“I’d be all puffed up with pleasure over this trip if it weren’t for this business about poor Schnitz,” he confided to his bunkies on the Friday night before the start.
“I never thought I’d hate to see the last of Bixton,” grumbled Bob, “but I certainly do. It puts a crimp in the Slippery Sleuths’ Society, all right, all right. Anyhow, Eldridge is left. We may be able to tree him. Keep your eye on Bixton, Blazes, all the way down. You might just happen to stumble upon something.”
“I would by Jimmy go, the care to him take,” broke in Ignace. Up to this point, he had watched his favorite Brother’s preparing for sleep in round-eyed, gloomy silence. “You take the good care yoursel’, Jimmy,” he anxiously enjoined. “You get the hurt never I smile more.”
“You never smile anyway, you old sobersides.” Jimmy flashed him an amused, but affectionate glance. “Don’t you worry about me, Iggy, ’cause I’ll come back safe and sound. I’m not going across. I’ll only be gone four days.”
“We’ll sure miss you,” declared Bob. “Now I move that we turn in, too, and let Blazes alone. He has a hard trip ahead of him, and he needs a long night’s rest. You’ll be up first in the morning, old man. If we’re asleep, waken us so we can say good-bye and good luck.”
Bob and Roger were awake as soon as Jimmy. Ignace, however, slept peacefully on until Jimmy roused him to say a hasty good-bye. Three pairs of affectionate eyes watched Corporal Jimmy to the stairway, their owners sincerely glad that they had the assurance of his return. There was but one Jimmy Blaise.
Marched to the station under the graying light of a cloudy dawn, the majority of the departing soldier boys were in good spirits. The detachment numbered a little over three hundred men, including a sergeant and two other corporals besides Jimmy, who would return to Camp Sterling with him once their detail had been accomplished. Brimming with the adventurous spirit of youth, the travelers were, for the most part, exultant to be at last on the way “to the front.”
Yet in the breast of one of the gallant little company, mingled fear and resentment raged. Bixton was taking the removal very badly, though no one save himself and Eldridge knew it. On the previous night he had unburdened himself to his bunkie in a bitter denunciation against the Service.
“Once they get you in the Army, they use you like a dog,” he had savagely asserted. “Expect you to crawl to every smarty that wears chevrons, treat you as if you were dirt, and then think you ought to run all the way to France to get croaked. It would serve this country right if it lost out in this war. I was a fool to enlist. I could have side-stepped the draft. A lot of fellows have. Don’t see why I should make a target of myself for a government that don’t care a hoot about me. I don’t want to die. I want to live.”