The Highlanders cheered as the wounded Americans passed by them. One lieutenant called out to me, "How far have you gone?" I answered, "About six kilometers." "Good," he said. "We'll go another six."
After the battle the division was withdrawn to near Paris. Many of the officers came to see me, where I was laid up with a bullet through the leg. Major A. W. Kenner, the regimental surgeon, who had again distinguished himself by his gallantry, and Captain Legge were both in, looking little the worse for the wear.
CHAPTER IX
ST. MIHIEL AND THE ARGONNE
"'Millions of ages have come and gone,'
The sergeant said as we held his hand;
'They have passed like the mist of the early dawn
Since I left my home in that far-off land.'"
Ironquill.
DURING the next couple of months, while I was laid up with my wound, the regiment first went to a rest sector near Pont-à-Mousson. There replacements reached them, wounded men returned, and they gradually worked up to their full strength again.
They enjoyed themselves fully. It was one of those sectors so common on the east of the Western Front where by tacit agreement little action took place. The nature of the country and its distance from the great centers of France made many parts of the front impracticable for an offensive either by the Hun or ourselves. In these sectors a division such as ours, worn by hard fighting, or a division of green or old men, held the line, a handful of men on each side occupying long stretches. A few shells would come whistling over during the day and that was all.
Everybody used to look back on their pleasant times in this sector. They got fresh fish by the thoroughly illegal method of throwing hand grenades in some near-by ponds, while fresh berries were plentiful even in the front line. It was midsummer and the weather was pleasantly warm. Altogether, if you had to be at war, it was about as comfortable as possible.