“Leadership hell!” growls Ben. “That guy couldn’t lead me nowhere. I wouldn’t even let him lead me to a drink of good rye whisky right this minute. If we was in the front lines and he told me to go forward I’d turn around and knock his teeth down his throat so he couldn’t give orders.” The thought of such a golden pleasure, however remote as a possibility, was a never failing source of enjoyment for Ben. His idea of heaven would be to have Chilblaines and himself locked in a room together.... Well, my opinion of Chilblaines is unprintable, too. That drilling in the rain was a tea party, compared to what happened the following morning. At four A.M. we were called up by the top-kick, who was very apparently pretty mad about something. He ordered us all out in our slickers—which could mean just one thing: a bath. As soon as Ben heard what was coming, he divined at once the fine Italian hand of Chilblaines. “That b——! There ain’t a drop of white man’s blood in that whorehound’s veins!” He cursed him, between shivers, for all he had around his huge frame was the far too small slicker which the Q.M.C. clerk said was the largest size they had. “Jesus Maria! Gettin’ a guy up at this hour, before daybreak, to take a bath!” “Pipe down there!” ordered the top-kicker from the front of the shed. “There’s only one bath and this is the only hour we could get. Come along!” But Ben was not to be so quickly calmed. “God Almighty!” he exclaimed. “You’d think we was criminals in a prison, instead of volunteers in an army!” Meantime I was thinking in double time, for this call to the showers presented an unexpected problem that had to be solved at once. The top-kick was exhorting them to snap into it and I had to suppose that he would wait at the door to see that everyone went. I waited until Ben started for the door, then when he was directly between me and the sergeant, I ducked under my bunk and pulled Esky down beside me so that, with the blankets hanging down and Esky covering the front, I hoped to escape the top-kick’s inquisitive eye. Sure enough, he came down the line to see that everyone had gone. For a breathless moment I was convinced that he was inspecting my bunk with suspicion. Then suddenly he turned and went away, closing the door behind him. But I waited several minutes, to make sure that he had gone. Then I pushed Esky out of the way and threw off the slicker. Down at the end of the shed were two fire buckets, and to these I ran. I dowsed my head in one of them and poured the other over my legs. Then I ran back to my bunk and pulled off my shirt, and back to the buckets again. I was shivering all over, but I made sure that I was wet enough to look it, then I returned to the bunk and got ready for the crucial moment.