“D'ye hear that? The Huns tried to shoot up that hospital train.”
Fuselli remembered the pamphlet “German Atrocities” he had read one night in the Y. M. C. A. His mind became suddenly filled with pictures of children with their arms cut off, of babies spitted on bayonets, of women strapped on tables and violated by soldier after soldier. He thought of Mabe. He wished he were in a combatant service; he wanted to fight, fight. He pictured himself shooting dozens of men in green uniforms, and he thought of Mabe reading about it in the papers. He'd have to try to get into a combatant service. No, he couldn't stay in the medics.
The train had started again. Misty russet fields slipped by and dark clumps of trees that gyrated slowly waving branches of yellow and brown leaves and patches of black lace-work against the reddish-grey sky. Fuselli was thinking of the good chance he had of getting to be corporal.
At night. A dim-lighted station platform. The company waited in two lines, each man sitting on his pack. On the opposite platform crowds of little men in blue with mustaches and long, soiled overcoats that reached almost to their feet were shouting and singing. Fuselli watched them with a faint disgust.
“Gee, they got funny lookin' helmets, ain't they?”
“They're the best fighters in the world,” said Eisenstein, “not that that's sayin' much about a man.”
“Say, that's an M. P.,” said Bill Grey, catching Fuselli's arm. “Let's go ask him how near the front we are. I thought I heard guns a minute ago.”
“Did you? I guess we're in for it now,” said Fuselli. “Say, buddy, how near the front are we?” they spoke together excitedly.
“The front?” said the M. P., who was a red-faced Irishman with a crushed nose. “You're 'way back in the middle of France.” The M. P. spat disgustedly. “You fellers ain't never goin' to the front, don't you worry.”
“Hell!” said Fuselli.