As he walked down the stiff, standing line, his keen blue eyes taking in each one of the men from head to foot, he stopped suddenly in front of one man in the ranks. That man was File Three in the second set of fours. He was a pale-faced Tommy and on one of his sleeves there was displayed two slender gold bars, placed on the forearm.
The decoration was no larger than two matches in a row and on that day it had been in use hardly more than a year, yet neither its minuteness nor its meaning escaped
the eyes of the American commander.
Pershing turned sharply and faced File Three.
"Where did you get your two wounds?" he asked.
"At Givenchy and Lavenze, sir," replied File Three, his face pointed stiffly ahead. File Three, even now under twenty-one years of age, had received his wounds in the early fighting that is called the battle of Loos.
"You are a man," was the sincere, all-meaning rejoinder of the American commander, who accompanied his remark with a straightforward look into the eyes of File Three.
Completing the inspection without further incident, General Pershing and his staff faced the honour guard and stood at the salute, while once more the thunderous military band played the national anthems of America and Great Britain.
The ceremony was followed by a reception in the cabin of the Baltic, where General Pershing received the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, the Lady Mayoress, and a delegation
of civil authorities. The reception ended when
General Pershing spoke a few simple words to the assembled representatives of the British and American Press.
"More of us are coming," was the keynote of his modest remarks. Afterward he was escorted to the quay-side station, where a special train of the type labelled Semi-Royal was ready to make the express run to London.
The reception at the dock had had none of the features of a demonstration by reason of the necessity for the ship's arrival being secret, but as soon as the Baltic had landed, the word of the American commander's arrival spread through Liverpool like wildfire.