Here was the way of it, as Sweeny told it to me:
"I started out about midnight with a patrol to have a look at a new
German bayou between two fortlets beyond our lines. I strung my men out
so as to give warning of any German patrol, and then led them past our
sentries and the barbed wire. I was some distance ahead of my men, and
had got well within the German lines without seeing or hearing anything
of the Germans.
"Now this was not the first time that I had ever penetrated that far
into the German lines, but it was the first time on such a mission
that I had not had to dodge a German patrol; and very often their
bullets. These things ran in my head continually and made me think
that I had fallen into a very neat trap which the Germans had laid for
me. I expected to see them rise from anywhere any minute, and hear the
banging of their guns and the whistling of their bullets (if I was
lucky enough to hear them, that is), and I began to wish myself well
out of my predicament and back again in the comparative safety of our
trench.
"This made me more cautious than ever, and presently I began to
retreat. As I did so a round German helmet bobbed up out of a ravine
not a dozen yards away. An instant later, at the other end of the
ravine, another appeared. I squirmed away like a snake and got behind
the only shelter in sight, a little scrubby tree, about three yards
away.
"As I lay there quaking, wondering why the Germans did not shoot--for
they must have seen me--I happened to look up, and there, hanging to a
branch of the tree, was a fat, clean-looking basket. I reached up, the
limb on which it hung being only a few feet from the ground, and lifted
the basket down.
"Then in a flash the explanation of the puzzle was clear to me. The
Germans had left that basket there and meant me to have it.
"With the basket on my arm I got up, bowed low to the round hats, and
walked back to our trench without ever being fired on.
"Inside the basket was the assortment I have described to you. There
was also a note something after this wise:
"'We have been in front of you for over a year, and it is not against
our comrades, the French, that we are fighting, but against our enemy,
the English. Let us join forces against our common enemy. We are not
starving, as you may well see from the little present we send you
herewith.'
"Here was something that set me thinking pretty hard. I had escaped
death or capture by a miracle so far as I could see, and all in order
that I might enjoy a hearty meal at the expense of the Germans.
"I set the basket down in the trench, and fell to with a will; and I
give you my word, Casey, of all the good things I have eaten, I never
enjoyed anything more than I did that Dutch treat--especially the
frankfurters.
"They took me back to the States immediately--hot dogs, the brightness
of the sea, the yawping of barkers, crowds passing, the noise of
thousands of shuffling feet--not the sort of shuffling we hear now,
Casey, when a bugle call or the heavy sound of guns seems the chief
attraction. It was a great shame I couldn't save you one.
"The meaning of all this was a puzzle to me until I found out that our
boys had left a bundle of American and English newspapers in the spot
where I had found the basket, with the paragraphs plainly marked in
which it was said the Germans were starving. And the basket was the
Germans' reply.
"Now you know how I came to get my hot dogs."