He put me in charge

Well he came along and he said, “We have to move out of here.” “Well,” I said, “it’s about time, I think.” “Well,” he said, “I want you to pick out three men and stay here with the pack ponies.” There was four pack ponies he said to take ammunition up to the lines. I looked at him and I said, “You pick them out. I’m not picking anybody out to stay in this suicide place. You pick them out.” “Alright,” so he picked them out and we stayed. Boy, oh boy! That got hotter and hotter. Finally, I presumed that when he told me to stay with these fellows that he put me in charge. So I told them, I said were getting out of here. And I went up to untie my horse. The mule right beside me got killed. Just as I was untying the horse, he got his insides blown out. Dick Svetson, that was a brother of Chris’s he went and untied his horse. And the horse jumped right over him, and away it went. We never saw that horse again. Some other outfit got it. Didn’t matter, it was a government horse anyhow. And then there was a little English gent by the name of Muckson, I think it was. He got out. He and I got out without our horses, and we just got across the road and into the field and he stopped and he said, “Would you hold my horse for a minute? ” He said, “I have to go back.” I said, “Go back into that? What for? ” He said, “I left my girl’s picture is there. I left it in my hammersack.” I said, “My God, I wouldn’t go back if the girl herself was there.” Anyhow, he went back and he got out again, too. He got his hammersack with his girls picture in it. And I often thought of that later, what a guy will do for the sake of a girls picture. And I don’t know what he thought when I said I wouldn’t have gone back for the girl herself. There were funny things all along the line if you wanted to remember them.