To Larry and Jim the sights they saw all along the waterside were novel, for, though Larry had been to New York before, and indeed had travelled quite a considerable amount in America, the water-side had never attracted him, but now that he was likely to embark for France, ships and all that passed on the ocean were a source of interest to him. To English Bill—young Bill as they sometimes called him—the sight was a common one.
"There'll be ships and ships going across," he told his two companions. "Store-ships filled with food, some for the Belgians, who are nigh starving, other store-ships with food for Britain, because, you see, being an island with a big population, she cannot very well feed them all. Besides, as folks told me before I came out, she has these many years devoted herself to manufacturing all sorts of articles. She's allowed her land to go under grass, and hasn't been growing the crops that once she used to produce. There's the Argentina, there's America, there are the wide wheatfields of Canada to supply her."
"Or were," Jim said laconically, "or were, young Bill."
"Aye," agreed Larry, with a puff of the lips, "and will be yet, Jim. You are thinking of submarines. Well, it'll take all the submarines that the Kaiser's got, and a heap more, to keep America from sending food to our British allies. But you was talkin' about ships, Bill. What then?"
"There's others full of ammunition—ammunition made in American factories—going over to be fired by British and French guns. There'll be steamers and sailing vessels. Seems to me that, as not one of us three knows one end of a ship from the other, we'd better keep away from sailing vessels. There would be jobs, perhaps, aboard one of the steamers, and we might manage to get taken on."
"You! Take you on!" said a huge upstanding figure with a ruddy face, whose curly locks protruded from beneath the blue sailor cap he was wearing. "You!" he laughed, almost scornfully, and yet with a kindly note, as he stood over English Bill and peered down at this smiling youngster. "Think as we've got jobs for such as you aboard our vessel!"
Then he laughed outright, and clapped a huge hand on Bill's shoulder.
"You'll be English," he said.
"Aye. English Bill, we call him," Larry interjected.
"British!" Bill fired out, "same as these here two, only they're American."