I can't remember even feeling relieved when they told me that the bullet had not gone through my heart. The pain I felt there when I was first hit was caused by the tearing of the nerves which centered in my heart when the bullet tore across my back from shoulder to shoulder. Never as long as I live shall I forget the solicitude of my comrades that morning. The stretcher bearers found that the roughly constructed trench was too narrow to allow the stretcher to turn, so they put me in a blanket and started away. Meanwhile the word had run along the trench that "Gal had copped it." I did not know until that morning that I had so many friends. A little way down the trench I met Sergeant Manson. He was carrying some sticks of chocolate for distribution among the men. I asked him for a piece. To do so on the Peninsula was like asking for gold, but he put it in my mouth with a smile. Hoddinott and Pike, the stretcher bearers, stopped just where the communication trench began. The doctor had come up. He asked me where I was hit, and I told him. He examined the bandages, and told the stretcher bearers to take me along to the dressing station. Captain Alexander, my company commander, came along, smiled at me, and wished me good-by. Hoddinott asked me if I wanted a cigarette, and when I said, "Yes," placed one in my month and lit it for me. I had never realized until then just how difficult it is to smoke a cigarette without removing it from your mouth. Poor Stenlake, who by this time was worn to a shadow, was in the support trench, waiting with some other sick men, to go to hospital. He came along and said good-by. A Red Cross man gave me a postcard to be sent to some organization that would supply me with comforts while I was in hospital. "You'll eat your Christmas dinner in London, old chap," he said. [Illustration: A British battery at work on the Peninsula] We had to go two miles before the stretcher bearers could exchange the blanket for the regular stretcher. The trenches were narrow, and on one side a little ditch had been dug to drain them. The recent wet weather had made the bottom of the trench very slippery, and every few minutes one of the bearers would slide sideways and bring up in the ditch. When he did the blanket swayed with him, and my shoulders struck against the jagged limestone on the sides. To avoid this as much as possible the bearers had to proceed very slowly. Those two miles to me seemed endless. I had now become completely paralyzed, all control of my muscles was gone, and I slipped about in the blanket. Every few yards I would ask Hoddinott, "Is it very much farther?" and every time he would turn around and grin cheerfully, and answer, as one would answer a little child, "Not very much farther now, Gal."