“You stay behind and get that finger tied up,” said the first speaker; but the other told him to go and get his own fingers tied up.
Then one of them looked about and spied Jimmie. “Why, here's a Yank!” he cried. “What you doin' here?”
Jimmie answered: “I'm a motor-cycle man, and they sent me with maps for a battery, but I think it's been captured long ago.”
“You're wounded,” said the other.
“It ain't much,” said Jimmie, apologetically. “It was a long time ago, anyhow.”
“Well, you go back,” said the doughboy. “We're here now—it'll be all right.” He said it, not boastingly, but as a simple matter of fact. He was a mere boy, a rosy-cheeked kid with a little ugly pug-nose covered with freckles, and a wide, grinning mouth. But to Jimmie he seemed just the loveliest boy that had ever come out of the U.S.A. “Can you walk?” he asked.
“Sure!” said Jimmie.
“And these Frenchies?” The doughboy looked at the others. “You savvy their lingo?” When Jimmie shook his head, he turned to the battle-worn hairy ones. “You fellows go back,” he said. “We don't need you now.” When they stared uncomprehending, he asked: “Polly voo Francy?”
“We, we!” cried they in one voice.
“Well, then,” said the doughboy, “go back! Go home! Toot sweet! Have sleep! Rest! We lick 'em Heinies!” As the poilus did not show much grasp of this kind of “Francy”, the doughboy boosted them to their feet, pointed to the rear, patted them on the back, and grinned with his wide mouth. “Good boy! Go home! American! American!”—as if that was enough to make clear that the work of France in this war was done! The poilus looked over the top of the shell-hole, and saw a swarm of those new fashion-plate soldiers, darting forward through the woods, throwing themselves down and shooting at the sockray Bosh. They looked at the rosy-cheeked boy with the grateful faces of dogs, and shouldered their packs and rifles and set out for the rear, helping Jimmie, who suddenly found himself very weak, and with a splitting headache.