Army Boys in France Part 9

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 n.o.ble 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 s.p.a.ce left to afford a pa.s.sage 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 appet.i.te 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sume gigantic proportions. And how they ate!

After breakfast came the manual of arms, field practice, drilling in semaph.o.r.e 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 l.u.s.ty lungs to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of all concerned. It went something like this:

"You may mutter and swear at the reveille call With its 'Can't get 'em up in the morning;'

And you may not be fond of a.s.sembly at all But you drop into line at the warning; Police call will cause you a lot of distress Though you answer at once or regret it, But you jump when the splinter lips bugle for mess And 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 beans With your mess kit in hand--do it now!'

And you cheerfully come for your coffee and slum, For your coffee and slum When 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!"

CHAPTER X

INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH

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.