“Fall in Number Nine platoon!” came the growled order.
That was my command.
I quickly had my men groping down the companion ladder. There were sixty in my special charge. By the time I had them all aboard and had stepped into the barge myself where we huddled with fully two hundred more, the voice of our cocky little midshipman sounded. He sat most correctly erect in the stern, his cap at a jaunty angle, his slender neck in its broad white collar. He was so very young and boyish but he had an alert and business-like eye.
“Full up, sir,” he said smartly.
God bless and care for that gallant little chap! I can’t help fervently wishing it as the memory of him comes to me now. He was only sixteen—the treble of childhood was still in his voice. But in it as he gave his orders then and afterward as well when frightful peril came, were the steadiness and the coolness of a brave man—the sort of man he must have become if the dandy little youngster had not been destined for death with those many, many others on this April night.
The men in our barge as it bobbed about began to pass jests, in whispers, of course. Not that they felt giddy—funny. Or, yes, in a way, a bit giddy—nervous tension, you know. Like a small boy whistling in the dark. And yet willing and eager to meet whatever dragon might be there. For now we felt and knew that all we had trained for, prepared for, thought about, imagined—the big time of actual warfare was at hand. That was what was most alive in every man’s mind. But they joked.
“I’ve remembered you in my will, Jimmy,” said one to a pal two rows behind him. “You’ll get nothing short of a million, my son.”
“What—‘cooties’?” demanded Jim. I think I need not stop to describe “cooties,” those “bosom friends” of the trenches.
“Don’t waste your millions on him, Bob,” advised another. “Just leave’m a lock o’ your ’air.”
A small but very sharp voice cut in: