“It sure got my goat, that little promenade of ours last night over into No Man’s Land,” he said.  “We had orders to slip out and halt a German patrol that was supposed to be stealing over to our line.  We crawled on our bellies, looking and listening every minute.  If that isn’t the limit!  My heart was in my mouth.  I couldn’t breathe.  And for the first moments, if I’d run into a Hun, I’d had no more strength than a rabbit.  But all seemed clear.  It was not a bright night—­sort of opaque and gloomy—­shadows everywhere.  There wasn’t any patrol coming.  But Corporal Owens thought he heard men farther on working with wire.  We crawled some more.  And we must have got pretty close to the enemy lines—­in fact, we had—­when up shot one of those damned calcium flares.  We all burrowed into the ground.  I was paralyzed.  It got as light as noon—­strange greenish-white flare.  It magnified.  Flat as I lay, I saw the German embankments not fifty yards away.  I made sure we were goners.  Slowly the light burned out.  Then that machine-gun you all heard began to rattle.  Something queer about the way every shot of a machine-gun bites the air.  We heard the bullets, low down, right over us.  Say, boys, I’d almost rather be hit and have it done with!...  We began to crawl back.  I wanted to run.  We all wanted to.  But Owens is a nervy guy and he kept whispering.  Another machine-gun cut loose, and bullets rained over us.  Like hail they hit somewhere ahead, scattering the gravel.  We’d almost reached our line when Smith jumped up and ran.  He said afterward that he just couldn’t help himself.  The suspense was awful.  I know.  I’ve been a clerk in a bank!  Get that?  And there I was under a hail of Hun lead, without being able to understand why, or feel that any time had passed since giving up my job to go to war.  Queer how I saw my old desk!...  Well, that’s how Smith got his.  I heard the bullets spat him, sort of thick and soft....  Ugh!...  Owens and I dragged him along, and finally into the trench.  He had a bullet through his shoulder and leg.  Guess he’ll live, all right....  Boys, take this from me.  Nobody can tell you what a machine-gun is like.  A rifle, now, is not so much.  You get shot at, and you know the man must reload and aim.  That takes time.  But a machine-gun!  Whew!  It’s a comb—­a fine-toothed comb—­and you’re the louse it’s after!  You hear that steady rattle, and then you hear bullets everywhere.  Think of a man against a machine-gun!  It’s not a square deal.”

Dixon was one of the listeners.  He laughed.

“Rogers, I’d like to have been with you.  Next time I’ll volunteer.  You had action—­a run for your money.  That’s what I enlisted for.  Standing still—­doing nothing but wait—­that drives me half mad.  My years of football have made action necessary.  Otherwise I go stale in mind and body....  Last night, before you went on that scouting trip, I had been on duty two hours.  Near midnight.  The