necessary. After ’while we may need full stomachs to fight on. Literally that, down back of these rocks.”
“If them Jerries is ever goin’ to get me, I’d heap ruther they’d have me satisfied than hungry,” Jennings remarked.
“I reckon I could eat about a whole Heinie right now! I always was partial to pork,” Gill declared.
Again the time dragged on; to relieve it in part the men went through silent pantomime. Two fellows, on their hands and knees, butting at each other like rams gave Gill the idea of imitating a dog digging out a field mouse, and four chaps, who were wont to sing together when silence was not so golden, sat in a row and went through the motions of various musical selections, as dirges, ballads and ragtime, granting several encores in answer to a perfectly silent handclapping.