Bruger and Hammond, the two second Lieutenants, were already out of their bath, and reclined on what might almost be termed a grassy slope, examining various portions of their body with interest.  They hadn’t had all their clothes off for some time, and four days of marching in hot weather made a man anxious to look at himself.

“You wait till winter,” Gerhardt told them.  He was still splashing in the hole, up to his armpits in muddy water.  “You won’t get a wash once in three months then.  Some of the Tommies told me that when they got their first bath after Vimy, their skins peeled off like a snake’s.  What are you doing with my trousers, Bruger?”

“Hunting for your knife.  I dropped mine yesterday, when that shell exploded in the cut-off.  I darned near dropped my old nut!”

“Shucks, that wasn’t anything.  Don’t keep blowing about it—­shows you’re a greenhorn.”

Claude stripped off his shirt and slid into the pool beside Gerhardt.  “Gee, I hit something sharp down there!  Why didn’t you fellows pull out the splinters?”

He shut his eyes, disappeared for a moment, and came up sputtering, throwing on the ground a round metal object, coated with rust and full of slime.  “German helmet, isn’t it?  Phew!” He wiped his face and looked about suspiciously.

“Phew is right!” Bruger turned the object over with a stick.  “Why in hell didn’t you bring up the rest of him?  You’ve spoiled my bath.  I hope you enjoy it.”

Gerhardt scrambled up the side.  “Get out, Wheeler!  Look at that,” he pointed to big sleepy bubbles, bursting up through the thick water.  “You’ve stirred up trouble, all right!  Something’s going very bad down there.”

Claude got out after him, looking back at the activity in the water.  “I don’t see how pulling out one helmet could stir the bottom up so.  I should think the water would keep the smell down.”

“Ever study chemistry?” Bruger asked scornfully.  “You just opened up a graveyard, and now we get the exhaust.  If you swallowed any of that German cologne—­Oh, you should worry!”

Lieutenant Hammond, still barelegged, with his shirt tied over his shoulders, was scratching in his notebook.  Before they left he put up a placard on a split stick.

No Public Bathing!!  Private Beach

C. Wheeler, Co.  B. 2-th Inf’ty.

. . . . . . . . . .

The first letters from home!  The supply wagons brought them up, and every man in the Company got something except Ed Drier, a farm-hand from the Nebraska sand hills, and Willy Katz, the tow-headed Austrian boy from the South Omaha packing-houses.  Their comrades were sorry for them.  Ed didn’t have any “folks” of his own, but he had expected letters all the same.  Willy was sure his mother must have written.  When the last ragged envelope was given out and he turned away empty-handed, he murmured, “She’s Bohunk, and she don’t write so good.  I guess the address wasn’t plain, and some fellow in another comp’ny has got my letter.”