Ted then told what he had read about the sinking of this transport some two weeks before he left his uncle's home in North Carolina to come down to the neighborhood of the Okefinokee. The slackers had not heard of it and all listened with great interest.
"Even women—lots of them—have been up against much worse in this war than I was to-day," the boy continued. "Think of Miss Edith Cavell, that lovely English nurse the Germans shot in Belgium."
As Ted eloquently told the story of the execution of this innocent and devoted woman, practically all the slackers gave expression to lively indignation.
"I wouldn't 'a believed a bunch o' devils would 'a done such a thing, and to a lady at that!" one voice called out.
"What do the Huns care about a lady or anything in the world?" cried Ted. "They treat women as roughly as they treat men. They've carried off thousands of Belgian and French women and made them slaves. They've actually made women work in front of their lines under the fire of French guns. They've herded up women and children in Belgian and French towns and shot them down. They've carried off hundreds of thousands of men and women from conquered countries and made them slave night and day in Germany. The very songs they sing—I've seen translations of some of them—tell proudly of cruel, barbarous outrages and boast that neither women nor children are spared.
"Why, I've seen a list of the atrocities committed by the Germans in this war that would make your blood boil, that would make you sick," the boy continued. "And it's the truth—all taken from what they call 'verified official reports,' with as many as ten witnesses for everything. You see, the Germans believed they were going to conquer the world, and so many of them didn't care what they did. They massacred prisoners in cold blood at Ypres and other places. They loot, burn and often kill as they go. They've nailed people up alive against doors. They've cut off hands and feet and left the poor creatures alive. They've filled the streets with dead—not only fighting soldiers but old men, women and children. They've burned people up in their houses. They've cut even women to pieces. The way they get all the money in a captured town is to threaten to kill everybody, and to prove that they are going to do it they kill a few hundred to begin with. They drive the helpless people like cattle—drive them out and leave them to starve. They seem to delight in burning or knocking down churches with their cannon. They've stuck bayonets in women and boys and girls and pitched them into the fire of burning houses. The cavalry has tied men and women to their stirrups and galloped around with them dragging. They throw the dead into springs and wells. I can't begin to tell you of their awful doings. They have even stuck their bayonets through little children and held them up as they walked through the streets."
After twisting nervously in his seat and breathing hard as he listened, Buck Hardy now started to his feet with a cry of rage. And then—- as July described the exhibition later—he "gritted his teeth and shook his fist and cussed awful." The negro did not exaggerate. Buck Hardy's rage was as vocal as it was intense. He exhausted all the most picturesque and crushing profanity he could think of, concluding: "I wish to God I could get my hands on one o' them devils!"
It was on the tip of Ted's tongue to say: "Well, then, why don't you go where you can get a chance to do it?" But a warning nudge from Hubert reminded him to be discreet in the case of their best friend in the camp. He also remembered July's advice not to push the big slacker too hard. And perhaps he didn't need any pushing now; for clearly he was awakened. So Ted merely watched Buck's signs of incandescent anger with great joy and said nothing.
But Buck himself must have seen the thought in the boy's glowing eyes. He must have sensed something in the general atmosphere of the fire-lit circle tending to convey to him the startling warning that he had put himself to the test by his own outburst. At all events he suddenly shut his lips, turned on his heel, and strode off into the dark woods.
"The Huns are beastly," Ted then remarked to nobody in particular, "but after fifty years of training they are fine soldiers and it's no picnic to down them. That's why our country needs every able-bodied young man to go on the job."