“Hell afire! I’ve had a dozen of ’em talk to me. Old General Edwards—he’s our boss, you know, and some boy at that, too—gave me an awful bawlin’-out one day on a hike when he caught me ridin’ on the rollin’ kitchen. Then another time he came into my dug-out one day and told me that the C. O. had said something good about a fool stunt I pulled one night when our lines went down and we kept up communication durin’ the bombardment and attack. Said he’d cite me, or somethin’ like that, but I never bothered to find out much about the business. Believe me, Edwards is the kind of man this army needs with a general’s stars on. He gets right in the old _guerre_. Some of ’em fight the war back in towns that the Boches have agreed not to shell. Say, by the way, ever see Pershing down in the S. O. S.?” asked Jimmy, as he got started under way again. “Yes, once, when some French general gave him a medal or something. It was quite a ceremony,” replied his new companion. “What did he look like? Kinda curious, as I ain’t seen him yet.” “Do you mean that you are right at the front and never see the general?” The question was crowded with incredulity. “Been on every front the Americans ever fought on, except the British lines, and never seen Pershing yet,” maintained McGee. “Whee-ew! I thought that he was at the front all of the time leading the troops,” said O. D. “No that Civil War stuff ain’t much in this _guerre_. Generals are like the flags and bands at the time we go over—they ain’t there, as a rule,” informed the man who knew about those things. “Three kilometers to Issoncourt, according to that mile-stone,” said O. D. after they had hiked about four more kilos. “Don’t believe those things. Next one will say seven kilometers to Issoncourt. That’s the way they build those things in this country. You ’ain’t arrived over here until you get there.” “Looks like a nice town over yonder.” O. D. illustrated his words by pointing to the cluster of red roofs that glared in the afternoon sunlight.