They shoves a rifle in me ’and,
And show me ’ow to kill.
Me job’s to risk me life and limb,
But… be it wrong or right,
This cross I’m makin’, it’s for ’im,
The cove I croaked last night.
IV
A LAPSE OF TIME AND A WORD OF EXPLANATION
The American Hospital, Neuilly,
January 1919.
Four years have passed and it is winter again. Much has happened. When I last wrote, on the Somme in 1915, I was sickening with typhoid fever. All that spring I was in hospital.
Nevertheless, I was sufficiently recovered to take part in the Champagne battle in the fall of that year, and to “carry on” during the following winter. It was at Verdun I got my first wound.
In the spring of 1917 I again served with my Corps; but on the entry of the United States into the War I joined the army of my country. In the Argonne I had my left arm shot away.
As far as time and health permitted, I kept a record of these years, and also wrote much verse. All this, however, has disappeared under circumstances into which there is no need to enter here. The loss was a cruel one, almost more so than that of my arm; for I have neither the heart nor the power to rewrite this material.
