Getting Over and On

This encounter, though witnessed by only a half dozen, gave Jed Shoemaker a new standing in the camp.

The shoot came off and it was a success in that a fine degree of nearly equal interest in the contesting teams was shown.

Shoemaker's team received about as much applause as did the boys that Herb led; and when the mountaineer's boys came out the victors by the exceedingly small margin of five in the total scores they got all that was coming to them.

Then Jed was seen to go across to the inspector-general, Colonel Short, and make a request, whereupon the individual highest scores were read out, Herbert leading in them.

In the cheering that followed it was plain that the Kentuckian was the leader; and when the two, Jed and Herb, advanced before the officers' stand and warmly shook hands there was another burst of applause, led by Captain Leighton.

The general, joined by certain other officers, came down from his seat and as the regimental audience filed away he summoned both teams to line up. He then addressed them:

"Men, this final test of marksmanship is the crucial one in the selection of snipers—we used to call them sharpshooters in the old days—to form the first platoon, and others will immediately follow. I know of no better way than to pick by scores and general deportment, for the first platoon, thirty-nine men in all. Lieutenant Loring will lead you."

There was a very decided handclapping, for Loring, though young, was deservedly popular and had the distinction of having served as a regular and corporal with Pershing in Mexico and as a private in the Philippines.

"With the formation of the other platoons, to form the first company of expert riflemen from this camp and the first of the kind in the army, I believe, your commander will be Captain Leighton, now of our Company H."

The men all were pleased with this choice. Herbert noticed that even Gaul, who had scored fairly well in the shooting, vigorously clapped his hands.

"The sergeants of this first platoon," continued the general, "will be Berry and Small, and the corporals of the four squads are Whitcomb, Phillips, Shoemaker and Lang."

Loud applause followed this combined announcement of non-commissioned officers.

The general further remarked upon the necessity of continued drill and training together in the new formation and added:

"Hold yourselves in readiness, men, for orders that may come from Washington at any time respecting new duties. Your squads, Lieutenant Loring, may be divided up in France, each serving on active duty with a platoon reduced to three regular squads and one of yours. It is the idea to place these men in certain positions where organized sniping is most effective, the snipers, of course, to be protected by the regular men. And now, I hope and feel sure that each and every one of you, when before the enemy, will give a good account of himself and do his duty in our great cause!"

And the general received the greatest cheering of the occasion.

Old Ocean! The rolling, billowy blue, apparently endless, with nothing but the paler sky, sometimes the gray, threatening sky, dipping into the dark water on every side. And the vessel; its never ceasing engines throbbing, turning, whirring, sending the great hull on and on and on, over swells, through shorter billows, sloshing into whitecaps, and the two insignificant humans up there at the wheel directing the mapped course of this great bulk of steel so that her road was as clear, as certain, as though with wheels under her instead of astern, she followed a turnpike on the solid earth. But by no means alone. Not far behind, so close indeed that the white divided waters were always visible, another transport, also full of troops, sailed the blue sea, and back of that still another plainly in sight in daytime and at times discernible at night.

And on every side the greyhounds of the sea. Uncle Sam takes chances in sending his troopships over the ocean, for well he knows that, lurking in many places, the enemy submarines, the U-boats that have done most to make the history of this war so remarkable, and have added so greatly to its horrors, seek their prey like man-eating sharks ready to attack helpless swimmers.

The convoy vessels, with their sharp-eyed watchers and heavy guns, bring to port in safety the transport ships.

"Sorry for you, old chump," was Herbert's remark to Roy, as the latter stood by the rail in the wee small hours of night and made as though to cast his entire stomach into the briny depths far below. From bits of his strained conversation one would imagine that the boy might attempt to cast himself overboard so as to keep company with the stomach which so far he had been unable to detach, and so Herbert chose not to leave him. "Say, old man, what you want to do——"

"Oh, you go plumb to thunder across lots with what I ought to do!" groaned Flynn. "You've told me about ten billion fool things I ought to do. There's only one thing I ought to do and that is die. If you felt like me you'd say: 'Here goes nothin',' and hit the briny kerplunk in about two seconds. Take it from me, Herb, it isn't just awful; it's worse than war. I'd rather go up to a forty-two-centimeter just as she goes off and feed me face with the shell comin' out of her than be seasick. I'd rather swallow shrapnel, time fuse and all, and have it go off and turn me inside out than have this darned old heavin' pond coax a ten-dollar dinner out o' me. Say, I feel it comin' again!"

"Forget it," said Herb. "You come on and lie down and that'll make you feel better. Try it, at any rate. Come on now, or I'll carry you down!"

Much of this sort of dialogue went on every night, Roy finding, as did a few others, that the doctor's medicine was not effective.

It was a relief to the boy, as well as to Herb who had lost sleep remaining up with him night after night, when the ship entered a narrow harbor across a wide, unruffled bay somewhere on the long coast of France and warped up to a newly-timbered and planked dock having all of the earmarks, as it were, of American construction.

Indeed, a dozen carpenters who were unmistakably Yankee in get-up and movements, and who later proved it by their speech, were still at work on the office building that flanked the wharf. These fellows came in for a guying.

The boys in khaki leaning over the side, perched on cabin roofs, lifeboats, stanchions, railings and in rigging, feeling more than gay at seeing land again and the fact of having had a safe trip against possible dangers, had to let their exuberance be felt.

"Yip, yip, yip, yip! Get the dog-catcher's net! There's a son-of-a-gun from the land of the sun; eh, Yank?" shouted Roy, leading the fun, as usual.

"Sure, those ginks are all from God's country!"

"Hey, Yank! Does your mother know you're out, over here?"

"Hush, fellers! Salute; that there boob's General Hatchet-and-Saw and yonder's Colonel Sawdust!"

"Dollars to doughnuts they're makin' better wages than John D—— right now!"

"Glory be! Wish I was a nail driver 'stead of a dough boy!"

"That good-lookin' fellow looks like he came from good old Pittsburgh! That's my city!"

"Huh! Don't see black soot on him! Most clean people come from Detroit!"

"No; St. Louis. We wash out there more than once a month, fellow!"

"In the Big Muddy, I reckon!" shouted the Pittsburgher.

"And you need it twice a day!" was shouted back.

"Hey, you wood butchers! Made any coffins for the Booches yet? Soon's we get there they'll need 'em!"

"Listen to him! Booches! Boshes, man; that's the way to pronoun——"

"Hi, yi! Can the college education! Everybody knows it's Bewches! Don't show yer ignor——"

"Give him the Iron Cross! Boches, you simp! Ask these natives over here; it's their word."

"Bet you can't ask 'em anything; they'll mostly beat it when you try to buy eats!"

"Say, Yank, hey! You with the square! Had any frogs' legs yet? Or snails?"

"Oh, glory! Gimme some snails right now; nice, fat ones, alive, fresh and salted! I could eat thousand-leggers or rattlesnakes right now!"

"Hooray! Wonder where we mess!"

"Next week! An' I feel like we messed last in Noo York."

"Me! I'll be glad to get down on terra cotta again!"

"Aw, terra firma, you blamed ignor——"

"Listen to the perfessor! Say, can't you see a joke?"

"Say, fellers—everybody! Let's give a big hooraw for the noble land of France. Now, then, are you ready? Hip, hip——"

The yell that followed might almost have made the French think that the Boches had made a land attack from the sea, did they not know that now such was impossible.

And now, even if the mess had not been called for many hours after the landing, the khaki-clad boys would not have gone hungry, for as they fell in line on command and filed down from the ship hundreds of kindly-faced girls, lads, women and even old men, greeted them smilingly and tendered each soldier a dainty, ample bit of delicious food: meaty sandwiches, tasty little cakes, cups of milk and sour wine—looking surprised, indeed, when the latter was refused by many, Herb and Roy being among this number.

Lieutenant Loring, standing near and noticing this, said to the boys:

"You are right, fellows, of course, morally considering the matter, but here it is a little different from our country. The water is generally vile and often you will have to endanger your health or go thirsty; besides, there is so little alcohol in this common wine, 'vin-ordinaire,' they call it, that it is really not intoxicating. That may let you down occasionally for a drink of it when you can't get milk."

Again, when thousands of long cigarettes came their way, Herb and Roy were among a very few who refused them. The donors were taken aback, indeed. But the boys' messmates, those of their company, had long since acknowledged the sanity of the arguments against tobacco, even though failing in the practise of abstinence.