The blue eyes in the freckled, boyish face danced good-hurnoredly, and he laid a big red hand gently upon my forehead.

"Field hospital, Sixth Corps," he said, with a strong Hibernian accent "An' how de ye loike it, Johnny?"

"Better than some others I've seen," I managed to articulate faintly. "Who won?"

"Divil a wan of us knows," he admitted frankly, "but your fellows did the retratin'."

It was an old, old story to all of us by that time, and I closed my eyes wearily, content to ask no more.

I have no way of knowing how long I rested there motionless although awake, my eyes closed to keep out the painful glare, my sad thoughts busied with memory of those men whom I had seen reel and fall upon that stricken field we had battled so vainly to save. Once I wondered, with sudden start of fear, if I had lost a limb, if I was to be crippled for life, the one thing I dreaded above all else. Feeling feebly beneath my bed-clothing I tested, as best I could, each limb. All were apparently intact, although my left arm seemed useless and devoid of feeling, broken no doubt, and I heaved a sigh of genuine relief. Then I became partially aroused to my surroundings by a voice speaking from the cot next mine.