Another night there was a beautiful afterglow, and being a lover of the
beautiful as well as a driver of a truck, I was lost in the wonder of
the crimson flush against the western hills.
"Makes me homesick," said the big man beside me, whose home is in the
West. "Looks for all the world like one of our Arizona afterglows."
"It is beautiful," I replied, and then we were both lost in silent
appreciation of the scene before us, when suddenly we were startled
witless.
"Halt!" rang out through the semi-darkness. "Who goes there?"
"Y. M. C. A." we shot back as quick as lightning, for we had learned
that it doesn't pay to waste time in answering a sentinel's challenge
down within sound of the German guns.
"Pass on, friends," was the grinning reply. That rascal of a sentry
had caught us unawares, lost in the afterglow, and he was tickled over
having startled us into astonishment.
But even though he did give us a scare, I am sure that the picture of
him standing there in the middle of that French road, with his gun
raised against the afterglow, will be one of the outstanding
silhouettes of the memories of France.
Then there was the old Scotch dominie down at Chateau-Thierry, with the
marines. The boys called him "Doc," and loved him, for he had been
with them for eight months.
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