"We've been in training here longer than I expected." This from Roger. "I guess we needed it. When the war began, before the U. S. got into it, they used to rush the Tommies to the front pretty fast. They got about ten days' or two weeks' training and that was all."
"The war game's been systematized a lot since then," commented Bob. "We have fared better than those fellows did. They had to put up with most any old thing. So far we've led a peaceful, happy life over here."
Several weeks had passed since those of the Khaki Boys who had come safely through the disastrous sinking of the Columbia had been landed "somewhere in France."
Readers who have followed the fortunes of the quintet of Khaki Boys, known among themselves as the five Brothers, will at once remember them as old friends. What happened to these young soldiers during the period in which they were in training at an American cantonment has already been set down in "The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling."
It was while on the way to Camp Sterling that Jimmy Blaise, Roger Barlow, Bob Dalton and Ignace Pulinski met and instantly became friendly. From being merely friendly they soon grew to be bunkies, loyal to one another through thick and thin.
Later they took into their little circle a young German-American, Franz Schnitzel, who had had the misfortune to be entirely misunderstood by his comrades. Suspected of being in sympathy with Germany, Schnitzel was accused of poisoning a number of men in his own barracks.
Due to the untiring efforts of the four Brothers, his innocence was proven, and his good name restored. Afterward Schnitzel himself was responsible for bringing the real poisoner, a German spy, Johann Freidrich, to justice.
Their fortunes firmly linked to Schnitzel's by trouble, he had become a real brother to the four Khaki Boys, who decided that thereafter they would call themselves the five Brothers.
After an exhaustive course of training at Camp Sterling, the five Brothers had been sent with a large detachment of their comrades to Camp Marvin, a southern cantonment. While at this camp they met with at least one exciting adventure, which was the forerunner of a series of amazing events.
In "The Khaki Boys on the Way" will be found the details of that adventure, which had to do with an attempt made by an unknown man to blow up a bridge near the camp. Readers of this story will recall Jimmy Blaise's fight with the miscreant under the bridge, and his narrow escape from death.