“And Gill?”
“That’s a funny thing,” Herbert declared. “He simply didn’t know how badly he was hurt; some kind of a nerve shock and yet he kept his wits about him. Clear case of grit, will power, though he had to be invalided home. Didn’t want to go, either, but the captain and I made it clear to him that he had done more than his share of reducing the Hun army and that poor Jennings was more then avenged. Say, Don, if an army could be made up of such chaps as Gill it wouldn’t take more than ten thousand of them to lick the whole German army.”
“He didn’t seem to know what fear is and he got positive sport and satisfaction out of killing Huns. Odd, isn’t it, considering the really good heart in the fellow, as shown toward his friends? I expect, Herb, there are a good many such as he in this man’s army.”
“Right, there are. I’m glad Gill didn’t get his quietus. He asked for you; then when the ambulance had to go before you came over he insisted that as soon as we get back from Berlin and across the pond again you and I must go see him. I guess we’ll have to accept his invitation, Don, and have a coon hunt.”
“Let us hope we may do so. It’ll be some fun to hear him relate his experiences; to live over what he went through back there on the hill and before. Well, Herb, is it nearly time to start out now?”
“About. I feel good and rested; don’t you? And I want to get back into the scrap. We’re going right on and make a clean-up, Don.”
“We sure are! Got to carry out orders,” Don agreed.
First Lieutenant Whitcomb became more positive:
“The main thing now is driving the Huns out of these jungles and we surely are on to that game. By another week we’ll have them herded into Grand Pre and then we’ll chase them into Sedan and after that we’ll cut their supplies off and break up their army. You’ll see how it’ll turn out, though it means many a hard scrap yet.”
We know now how true Herbert’s words proved. That program was commonly accepted throughout the Army, from the C. and C. to the sutlers. What befell our two young fighting officers over this bitterly contested ground and from the Argonne drive to the morning when the armistice became effective must be left to a further account of the part the boys from Brighton Academy played in the Great War.