So he had seen it too, others also, for the advent of the three to this Franco-American unit was the signal for quite an outpouring of questions. The very first night indeed, as Larry puffed tranquilly at his cigar, a big American finger was pointed at him, while there sat round the circle with their American brothers a number of blue-coated poilus, likewise attached to the unit.
"Oui! Bien!" one of them said, shrugging his shoulders expressively; "Larry, Jim, Beill! A-ha! Ve knows sem! Ve 'ave 'eard seir names many time. You come out wis see story now—hey! Dat is bien!"
Larry blew a cloud of smoke at him, Jim fidgeted, Bill felt really like bolting; to stand upon the bridge of the trawler under gun-fire had been one thing, to sit there under this battery of eyes with questions being flung at them, bursting all round them as it were, was quite a different experience and a greater ordeal to our heroes.
"See here," drawled Larry at length, turning an expressive and somewhat dirty thumb in Jim's direction, "he's the scholar of our crew, he'll spout. Jim, you get in at it. 'Sides, you speak French a little, you told us so on our way over; give it 'em in French and English together."
It was true enough that Jim, in a moment of enthusiasm, and when feeling confidential, had informed his chums that he was quite a considerable French speaker; but now he seemed to have forgotten the occurrence. He shook his head quite angrily, shook a fist at the grinning Larry, and mopped a streaming forehead. So it devolved on Bill to tell of their experiences, which he did quite modestly, interjecting a word or two of French now and again; for, if Jim were dumb, he at least had heard something in his schooldays and was, as a matter of fact, quite a fair linguist.
"Then you ain't got no call to feel scared about going up to the line," said their Sergeant when the tale was finished. "You three did mighty well. There's Americans as reached France in advance of our fighting units in queer ways. Some of 'em come over as stowaways, some sneaked across in perhaps more open fashion. I know a chap what got took on as a German nootral in Noo York. What, don't know what a German nootral is? Well that is some! A German nootral, chaps, is a man what's absolutely nootral; he don't care nothing for one side nor t'other. But he happens to have been born of German parents. They've likely as not settled in America this many years back, and have made pots of money under the old stars and stripes. They're grateful, they are! they've brought up their son to feel grateful too! He speaks German, of course, and equally of course he's nootral, that is when he's speakin' open and above-board; but behind the scenes he's as German as the Kaiser. He'd down America and the very boys that he went to school with. He's out for planting 'Kultur' round the whole world. He looks for a Germany that'll spread across England and away over the Atlantic to Noo York, Washington, and Philadelphia. Shucks! He's about as nootral as I am! He's just a born traitor! This here pal of mine was all that I've said, only he wasn't a traitor, he was just artful and burning keen to get over. So he takes on as I said as a German nootral on a nootral boat that wasn't any more nootral than a German. He hoodwinked the crowd, got across, and slipped ashore in England; in twenty-four hours he was over here. He's laid back o' the churchyard over yonder, he is. Harvey Pringle was his name—you'll see it chalked up on the cross on his grave. He was a man, was Harvey Pringle."
The big Sergeant blew his nose violently, stared at Larry in quite a pugnacious way, lit a pipe with considerable display of energy, and spat a little aggressively. It was American feeling; it was the only way in which this sturdy fellow would allow his feelings to vent themselves. Larry knew what he meant; Jim and Bill realized that he had lost a friend almost before he mentioned the churchyard; their French comrades, quick in feeling and understanding, glanced at one another, exclaimed, and lit their pipes as if in sympathy with the Sergeant.
"Well, boys," the latter went on when he had smoked for a little while in silence, "you've come over in fine style, and you'll do fine. We can't have too many boys of your sort. Anyways, we're glad to see you."
It was three nights later when the three chums joined a convoy which moved out of the camp with its laden wagons for the trench line, where, for the first time, they were to experience warfare as it was just then in France.