The shipping of the men had been carried through so smoothly and swiftly, and everything had moved with such clockwork precision, that before the sun fairly rose the giant steamer was out of sight of land. And any spy who might have been lurking at any point on the coast would have had his trouble for his pains.
The night had been a broken one, but the army boys were so excited that no one cared for the loss of sleep. Here at last was action. Now they were fairly launched on the great adventure. Every mile that the great ship traversed was bringing them nearer to the scene of actual fighting, the roar of the cannon, the shriek of shells, the hand to hand conflict with the enemy.
"It must make the Huns sore," laughed Frank, "to think that one of their own great ships is carrying us over the ocean to fight the men who built it."
"Sort of poetic justice, eh?" grinned Billy Waldon.
"They felt they had the goods on us when they smashed the machinery," said Bart. "They figured it would take at least a year before we could get the ships in shape again, and yet its only five months since they scrapped the engines and here they're pounding along as good as new."
"It's not the first mistake the Kaiser's made," agreed Frank. "What was it that fellow Von Papen called us?—idiotic Yankees."
"We weren't so idiotic after all, that we didn't get on to his game and send him and his pals packing," said Tom.
"There goes the call for breakfast," cried Billy, as the bugle rang out its welcome summons. "This sea view is great but we'll have plenty of time to enjoy that. Me for the mess and we'll have to get in line quick or with this crowd we won't have a Chinaman's chance."
"Billy wants to eat while he can," grinned Bart, as they plunged along in his wake. "He's afraid he'll be seasick, later on."
"Not on your life," flung back Billy. "You can't get seasick on this ship. She's so big she rides half a dozen waves at once and she's as steady as a church."
Although the great ship was unchanged as regards the external appearance, a complete transformation had been effected inside. When it had first been built, it had been fitted out and decorated with princely magnificence but now all the costly and beautiful fittings had been ruthlessly torn out. It was like a great, hollow cavern from stern to stern. Everything had been sacrificed to the need for space. Cots and hammocks by the thousands took up every available inch that was not absolutely needed for other purposes.
It was a gigantic, floating hotel and apart from the crew, who themselves ran into the hundreds, it carried many thousands of Uncle Sam's fighting men.
"A U-boat would certainly make a ten-strike if it sent a torpedo into this craft," remarked Frank, as, after breakfast, the three friends secured a point of vantage on the upper deck.
"He'd get the iron cross from the Kaiser, sure enough," replied Billy. "It's so big a target that he could hardly miss it if he took a pot shot at it."
"I don't think there's much danger," said Frank, as he glanced at the guns with their trained crews that guarded the liner fore and aft. "If a U-boat attacked us she'd be the more likely of the two to get sunk. These guns out-range anything that a submarine carries."
"To say nothing of the convoys," put in Bart. "It's all right to attack an unarmed merchant ship but it's a different thing when United States destroyers are on the job."
"Where are they?" said Billy, looking about over the broad expanse which showed no trace of any other vessel.
"They'll meet us when we get further out," said Frank. "There will be no danger for a day or two yet. The U-boats are hugging the English coast pretty tight."
"I don't think we ought to reckon too much on that," said Billy. "You know, a U-boat did cross the ocean a year or so ago and sank five ships right off Nantucket. That's coming too close home for comfort."
"One swallow doesn't make a summer," replied Frank. "At that time we were neutral and after the U-boat once slipped past the British fleet there was nothing to stop it before it got to the American coast. But you bet it would be no cinch to do it now, with the United States navy on the job."
The next two days were fair and the sea smooth. The great liner reeled off the miles with tremendous speed. As Billy had prophesied, the ship was so steady that there was very little sea-sickness and there was so much to be seen and done under these novel conditions that every waking hour was filled with interest.
Two days later they picked up their convoy and all felt a very comforting sense of security in the presence of the destroyers with their business-like air and wicked looking guns.
They kept pace with the liner, within easy reaching distance, occasionally exchanging signals, and keeping sleepless watch day and night over the huge transport.
"The finest navy in the world!" cried Frank, with enthusiasm, as his kindling eyes rested on these "bulldogs of the sea." "That's one branch of the service where Uncle Sam has never fallen down. Man for man, gun for gun, and ship for ship, there's nothing in the world can beat them. Just watch them clean out that U-boat nest when they once get over there in force."
"They'll do to them what Decatur did to the Barbary pirates years ago," said Bart. "Every other nation was paying tribute to them, but that idea didn't make a hit with us and we went in and wiped them off the face of the earth—or rather the face of the water. And what we did once, we can do again."
Frank's eyes had been idly roaming over the sea while they were talking, but suddenly his gaze became fixed and he started to his feet.
"Did you see that, fellows?" he demanded, sharply.
"Where?" asked Billy
"I didn't see anything," said Bart.
"It looked like a flash of light on the water," explained Frank. "There it is again. Great Scott, it's a periscope!"
Almost as he spoke, the forward guns on the liner roared their challenge, followed by the deeper bass of the guns from the nearest destroyer.
In an instant there was great excitement, though without the slightest trace of panic. The ship swung around in response to a bell from the bridge and began to zigzag in a bewildering fashion.
Then a great white furrow appeared in the sea and along that whitening lane came hissing a monster torpedo. Nearer and nearer it came with lightning speed straight toward the vessel.
Had the liner kept its course the torpedo would have struck it amidships. As it was, it passed just back of the stern, missing it by not more than a dozen feet.
The destroyers came racing like mad toward the spot from which the torpedo had been launched. No trace of the submarine was visible but the destroyers circled round and round the spot, dropping their deadly depth bombs in the hope of striking their unseen foe.
Thousands of pairs of eyes watched for the result, while in their excitement their owners almost forgot to breathe.
Minutes passed and then a mighty cheer went up. For on the waters appeared a gradually widening smudge of oil on which floated bits of wreckage that told their own story.
The U-boat had fired its last torpedo. One of the depth bombs had sought it out in its invisible lair, battered in its sides, wrenched open its seams and sent its pirate crew to their last account. For that one boat, at least, the Kaiser's admirals would watch in vain.
"We got it!" yelled Billy Waldon exultingly.
"They can't always get away with it!" cried Bart, jubilantly.
"What did I tell you about our navy?" crowed Frank. "They can't put one over on Uncle Sam!"
"You've got to hand it to that fellow, though," said Billy. "He had his nerve right with him to try to cop out a transport right under the nose of a convoy."
"Yes," agreed Bart. "Although, after all, it may simply have been a chance meeting. The captain of the U-boat might have been as surprised as we were when he came up to breathe and found himself so close to us. But being there it was too good a chance to miss and he let fly."
"Maybe there wouldn't have been a high old time in Berlin if the torpedo had reached its mark," said Frank. "Think of being able to boast that they'd sunk thousands of Uncle Sam's troops! They'd have hung out the flags and rung the bells and given the school children a holiday."
"Well, a miss is as good as a mile," returned Billy. "It's a heap more comfortable sitting here and talking about it, than it would be to be in the water or rowing about in small boats while the submarine shelled us."
"Well, that particular submarine will never do any more shelling," said Bart. "It's all over with them now. It must be a fearful thing to die the way those fellows did, like rats in a trap. It's no wonder that the Kaiser finds it hard to get men to man his U-boats."
"It is pretty rough on them when luck goes against them," admitted Frank. "But if those fellows played the game fairly I'd feel sorrier than I do. Don't forget, that if they saw us struggling in the water they'd be standing on the deck of the submarine, if there were no destroyer about, grinning and mocking at us. And if women and children were drowning, it would make no difference to them."
"Right you are," declared Billy. "Do you remember what that U-boat did that sank theBelgian Prince? Smashed the small boats, threw away the oars, and took those of the crew who were left on top of the submarine."
"Yes," said Bart. "Then the Germans made everything tight and went below, leaving their prisoners on the deck. The U-boat sailed along the surface for a few hours and then slowly sank leaving their captives to drown. If that wasn't brutal, cold-blooded murder, there never was any in the history of the world."
"I hope this submarine was the one that did the trick," said Frank. "Perhaps drowning didn't seem such a rich joke to them when their turn came."
From that time on, the vigilance aboard ship was redoubled, for although the general opinion was that it was only a chance meeting, no one knew but what this U-boat was simply one of a fleet whose companions might look for better luck where their comrade had failed.
But nothing more was seen of the undersea terror until they were approaching the French coast and then the boys were witnesses of an exciting game that held them breathless.
"Look at that speck up there in the sky," exclaimed Frank.
"Biggest bird I ever saw," remarked Billy.
"That's no bird," declared Bart, after a prolonged inspection through a pair of glasses that he produced from his kit. "That's an aeroplane."
"An aeroplane!" exclaimed Billy. "So far away from shore as this? You're dreaming."
"You can see for yourselves," replied Bart, as he handed the glasses around. "Take a squint at it and you'll see that that bird never wore feathers."
"It must be a seaplane," announced Frank. "It's been launched from the deck of some vessel and now it's hovering up there like a hawk, looking for submarines. It's a funny thing, but they say that those seaplane pilots can look right down through the water and see a submarine when it can't be seen from the deck of a ship."
"What's the dope?" asked Billy, with great interest. "Suppose he does spot one, what good does it do?"
"He's got a wireless equipment," explained Frank, "and he sends out signals to trawlers and destroyers. They come on the jump and the seaplane tells them just where the submarine is lying."
"By jiminy, I think he sees one now!" exclaimed Tom Bradford, who had just come up. "See that smudge of smoke over there? That means a steamer's coming and there's another."
As though by magic one boat after another hove in sight until there were four, coming from as many points in the compass and heading toward that point in the sea over which the seaplane hovered.
The boys were on edge with excitement at the prospect of being in at the death and as the liner was rapidly approaching the scene of action, they had a clear view of what followed.
Guided evidently by signals from the seaplane, two of the trawlers stretched a long chain between them and advanced slowly toward the other two who, with a similar chain approached from the other direction.
"What do you suppose they're trying to do?" asked Billy, curiously.
"The idea is, to get those chains under the submarine," explained Frank. "After they've done that, they'll crisscross them from above. If they once succeed in doing it the sub is done for. He's got to come up and surrender or else they'll slip him a depth bomb and blow him to flinders."
Deftly and quickly the work went on under the direction of the skilled veterans who held command of the trawlers. Then they waited for the submarine to come up.
But it did not come. Instead, it released a group of mines on the chance of wrecking one or more of its captors. But they were on the lookout for just such a contingency and fended off these "floating deaths," waiting till they had finished their more important work before rendering them harmless.
Minutes passed and still the U-boat lay like a sullen monster, trapped but not subdued.
Then it was the trawlers' turn to take the offensive. Two depth bombs were placed on the taut chains and slid down through the waters to the hull of the doomed submarine.
There was a muffled boom, a geyser-like rush of water, and then the telltale oil that came to the surface showed that all was over. One more of the assassins of the sea had paid the score it owed to an outraged world!
"And that's the Kaiser's weapon that was going to bring England to her knees!" ejaculated Tom.
"The Allies are getting the best of them," declared Frank. "It looked at one time as though Germany were going to put it over. But we're sinking them now just as fast as they can be built and when America gets fairly to work we'll sink them still faster."
"Just wait till Edison gets on the job. He'll find something that will finish the U-boats in jig time. He'll make them look like thirty cents," declared Tom.
A little later they caught their first sight of France. Only a blur on the horizon at first, it grew steadily larger, and the bow of the boat was packed with the eager young soldiers, straining for a sight of the war-swept land that had suffered so much and done so much in the fight for liberty and democracy.
Here they were to fight, here they were to suffer, here they were to carry their country's flag to a glorious victory!
Frank breathed hard as the land came closer, for to him France had a greater significance than even to the others. It was his mother's land and for that reason doubly dear.
As the great vessel followed by others drew near the port, it was seen that the wharves and shores were black with people. News had been wirelessed of their coming, and the city had gone wild with joy at this visible token of help from the great sister republic across the sea.
Bells were ringing, whistles blowing, cannon booming. Flags were flung out from all the buildings and the whole city was in holiday garb to welcome Uncle Sam's army boys to France!
"Here at last!" cried Frank in wild jubilation, as the transport was made fast to the wharf. "Pinch me, fellows, to make sure I'm not dreaming."
"It's real, sure enough!" exulted Bart.
"Now we'll see action!" exclaimed Billy.
"And get a chance at Fritz and Heinie!" added Tom. "I'm aching to get a hack at them."
Frank did not answer to this. Now they had arrived in France his mind had drifted back to his mother and what she had said about the property she had inherited. Would they ever be able to claim his grandfather's estate?
If the army boys could have had their way, they would have leaped forthwith from the deck to the dock. They were wild to feel the soil of the gallant country beneath their feet. But discipline had to be observed and several hours elapsed before the troops were ready to leave the ship.
Then at last they poured over the gangplank, line after line, wave after wave, in what seemed to the delighted multitude of watchers an almost endless procession.
They formed in line and after a formal exchange of greetings between their commanders and the city authorities, the troops swung into the streets with the bands playing alternately, the "Star Spangled Banner" and the "Marseillaise."
Such cheers as greeted them, such tears, such pelting of flowers, such waving of flags as the stalwart young Americans marched through streets that were packed to the curb with joyous, shouting, frenzied natives!
It was a royal greeting that not one of the boys could ever forget.
They reached the great barracks that had been assigned to them by the French Government for a temporary halting place before they should go to a place in the interior right behind the fighting lines.
There was plenty of room, for the barracks were empty now, every son of France of fighting age that could be spared, being at the front.
"They sure seemed glad to see us," grinned Frank, as, after the march, the regiment broke ranks and the men went to their quarters.
"I don't wonder," replied Bart. "I suppose America felt the same way a hundred years ago when Lafayette and his comrades went over there."
"Gee, it seems strange to speak of America as being over there," said Tom, a little soberly.
"Not getting homesick, are you, Tom?" questioned Billy, with a smile.
"I have an idea I will," Tom answered with a grin, "when I have time to think about it. But it would make me sicker still," he added stoutly, "to go back before we'd licked the Huns."
"Right-o!" cried Billy. "When I go back I want to take a lot of German helmets along to give to some girls I know."
"Some girls," chaffed Bart. "You talk like a Mormon, Billy."
The next few days were busy and delightful ones for the boys. The townspeople opened their hearts and homes to them, and they were feasted and entertained to their heart's content. Everything was so new and strange to them that they were constantly stumbling upon surprises.
The language, to be sure, offered some obstacles. The boys had been taught some of the most necessary French phrases while in their training camp, and these along with some language primers they carried, sufficed for their more simple needs. But their vocabulary was limited and their accent was a fearful and wonderful thing, though their hosts were too polite to laugh at them.
Frank had some advantage over the others because his mother, being a French woman, had taught him her native tongue, and it was a great comfort to the rest of the Camport boys to have Frank along with them as interpreter when they themselves were stumped—which, it must be confessed, was often!
Tom especially, who had no gift for languages was usually in hot water. His struggles with the language were frantic, not to say pathetic.
"You're game, old scout," chaffed Billy, after Tom had wrestled in vain with the pronunciation of the French word for soup. "But why in thunder did you make that waiter crazy by asking for bullion? Any one would think you were trying to cop off the United States mint."
"Well, what should I say?" Tom defended himself stoutly, as he thumbed over his phrase book. "There it is, plain as day," he added, triumphantly—"b-o-u-i-l-l-o-n. If that isn't bullion, what is it?"
"You're all wrong, you're all wrong," said Bart condescendingly. "It'sbwe-yone, just like that."
Tom tried it once or twice desperately and then gave it up.
"I'd have to have a cold in my head to talk that way," he protested, pocketing the book in disgust. "I'm not going to try any more. The more I try the worse I get. The next time, I'm going to ask for soup, plain, old fashioned American soup. S-o-u-p. Get that? Then the waiter can do the guessing!"
"Yes, and then he'll serve you spaghetti," laughed Frank.
"So much the better," grinned Tom. "Let him go through the whole shooting match. Sooner or later he'll come to soup and when he does I'll be there."
"And you intend to eat right through the menu?" queried Billy admiringly.
"The which?" asked Tom. "Oh, you mean the bill of fare. Sure thing. I don't care whether it's soup to nuts or nuts to soup, I'll catch it coming and going."
"And you're the fellow they wouldn't let enlist on account of his teeth," moaned Billy, with a doleful shake of his head.
"They didn't know me," grinned Tom.
The army boys spent nearly a week in the barracks to get rid of their "sea legs," and then the order came to go to the new camp, right behind the lines that had been assigned to them.
It was too far for a hike and the railroads were taxed to their capacity in taking supplies to the forces at the front. But the problem was solved by a multitude of gigantic motor trucks, lorries, in which two score of men could find accommodation.
They were high-powered machines capable of tremendous speed and they rushed over the fine French highways like so many express trains.
"This is the thing that saved Paris," remarked Frank. "If Gallieni hadn't packed all his troops and rushed them up as reinforcements, France would have lost the battle of the Marne."
"They're great goers all right," commented Bart. "We're sure breaking the speed laws. But I don't see any traffic cops stopping us."
"They'd only cheer us on," grinned Tom. "We can't get to the battle lines too quick to suit the French."
Up hill and down dale they raced, through thriving cities, and quaint villages, past peasant cottages and princely chateaux, lying beautiful and serene in the bright sunshine.
They were in the garden spot of France, a place that had yet been spared the horror and devastation of war, and the only thing that seemed unnatural was the striking absence of young men.
Women everywhere were doing the work, in the fields, in the stores, at the railroad stations, on the streets and country roads. Scarcely any males were seen except old men and boys.
There was no need to ask where the young men were. At Verdun, on the Somme, on the Aisne; everywhere on that long line of trenches that stretched from the Vosges to the sea, they were fighting like heroes to keep the Hun at bay.
And on the heart of each were written those immortal words spoken at Verdun: "They shall not pass!"
Hour after hour went by. Suddenly Frank asked:
"What was that, fellows? Did you hear it?"
"Sounded to me like thunder," said Bart.
"With a sky like this?" replied Frank. "Never. Listen!"
Borne on the wind came a long, booming sound, growing longer and louder as they sped toward it, falling fitfully at times, only to swell into a mightier rumble like the roar of waves dashing against the coast.
They looked at each other with comprehension dawning in their eyes.
"It's thunder all right, Bart," said Frank, quietly. "It's the thunder of the guns! We are getting near the fighting front at last!"
The signs multiplied now that they were approaching the battle lines. Apart from the ominous roar which had now become unceasing, war showed its grim face on every hand.
They dashed through "rest billets"—the towns behind the lines where the exhausted soldiers, who had served their term in the trenches, were sent back for a few days or weeks of rest while fresh troops took their places.
The roads became more congested with trucks carrying supplies and ammunition to the front. Ambulances came past in an endless stream, bearing their quota of wounded men. Hospitals were everywhere, marked with a Red Cross that bespoke their mission of mercy and healing.
And there were cemeteries too, with their endless rows of simple wooden crosses on which were inscribed the names and regimental numbers of those who slept beneath.
Cripples, too, there were, with missing legs or arms, and blinded ones, who had looked for the last time on scenes of warfare.
It was the seamy side of war that thrust itself upon their sight. But though it sobered, it did not daunt these eager young Americans who had come to do their part and "see it through." It only deepened their indignation at the merciless military power that had brought such woe and misery upon the world, and each breathed a vow to himself that he would not rest until that power was curbed and punished as it deserved to be.
"This looks like the real thing," remarked Frank.
"That's what!" agreed Bart. "You can see already that war is what Sherman said it was."
"This is nothing," put in Billy. "It's only the fringe. It's only when we get in the trenches that we'll know anything about it."
"Some of us may not know much then," put in Tom. "It all depends on how long we succeed in dodging the bullets."
"Yes," observed Billy. "Or our experience may be like that of the Tommy who said 'First, I 'ears a 'orrible noise and the next thing I 'ears the nurse sayin', "Sit up and drink this!"'"
There was a laugh that broke the tension, and before long they reached the district that had been chosen for their intensive training.
It was a wide stretch of rolling country several miles in extent, and it had been chosen because it resembled in its main features the actual territory where the fight was going on.
There were brooks and hills, valleys and quarries, woods and meadowlands with a few small hamlets of scattered houses.
There were no spacious barracks such as they had been used to in the cantonments at home. The troops were quartered here and there as opportunity offered.
Thousands of dog tents had been erected on the level places and in these the majority of the men were sheltered.
Every cottage and chateau also had its quota, and farmhouses with their outlying barns and stables were utilized to the utmost.
"Hope they don't separate us, fellows," said Frank, as he watched the corporals and sergeants picking out various squads and assigning them their billets.
"Gee, so do I," echoed Bart. "The old bunch has been together ever since we left Camport and I have a hunch our luck's going to continue."
The "hunch" proved to have a solid foundation, for the four army boys were all sent off together with about forty more of their comrades to an old mill that stood near the edge of the camp.
It was a low, rambling structure with plenty of windows that gave it ample light and an air of homely comfort that delighted the young soldiers.
"This is what I call luck," chortled Tom, as he looked about him and glanced up at the well-thatched roof that seemed rain-proof.
"It beats a dog tent by a thousand miles," returned Billy.
"It doesn't matter so much while the weather's still warm," said Bart, "but oh, boy! when the winter comes, maybe it won't be good to have a snug roof like this over our heads."
A little cottage adjoining the mill served as a mess hall for the squad billeted there and the presiding genius of the place was a French cook, who had as his assistant a young Irish lad whose most prominent points were a shock of red hair and a mischievous disposition.
"Anatole is a good chef, all right," Frank remarked one day, shortly after they had had a most appetizing meal. "He may have his faults and probably does, but he cooks to beat the band."
"Yes," agreed Bart, "he's a dandy cook but he's got a hair-trigger temper. I've heard him bawling out his helper in all the French epithets there are, and that's quite a few apparently."
"Righto!" laughed Frank. "There's a big lot of them and Anatole knows them all. He could give points to the driver of a team of army mules. You've got to hand it to him for being thorough anyway. Without that outlet he'd probably go crazy."
"Possibly," assented Bart. "There's no telling. But listen. 'Speak of the cook and you'll hear him shouting' or words to that effect. Great Scott! He's mad for fair this time."
"You've said it!" ejaculated Frank. "He's about as angry as it's possible for a Frenchman to be—and that's going some."
Fate had willed that that day the Irish helper in a spirit of impish perversity should have annoyed the cook in various covert and ingenious ways until the latter's irritation broke all bounds.
The cottage door flew open and the boy bounced out, about two jumps ahead of the cook whose face was crimson and eyes bulging.
"Pat has an air of haste about him," remarked Frank with a grin.
"He'd better have," laughed Bart. "Anatole is up in the air for fair."
"Leetle rat zat you air!" shouted the enraged cook, shaking a ladle furiously at his helper who stood at a safe distance wearing a tantalizing grin. "Sacre! but you drive me cr-r-r-azy weet your seely tricks. You air one Irish monkey, zat ees what you air! Ef I get hol' of you—ah, you weel not forget eet soon, I tell you zat!" and he made a clumsy rush for the boy who easily dodged around a corner of the cottage. The cook raced after him and the pair made several circuits of the little building, although it was evident that the cook had absolutely no chance of catching his agile tormentor.
They made a highly ludicrous sight, and Frank and Bart, who happened to be the only spectators of the scene, roared with laughter, stamping about and hammering each other on the shoulder in the excess of their merriment.
But the cook was not long in discovering the futility of his efforts and gave up the chase, puffing and blowing like a grampus. His wrath had in nowise abated however, and he shook his fist impotently at the boy, who by his very silence and the ease with which he eluded him drove the unfortunate chef into a very paroxysm of fury.
"Mille tonnerres!" he shouted, and hurled the heavy ladle he had been carrying straight at his assistant's head. But the lad ducked in time, and the heavy missile went whistling past him and found lodgment in the underbrush beyond.
"Better luck nixt toime," jeered the imp. "Try agin, why don't ye? Ye've got plinty uv thim ladles left. 'Tis the bist uv exercise, throwin' thim things is."
Frank and Bart shouted afresh, while the outraged cook tore his hair in desperation and gave vent to a stream of epithets. The boy said nothing, but put his hand to his ear and affected to listen in a manner far more irritating than words could possibly have been.
The cook's face grew more crimson than before and his naturally protruding eyes seemed about to leave their sockets. He danced wildly about, shaking his clenched fists madly in the air. At last however, just when he seemed threatened with a stroke of apoplexy, he stopped from sheer exhaustion and for the first time became conscious of the presence of Frank and Bart who were leaning on each other for support, convulsed with laughter and the tears streaming from their eyes.
He glared malevolently at them for a few moments but finding that this had little effect at last turned and went into the cottage still muttering imprecations on the head of his assistant.
"Help, help!" gasped Frank. "Hold me up, Bart, or I'll go down. My, but that was rich."
"All of that," agreed Bart, wiping the tears from his eyes. "If we'd only had a moving picture machine and a phonograph handy to take down that scene. It would be the biggest hit of the age."
"It would have meant oodles of coin and no mistake," assented Bart. "We'd have been beyond the reach of want for the rest of our natural lives."
"Anatole's got a circus clown beaten by a thousand miles," replied Frank. "It's too bad that the rest of the fellows couldn't have been here to see the circus. But I suppose it's ungrateful to criticize fate after she's been so kind to us."
"I should say so," chuckled Bart. "If I live to be a hundred years old, I never expect to see anything funnier," and at the remembrance of the comical scene he started laughing afresh with his hand pressed against his side.
"Just the same," said Frank, when they had at last quieted down, "I wouldn't like to be in that red-headed helper's shoes. He's got to go into the cottage soon, and when he does I have a hunch that something will happen to him."
"I think it's extremely likely," agreed Bart, "and I can't say but what he deserves it. It seems to me that Anatole has something coming to him in the way of revenge."
It was with considerable amusement that the two chums watched the actions of the Irish lad. For some time he kept clear of the cottage, but then the door opened and the cook's head appeared in the doorway.
"Come here, you Mickey!" he called, in tones meant to be reassuring, "and peel ze potatoes."
With a good deal of caution the boy reluctantly approached, but stopped just out of the cook's reach for a parley.
"Wot ye goin' ter do wit' me whin ye git holt uv me?" he queried. "I wuz only foolin' wit' ye before. Can't ye take a little joke?"
"Nevaire mind," replied the cook realizing his advantage. "Come an' get beezy, else I tell ze captain you air—wat you call eet?—inzubordinate. Zen he make you come."
The boy glanced desperately around in search of some way of escape from his predicament, but finding none finally went reluctantly into the cottage.
"Here's where retribution falls on him," said Frank with a grin.
He was not mistaken, for the boy had scarcely entered when there issued forth the sound of several lusty smacks. Then came a high-pitched scolding which showed that Anatole had had recourse to moral as well as physical suasion.
"I don't know but what I'd rather have the licking than the scolding," chuckled Bart as they listened to the voluble eloquence of the chef.
"Either one's bad enough," laughed Frank. "I guess our young red-headed friend has got all that was coming to him."
Now the intensive training of the boys began in earnest. And training now had a meaning that it had never had while they were still on American soil.
For at that time they had not fully grasped the fact that they were actually at war. There had been a certain dream-like quality about it that had been like a scene from a play.
The only cannon they had heard were those fired in salute or at practice. The zip of a bullet had only meant that that bullet was speeding toward a wooden target.
But now the roar of cannon, multiplied a thousand fold above everything they had heard before, meant that deadly missiles were seeking out human life in an effort to maim and destroy.
And soon—how soon they did not know, but still soon—they themselves would be the target for whining bullets and shrieking shells.
Practice now meant something. Expertness might mean the difference between saving life or losing it. A new spirit ran through the men like an electric current. No need now for their officers to urge them on. If anything, they had to hold the young soldiers back, lest they burn up their vitality and exhaust their strength before they were put to the final test.
As far as possible, the camp became a mimic battlefield. Trenches were dug, precisely like those that they would soon be holding against the attacks of the enemy.
Barbed wire fences were built by one regiment and cut through and beaten down by another, which, for the time being, was chosen to play the part of the enemy.
The bayonet practice was no longer against dummies but against a picked squad of their own comrades. And each side in these mimic battles was so eager to win that at times they almost forgot themselves, with slight wounds and bruises as a result before their officers could intervene.
"We're getting there, Bart!" cried Frank, as he wiped the perspiration from his brow, after a particularly strenuous encounter. "I'd back our boys right now to hold their own against any bunch of equal size that the Boches can send against them."
"We sure are doing dandy work," assented Bart. "I wonder when they're going to put us on the firing line?"
"Before long I hope," chimed in Tom. "I'm aching to get a whack at them. It's the only way I can let off steam," he added, ruefully. "I came near running one of the boys through with my bayonet to-day."
"I wonder where they'll put us," conjectured Billy. "I suppose they'll sandwich us in with some of the French troops for a while until we get our bearings."
"Maybe," said Frank. "But I'd like better to have us fellows take up some sector and hold it all by ourselves. The tri-color's a fine flag, but when I fire my first bullet at a Hun I want to be under the Stars and Stripes."
"You've said it!" declared Tom.
"You fellows are regular fire-eaters," laughed Dick Lever, a young fellow with whom the boys had struck up a friendship.
He wore an aviator's uniform and was a fine type of young American. He was one of those who, on seeing war impending, had not waited for the formal declaration, but, at their own expense, had sailed to the old country to help France and, so doing, the United States.
Bronzed, upstanding, clear-eyed, he had succeeded in making the army boys like him immensely and had imparted to them many useful and interesting stories of modern warfare.
"You're a good one to talk," said Billy. "When it comes to fire eating, you aren't so slow yourself. I heard from one of the fellows yesterday what you did at the battle of the Somme."
Dick blushed like a girl.
"That was nothing," he protested. "Just part of the day's work."
"What's the dope?" asked Tom with interest. "I haven't heard the story, and from the beginning, it ought to be good."
"Will Scott was telling me about it," said Billy. "He says that Dick here went over the German lines and started a little war all by himself. He flew low near the ground, letting loose his machine gun at a whole regiment of German soldiers just forming up for action. Went along a little further and lambasted a bunch of German officers in an automobile, killed two of them and made the others jump out and hide under the machine. Then came back and, just for good measure, let fly his machine gun at the same regiment he'd soaked going out. After that I guess he knocked off and called it a day's work.
"That's why he wears that decoration," he added, pointing to the cross on Dick's jacket.
"See him blush," chaffed Tom. "It's funny how these fellows that can face any number of bullets, turn coward when it comes to praise. You'd almost think we were accusing him of a crime."
"Any other of the boys would have done the same if he had had my chance," said Dick. "Sometimes I go days at a time without having a chance for a scrap. That just happened to be my lucky day."
"The Huns didn't call it that," laughed Frank.
Dick who, as a matter of custom, had been scanning the sky, uttered a sharp exclamation.
"Here's another bit of luck, fellows, perhaps," he cried, and without further farewell, was off like a shot toward his machine, which had been waiting, with his mechanic to guard it, a hundred yards away.
High up in the sky appeared a squadron of airships that by their markings and designs the boys recognized as enemy planes. They were evidently bent on adventure and had come much further beyond the lines than usual.
The French were quick to accept the challenge and the anti-aircraft guns got into action at once. Puffs of shrapnel burst like white clouds in and about the marauding planes.
Even as the boys watched, one missile found its mark, and the plane, out of control, whirled round and round and then fell swiftly to the ground within the French lines.
But not with guns alone did the Allies respond. Like a flock of falcons, a squadron of French aeroplanes shot swiftly up into the air, climbing, climbing in the effort for altitude, so that they might swoop down upon their prey from above.
"There goes Dick's plane in the van!" cried Frank, his voice tense with excitement.
"That's the place for America!" exclaimed Tom. "Always in the van!"