Chapter X: No Longer "just Rookies"

As the September days glided by, Bixton's threat of speedy vengeance bore no apparent fruit. Whether he was lying in wait for a good opportunity to discredit the four Khaki Boys, or whether he was only the proverbial barking dog that never bites, they neither knew nor cared. To their great relief, the story of the fight did not reach the ear of the acting first sergeant. Thus Ignace escaped the disgrace of being punished in his very first week at Camp Sterling.

On hearing an account of the affair from Ignace himself, Roger was less inclined than ever to blame him for what had happened. He did not say so to Ignace, however. Instead, he sharply pointed out to the crest-fallen pugilist that two wrongs never made a right. He also privately warned Bob and Jimmy, who had been told of the fracas, not to let their sympathies run away with them.

Impetuous Jimmy, however, found it very hard to repress openly, to Ignace, his own satisfaction at the latter's recent uprising. He secretly wished that Ignace _had_ given Bixton a sound thrashing and "gotten away with it." Slow of comprehension in some respects, the Polish boy was not too obtuse to divine Jimmy's attitude toward him. In consequence, he hung about the latter with a dog-like fidelity that signally amused Roger and Bob. Devoted as he was to his three Brothers, Jimmy was rapidly becoming his idol.

The passing of days saw all four young men making progress in the business of soldiering. As has been already stated, Jimmy showed the most dash and snap in that direction. He took to military procedure like a duck to water, and "went to it" heart and soul. Easily the most efficient man in his squad, he was on the road to a corporalship, though he did not suspect it. He drilled with the same zest he would have put into a football game and prided himself on his prompt ability to execute correctly a new movement immediately it had been explained to him. It was the glory rather than the duty of being a good soldier that most impressed him.

On the other hand, Bob and Roger regarded it more from the duty angle. This was only natural, considering that both men had been obliged, when in civil life, to shift for themselves. They tackled drill as they would have wrestled with a new job. It interested but did not enthrall them. It was a means to an end. That end meant, to them, Bob in particular, active service in France. He looked upon "Going Over" as the supreme adventure. If he survived he intended to come home and write a book "that would sell like hot cakes."

Iggy's noblest aspiration was to do well and so stay in the same squad with Jimmy and Bixton. Devotion to the former and spite against the latter swayed him equally. He knew that Jimmy was as desirous of his welfare as Bixton was of his downfall. This double motive inspired him to good works. Back of it all, undoubtedly, he was a true patriot. His enlistment in the Army proved that. For the time being, however, the glory of being a soldier was lost in the difficulty of trying to stay one. The drill sergeant was the most awe-inspiring figure on his horizon. Long afterward when the four Brothers had proved their mettle in far-off France, he had been heard to declare soulfully: "Go Over Top no so bad. One drill sergeant more worse twenty Tops!"

In spite of his encounter with Bixton, Ignace was still seized with spells of reciting his rules aloud. It did not take his companions of the barracks long to discover the nature of his frequent fits of mumbling. When it gradually became noised about in the squad-room that Bob Dalton had composed them for his bunkie's benefit, he was besieged for copies of them. Though he refused to supply them, he good-naturedly recited such as he could recall to several of the men. Very soon hardly a day passed when he was not asked to give one or more of them. As a result it was not long before they achieved the popularity of a topical song and at least half the occupants of the squad-room could recite one or more of them. In time they became circulated throughout the camp and long after Bob had left Camp Sterling behind for "Over There," his "Military Maneuvers in Rhyme" were passed on to newcomers and gleefully quoted.

October saw the four Khaki Boys long since emerge from the School of the Soldier into the School of the Squad. They had now mastered the basic principles of military training and were beginning to feel a little more like Regulars. They now knew the Manual of Arms and had been fully instructed in the use, nomenclature and care of their rifles. They were no longer just "rookies."

Their periods of drill had been gradually lengthened until they were now putting in the same amount of time as the seasoned men. From half-past seven in the morning until dismissal by a sergeant at half-past eleven, they were kept at work learning soldiering. One o'clock Assembly marked the beginning of the afternoon drill period, which lasted until half-past four with thirty minutes' intermission before Retreat.

Thus far none of the quartette had troubled themselves much concerning "passes," those magic bits of scribbled paper that meant permission to quit camp limits for a few brief hours of civil life. Once or twice they had obtained leave to spend an evening in Glenwood, a village about three miles from Camp Sterling.

"What we ought to do is to all get a pass, go to Tremont and take in a good show," was Bob's opinion one evening as the four boys sat talking together in barracks. "We could get off at noon some Saturday and be back by midnight. That would give us the afternoon to see the town, a bang-up supper at a first-class restaurant and a show afterward. Oh, boy! Oh, joy! I can just see us doing it."

"That sounds good to me," glowed Jimmy. "I've been going slow on the pass business 'cause I want to ask for one from Saturday until Monday morning, so that I can go home. Every letter I get from Mother lately she asks me when I'm coming home. But I guess if I'm good maybe I can get off with you fellows and get the pass home, too."

"Let me see. This is Thursday. Why not make it for day after to-morrow?" proposed Bob. "With pay-day only yesterday we've all got money to spend. Why let it burn in our pockets? Use up and earn more's my motto."

"I'd like to take a trip to Tremont," nodded Roger. "We've all worked good and hard since we came here. It's time for a little harmless recreation."

"You can count me in," readily assured Jimmy.

"I can no go," stated Ignace regretfully.

"Why not?" Jimmy demanded. "What's going to hinder you?"

"I have no the monies. A little, yes, but no much. So stay I here. Anyhow, you go. I very glad for you have the fon. While you way think I to you," Ignace added with a sigh.

"No money! For goodness' sake, where is it? You just drew---- I beg your pardon, Iggy." Jimmy colored hotly. "I shouldn't have asked such a nosey question. Forget it."

"Ask all thing you want ask all time." Ignace accompanied this gracious permission with a sweeping flourish of his hand. "You are the Brother. So have you the good right. Firs' think I no say nothin'. Anyhow, now I tell. I am to poor my mother the bad son for that I run way. When I home give her all monies no my father take. Now I here she have the nothin' for long time. He my father give only for the rent an' the eat. No much the eat. In my house are the three littles, two sister an' one brother. So have I nother brother. He have sixteen year. Work hard but every week get only the five dollar, an' my father take mos'. Now have I the pay sen' all my mother. Only I keep two dollar. It is enough here, but no for have the eat, the show, the good time Bob say. Som' day go along Tremont. No now. I am the broke." Ignace looked mildly triumphant at having been able to express himself in slangy Bob's vernacular.

"You may be 'the broke,' Iggy, but you've got a solid gold heart!" exclaimed Bob, his shrewd black eyes growing soft. "I call that mighty white in you. Never you mind, if we can get the passes you come along with us just the same. I'll do the treating and glad to at that."

"Count me in on that," emphasized Jimmy. "My dough is yours, Iggy. You can draw on it till it gives out."

"Same here," smiled Roger, who had been signally touched by the broken little tale of sacrifice.

"No, no!" The Pole's tones indicated stubborn finality. "I can no do. Thank. You are the too good all. I know; un'erstan'. I have for me what you call it, the respet. So mus' I the no say an' stay by the camp. You ask me more, I no like; feel fonny mad!"

Ignace's characterization of hurt self-respect as "fonny mad" raised a laugh. That, at least, did not disturb him. He merely grinned and remarked tranquilly: "You make the fon one poor Poley."

The plan for a journey into Tremont, having been duly discussed, it but remained to the three young men to obtain the desired passes for Saturday afternoon. Tremont was the only city of importance within a radius of seventy-five miles. It lay about twenty miles east of the camp. Soon after the making of Camp Sterling a line of automobile busses had sprung up to do a thriving business between there and Tremont. There were also many regularly licensed jitney automobiles that went to and fro for the accommodation of both soldiers and visitors, not to mention their own individual profit.

"We can go to Tremont in one of those Cinderella pumpkins for seventy-five cents, or we can give up a plunk apiece and ride in style in a jit. You pays your money and you takes your choice," declared Bob. At first sight he had attached the appellation of Cinderella pumpkins to the big yellow uncomfortable busses operated by a business concern in Tremont.

"Me for a regular buzz wagon. I wouldn't wear out my bones bouncing around in one of those bumpety-bump Noah's Arks if I was paid to ride in it," objected Jimmy disdainfully.

"What's a quarter more beside Jimmy Blazes's delicate little bones!" jeered Bob.

"Did you ever ride in one of those rattle-traps?" retorted Jimmy.

"No, my son, and I don't intend to," beamed Bob. "I've seen other fellows ride in 'em."