"Well, these fellows, when they saw the bayonet wobbling, guessed that someone was alive under the ground, and they began to dig like hell," said Fitzgerald.
"Eventually they reached me, still alive, with a wound on the back of my head, and they pulled me out. The air had got in somehow, I suppose.... Well, I came to my senses in hospital in Versailles, and I got up, so I was told, and rushed along the ward like hell, with a nurse or two clinging to my shirt tail. 'Where are you running?' they asked me. 'I'm going on a message to Captain Thorley,' I told them. 'There's a mine going up at dawn.' 'Oh, that's all right,' said the nurses. 'Captain Thorley has got the message and everything's all right.' And they wheedled me and coaxed me until I went back to bed.
"So I was told; but I didn't remember anything about it. Even now my mind gets mazed at times when I'm excited, and queer ideas come into my head."
"You haven't eaten one bite yet," said Bowdy Benners. "That bit of bread hasn't gone into your mouth, and we've been sitting here for the last ten minutes."
"Well, I'm not hungry," said Fitzgerald. "I'm feeding on the pleasure of seeing you two here. Fifi, the wine!" he called to his wife.
The woman brought a large bottle, placed it on the table, and patted her husband on the head with an affectionate hand.
"She's a divine creature," said Fitzgerald, when Fifi went. "How did it happen that the gods were so good to me? I don't know.... But to get on with my story," he continued. "After a while I found myself in England. I don't even remember crossing the Channel. I was in a muddle all the while. Sometimes I would think I was in the trenches and I would wake up from my sleep, jump out on the floor and stand against the wall, thinking that I was on the firestep on guard. I must have been a troublesome patient.... And then one night when I was in a big bed in a big house in England I thought that somebody put a cold hand over my forehead. I shouted out 'Who's there?' I opened my eyes, looked up and saw a man with a black beard standing at my bed.
"'Your Sergeant-major,' said the man. 'I want you to present arms,' he said. 'At the word "one" you give the rifle a sharp cant up to the right side, gripping it at the small of the butt with the right hand and at the outer band with the left....' I stared at the fellow and this seemed to annoy him. 'Dumb contempt!' he yelled. 'You'll be for it!' and he raised his fist and made one smash at my face. I dodged the blow and then a man in a warder's uniform rushed in and pulled the sergeant-major away.
"Good God, Bowdy, where was I? Guess. I was in a lunatic asylum.... 'Twas enough to turn my brain. And it's a difficult job to prove that you're sane when you're in a madhouse. They won't believe you, for some damned reason or another. I used to go up to the warder and say: 'Look here, matey, I'm as right as rain,' and he would nod his head and say: 'Oh, yes, of course you are.' But 'twas easy enough to see that he didn't believe you. God! I often felt like strangling the man.... It wouldn't do me any good, I knew, to kick up a ruction; so I kept very quiet and well-behaved.