For some time after the train had started the spirits of the men were subdued. All were thinking of the dear ones they had left behind and might never see again. They were thinking too of the new life—or was it, perhaps, death?—that they were facing.
But it was not in the nature of things that this feeling should long persist amid such a buoyant, boisterous gathering of young fellows and before long the cars of the train were resounding with jests and laughter.
"How far off is this Camp Boone?" asked Bart, who had secured a seat at Frank's side.
"I haven't exactly figured it out," replied the latter, as he stretched his long legs comfortably, "but in the rough, it's about three hundred miles. The way the tracks are crowded now, I don't think we'll get there much before to-morrow morning."
"I don't suppose they'll have it half ready for us," continued Bart. "The Government's had to put it up in an awful hurry."
"We can't expect to find all the comforts of home," returned Frank. "But as long as we have a place to sleep and three square meals a day I guess there won't be much kick coming."
"There will be no discount on the grub," put in Billy Waldon. "Uncle Sam's a good provider and he'll see that his boys have plenty to eat."
Frank's prediction was fulfilled, for it was early the next morning when the train stopped at the little town from which Camp Boone was about three miles distant.
It was a glorious morning for a hike and after the commissary department had done its duty and each man had tucked away a good breakfast under his belt the regiment fell into line and covered the intervening miles in quick time. All were filled with eagerness to see the place that was to be their home during many months of training.
It was a busy scene that met their eyes when at last they came within view of the camp. A small army of workmen was swarming all over the place and the sounds of hammers and groaning of derricks and hum of machinery filled the air with a deafening din.
"Didn't I tell you it would be only half finished?" said Bart. "I hope they've got roofs on the barracks. They say they have bad weather around here and I don't want to get killed before I meet a German. Gee, that would be tough luck!"
"You can't build a city in a single night," Frank replied, as he saw the apparently endless row of buildings prepared for their reception. "And that's what this is going to be—a city in itself. The wonder to me is, not that they've done so little but that they've done so much."
"They say there are going to be thirty thousand soldiers here," put in Billy Waldon. "Before a month is over there'll be more fellows living here than people in the whole city of Camport. That gives you some idea of the work the Government has to do. But Uncle Sam is some worker when he once takes his coat off. Even the Kaiser will admit that before he gets through with him."
The regiment had filed through the great gate in perfect order, but once inside, the officers quickly gave the command to break ranks, for they themselves were quite as eager as the men to inspect their new quarters.
The camp had been skillfully laid out by one of the most distinguished architects in the country. Its general form was that of the letter U about two miles long and a mile in width. The ground was slightly rolling and had been nearly cleared of trees in order to permit the erection of the buildings.
But the architect had not sacrificed everything to mere utility for in one corner of the camp a large grove of noble trees had been left untouched and took away from the bareness of the general plan.
Along the sides of the camp stretched the barracks, plain, two-story frame buildings hastily put together and guiltless of any attempt at decoration.
On the floors were endless rows of cots with just enough space left to afford a passage between them. There were no heating arrangements as yet, but, as summer was just beginning, this was a matter of no importance and there would be ample time for that later on.
There were separate buildings that served as mess halls for the various regiments. The officers' buildings were grouped together in a special section and these, although plain, were a little more elaborate than those destined for the men.
Besides these there was a host of other buildings, stables for the horses, laundries, lavatories, shower baths and all the other structures that were essential to a city that had sprung up like Jonah's gourd, almost over night.
"Not half bad, eh, old man?" said Bart, giving his chum a bang on the shoulder.
"I should say not," replied Frank. "They don't seem to have forgotten much. It's neat but not gaudy."
"Now if our friend, the chef, is all right," grinned Bart, "and isn't stingy with the grub, we'll have nothing left to ask for."
"We'll get a line on that pretty soon, I hope," said Frank, his eyes wandering wistfully in the direction of the mess tent. "That hike's made me hungry enough to eat nails. When the mess horn toots you won't be able to see me, I'll run so fast."
"I'll race you," said Bart. "Mother used to say I had the appetite of a wolf. Now I feel like a pack of 'em."
Any misgivings that they might have had on that subject were promptly dispelled by their first meal in camp. The food served was well cooked and abundant and those who sought a second or even a third helping were not denied.
"Well," remarked Bart, with a sigh born of comfort and repletion as he rose from the meal, "I guess Napoleon was right when he said that an army travels on its stomach."
"Gee, if that's so, Uncle Sam's boys will travel some distance," said Billy Waldon with a grin.
"As far as Berlin, you bet!" cried Frank emphatically.
Before many days had passed the regiment had fully settled down into the routine of army life at Camp Boone.
That routine was almost unvarying and therein lay its value in molding the growing army into a perfect fighting machine. It fostered team work of the finest kind.
At six o'clock the bugle blew reveille that called the sleepers from their cots. There was no disregarding that imperative summons, no turning over for another "forty winks."
In an instant the sleeping camp had sprung to life. Uniforms were donned, faces washed, hair slicked back and cots made inside of fifteen minutes.
Then came the "monkey drill" and setting-up exercises, when the boys had to go through all sorts of grotesque but beneficial motions to exercise the muscles and stir the blood.
Of course there was some grumbling at first. Bart, who with all his physical fitness, liked to get his sleep out in the morning, had hard work to get his eyes open and feet on the floor at the same moment.
"Gee, how do you do it?" he grumblingly asked of Frank one morning, just after reveille and while he was rushing around with tousled head and one eye shut. "By the time I know I'm awake you're all ready, and worse than that, you look as if you enjoyed it. Gee, it's a gift!"
"You're like the man," Frank had remarked cheerfully, as he trussed up his trousers, "who was sentenced to die at daybreak. 'Oh, that's all right,' he answered. 'I never get up that early!'"
But the setting up exercises never failed to banish the last vestige of drowsiness, and by seven o'clock breakfast began to assume gigantic proportions. And how they ate!
After breakfast came the manual of arms, field practice, drilling in semaphore work and sometimes—this the boys looked forward to and enjoyed most,—a long hike in the spring sunshine to the exhilarating beat of martial music.
Then from eleven to two they did as they pleased and as dinner came within that period they mostly, to quote Billy Waldon, "wolfed."
The meals continued hearty and satisfying and as the days went on the boys broadened out and seemed, by the aid of muscular training and upright carriage, even to gain in height.
One morning Frank found a poem in a magazine he was reading and recited it to a group of laughing comrades. Thereafter it became the popular mess chant and the boys standing in line with their dishes would shout it out at the top of their lusty lungs to the great amusement of all concerned. It went something like this:
"You may mutter and swear at the reveille callWith its 'Can't get 'em up in the morning;'And you may not be fond of assembly at allBut you drop into line at the warning;Police call will cause you a lot of distressThough you answer at once or regret it,But you jump when the splinter lips bugle for messAnd the hash slinger yells, 'Come and get it!'"
Then came the chorus in which all joined:
"For you know that it means'Form in line for your beansWith your mess kit in hand—do it now!'And you cheerfully come for your coffee and slum,For your coffee and slumWhen the splinter lips bugle for chow!"
It was all great fun, this jolly camp life, but it had its serious side also. All the boys felt the inspiration, almost exaltation of being one of so great a body of men, men fired with the same enthusiasm, the same great purpose to accomplish their glorious mission or die in the attempt.
Training in the use of modern weapons of warfare sobered the boys a little.
"I suppose I'm squeamish," said Bart to Frank one day, when they had finished a lesson in the throwing of hand grenades, "and I won't blame you or anybody else if you laugh at me. But I don't like those things. Every time I throw one I think of the possible mark it'll find some day in the German trenches and it makes me sick."
"Yes," said Frank, nodding gravely, "I know just how you feel, only it's the bayonet practice that gets me most. If those dummies were human instead of stuffed rags, I couldn't feel much worse about sticking the point into them.'
"Oh, we're soft yet," said Billy, sauntering up to them. "I suppose it will take us quite some time to get hardened to this wholesale slaughter. But when we feel too squeamish, we want to remember the Belgian women and children murdered and tortured, defenseless old men slaughtered—"
"Yes," said Frank, his shoulders squaring and mouth setting grimly. "There's nothing like the memory of Dinant to make a fellow grip his bayonet!"
As time went on the boys became quite expert in bayonet practice. A French officer who had seen some of the bloodiest fighting on the Somme was their instructor, and he was voluble in his praise of the "esprit de coeur" the young men showed.
Of course in the beginning there were some laggards, but these were promptly whipped into line by officers and comrades.
"It is maybe all right now to laugh and take the little interest," the Frenchman was fond of saying to these few who lagged behind. "But when you are in the trench, fighting hand to hand with your enemy, more accomplished than you, it will not be so great a joke. You will not laugh then!"
"He's right too," remarked Fred Anderson, one of the veteran members of the regiment who had seen service in the Philippine Islands. "There will be plenty of hand-to-hand fighting where it's cut and thrust, and the man who can handle his weapon best will come out on top."
"I suppose most of your own experience has been along that line," said Frank.
"Yes," replied Fred, as a reminiscent look came into his eyes. "Of course that dinky little war in the Philippines wasn't to be compared with this, but there was lots of savage fighting just the same. More than once I've been within an ace of losing the number of my mess."
"What's the tightest place you were ever in?" asked Bart.
"The thing I remember most was a scrap we had with the Moros," replied Fred. "That was pretty hot while it lasted.
"You see," he went on, "those fellows had been acting nasty and had given a good deal of trouble to one of our outposts. So our lieutenant was ordered to take a detachment in a launch and go up a little river that led to a settlement of theirs and give them a lesson.
"We landed at the nearest point and had about five miles of jungle to go through before we could get to their village. We did our best to make it a surprise, but in some way they got wind of our coming and lay in ambush. We were picking our way in single file when suddenly there came a rain of bullets and several of our men went down. The rest of us took to cover and the fight was on.
"The Moros you know are Mohammedans, and about as nifty fighters as you can find anywhere. Like all men of their religion, they believe that any one who dies on the battlefield goes straight to Paradise, and that gives them an absolute contempt for death. They were well armed too with Mauser rifles that they'd managed to get hold of somehow, but luckily for us they hadn't learned to handle them well and most of their shots went wild. If their shooting had been as good as their hearts were stout, they might have wiped us out, as they outnumbered us two or three to one.
"Has anybody got the makin's?" he inquired, as he stopped to roll a cigarette.
"Give them to him, somebody," said Bart exasperatedly.
"For the love of Mike don't keep him waiting!" ejaculated Frank. "I want to hear how Fred got out of it."
Fred, not a bit averse to the interest he had aroused, was tantalizingly slow in taking his time.
"Keep your hair on," he drawled, as he struck a match. "I got through all right, or I wouldn't be chinning to you now.
"Well," he resumed after a preliminary puff, "we kept picking them off whenever a head showed itself until they found that we could outplay them at that game, and then they resorted to other tactics. Throwing aside their guns and grasping their machettes—those murderous knives of theirs that will cut a man's head off with a single blow—they came charging down upon us. We didn't propose to stand on the defensive, and after a vast volley that swept a lot of them away we fixed bayonets and rushed to meet them."
The group that had by this time gathered about Fred drew a little closer.
"It was touch and go for a few minutes," continued Fred, "but our weight and discipline told, and soon we were pushing them back. Just then however I stumbled over a root and fell to the ground, striking my head and stunning myself. At that same moment the Moros were reinforced and came back with a wild rush that by sheer weight of numbers forced our line back for twenty-five feet or more.
"I was trying to get to my feet when four or five of the nearest Moros, brandishing their knives, swooped down upon me. It would have been all over with me, if one of our fellows, a big fighting Irishman named Hennessy, hadn't come plunging through the crowd swinging his rifle round his head like a flail. They went down like bullocks hit with an axe. They simply couldn't get inside the circle made by that gun and by the time he had knocked down a half dozen or more, our boys had rallied and had the beggars on the run."
"Phew, but that was a close shave!" ejaculated Frank.
"Close is right," agreed Fred. "I'd certainly have cashed in right then and there if it hadn't been for Hennessy. I told him that he had saved my life and that I owed him more than I could ever repay, but he wouldn't have it so. The joke of it was that I think he was really grateful to me for giving him a chance for such a lovely scrap. He told me that he hadn't enjoyed himself so much since the last time he had gone to the fair at Tipperary."
There was a general laugh.
"If it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't have had your chance now to get a hack at the Huns," remarked Bart.
"No," assented Fred, "and that would certainly have been hard luck. But to get back where we started from, I want to put it up to you fellows that what the Frenchman said was true. We can't take this practice too seriously. Especially bayonet practice. We've had lots of proof that the Germans don't like cold steel. They're brave enough, but the French and English put it all over them in bayonet work."
"That's right," agreed Frank, "and it's up to us to show that Uncle Sam's boys can do the same."
The hand grenade throwing was of special interest to the boys and was the one most readily mastered. This was due chiefly to the fact that it had points in common with baseball. Many of the boys were proficient in the great national game.
The firm of Moore and Thomas had maintained its own nine, and in the season before they had carried off the championship of the commercial teams in Camport. Frank had officiated in the pitcher's box and had an assortment of curves and drops together with great speed that had been the chief factors in the winning of the pennant. Bart had "dug them out of the dirt" at first base.
Billy Waldon, too, had been as quick as lightning in "winging them down" from short.
So that their throwing arms were fully developed and they took up this new and grimmer game with the skill born of long practice.
"This ought to be nuts for us when we get to the trenches," remarked Billy, as he cut loose with a grenade in practice that landed within two feet of the object aimed at.
"It sure gives us a big advantage over the Germans," assented Frank. "Of course they're drilled in throwing, but by the time they've started in with it their muscles must seem strange to it. We've been throwing a ball around ever since we were kids. It's in the blood. Our eyes and arms have learned to work together. And then, too, a thing you've learned to do from the love of it must be better done than when it's forced on you."
"Imagine a crack pitcher with a grenade in his hand and the Kaiser a hundred feet away," said Billy with a grin.
"An A1 pitcher wouldn't do a thing to him!" chuckled one of the other recruits.
"Would he put over a bean ball or a fadeaway, do you think?" asked Bart.
"It would be a strike-out, whichever one he used," declared Frank. "The Kaiser would do a fadeaway."
The bomb they used was the Mills bomb which had been adopted for general use in the British army.
"Let's hope there'll be plenty of them, whatever else we're short of," remarked Bart.
"They're handy little things to have around when the Boches come over for a friendly call," observed another lad.
"If we run short we can make some ourselves," declared Frank. "They won't be quite so nifty as these Mills bombs, but they'll do the work."
"Listen to Edison talking," chaffed Billy.
"I'm not kidding," declared Frank. "I got the tip from one of the Tommys who was wounded in the Ypres fighting and is over here on leave. Hustle around some of you chaps and get me an old tin can and I'll show you what the Tommy showed to me."
"What kind of a can?" asked Billy.
"Oh, any old kind," answered Frank. "An old soup can, tomato can, any can that Eli hasn't eaten up already."
Eli was the big goat that served as the mascot of the regiment. He had an omnivorous appetite and ate anything from cigarette butts to washrags, and if anything was missing it was customary to charge it against Eli. He was not only a billygoat but a scapegoat.
A little search however brought to light an old can that Eli had spared, and the boys looked on with interest while Frank prepared his homemade bomb.
"I'll roll up my sleeves, gentlemen, to show you that I have nothing concealed there," said Frank, in his best conjurer's style. "Now watch me carefully and I'll try to instill some scientific knowledge in those thick noddles of yours."
He took a handful of clay from the edge of the trench where they had been practising and lined the inside of the can with it.
"Now for the dirty work," joked Billy.
Frank withered him with a glance.
"Get me a lot of junk," he commanded.
"That's rather indefinite," suggested Bart. "Junk shops are not a part of this regiment's equipment. Uncle Sam's had so much on his mind that he hasn't got to them yet."
"A handful of nails or bits of iron or cartridge shells will do," returned Frank, putting a detonator and explosive in the can and tamping it down in the clay. "Anything will do that will make Fritz see stars when it hits him."
Bart volunteered a broken jack knife; one lad contributed a couple of metal buttons; others handed over nails.
Frank arranged the miscellaneous collection in as compact a mass as possible, put in more clay and then put on the tin cover, into which he first punched a hole. Through this hole the top of the fuse protruded. Then he wrapped wire around the can so that the top could not come off, and the bomb was ready.
"There," he said, as he held his handiwork up for their inspection, "when that is sent over to the enemy trenches there will be something doing. It isn't much in the beauty line but it will get there just the same."
"Great head!" said Bart admiringly.
"Not mine but the fellow's who first figured it out," said Frank. "But it's a good thing to know, and you never can tell when it may come in mighty handy."
"I hear we're going to be gassed to-morrow," remarked Bart, as they made their way to their quarters.
Billy made a wry face.
"That's one of the most hideous things the Huns have brought into this war," he said. "I can imagine Satan chuckling when he heard of the gas attack."
"I don't think he chuckled," said Frank bitterly. "More likely he was jealous to have a German think of it before he did. It isn't often that he lets anyone get ahead of him."
"He'll have to step lively to keep ahead of the Huns," said Bart. "They say there's no torture equal to that suffered by a man who has been gassed."
"And even if they don't die of it after days of agony, they might better have died," added another, "for it leaves them ruined for life."
"Surgeons get hardened in carrying on their profession," commented Frank. "They have to be or they couldn't keep their nerve. But they say that even the surgeons broke down when they stood beside the beds on which the gas victims lay gasping for breath. They had never seen such horrible anguish."
"Well, there's no use expecting Germans to carry on war like a civilized nation," declared Frank. "They've thrown all decency and humanity to the winds. They've raised the flag of the skull and crossbones and want to make all the rest of the world walk the plank. They're pirates and barbarians, and there'll be no peace or security for mankind until they're punished for their crimes."
"It's a tough job that's put up to us Allies," said Bart. "A man's job. But we'll put it through, no matter what the cost may be."
"Right you are," ejaculated Frank fervently. "It wasn't only Nathan Hale who wished that he had more than one life to give for his country. There are a million Nathan Hales among Uncle Sam's boys and millions more to come."
As Bart had predicted, their squad was lined up the next day for a practical test in gas defense. They had already had preliminary drills in adjusting the masks, which had to be slipped on in six seconds. It took a long time before this stage of excellence could be reached, for some of the men were doubly slow, slow in thought and slow in action. The quicker ones had soon acquired the habit of adjusting the masks in the required time, and Frank and Bart could do it sometimes in five seconds. But the drill went on unceasingly until all acted as one man, for a single second's delay in fending off the infernal attack might mean all the difference between life and death—and such a death!
It was not a pretty sight, for the masks were hideous and the men looked like weird monsters from another planet.
"If only our friends could see us now!" murmured Bart to Frank in an undertone.
"They'd drop dead from fright," returned the latter.
"Deep sea divers have nothing on us," chimed in a third lad.
"You're insulting the divers," said Billy. "If they went down looking like this, the sharks would throw a fit."
At last the drill worked with clock-work precision, and the perspiring lieutenant wiped his brow and gave vent to a sigh of relief as he looked along the grotesque ranks.
"I guess they're ready now," he said, turning to the sergeant. "Take them down half a dozen at a time and let them get a sniff of the gas."
"Letthem," murmured a lad. "What a blessed privilege. Anyone would think that he was giving us a furlough for good conduct."
"Save your breath and come along," admonished Billy. "You'll need all you've got in a little while."
The squad was marched off to a little hut that stood in a distant corner of the camp. It was a crude creation with a door and only one window. Long before they got to it the boys could detect a faint acrid odor in the atmosphere.
"Now," said the sergeant halting his men at a little distance, "you fellows break ranks and come along in single file."
The single room of the hut had been filled with the same kind of gas that the Germans were using along the western front, but in greatly diluted form.
"Take off your masks," commanded the sergeant, "and go along past that window one by one. Make quick time too. I want you to learn just what the gas smells like, so that you can detect it the minute it comes near you after you get to the trenches."
The men obeyed orders, and, as they passed, each got a whiff of the gas that was escaping through a slight opening of the window. There was a gasp, a cough, a wry face and a hurried scuttling by as each man went through the ordeal.
It is needless to say that there was no disposition to linger. Even the slowest man of the squad displayed unsuspected capacity for speed.
"Look at Fatty Bates," chuckled Billy, alluding to the most ponderous member of the company. "Talk about winged heels! Mercury has nothing on him."
"It certainly got a rise out of Fatty," grinned Bart. "It's worth a dollar to see him jump. Put a gas cloud after him and I'll bet he'd do a hundred yards in ten seconds flat."
"You'll jump too when your turn comes," prophesied Frank. "You'll think the lid has been taken off of the infernal regions."
The prophecy was verified, for though there was no danger, since the gas had been vastly diluted, yet the odor was so vile and the death it suggested was so horrible that they could not get away from it quickly enough.
"It's like passing close to a rattlesnake whose fangs have been drawn," commented Frank. "You might know that he couldn't kill you, but if he struck at you you'd jump instinctively, just because he was a rattlesnake."
"Some perfume that," remarked Billy with an expression of dire disgust.
"New-mown hay—I don't think," growled Bart, sneezing as though he would shake his head loose from his shoulders. "I got a bigger dose than the rest of you slackers," he added with an air of superior virtue.
"Martyr to duty," mocked Frank. "But we're not through yet, fellows. The worst is yet to come."
"Nothing can be worse," grumbled Fatty Bates, with profound conviction.
"Oh, yes, it can," said Billy, assuming the role of Job's comforter. "We've got to go inside that Chamber of Horrors and stay there five minutes by the clock."
"Will we come out on our feet or be carried out?" asked Fatty Bates with a worried expression.
"You'll never be carried out, Fatty," chaffed Billy. "It would take the whole regiment to do that. It'll be a crane and derrick for you sure."
"We'll put a torpedo under him and blow him through the roof," added Bart.
"Now men," said the sergeant, "put on your masks and go inside, one after the other. There's no danger if you've learned to put them on perfectly. But if there's any sloppy work, the fellow that's careless will find it out soon enough, and he'll get all that's coming to him."
"Not much nourishment in that," muttered Billy under his breath. "Suppose the mask's defective, got a hole in it or something like that."
"If it is, it's better to find it out now than when we're actually in the trenches," answered Frank. "I suppose that's the real reason for this test. Here's hoping that no shoddy contractor had put one over on the government."
They filed into the grim little room after having adjusted their masks with especial care and stood crowded closely together looking in their ghostly attire like so many spectres.
It was a grisly five minutes that seemed more like an hour to each one of them. The dead silence added to the discomfort of the occasion. Death seemed to be all around them, reaching out to them with its skeleton fingers. They were in the "valley of the shadow," and it sobered them.
It was an immense relief when the knock of the sergeant on the door summoned them forth and the test was over. And there was great satisfaction when it was learned that all the masks had held and shown that they could be relied on.
Once out in the clean, sweet air and under the blue sky that never before had seemed so beautiful, the boys tore off their masks in a hurry.
"Now I feel like a respectable member of society and not like one of the Ku Klux Klan!" exclaimed Bart, as he looked around on the flushed bronzed faces of his comrades. "My, but it's good to be out of this hideous rig. I'd like to throw it into the river," he added digging his fingers viciously into the unoffending mask.
"You'll be glad enough to have it some day before long," prophesied Frank. "Then you'll count it the best friend you have."
"Isn't it pretty nearly time for mess?" asked Fatty Bates wistfully.
"Not yet, little one," remarked Billy. "The sergeant's got something else up his sleeve, or I miss my guess."
A groan went up from Fatty, which was quickly suppressed when the sergeant looked sternly at him.
"Form in single file, men," commanded the sergeant, "and make your way through the trench. Bend over as you go, for you're supposed to be on the enemy front, and not a head must show to be a mark for snipers."
They did as they were told, and after they had reached a designated portion of the shallow trench they were halted by their leader.
"You're going to be gassed right and proper now," he said. "Some gas shells are going to be thrown over toward you and it's up to you when you see them coming to get those masks on mighty quick."
Crouching low and on the alert, the men waited until a gas shell with a hiss and a scream came hurtling in their direction and broke a hundred feet in front of the trench. A cloud of gas came rolling toward them. On went their masks in the twinkling of an eye, and the vapor passed over them harmlessly.
Several times this was repeated until the keen eye of the sergeant was satisfied with the dexterity shown by the squad. And there was a general sigh of relief when he summoned them out of the trench and announced that drill was over for the morning.
"Phew, but that was some strenuous work," remarked Frank, as holding their masks in their hands the men strolled back in groups of twos and threes toward their quarters.
"I feel as though I had been drawn through a knothole," said Fatty Bates.
The thought of Fatty being drawn through a knothole was so ludicrous that it provoked a general roar.
"I guess we all feel pretty well used up," said Bart when the merriment had subsided, "but all the same it's things like this that are going to help us lick the Huns."
And so the days passed in learning the grim lessons of war, and the shadows, lengthening into evening, brought supper, perhaps some special musical entertainment, a vaudeville show, or moving pictures, sometimes only bonfires with smoking, laughing, joking crowds about them. The boys enjoyed these latter evenings most when the funny events of the day could be passed in review and enjoyed by them all.
Then, promptly at nine the bugle called for "all lights out," and the young soldiers, early as was the hour, obeyed it willingly. The strenuous days in the open air made the narrow cots in the long barracks particularly appealing.
"Did you hear that joke Jameson was telling about the Yankee soldier?" Bart asked one night, when all the rest were either asleep or on the way.
"No," said Frank, sleepily. "What was it?"
"It seems a guard challenged him," chuckled Bart, "with the regular, 'Who goes there?' and he answered, 'Aw, you wouldn't know if I told you. I've only been here a couple o' days'."
"That's all very well here," yawned Frank. "But it wouldn't go in 'No Man's Land'!"
"What is that? Shrapnel?" asked Bart, one morning, as he opened his eyes after the reveille and heard the rain beating a tremendous tattoo on the roof.
"Hardly as bad as that," laughed Frank. "If it were, I bet you'd be out of that cot more quickly than you're doing it now. But it sure is coming down."
"So much the better," said Bart, as he jumped out and hastily began to dress. "That'll cut out the drill to-day and I'll have time to answer some of my letters and darn my socks."
But such roseate dreams were quickly dispelled. The storm increased in violence after breakfast and the wind blew great guns.
The Y.M.C.A. building was being erected for the use of that organization but was not yet completed. In the meantime, the Association had put up for temporary use a canvas tent, and as the storm increased in fury the flimsy structure gave every evidence of taking to itself wings and flying away.
The captain ordered a detail of men to go out and surround the tent and hold the tent pins down by main force if necessary.
There was nothing alluring about the prospect, for it meant a thorough drenching for the entire detail.
But the boys had already learned the first great rule of military life—to obey instantly any command given by a superior officer.
So Frank and Bart, who happened to be among those chosen for the work, jumped at the word. But they also had the soldiers' immemorial privilege of grumbling among themselves, and Bart chose to exercise it as they made their way in the teeth of the storm to the threatened tent.
"Just our luck to catch the captain's eye," he muttered.
"Stop your grumbling," adjured Frank. "Think how much worse it would be if we were plowing through the mud in No Man's Land. Let's make a lark of it."
"We'll be up among the larks all right," returned Bart, "if this thing ever gets away from the tent pins." They laid hold of the straining ropes and hung on for dear life. "An aviator would have nothing on us."
It was hard work while it lasted and their sturdy muscles were put to the test, but they had the satisfaction of keeping the tent in its place and after a while the storm subsided and the danger was over.
"Isn't it about time for those drafted men to get down here?" asked Frank, as they were on their way back to the barracks.
"I heard yesterday from Billy Waldon," returned Bart, "that two or three regiments were expected to-day. Up to now all the fellows here have been volunteers. I'm curious to see how the drafted men will take to the life."
"I suppose some of them will be sore at having had to come whether they wanted to or not," replied Frank. "Still there will be lots of good fighting material in them. I've heard Peterson say that the drafted men in the Union Army fought as well as the volunteers. They'll all be good Americans when they face the Huns."
Even as they spoke they heard the far-off music of a band and saw the men who were off duty hurrying toward the great gate of the camp.
"I shouldn't wonder if some of them were coming now," remarked Frank. "Let's leg it to the gate and see them come in."
They reached a favorable position just as the first of the advancing troops entered the camp. The boys studied them critically and in a somewhat patronizing spirit, for they already felt like veterans and were inclined to look down a little upon the "rookies."
There was, of course, a good deal to criticize about the newcomers. Most of them, up to a few days before, had never touched a gun in their lives, many of them were in civilian clothes, and although they tried to keep in line and step briskly to the music of the band, their marching was ragged.
Some of them, used to a sedentary life, were winded, even by that short hike of three miles to the camp. They were raw material in the fullest sense of the word. But the officers who led them and the men who watched them, knew perfectly well what wonders could be wrought in that outfit by a few weeks or months of training.
The regiment broke ranks as soon as they were fairly within the precincts of the camp.
"Look there!" cried Frank suddenly, as his eyes fell upon one of the near recruits. "If that isn't Tom Bradford, I'll eat my hat."
"Sure thing!" shouted Bart, as he looked in the direction Frank had indicated. "Hi there, Tom!" he yelled, and they both made a break for the place where Tom was standing.
In a moment they each had one of his hands and were shaking it as though they would wrench it off.
"Good old scout!" ejaculated Frank. "How in the name of all that's lucky did you get here?"
"Oh, I'm like a postage stamp?" grinned Tom, delightedly. "I stick until I get there."
"But I thought they wouldn't take you when you tried to enlist," said Frank, a little bewildered.
"Can you beat it?" returned Tom. "When I wanted to enlist they wouldn't have me. Then when I was moping along and raving against fate I was called up in the draft. The doctors there passed me without letting out a peep. Say, maybe I wasn't tickled to get in on any terms. It makes me sore though, to think I can't be in the old Thirty-seventh along with the rest of you fellows."
"Never mind," said Frank. "The main thing is, you're here. We'll be in the same camp and in the same division and we'll be able to see a lot of each other."
"I'm not the only Camport fellow that's here," chuckled Tom.
"Is that so?" said Frank with interest. "Who is it?"
"Give you three guesses," grinned Tom.
"Hal Chase!"
"Wrong," said Tom.
"Will Baxter!"
"Come again."
"Dick Ormsby!"
"You're all off," replied Tom. "But you'd never guess in a thousand years and so I'll put you out of your misery. It's Nick Rabig."
"Nick Rabig!" they yelled, in unison.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," laughed Tom, enjoying the amazement of his comrades.
"Nick Rabig, in a Yankee uniform!" chortled Frank.
"And going to fight the Huns!" crowed Bart. "Say, isn't it rich?"
"How does he feel about it," asked Frank, surprise and glee giving way to curiosity.
"Like a bear with a sore head," responded Tom. "Of course he doesn't dare to say much, but what he's thinking isn't fit for publication!"
The young volunteers looked about for the unwilling conscript and soon caught sight of him, standing moodily apart from the others and with a scowl upon his face as black as a thundercloud.
"Papa's little sunshine," chuckled Frank.
"Same old cheery disposition," grinned Bart. "Say, if he looked at milk, he'd turn it sour."
"I suppose we ought to go over and speak to him," said Frank, thoughtfully. "He must feel like a cat in a strange garret."
"Maybe you're right," said Bart, doubtfully. "I'm willing to try anything once."
They strolled over to the place where Nick Rabig was standing and saluted him pleasantly.
"Hello, Rabig!" cried Frank. "How do you like your first look at our camp?"
"If it was the last look I'd like it better," snarled Rabig, his sullen resentment flaring forth at this unexpected sight of his old enemy.
"You'll change your mind, maybe, when you've had a chance to look around some," said Bart, still trying to be agreeable, though the strain was telling on him.
"Yes," added Frank, "if there's anything we can do for you, let us know."
"The only thing you can do for me," said Rabig, his brows drawing together in a still blacker scowl, "is to get out of my sight and stay out."
"Oh, so that's all, is it?" said Frank with a careless laugh as they turned away. "Well, that's the easiest thing we ever had to do; eh, fellows?"
"You said it," they agreed as they walked on, leaving Rabig to glare after them with helpless hatred in his eyes.
After that, though they remained in camp several weeks, the boys saw little of Nick Rabig and were just as well satisfied. Friction was not in their line. They preferred the easy, happy comradeship that existed among nine-tenths of the fellows.
"I should think," said Bart, after a day of particularly hard but fruitful practice, "that we were almost ready to meet the Germans."
"Well, I don't know about that," returned Frank. "But I shouldn't wonder if we'd soon be sent over to France to finish our training behind the lines."
"Right you are," said Billy Waldon, strolling tip with Tom. "I overheard a couple of officers talking about the immediate plans for the regiment, and they seemed to think that we might expect orders almost any time to go to a camp nearer the sea."
"And from there I suppose we go across," said Tom.
"I hope that's right!" cried Frank, eagerly. "I'm just spoiling to get into action."
"All the fellows feel that way," said Bart.
"All but Rabig," put in Tom with a grin.
One day, the longed-for orders came and the camp with its thirty thousand men hummed with excitement and activity. About ten o'clock one bright sunshiny morning the regiment marched out of the gates of Camp Boone, to the martial music of its band, no longer a collection of raw recruits but a company of trained, vigorous young soldiers, ready and fit for any work their country might apportion them.
Two days and two nights they spent on the train and on the morning of the third day started the march to the camp which was to be their short abiding place.
"Say, fellows, you can smell the ocean!" cried Frank, drawing in deep breaths of the invigorating, salt-laden air. "Say, I'm not a bit anxious to get on it!"
"You'll be lucky," responded Bart, who was hungry and therefore not as cheerful as was his wont, "if you don't find yourself under it before you get through. They say those submarines are doing pretty slick work."
"They may be doing now," said Frank whose high spirits refused to be dampened even by hunger, "but some day they're going to get done! You just let that sink home, Bart, my boy."
"I'd rather let some good juicy beefsteak sink home, just now," grumbled Bart, rebelliously. "If I have to feel like this much, I won't mind being sunk!"
An hour later, however, Bart's spirits had soared to ecstatic heights. His voracious appetite had been satisfied—and with beefsteak.
One night, less than a week later, a startling thing happened. The boys had turned in as usual sharp at nine o'clock, and were in the deep sleep of exhausted youth when they were suddenly awakened by the imperative notes of a bugle.
"Wh-what's that?" cried Frank, sitting up on his cot and straining his eyes through the darkness. "It's reveille—but it's dark as pitch."
"It c-can't be morning," stuttered Bart, while a babel of questions and answers arose all about them. "Gee, isn't six o'clock bad enough without getting routed out at—what time is it, Frank—my watch has gone on a strike."
"Just two o'clock," returned Frank, consulting his radio watch, while all about him was noise and confusion as the boys hastily got into their things. "I know what it is," he added, shouting to make himself heard above the din. "The time's come to sail and they didn't give us any warning for fear the news would get out! Bart, here's adventure for you!"
"Sure, I'll begin to enjoy it too," grumbled Bart, "when I get my eyes open."
The boys never forgot that ghostly march to the great transport which was to bear them across to the scene of conflict. No sound was heard, save the steady tramp, tramp of their feet, the occasional hoot of an owl far off in the woodland, and the eerie sighing of the wind among the trees.
When at last, after several miles of this weird marching, the huge, shadowy bulk of a ship rose before them, their hearts beat madly and they thrilled with a wild exultation.
Silently they marched on board. Then, the whispered commands of officers to men, the throbbing of the screws, the soft gliding of the great ship from the pier—and they were off!
"For France," murmured Frank, his eyes gleaming in the starlight. "For France and victory!"