"You will find that the manuscript begins abruptly at the moment when first I 'contacted' O'Shea. It ends with equal abruptness. There are fragments missing; these may be filled in or rounded out as you consider necessary for the purpose of story-telling. I have made a few slight changes in spelling. Whether O'Shea was--or should I say 'will be?'--a poor scholar, I do not know. The spelling of some words may have changed over a period of trouble-swept decades.... "But whatever surprises lie in store for you, whatever conclusions you draw from the manuscript you are about to read, I beg of you that you play the game of caution. If you end by doubting O'Shea's story, _still_ you must convey to him the message the manuscript demands. It is the only way. We must take no chances. I will leave my address--" Here he scribbled a few words on his card; I noted subconsciously that his own handwriting was tiny, crabbed, angular. "When you have finished reading, get in touch with me. No, don't get up!" For a long moment I stared after him. Is there any way I can tell you how I felt? I, who have written fantasies woven of thin air, now thus to be suddenly thrust into a fantasy beyond my own wildest imaginings? Even more important, is there a way I can make you believe that this is not merely another amusing tale, to be read today and forgotten soon? The structure of this narrative is mine. I supplied the story form. But is there any way I can convince you that the words which follow are not my own? _I did not write this story!_ It is the story of a man who is not yet born, who will not live these happenings for twenty years. Here is the story of Brian O'Shea, soldier.... II --Stumbled and pitched to his knees. I ran to his side and would have carried him, but he shook me off. "It's too late, O'Shea," he said. "My number's up. Take over. And--" He hiccoughed convulsively and his lips drooled red. "And for Lord's sake, Brian, get the men out of this trap!" His eyes glazed, then, and his head dropped forward to his chest. Someone tugged at my shoulder. It was Ronnie St. Cloud; he was screaming, above the splatter of shrapnel, "The hills, O'Shea! They've cut us off from the river. The hills are our only way out!" Danny Wilson was beside him, and Knudsen, and a few more. About us milled a shrieking, terrified throng; it was impossible to tell soldier from civilian. Our uniforms were anything but uniform. We wore whatever serviceable garments we could salvage. I still had--though I suppose it was unrecognizable beneath a layer of caked sweat and mud--an old khaki campaign shirt, but my breeches were a corduroy pair I had found in a demolished farm house near Sistersville. St. Cloud wore the horizon-blue jacket of a _poilu_ beside whom he had fought in Belgium. Knudsen looked least military of all in whipcord riding breeches commandeered from the tack rooms of the Greenbriar Inn at White Sulphur.