I didn’t like him in the least any more. An able bodied man like him masquerading and dodging danger by supervising the people who entertain in the camps and rest areas. He was less of a hero than Leon: the latter, at least had finally come through with a vengeance—though without regard for my safety. Well, I could only pray that they did not meet. I hadn’t the least idea how to reach Leon. I cussed him for not writing to me. You see, blaming and cussing him was a habit of long standing. CHAPTER 11 FAIR ENOUGH IN LOVE AND WAR —1— American casualties were beginning to come down from the sector around Château Thierry. There had been a bloody battle in progress up there. Reports had it that the Americans were advancing on Soissons, pushing the enemy back from Paris. At last it began to sound as if we were actually doing something. It’s funny how jokes came with wounded men: you’d think of anything but a joke when you saw one of them, but it’s true that the more the casualties the more jokes about them. Once, I recall, I heard two fellows talking in a hospital and one of them was telling about a louie asking him questions, and it really was funny. The louie asked him where he was hit at the Front and the doughboy replied that he wasn’t hit at the front at all. The louie thought he was trying to be funny, but the man insisted that he was “hit in the rear, sir.” “What do you mean?” demanded the officer. “An accident? Then you aren’t wounded—just injured. Here in the S.O.S.” “No, sir,” replied the man, “I turned around to see where my lieutenant was and the next thing I knew I was in a first aid station.” The officer was puzzled, but thought he saw the light. “Cold feet, eh? Your commanding officer had to stop you from running away, eh?” “Say—” says the man, insulted, “we was at the Front goin’ across, I tell ya—an’ I hear somebody yell something behind me. I thought it was the lieutenant an’ I turned around to see. Just then something hit me in the rear and here I am.” “Oh—” says the louie. “You mean in the back, which was to the front!” “Sure—in the rear,” repeated the other doggedly. “Oh!” says the louie and walks away, while the man cursed after him for being so dumb. That isn’t so funny in print, but it surely did sound funny the way that fellow told it.