Trooper Tales — page 222: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

206 The Fever’s Fifth Man. ground. That stench, which the sun made, is fever. It filled our stomachs, our lungs and our brains. . When the command “Rest” was heard along the firing line, I used Fogarty’s mess plate to pile up the sand in front of me. Mine was thrown away. And when it was night I smoked half of Fogarty’s last pipeful, and after that I rolled over on to half of Fogarty’s blanket. Mine was thrown away. — “Thank God, we didn’t get punctured this day,”’ I mut- tered. It was night, and silent about. The Red Cross men were busy. “I’m too tired to give a dam, Kid,” said Fogarty. A couple of days later I awoke in the morning feeling stiff and tired. We were encamped about the city. At noon my face burned and I did not answer mess call. I wanted to sleep. At 4 o’clock Fogarty felt my cheeks. “T’ll tell the top-sergeant to let you pound the bunk awhile longer,” he said. The next day I was in the hospital, feeling hot and thirsty and hungry, all at once. The air in the hospital tent was full of groans and the odor of drugs. It was also stifling. The boys about me had felt the weight of a locomotive concentrated into a Mauser rifle ball. To me Fogarty said: “Kid, you’ve got the fever.” After that I didn’t see him for six weeks, because I was sent back to the States on a hospital transport. I had reached the furlough stage, which means that delirium was over, and that my fever had flickered out, leaving Ecomicbooks:com