Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/39

Rh and the retreat that had followed; of the battle of the Marne; of the deadly turmoil at Ypres.

He stood in the entrance of a garage at Cambridge as we drove up and paused for gasoline. His hair was grizzled. His face had many small lines which gave it an expression a trifle quizzical. His crutches and the blue band about the sleeve of his service overcoat stamped him as still under hospital treatment. His sergeant's chevrons, the Scotch cap, set at an absurd angle, the little black pipe protruding from his mouth, all secmed pointers for the discontent in his whimsical, middle-aged face. While he talked I waited for an opportunity to find out the cause of his irritation. His most fervent description of the horror of the retreat was:

Oh, mon, but that was warm work."

The same expression did for the Marne and Ypres.

“But when and how were you wounded?” I asked.

He flushed. He puffed rapidly on his stubby black pipe. He no longer looked one straight in the eye. When he answered his voice was low and ashamed.

"Not at Mons," he said, "not at the Marne, not at Ypres."