Once, some days later, while helping to unload a hospital train, Ben was carrying the forward end of a stretcher and in stepping down from the train onto the platform he gave the burden a twist in an effort to avoid slipping. He turned around and smiled at the poor chap whose never-to-be-worn shoes hung over the bar of the stretcher, but the smile didn’t get a smile in return. Instead, the man launched into a stream of vile invectives that made my listening ears burn with shame. “Don’t be grinnin’ at me, ya big slop-eared bastard!” he cried out. “I don’t want any o’ your God damn smiles!... An’ handle that careful, ya leather headed cow! Whatta ya tryin’ to do, ya thickhead!... Tryin’ ta dump me outa here?... Just try an’ shake me up! Any lip from anyone o’ ya an’ I’ll get up an’ knock the brains outa yer head!” Ben tried at first to smile away the legless man’s curses, but I could see that he was having a hard job of it. I don’t think Ben ever took that kind of talk from any man in his life, so I expected him to drop his end at any minute or at least turn around and blast hell out of the fellow in terms as good as he gave. But Ben plodded on, while the man continued his profane yelling. “What the hell ya doin’ in France anyway? You dirty slackers with yer yella bellies.... Why don’t ya go up an’ fight instead o’ layin around here, three hundred miles from the front!... Why? Cause yer a bunch o’ God damn cowards!... Don’t laugh at me, ya big pill-roller!... Put me down!... Put me down, ya God damn slacker....” But Ben went on while I followed in more or less fear lest the shell-shock case suddenly heave himself out of the stretcher. We reached the ambulance in safety, however, and after the canvassed poles and their burden had been deposited in the racks, Ben bawls out, “There ya’re, big boy! Sorry I can’t stay an’ talk to ya.” I closed the doors and the car bounced away over the cobblestones. “Gee, couldn’t that guy cuss!” exclaimed my comrade as we walked back for the next cripple. “I never was talked to like that since I was a kid an’ dropped a hammer on the old man’s head.... If that guy’d had two feet, I’d a socked him galleywest right there!” Some of the men standing around were smiling, as if the incident had been a good joke on the big fellow. What utter damn fools some people are! I gripped Ben’s arm and told him “I’m glad you controlled yourself, Ben.... It would have made a fine fool out of you if you had told him where to get off.” He just laughed. “What the hell could a guy do with a bird like that?... The poor bastard’s had enough trouble to make any man cuss.” “Yes—he’s entitled to be called a hero, I suppose.” “Well, he sure sounded like the genuine article alright,” he agreed.