Bleeding badly

As we advanced into the city of Valenciennes, the thing that I remember was the time we lost Stevie. That was a bad deal. At this time we were going along and there was only four of us. And usually there was about six of us. But Stevie and I was coming along behind carrying the extra reels of wire. And the two boys up front rolling out the wire. And we came to an intersection. The streets were kind of, three streets met at this intersection. And there at this intersection was a stone or a brick building. And down the line, apparently, some of the retreating Germans had a little cannon and they’d fire a shell down there periodically, as they were retreating. And one of these shells hit this building, and the shrapnel ricocheted off and a piece of shrapnel, about a couple of inches long, hit Stevie in the leg - high up in the thigh. He rolled in the ditch. He was in bad shape there, bleeding, badly. Well, the other boys stopped and we did what we could to bandage him up. We had to put on a tourniquet. First time it didn’t work, but the second time it seemed to work. But he had lost a lot of blood. We weren’t at liberty to take him back. We had to go on and get that telephone station set up. And, I can’t recall why, but we was six of us starting but now with Stevie gone, we were only three. Well, we had to go forward but at any rate there was stretcher bearers passing right by there. They checked him over and did all they could, and said we couldn’t do anymore but he’d been up twice before, and wounded twice. He had two wound bars on his tunic to show that he had been a casualty twice. And every little while he’d say, “I wish they’d get this war over with if there gonna. Their talking about Armistice. I wish they’d hurry up with it so I can get back home.” He says, “I’m tired of it.” Things like that. He’d say, “I think I’ve done my bit. Pretty soon it’ll be just likely be my luck to get picked off the first time I’m in the line.” And that’s what happened to him, you see. And we heard afterwards he died at the dressing station.