Army Boys in France Part 7

"Well, fellows, let's count noses," said Frank. "How many of us are going to enlist and how many of us are going to wait for the draft?"

"Enlist! enlist!" came in a general chorus, reinforced by Reddy's shrill treble.

"You'll have to wait awhile, Reddy," laughed Frank. "Your heart's all right, but Uncle Sam isn't ready for the kids yet."

"Mr. Peterson said there were boys in the Union army only fourteen years old," grumbled Reddy. "And if they could fight I don't see why I can't."

"I'm going into the navy," announced d.i.c.k Ormsby, whose father was a retired sea captain. "I've got the love of blue water in my veins I guess, and I'm aching to get a chance to pot a German U-boat."

"Me for the aviators!" cried Will Baxter. "I always wanted to be a high flyer--now I've got the chance. I know all about running a motorcycle and that ought to help a lot."

"I'd like to join the cavalry," joined in Hal Chase. "But they don't seem to have much use for them in this war. Horses can't go over trenches and barbed wire fences."

"The infantry's good enough for me," declared Frank.

"And for me, too," echoed Bart. "Uncle Sam needs men in every branch, but after all, it's the hand to hand fighting of the armies that's going to decide this war."

At this moment, Mr. Moore, the senior member of the firm, came out from his office. He was a large man with a genial face and bearing, and was generally liked by his employees to whom he was fair and just.

His eyes twinkled as he saw the alacrity with which the young men scattered to their desks.

"Don't worry, boys," he said. "I know that your minds aren't much on business to-day, and I don't wonder. To tell the truth, I'd be sorry if they were. There come times when there's only one important thing in the world, and this is one of the times. I've got just a word to say to you boys," he went on. "I don't know just what each one of you is planning to do in connection with this war. Each one of you must decide that matter for himself. From things I've heard, most of you seem eager to go. I shall be sorry to lose you, for we never were busier than we are now, but I should be still more sorry to have you stay here when your country needs you at the front.

"Mr. Thomas and I have been talking this thing over and we want to say to you that as far as the money part of it is concerned you needn't hesitate. We're not going to let you lose a cent by following your patriotic instinct. Some of you have dependents at home who rely in part or wholly upon what you earn. So we have decided that your salaries will go on as usual--that is, that we will make up the difference between what the Government pays you and what you are getting now. In that way you will be able to serve your country with nothing on your mind except the best and quickest way to win the war."

A spontaneous cheer rose from the young men, as with a smile and wave of his hand their employer turned back to his office.

"Gee, but he's a game sport!" exclaimed Reddy, voicing forcibly if inelegantly the feeling of all.

If there had been any hesitation before, this generous speech removed it and now the boys were ready for action.

That very evening Frank and Bart, accompanied by Billy Waldon, went to the headquarters of the Thirty-seventh regiment. Here they put in their applications for enlistment.

There were few formalities, for the regiment was eager to recruit its numbers up to full strength.

Neither one of the chums had any trouble in pa.s.sing the physical examination, for both were splendid specimens of manhood. Frank was six feet tall in his stocking feet, straight and lithe as an Indian, and with fine muscular development.

Bart, who was two inches shorter, was broad shouldered, well set up, and capable of great endurance. All the prodding of the doctors failed to reveal the slightest defect, and they pa.s.sed the test triumphantly.

Then they took the oath of allegiance, promising in words what they had long since promised in their hearts, and were duly enrolled as members of the famous regiment.

"Well, now you're one of us, boys," cried Billy, as he grasped the hand of each warmly. "And, believe me, it's a great old regiment to belong to. Come along and I'll show you some of the flags we carried in the Civil War."

They went with him through the armory and saw some of the treasured relics that the regiment cherished as its most priceless possessions.

There were the old flags, blackened with powder, torn with bullets, that had gone through the fire of Antietam and Gettysburg and Chickamauga.

The boys took off their hats as they stood before them.

There were the cannon that had thundered on the banks of the Rapidan and in the valley of the Shenandoah. A gla.s.s case covered a letter of commendation for a wild charge that had saved the day at Shiloh. There was the blood-stained hat of the colonel who had fallen while leading the regiment at Gaines' Mill.

"That was the kind of stuff the regiment was made up of in the old days," said Billy, proudly.

"It's a glorious record," said Frank, reverently. "And now it's up to us to show that what the old boys did in Virginia, the young fellows are going to do again in France!"

CHAPTER VIII

OFF TO CAMP

Now that the momentous step had been taken, the boys buckled down to work--work of the hardest and most strenuous kind.

They left their positions with Moore and Thomas the next day, with the hearty good wishes of the firm and the a.s.surance that their places would be ready for them as soon as they returned.

The only gloomy member of the office force was Tom Bradford, who had also applied for enlistment but had been rejected on account of his teeth. Now he had on a grouch of the grouchiest kind.

"Hang the red tape!" he growled. "What have a fellow's teeth got to do with it? I don't want to bite the Germans, I want to shoot them."

"Never mind, old scout," comforted Bart. "Perhaps the dentist can fix that up. Anyway you can root for us if you can't go along."

"Not much nourishment in that," grunted Tom, refusing to be shaken from his att.i.tude of settled gloom.

"It does seem mighty hard," remarked Bart, after Tom had left them. "I don't think the Government ought to be so particular. The time may come when they'll be glad enough to get such fine fellows as Tom, teeth or no teeth."

"Perhaps so," agreed Frank; "but just now they've got such a lot of material that they can afford to pick and choose. And after all, perhaps they're right. They've got to have a pretty high level of physical condition."

"I suppose you're right," said Bart, adding: "Suppose poor old Tom should get a toothache in the trenches. You can't expect to have dentists on tap."

"As far as that goes," Frank took him up quickly, grinning at the picture that rose before his mind, "I should think a good hard toothache would be an a.s.set. You'd be so mad you could kill a dozen Germans. It would just be getting your mind off your agony."

Bart grinned.

"Yes and it would have another advantage. When you've got a toothache you don't care whether you live or die. Getting stabbed with a bayonet would be almost a relief."

"That's so," laughed Frank. "He'd be something like the seasick pa.s.senger who, for the first hour, was afraid he was going to die and after that was afraid he couldn't. I suppose Uncle Sam figures it this way," he went on, "if a chain has a single weak link in it the whole chain is weak.

"You know how it is in a crowd. A hundred people may be eager to get out of a place, but if two or three in front are slow it holds up the whole hundred. But I'm willing to bet that someway or somehow Tom will manage to get in."

"I hope so, anyway," said Bart. "I'd like to have the old scout along with us."

A day or two later the boys got their uniforms and then they began to feel like genuine soldiers. It set them apart from other men and emphasized the fact that from now on they had but one aim in life, to fight and, if need be, die for Uncle Sam.

The first sight of Frank in khaki was a stab at the mother heart of Mrs. Sheldon, although she could not avoid a thrill of admiration at the splendid figure that he made. To her it meant separation, a separation that was coming swiftly nearer with each pa.s.sing day. And there might be no reunion!

But, although her lips were tremulous, her eyes were bright and she kept her forebodings bravely under cover. She was a thoroughbred, and it was easy to see where Frank had inherited his spirit.