The meals continued hearty and satisfying and as the days went on the boys broadened out and seemed, by the aid of muscular training and upright carriage, even to gain in height.
One morning Frank found a poem in a magazine he was reading and recited it to a group of laughing comrades. Thereafter it became the popular mess chant and the boys standing in line with their dishes would shout it out at the top of their lusty lungs to the great amusement of all concerned. It went something like this:
"You may mutter and swear at the reveille call
With its 'Can't get 'em up in the morning;'
And you may not be fond of assembly at all
But you drop into line at the warning;
Police call will cause you a lot of distress
Though you answer at once or regret it,
But you jump when the splinter lips bugle for mess
And the hash slinger yells, 'Come and get it!'"
Then came the chorus in which all joined:
"For you know that it means
'Form in line for your beans
With your mess kit in hand—do it now!'
And you cheerfully come for your coffee and slum,
For your coffee and slum
When the splinter lips bugle for chow!"
It was all great fun, this jolly camp life, but it had its serious side also. All the boys felt the inspiration, almost exaltation of being one of so great a body of men, men fired with the same enthusiasm, the same great purpose to accomplish their glorious mission or die in the attempt.
Training in the use of modern weapons of warfare sobered the boys a little.
"I suppose I'm squeamish," said Bart to Frank one day, when they had finished a lesson in the throwing of hand grenades, "and I won't blame you or anybody else if you laugh at me. But I don't like those things. Every time I throw one I think of the possible mark it'll find some day in the German trenches and it makes me sick."
"Yes," said Frank, nodding gravely, "I know just how you feel, only it's the bayonet practice that gets me most. If those dummies were human instead of stuffed rags, I couldn't feel much worse about sticking the point into them.'
"Oh, we're soft yet," said Billy, sauntering up to them. "I suppose it will take us quite some time to get hardened to this wholesale slaughter. But when we feel too squeamish, we want to remember the Belgian women and children murdered and tortured, defenseless old men slaughtered—"