This was unpleasant news to McGee. It meant that he would be left behind, and he could not drag from the hospital medicoes any guess as to when he would be permitted to leave the hospital. Hospital life, with its endless waiting, sapped his enthusiasm. At night, in the wards, the men recovering from all manner of wounds would try to speed the lagging hours by telling stories, singing songs, and inventing the wildest of rumors. Occasionally, when the lights were out, some wag would begin an imitation of a machine gun, with its rat-tat-tat-tat, and another, catching the spirit of the mimic warfare, would make the whistling sound of a high angle shell. In a few moments the ward would be a clamorous inferno of mimic battle sounds--machine guns popping, shells screaming toward explosion, cries of gas, and the simulated agonized wails of the wounded and dying. "Hit the dirt! Here comes a G.I. can." "Look out for that flying pig!" "Over the top, my buckoes, and give 'em the bayonet." Thus did men, wrecks in the path of war, keep alive their spirit and courage by jesting over the grimest tragedy that had ever entered their lives. And then they would take up rollicking marching songs, or sing dolefully, "I wanta go home, I wanta go home." Invariably, when some chap began a narrative of the prowess of his own company or regiment, the others would begin singing, tauntingly: "The old grey mare she ain't what she used to be, She ain't what she used to be, Ain't what she used to be. The old grey mare she ain't what she used to be Many years ago...." It wasn't really fun, it was only the pitifully weak effort to meet suffering, loneliness, homesickness and fear with bravado. There is no one in all the world more lonely than a soldier in a hospital. Time becomes what it really is, endless, and without hope of a change on the morrow. And the pay for it all was a gold wound chevron to wear on the sleeve, or a dangling, glittering medal testifying to courage and sacrifice! CHAPTER XI The Ace and the Spy 1 So slow was McGee's recovery that it was the middle of September before he received his final discharge from the hospital and was given orders to rejoin his old squadron, now operating in the St. Mihiel salient. Three days prior to his release the American Army, operating on a purely American front, had attacked the Germans in the St. Mihiel salient with such determined vigor, and the entire preparation conducted with such successful secrecy, as to take the Germans by complete surprise, overrun all opposition and recover for France many miles of territory long held by the invaders. Thousands of prisoners, and arms of all calibre, were captured in the swift stroke, and all France was ringing with praise of the endeavor.