was a cry behind me, 'Philippe!'

"I turned, and one waved arms at me--a comrade whom I did not know very
well--but he lay in the open and cried for help. So I thought of Jeanne
d'Arc, and how she had no fear, and was kind, and with that, back I
trotted to get the comrade. But at that second--pouf!--a big noise, and
I fell down and could not get up. It was the good new leg of M'sieur le
Docteur which those _sacrés_ Boches had blown off with a hand-grenade.
So that I lay dead enough. And when I came alive it was dark, and also
the leg hurt--but yes! I was annoyed to have ruined that leg which you
gave me--M'sieur le Docteur."

I grinned, and something ached inside of me.

Philippe went on. "It was then, when I was without much hope and weak
and in pain and also thirsty, that a thing happened. It is a business
without pleasure, M'sieur le Docteur, that--to lie on a battle-field
with a leg shot off, and around one men dead, piled up--yes, and some
not dead yet, which is worse. They groan. One feels unable to bear it.
It grows cold also, and the searchlights of the Boches play so as to
prevent rescue by comrades. They seem quite horrible, those lights. One
lives, but one wishes much to die. So it happened that, as I lay there,
I heard a step coming, not crawling along as the rescuers crawl and
stopping when the lights flare, but a steady step coming freely. And
with that I was lifted and carried quickly into a wood. There was a hole
in the ground there, torn by a shell deeply, and the friend laid me
there and put a flask to my lips, and I was warm and comforted. I looked
up and I saw a figure in soldier's clothing of an old time, such as one
sees in books--armor of white. And the face smiled down at me. 'You will
be saved,' a voice said; and the words sounded homely, almost like the