“What brought you back,” I asked. “You are not fit for this kind of work yet.” “Well, they did offer me other jobs, but I wanted to be with my own outfit, and I wanted to get a Dutchman after what they did to me, and I was sick of hearing the Marines talk about how good they are. I want to get into a first class battle with this Division like you’ve been through while I was coming up, and when I meet those birds from the Marines, I’ll have something to say to them.” “You’re a blood-thirsty youth. But far be it from me to stop you. It’s your trade. But you can’t carry a pack, so I’ll fix it up to make it easy for you.” “Joe,” I called to Sergeant Flannery, “I want you to get Captain Mangan and Lieutenant Kinney to adopt this savage child in the Supply Company for a week or two. See that he gets up where he can smell powder, but without too much hiking, and then give him his belt and rifle and let him go to it.” “I had better get a lariat and a picket pin and tie him up,” growled Joe. He was right. By morning the lad was gone off with Company K. He was afraid I would spoil his chance for a battle. The survivors of our 2nd Battalion are camped in a wooded island in the stream and I spent the afternoon with them. The weather was delightful and they were enjoying a lounging, lazy, gossipy day, which is the one compensation for being in the Infantry—the artillery have fewer killed, but their work never lets up. I went amongst them to pick up incidents for my narrative. One of the first things I found was that the recent battle had given them increased confidence and respect for their officers. A Company F man said to me: “I’ll take back anything I ever said about Captain Mike. At Baccarat he had me fined two-thirds of three months pay for taking a drink too much and I said that if I had the job of rigging him up for a night patrol, I’d like to tie bells around him and put a lantern on his head.”