“Say,” he asked, “where do I get some of those things they eat out of?”
“What, ain’t you got no messkit?” queried Fat. “You’ll have to draw one in the morning. For tonight you’d better borrow Long John’s. He’s always in the head of the line when the doors open, and he eats faster than any man in the outfit. But where have you been in the Army not to have a messkit?”
“We always ate in the canteen at the French flying school until the Y. M. C. A. came along and closed it up because they served wine there,” answered Tommy. “They made a speech about the evils of drink and were going to serve chocolate instead, but the chocolate never came. After that we generally ate at the Greasy Spoon across the road, because they didn’t serve anything but boiled beef and boiled potatoes at the mess hall, but even there they furnished dishes.”
“Well, you’ll get no dishes furnished here,” said Fat. “But look, there goes Long John already. Follow him out to the tubs, and get his messkit when he gets through washing it.”
Tommy trailed the tall man out into the cold, dark night, where several dim forms could be seen and heard slopping around near two large tubs on the ground. As John rose from his task and shook his tools in lieu of wiping them, Tommy accosted him and borrowed the messkit. Then he rushed back into the mess hall just in time to get the last of the slum. He eyed the German K. P.’s with some misgiving.
It occurred to him that it would be a fine opportunity for some patriotic Boche to wash out the American Air Service by a judicious application of ground glass or rough-on-rats, but he ate the slum, which was fairly good, though Teutonically greasy.
Then he went outside to the tubs, where the late eaters were still trying to wash their utensils. By this time the water was stone cold, and full of fragments of food. Cries for more hot _Wasser_ rent the air, but the German K. P.’s only stood in their warm kitchen and laughed, and made guttural and doubtless insulting remarks in reply. After the iron discipline of their own army, they were tickled pink at the opportunity to insult any kind of officer, even an American aviator, who was the lowest of the low. Tommy wiped most of the grease out of his dish with his handkerchief and then returned the mess kit to Long John at the barrack with an apology.
The tall man and Fat were about to start for the operations room to find out the schedule for the next day, and invited Tommy to come along. On the bulletin board he found that he had been assigned to Section 13. Various other changes in sections were posted, but the last one took his eye. It read:
1st. Lieut. John Smith, A. S. S. O. R. C.
Transferred from Section 3 to Death in Line of Duty.
by order of
—HERMAN KRAUSE, MAJOR, SIGNAL CORPS.
“What’s the idea ordering some guy to ‘Death in Line of Duty’?” he asked Long John.