Then a letter came from Jem . He was all right . `` I 've come through without a scratch , dad . Do n't know how I or any of us did it . You 'll have seen all about it in the papers -- I ca n't write of it . But the Huns have n't got through -- they wo n't get through . Jerry was knocked stiff by a shell one time , but it was only the shock . He was all right in a few days . Grant is safe , too . '' Nan had a letter from Jerry Meredith . `` I came back to consciousness at dawn , '' he wrote . `` Could n't tell what had happened to me but thought that I was done for . I was all alone and afraid -- terribly afraid . Dead men were all around me , lying on the horrible grey , slimy fields . I was woefully thirsty -- and I thought of David and the Bethlehem water -- and of the old spring in Rainbow Valley under the maples . I seemed to see it just before me -- and you standing laughing on the other side of it -- and I thought it was all over with me . And I did n't care . Honestly , I did n't care . I just felt a dreadful childish fear of loneliness and of those dead men around me , and a sort of wonder how this could have happened to me . Then they found me and carted me off and before long I discovered that there was n't really anything wrong with me .
I 'm going back XXXXX the trenches tomorrow .
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