“Nothin’ much. Was mendin’ a broken wire early this mornin’ and a piece of shell got me there. Doc said they might have to cut it off at the elbow. But I don’t believe it’s that bad. Remember my tellin’ you that I’d go through this guerre and get walloped on the last day? Well, the damn thing is finee, anyhow. Take care, Jimmy,” he admonished, looking at his bandaged arm.
Jimmy McGee could only nod his answer. The idea that a man could go through the war as long as Mike had and then get hit during the last minute of play was beyond him. He began wondering if it was all a mistake about the guerre being finished. The banging of the guns certainly didn’t help him to renew his faith in all the statements that he had heard to the effect that fighting would end at eleven o’clock.
It was exactly ten-forty-five when he started out on the second lap of his trip.
“Fifteen minutes to make good in,” muttered Jimmy to himself.
Along the sides of the slimy trail strange things were happening. Men began to appear on the surface. Horses and mules browsed around, hunting for a green patch of grass.
“What time have you got, buddy?” asked Jimmy of a man who was stripped to the waist and washing in an honest attempt to remove some of the dirt that had accumulated on his body since the wash of two months ago.
The man stopped and picked up his wrist watch. “Five minutes before knocking-off time, Jack,” was the casual reply.
“Five minutes,” repeated Jimmy McGee, doubtfully. “Say, do you think it’ll finee at eleven?” he asked.
“Sure,” was the confident reply. “It started in ten minutes; why the hell can’t it end in a few minutes?”
“Guess it can, but it seems funny as hell to talk ’bout the guerre endin’. Why, there’s been times lately when I thought the damn thing would never finee,” stated Jimmy, very solemnly.