“Hold me, Pugh, I’m faintin’ with joy. Coffee, hot! And milk and sugar in it.” They sat around and munched their food and drank their coffee. Under the feeling of warmth in their stomachs many of the men relaxed and their thoughts became once again normal. * * * * * The platoon had grown used to the late afternoon bombardment that beat and slashed at them every day. The shells driving at them with a white fury were accepted as a part of the whole stunning, disagreeable duty of the front line. As their durance in the ravine lengthened they were able even to comment upon the fierceness or the comparative mildness of the attack. In his burrow Sergeant Ryan, his blouse and undershirt lying by his side, was exploring with his right hand a place beneath his left shoulder-blade that had begun to pain. His fingers felt a swollen, hurting lump. As he pressed on it, a pain like being prodded in a nerve with a needle shot through him. Lieutenant Bedford, from a burrow near by, leaned out. “What’s the matter, Ryan? Looking for cooties?” “No, there’s something the matter with my shoulder. It’s swelled.” “Let’s see.... Hell, man, you’d better go back to the dressing station. You’ve been hit.” “Take your knife and see if you can get it out.” “What do you think I am, a surgeon? You report to the first-aid station and let them send you to the hospital. I don’t want any men to come down with gangrene.” Ryan, reluctant, departed alone, his small reddish mustache still smartly waxed, his puttees neatly rolled, his helmet set jauntily on his head. * * * * * In the early morning light the outlines of the objects in front of the ravine were crisply apparent. The strands of barbed wire were blackly filigreed against the opaque light of the horizon. An aluminum moon hung waveringly in the sky. The stalks of wheat stood stiffly erect, their yellowness merging in the distance with the shadowy green of the trees. On the breath of the morning wind was carried the sweet, sickening smell of decayed cadavers. To the left and to the right unbroken lines of infinite length lay huddled in holes, the guardians of their snoring hours seeing without variation the same sight. For the sector which the platoon was holding the night had not been quiet. Eyes, though worn with constant straining to pierce the shadows, had seen the wheat tops moving; and ears, the drums battered by the explosion of striking shells, had still heard the rustling among the stalks. So rifles, venomous and catlike, had spit shots of fire into the dark. As the sun rose, the heat growing more intense, the nauseating smell from the corpses in the field seemed to coat all objects in one’s line of vision with a sticky green. Even the tops of wheat, standing stiffly in the field, looked as if they were covered with a fetid substance.