“I suppose it will have to be, Tom,” Mr. Burton said pleasantly. “That was our understanding, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, sir—but I’m sorry—kind of.”
“I’m sorry, kind of, too; but I suppose there’s no help for it. Some boys,” he added, as he toyed with a paperweight, “seem to be born to work in offices, and some to wander over the face of the earth. I would be the last to discourage you from entering war service in whatever form it might be. But I’m afraid you’d go anyway, Tom, war or no war. The world isn’t big enough for some people. They’re born that way. I’m afraid you’re one of them. It’s surprising how unimportant money is in traveling if one has the wanderlust. It’ll be all right,” he concluded with a pleasant but kind of rueful smile. He understood Tom Slade thoroughly.
“That’s another thing I was thinking about, too,” said Tom. “Pretty soon I’ll be eighteen and then I want to enlist. If I enlist in this country I’ll have to spend a whole lot of time in camp, and maybe in the end I wouldn’t get sent to the firing line at all. There’s lots of ’em won’t even get across. If they find you’ve got good handwriting or maybe some little thing like that, they’ll keep you here driving an army wagon or something. If I go on a transport I can give it up at either port. It’s mostly going over that the fellers are kept busy anyway; coming back they don’t need them. I found that out before. They’ll give you a release there if you want to join the army. So if I keep going back and forth till my birthday, then maybe I could hike it through France and join Pershing’s army. I’d rather be trained over there, ’cause then I’m nearer the front. You don’t think that’s sort of cheating the government, do you?” he added.
Mr. Burton laughed. “I don’t think the government will object to that sort of cheating,” he said.
“I read about a feller that joined in France, so I know you can do it. You see, it cuts out a lot of red tape, and I’d kind of like hiking it alone—ever since I was a scout I’ve felt that way.”
“Once a scout, always a scout,” smiled Mr. Burton, using a phrase of which he was very fond and which Tom had learned from him; “and it wouldn’t be Tom Slade if he didn’t go about things in a way of his own, eh, Tom? Well, good luck to you.”
Tom went out and in his exuberance he showed Mr. Conne’s letter to Margaret Ellison, who also worked in Temple Camp office.
“It’s splendid,” she said, “and as soon as you know you’re going I’m going to hang a service flag in the window.”
“You can’t hang out a service flag for a feller that’s working on a transport,” Tom said. “He isn’t in regular military service. When I’m enlisted I’ll let you know.”