“Slap some of this confiture on it,” pointing to a tin of jam. “You won’t mind if I call you O. D., will you?”
“No; but what makes you want to call me that? My right name’s William G. Preston.”
“Damn glad to know you, Bill,” said Jimmy, shooting out his right hand; “but about this O. D. stuff?”
“What’s that gold stripe on your sleeve for?” gasped Bill. “Have you been over here six months?” was the amazing question.
“Oui, but that’s a wound stripe on the right sleeve—this is the sleeve for service chevrons,” and McGee exhibited two greasy and rumpled service chevrons.
Bill gasped a second time. “Why, you’ve been here twelve months. You must have come over on the first troop-ship. Where and how were you wounded?”
The questions were coming too fast for Jimmy McGee. He reached for his gas-mask and tin hat.
“Hold it a minute till I get my wind—all right. I’ve been here twelve months—I’m sure o’ that. No, I didn’t come over on the first troop-ship. I sailed over on the first mule-ship—one of those twenty-three-day-at-sea-affairs. In those days we didn’t have separate stalls for the mules and men. Everybody and everythin’ cushayed together down in the hold—except the officers, of course.”
“I came over in eight days, and on a big liner— A mule-ship—uuggh!” shuddered William G. Preston, soon to be regenerated under the name of O. D. “But where did you get wounded, and how?”
“I got it in the calf of the leg—fragment from high explosive that the Heinies were rainin’ down the night we staged a battle at Seicheprey—first fight of the guerre for the Americans, you know,” asserted McGee, solemnly. “I only got a little tear in the muscle. Poor old Gordon, my pal, he got his left shoulder and part of his head torn off. He died quick, though; didn’t suffer much. They gave his folks the D. S. C., as he did some big hero stuff. But that ain’t gettin’ Frank much,” soliloquized the veteran of Seicheprey, reminiscently.