I gave Mac a shove and he too
woke up. We were drenched and made for the barn. We found the Old Man
there with a lantern and told him we were going up in the loft, but he
scowled and said we were not to go. "To hell with you!"--and up we went,
finding five or six of the boys there taking advantage of the lull to
snatch an hour's sleep. We quickly followed suit, getting hold of some
straw and grain bags for a bed, and resumed our interrupted slumbers.
In the midst of our dreams "S.O.S. Stand to!" was ordered, but we did
not hear. One of our fellows, as we later learned, came running up to
the farmhouse and asked the farmer if he had seen any of our men.
"No," he scowled, "there are none here."
When we had our sleep out we made for the guns. It did not take us long
to see that a pretty thorough strafing had been going on, yet so dead
beat to the utter exhaustion point were we, that we had failed to hear
them.
"Where the hell were you fellows?" asked one.
"Asleep up there in the barn," said I; "why didn't you call us?"
"I did, I asked that old blankety-blank and he told me he hadn't seen
any of you fellows around there.
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