It was as desolate a place and as gloomy a season as one could imagine, and the abominable weather was but adding to the depression of the thousands of sturdy American youths who for weeks had loitered in what seemed to them a useless and nerve-racking inactivity in a vast water-logged section of France, west of St. Mihiel, almost south of battle-scarred Verdun.
Now and then as the hours wore on toward late afternoon and early darkness, a rising wind seemed to whine something of an echo to the mental misery of those in the khaki-clad armies thus held as on a leash. Or was it more as a dismal-toned challenge to them as they wallowed through the slippery mud, unloading and distributing food, supplies, ammunition from the seemingly never-ending caravan of drab-colored motor trucks which hour after hour and day after day like the rain itself streamed in seemingly from nowhere to the veritable swamp in which the cream of American young manhood waded—and waited.
Tom Walton, despite himself, was thinking of Brighton and the pleasant school-days there, as, just relieved from a monotonous sentry duty, he headed toward the company kitchen where he knew his good friend Harper would hand him out a cup of steaming coffee to warm his blood and loosen his stiffened bones.
Often with Harper, and with Ollie Ogden, too, Tom Walton had played football on a sometimes soggy field at Brighton, but never, he was repeating to himself bitterly, had it been anything like this.
But pessimism or drooping spirits cannot for long grip a lad in perfect health and possessed of the knowledge that eventually, soon or late, and probably at no far distant date, he has a great mission to perform. And so, with the first thoughts of good old Brighton, the mood of Tom Walton began to change, even the weather did not seem quite so dreary, the outlook not so glum.
Like many of their pals from the famous school, these three had gone into the same service together—fighting doughboys, if you please—and at their own request had been directly associated in the same unit from the first hour that they went into training. And it had at all times been a happy trio, for in their days at school they had been inseparable pals.
Just at present Harper, by grace of his culinary capabilities, was doing emergency duty in the kitchen because of the temporary illness of one of the regular cooks, but this was more of an advantage than a hardship to his two friends, as a fat sandwich or a couple of hot doughnuts between meals often bore substantial testimony.
Tom Walton was thinking of these things when suddenly he was brought back to the realities of life by a loudly shouted “Hi, there!” accompanied by a clatter which sounded like a section of the German army advancing at a tremendous pace.
It was all so sudden, the ground so treacherously slippery, that Tom scarcely had attempted to turn when something of tremendous weight and momentum struck him a glancing blow and he went sprawling face downward in the muck, his mackinaw canopying out over him like a miniature dog-tent.
Before he could rise and scrape enough of the mud from his eyes to see what was going on, three or four men went galloping by him, one shouting warnings and futile commands, another grunting under the stress of his labors, a third laughing jerkily but uproariously.