That rest was to come ere long—but not immediately. I had seen the tragedy and horror of modern warfare but I was still to undergo another heart-tearing ordeal. The boys of a certain company were as handsome a lot as ever donned a uniform. But some of the best of them were marked men. Two of these fellows whom I had come to consider as pals, got theirs a few days later. The name of one was Jean, and I couldn't pronounce the other, so I used to call him "Frenchie." They were both fine, strapping lads, larger than the average Frenchman and had the pep of young Americans. Jean was twenty-one and "Frenchie" I suppose about twenty-five. We used to have great times together trying to understand each other and laughing over my mistakes in speaking French. Some of them were worth laughing at, too.

On occasions I would sit and swap yarns with them or would yield to their requests to tell them all about the United States. We struck up an intimacy which was unusual, and it got so that we sought each other's company whenever possible. The boys used to ask me all kinds of questions about New York and wanted to know how far out Pike's Peak was from the metropolis. I had to laugh at their conception of American geography as much as they did at my conception of their language. Many a pleasant hour we enjoyed together.

But alas! One Sunday afternoon a gas alarm was suddenly sounded. All the men along the trench began excitedly fumbling for their gas masks and shouting to one another. That was the very worst thing that they could do. Remaining cool and keeping your mouth shut is the only possible method of combating this awful weapon. You must lose no time in shaking off your metal trench helmet and getting the gas mask on and buttoned tightly around your neck, but the way to save time is to go about it cooly. Now "Frenchie" had become excited and couldn't find his mask. It wasn't in his bag provided for the purpose. He had lost it. In his excitement, instead of wetting his handkerchief and tying it over his nose as a temporary substitute, he began yelling at the other boys, asking them if they had seen it or if they had an extra one. In doing this he had taken in several breaths of the deadly fumes and was quickly overcome. He was carried back into the receiving station and there he lay in agony. When I got there two men were bending over him as he lay upon the stretcher and with a fan and oxygen tube, they were trying to assist him in getting air into his lungs. I went over and spoke to him, but his eyes were closed and he could not answer. For ten or fifteen minutes we worked with him, but it seemed like eternity. As his eyelids twitched, his throat contracted, and his nostrils distended in the awful effort to get air; I thought I should faint as I was forced to look upon his indescribable suffering. When once or twice I asked him something the agonizing efforts which he made to speak to me were terrible to behold. I would rather die myself than ever have to look on such a sight again. Death isn't hard to see and the sight of it becomes commonplace on the battle line. But the spectacle of a fellow-human going through the slow agonies of the damned, in his vain attempts to get air, is one which no mortal ought ever to be called upon to undergo.

Photo by International Film Service.

AMBULANCE MEN WORKING OVER A "GASSED" SOLDIER.