Bill gasped a second time. “Why, you’ve been here twelve months. You must have come over on the first troop-ship. Where and how were you wounded?” The questions were coming too fast for Jimmy McGee. He reached for his gas-mask and tin hat. “Hold it a minute till I get my wind—all right. I’ve been here twelve months—I’m sure o’ that. No, I didn’t come over on the first troop-ship. I sailed over on the first mule-ship—one of those twenty-three-day-at-sea-affairs. In those days we didn’t have separate stalls for the mules and men. Everybody and everythin’ _cushayed_ together down in the hold—except the officers, of course.” “I came over in eight days, and on a big liner— A mule-ship—uuggh!” shuddered William G. Preston, soon to be regenerated under the name of O. D. “But where did you get wounded, and how?” “I got it in the calf of the leg—fragment from high explosive that the Heinies were rainin’ down the night we staged a battle at Seicheprey—first fight of the _guerre_ for the Americans, you know,” asserted McGee, solemnly. “I only got a little tear in the muscle. Poor old Gordon, my pal, he got his left shoulder and part of his head torn off. He died quick, though; didn’t suffer much. They gave his folks the D. S. C., as he did some big hero stuff. But that ain’t gettin’ Frank much,” soliloquized the veteran of Seicheprey, reminiscently. Jimmy saw that Preston was getting too interested and might ask for a story about the war, so he directed traffic in another direction. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you why I want to call you O. D. Now, you see, we call anything that is regulation, red tape, and all that kind of stuff, O. D.—just a sort of nickname. When I first saw you I thought you was a soldier out of the drill-regulation book or a model for some magazine artist. You see, you’re all made up accordin’ to the blue-print. Carry your blankets just so; wear your cap at a right slant; got your blouse buttoned up. Hell fire! you’re O. D.-lookin’, that’s all. You’re the first of that kind I’ve seen in a mighty long time, so I’m going to call you O. D.... From now on you’re O. D.... _Compree?_” “Have it your way. What’s your name?” asked O. D. “McGee. Jimmy, most of the gang calls me. Do the same.” “All right, Jimmy.” “You say you’re a replacement?” “Yes. I arrived in Bar-le-Duc yesterday with a detail and got separated from it. The A. P. M. told me to take this road and keep on going until I located my regiment,” explained O. D. “Got lost, myself, last night,” admitted Jimmy. “What outfit are you goin’ to?” “The One Hundred and Third Field Artillery. What division is that?” O. D.’s question was drowned under Jimmy’s whoop. “Well, I’m a son-of-a-gun! That’s my own outfit—Twenty-sixth, Yankee Division, of course,” shouted McGee as he slapped O. D. across his shoulders. “What the hell do you know about that! I’ll get you assigned to my battery. Shake, old man, we’ll fight the rest of this _guerre_ together.”