I traveled back on a transport. I was all right. My hand was healing fine. I wanted to stand watch on the way across, but they wouldn't let me. Treated me like a blooming invalid and gave me a month's liberty to get well. Well! I was well ten minutes after it happened.
No, I didn't tell my wife how I lost it. I said I'd been mixed up in an accident in the engine room. That was pretty near the truth. You can slip so easily with the ship pitching and rearing that it isn't hard to lose an arm that way. Oh, if I was to tell her that a sub carried part of my hand away, she'd worry to death about having me go to sea again. I'll break it to her after the war. Just now there's one thing on my mind—just one—to get back somehow in the Black Gang. I can handle a shovel—my arm's a bit stiff yet, but I'm all muscle. Believe me, they aren't going to shelve me just because one finger's gone! Not by a long sight!
I'm not going to miss one minute of this scrap if I can help it. My kid's going to be proud of my record before I get through—wait and see if he isn't!
WARRANT CARPENTER HOYT
SPEAKS:
THE FLOWER OF FRANCE
Ever see those red poppies that grow by the roadside in France? They always make me think of Angele. They are so graceful and vivid and gay. It almost seems as though they enjoyed watching the soldiers march past, they spring up so close to the road. All the war that has swept through the land has failed to kill the crop. You will find innumerable scarlet patches of them nodding their brave little heads to the boys as they tramp by—cheering them on—for all the world like France's daughters—bless them!