“No, it ain’t nothin’ like that, O. D. There ain’t no flags flyin’ or music playin’ when the boys go over the top, either. You’re liable to get a down-pour of shrapnel, a shell-burst, or a bunch of gas any old time. There’s no set rules for the way that stuff comes over—sorta like goin’ to business every day after you get used to it. A man gets accustomed to stayin’ up all night and jugglin’ ninety-five pound shells, firin’ a piece, or rammin’ bayonets in Boche pigs. The hunger and cold is about the worst thing. You’ll drift into the stuff easy enough,” consoled the Yank.
“Some time, when you get a chance, will you tell me about some of your experiences in the war?”
“Oui—when I get time, some day,” promised Jimmy. “Well, are you set for another little hike? Guess it’s about three bells. We can make ’bout seven kilometers before dark and we’ll look for a chambre—that’s a room in French; then we’ll monjay and cushay. It’ll never do to hit a town after dark. You’re out of luck in this country to find a room or anything once the sun goes down. They never make a light on account of Boche planes. Might as well be in a barren desert as get into a French town after nightfall.”
“I’m ready,” answered O. D., buckling up his harness and rising.
“It takes me quite a bit of time to get all of this junk on me,” apologized McGee, as he began throwing musettes over his shoulders and buckling on belts and other stuff. O. D. gave him a hand and pretty soon Jimmy McGee was once more arrayed in all the glory of a front-line veteran.
“Guess we’ll hang onto this hunk of du pan. It’s mighty hard to get bread in these French places,” said McGee, falling into the old stride that he patronized when on the stem in France.
CHAPTER II—“AVEY VOUS DE CHAMBRE?”
Jimmy McGee and O. D., alias William G. Preston, made a great contrast as they plodded up and down hill along the tree-lined route over which passed in 1914 the stream of Paris taxicabs that brought French poilus to the heights of Verdun in time for Papa Joffre to stop the mad advance of the Prussians.
To the uninitiated, O. D., with his regulation pack and uniform equipment, would most likely have been immediately picked for the better soldier of the two. Jimmy McGee, habitué of the ragged battle-lines, and showing the wear and tear of fighting in everything about him, save his eyes, would have been dubbed a slouch. Which just goes to prove how different are the standards of measurements and worth that obtain at the front and in the S. O. S. Everything and everybody at the front is discounted until nothing but naked realities show. There is no chance for the superficial to flourish in the trenches and gun positions.
The pair had made about three kilometers when the sound of an approaching auto warned Jimmy McGee to take to the bushes. He lost no time in getting off the road. O. D. followed him with the statement that he believed it was a general’s limousine coming.