“This is some crowd!” murmured Ned. “I hope Bob doesn’t get lost in it.”
“Especially if he does manage to find the galley, and can bribe or intimidate one of the cooks into slipping him something on the side,” added Jerry. “In that case I hope Bob’s memory carries him back to us, for, to tell you the truth, I’m hungry.”
“So’m I,” admitted Ned; “though I did pull a raw one on Chunky. But I guess we ought to consider ourselves lucky to be on board.”
“You said it!” declared Jerry. “There’s a lot of the boys who would give up a wound stripe for the sake of going back on one of these early boats. Now that the war is practically over, there’s going to be a big slump in the enthusiasm that kept us going when nothing else would have done it. Yes, we’re dead lucky to be going back.”
And so, amid the whistle salutes of other craft, the waving of hands and the tossing of hats and caps from unknown well-wishers, the Sherman kept on her way.
Out toward the west she headed, out toward the land of the Stars and Stripes, and deep in their hearts Ned, Bob, and Jerry were thankful for the Providence that had picked them as among the first to go back home after the fighting was over.
They had covered themselves with glory, for in addition to the D. S. C. bestowed on Jerry Hopkins, Ned and Bob had received honorable mention, and their company was one picked out for signal honor, the three boys sharing in the general praise.
“I wonder how things are going back in Cresville,” mused Ned, after a period of silence on the part of himself and Jerry.
“That’s queer! I was just thinking that same thing myself,” the taller lad exclaimed. “It will seem mighty quiet after the hail-storms we’ve been through.”
“Hail-storms is right,” agreed Ned Slade. “But it can’t be too quiet for me. All I want to do is to sit under a tree back of the house, with plenty of books and magazines to read, clean clothes—real clean clothes—to wear, a bath-tub where I know where it is, and——”