"We are," answered Joe. "We just stepped off that train to get a breath of fresh air and to learn where we were."
"No harm done," the sergeant responded in a friendly tone. "You are in Philadelphia, and the only restriction upon you now is that you are not to stroll too far away. We leave here in a short while for the navy yard, where mess will be served."
"Mess? That's breakfast, ain't—isn't it?" asked Slim anxiously.
"Yes," the sergeant replied, "and a good one, too."
Each boy touched his cap respectfully as the non-commissioned officer turned to return to the train.
"Hope we have sausage," said Jerry in an undertone; "but I'm hungry enough to eat anything they give me."
"Same with me," Slim added in melancholy tones; "but I guess I'll have to diet some until I'm sure, certain, and solidified in the service."
At that instant the shrill blast of a whistle brought their attention back to the train, where the sergeant was signaling them to return. Three automobiles had arrived, and into these our three friends and the other fifteen recently enlisted men climbed, for the trip to League Island, where is located one of the Nation's largest and most important navy yards.
Down wide, asphalted Broad Street the party sped, past solid rows of handsome dwellings, and then across the stretch of beautiful park that was once a mosquito-ridden marshland, and to the gates of the navy yard.
Here the detachment of marines on guard gave the boys their first close association with the spirit of war. As they swung through the gates a virtual wonderland of the machinery of sea battles greeted their eyes—powerful battleships, lithe and speedy cruisers, spider-like destroyers, tremendous colliers capable of carrying thousands of tons of coal to the fleets at sea, and in the distance a transport, waiting to take on its human freight of Uncle Sam's fighters for foreign battlefields.