“Well, I’ll tell you, buddy, this thing was given to me for bravery under fire and devotion to duty. That’s the way the paper read, anyhow. I was drivin’ up to Château-Thierry in this junk with some bread. Got pretty near Saacy when I run into _beaucoup_ shell-fire. The big boys was bustin’ ahead of me and behind me—all around me. Wasn’t anything else to do so I climbs down and gets under the engine, thinkin’ that the truck would give me a bit of protection from splinters. Had on my jumpers and in my jumpers was a little hammer. Lucky for me it was. A bunch of Frogs includin’ a colonel gets chased out of the woods by shells. Happens that they come straight toward me. I had sense enough to start tinkerin’ with the engine so as to leave a good impression. The colonel spots me. He could talk some English. Tells me all kinds of bull about bein’ brave under shell-fire. I didn’t spoil his speech by tellin’ him I was scared to death. He takes my name and outfit. Few weeks later I get a paper citin’ me and givin’ me right to wear a Craw de Guerre. Well, I stayed right under there tappin’ away until the shellin’ quit, which happened _toot sweet_. Can you beat it? The _guerre’s_ a farce so long as it don’t get you, eh, buddy?” to Jimmy. “I’ll say so. That’s what I tell my friend here. He ’ain’t never been up yet,” answered Jimmy. “Never seen the front, eh, Jack?” this to O. D. “No, not yet,” admitted O. D. “Well, you’ll be disappointed if you’re lookin’ for all that you heard tell about. Once you get used to starvin’, wearin’ one suit of underclothes about three months, and _cushayin’_ out in any old mud-hole there won’t be much excitement for you. All the other things depend on your own good luck. If the Kaiser ’ain’t got your number you’ll pull through without a scratch. I know. I was in the infantry not long ago.” Jimmy and the Yankee division truck-driver fought the battles of Château-Thierry all over again while O. D. listened and didn’t miss a word. The things that the veterans talked and laughed about caused his mind a thousand and one perplexities. He had always formed his ideas and pictures of the front according to the suggestion and impressions of men and women who painted the existence on the lines as a red hell-life of misery and sufferings. He could only conceive the front as a sinister, shadowy place, abounding in terrors and hardships, where men were fighting one another day and night, while the guns roared away incessantly. But beside him were two boys who spoke of the front as if it were a playground of strange adventure where by mere accident, rather than by deliberate execution, men were killed or wounded. He was certain, instinctively, that these boys knew what they were talking of. He knew that men cannot tell about living with death, while laughing and singing of life, unless they have actually done such a thing.