"That's because we're not used to such sights and sounds," Merritt explained. "I expect to wake up many a night with a groan and a shiver, dreaming I'm on a battlefield again, after those awful Maxims have been doing their murderous work."
"Well, we might take one last turn around," suggested Rob, "and if we fail to find any more wounded men, we'll call it a day's work, and quit."
"For one thing, I'm glad I don't mean to follow this up as a profession," his comrade continued. "I think I've had enough experience of fighting to last me a lifetime, and yet, on second thought, if it should happen again that they needed what little help I could give, why I'd have to pitch in."
CHAPTER XIX.
AN IMPORTANT CLUE.
"There was one thing I meant to mention to you, Merritt," said Rob, as they once more started to zigzag across the field where so many windrows of fallen Germans lay, just as they had dropped when making that daring charge.
It was perhaps a little strange how the boys could come to converse as they did while surrounded by such gruesome sights; but after several hours' familiarity with such scenes these begin to lose some of their harrowing features. And while Rob and his chum were still shocked by frequent sights, they did not feel the same weakness that had, in the beginning, almost overpowered them.