There is no room for sentiment in the army. Birthdays usually don't mean much. It just happened, however, that I had a day off of post on October 6th, and, that being my birthday, the occasion was made doubly pleasant. But the thing that made the day a perfect one for me was the fact that when I reached headquarters I found fourteen letters from home. I have already told how happy I felt when I received eight letters--well, fourteen made me feel just twice that happy. They were from relatives and friends and no gift could have made my birthday more pleasant. October 16th was another red letter day for me. On that date I had a detail to pack in supplies, and I had the great fortune to find a new pair of shoes, just my size. What a relief to get rid of those uncomfortable ill-fitting, detestable German boots. If there was one thing that made me hate Germans worse than anything else, it was those horrid German boots. The boys said they were a hoodoo and that if I continued to wear them Fritz would get me sure. However that may be, I did not cease to have close calls. The very next day I got a small sniff of chlorination gas. It happened while I was fixing communication lines. I did not get enough to hurt me, but it made me deathly sick. I was unable to do much for a couple of days, and was taken to headquarters, where I was assigned to the duty of fixing communication lines, which were constantly in danger of being broken. On October 24th two of us were sent to repair a break, which we located at 5 o'clock in the morning. Dawn was just breaking and the place where we found the break was in the woods. The Germans had during the night thrown a lot of chlorine gas shells into this woods, so we donned our masks. The break in the line was a difficult one to repair. We soon found that we could not do it with our gas masks on--one or the other must take his mask off. We could not return without making the repair. To a soldier there is no such word as fail. It is either do or die. The buddy who was with me was a married man with a baby at home. I, being unmarried, could certainly not ask him to take off his mask, while I kept mine on. So I stripped mine off, made the repair, and while doing so was gassed severely. With the aid of the buddy, I was able to reach our billet. There I was put on a stretcher and taken to a field dressing station. As the old saying goes, it never rains but it pours; gassing was not the only trouble I was destined to experience on that day. As I was being carried to headquarters a shell exploded nearby and I was struck in the leg by a piece of shrapnel. It was a small but painful wound just below the left knee. I tried to accept it with a smile, and I was really glad that I was struck instead of one of the other men, as I was already out of the fight, while if one of them had been wounded, it would have been two out of commission instead of one. CHAPTER VIII. Hospital Experiences.