CHAPTER VIII
OFF TO CAMP
Now that the momentous step had been taken, the boys buckled down towork--work of the hardest and most strenuous kind.
They left their positions with Moore and Thomas the next day, with thehearty good wishes of the firm and the assurance that their placeswould be ready for them as soon as they returned.
The only gloomy member of the office force was Tom Bradford, who hadalso applied for enlistment but had been rejected on account of histeeth. Now he had on a grouch of the grouchiest kind.
"Hang the red tape!" he growled. "What have a fellow's teeth got to dowith it? I don't want to bite the Germans, I want to shoot them."
"Never mind, old scout," comforted Bart. "Perhaps the dentist can fixthat up. Anyway you can root for us if you can't go along."
"Not much nourishment in that," grunted Tom, refusing to be shaken fromhis attitude of settled gloom.
"It does seem mighty hard," remarked Bart, after Tom had left them. "Idon't think the Government ought to be so particular. The time maycome when they'll be glad enough to get such fine fellows as Tom, teethor no teeth."
"Perhaps so," agreed Frank; "but just now they've got such a lot ofmaterial that they can afford to pick and choose. And after all,perhaps they're right. They've got to have a pretty high level ofphysical condition."
"I suppose you're right," said Bart, adding: "Suppose poor old Tomshould get a toothache in the trenches. You can't expect to havedentists on tap."
"As far as that goes," Frank took him up quickly, grinning at thepicture that rose before his mind, "I should think a good hardtoothache would be an asset. You'd be so mad you could kill a dozenGermans. It would just be getting your mind off your agony."
Bart grinned.
"Yes and it would have another advantage. When you've got a toothacheyou don't care whether you live or die. Getting stabbed with a bayonetwould be almost a relief."
"That's so," laughed Frank. "He'd be something like the seasickpassenger who, for the first hour, was afraid he was going to die andafter that was afraid he couldn't. I suppose Uncle Sam figures it thisway," he went on, "if a chain has a single weak link in it the wholechain is weak.
"You know how it is in a crowd. A hundred people may be eager to getout of a place, but if two or three in front are slow it holds up thewhole hundred. But I'm willing to bet that someway or somehow Tom willmanage to get in."
"I hope so, anyway," said Bart. "I'd like to have the old scout alongwith us."
A day or two later the boys got their uniforms and then they began tofeel like genuine soldiers. It set them apart from other men andemphasized the fact that from now on they had but one aim in life, tofight and, if need be, die for Uncle Sam.
The first sight of Frank in khaki was a stab at the mother heart ofMrs. Sheldon, although she could not avoid a thrill of admiration atthe splendid figure that he made. To her it meant separation, aseparation that was coming swiftly nearer with each passing day. Andthere might be no reunion!
But, although her lips were tremulous, her eyes were bright and shekept her forebodings bravely under cover. She was a thoroughbred, andit was easy to see where Frank had inherited his spirit.
"How proud your father would be if he could see you now," she said witha slight tremble in her voice, which she strove to conceal.
"Perhaps he does," said Frank reverently. "If he were here I know thathe would approve of what I'm doing."
The days were all too short now for the work that was crowded intothem. Government preparations were going on with feverish rapidity.Events followed one another as though on wings.
The order had gone forth for the draft and another order had decreedthat the regiments of the national guard should be enrolled in and formpart of the regular army.
This latter order was the subject of some regret with the members ofthe old Thirty-seventh, whose pride in their regiment was intense andwho had hoped to have it remain intact under its old officers for theperiod of the war.
"We'll lose our identity now," mourned Billy Waldon. "We'll just bepart of some big rainbow division, made up of fellows from all over theUnited States. For my part, I think it's a mistake. I think theregiment would fight better under its own colors and with its oldtraditions to inspire it."
"We mustn't criticize the Government, Billy," said Frank. "My theoryall through this war is going to be that Uncle Sam is right. He's gotgood reasons for everything he does."
"'Them's my sentiments'," put in Bart. "Whether we have the regimentalcolors or not, we'll all be fighting under the one flag, Old Glory, andit's only the Stars and Stripes that counts, after all. To me there'san inspiration in the thought of the whole United States, from theAtlantic to the Pacific, fighting as a unit."
"Well, perhaps you're right," said Billy, somewhat mollified. "At anyrate, nothing can take away from us the fact that we're volunteers."
A few days passed, then orders came that the regiment should beassembled at the armory to be kept there day and night until theyshould be sent to Camp Boone--as we shall call the cantonment that hadbeen prepared for them.
To Frank's mother the order sounded like the knell of doom. It was thefinal step of separation. The word had passed that the boys were tobring all their belongings to the armory as no leave would be givenunder any circumstances.
"Good-bye, dear boy!" she began bravely, and then all her courage gaveway to a storm of tears.
Frank's own eyes were wet as he folded her closely to him and comfortedher as best he could, though feeling very much in need of comforthimself.
"Bear up, Mother," he urged. "It will only be a little while before Icome marching home again, and I'll be thinking of you all the time andwrite to you whenever I get a chance."
He forced himself to go at last with many a backward look and wave ofhis hand at the figure in the doorway. His heart was heavy as hereflected that in the chances of war he might never see her again.
The next few days were full of excitement, allowing him little time tobrood. Both he and Bart took to a soldier's life as a duck takes towater. The martial spirit was there together with the quickintelligence that enables America to turn out finished soldiers morequickly than any other country in the world.
They had an advantage too in being sandwiched in, as it were, with themen who had just come back from the Mexican border and had had suchrecent experience in practical outdoor preparation for fighting.
Billy Waldon, especially, was a mine of information and suggestion, andas they threw themselves into the work with all their heart and soul itwas not long before they could feel that they were graduating from the"rookie" class and becoming regular soldiers.
Their commanding officers looked on them with approval and secretlywished that all of their recruits might be of the same high-class type.
"You're going along like a house afire, fellows," said Billy, afterdrill had ended one morning. "The manual of arms is just pie for you.Kitchener used to think that it took a year to turn out a soldier.I'll bet if he'd been on this side of the water he'd have feltdifferently.
"I'm glad you think so," said Frank. "But after all, we're just goingthrough the motions now. The test will come a little later on."
"I'd bet on you now or any time," answered Billy.
The looked-for orders came at last from Washington, and there was agreat stir and bustle at the armory. Then the next morning the greatdoors swung open and the regiment marched forth, headed by its band.
Through the old familiar streets it marched, amid the cheers and tearsof those who packed the sidewalks, past the commercial house of Mooreand Thomas, where old Peterson waved his hand tremulously and Reddy,with Oliver Twist perched upon his shoulder, shouted himself hoarse andnearly fell out of the window in his enthusiasm, down to the railroadstation where the long train waited for them.
There they broke ranks while friends and relatives, fathers andmothers, sisters and brothers, sweethear
ts and wives, crowded aroundthem, pressing last gifts into their hands, caressing them, enthusingthem, crying over them, until the warning whistle blew and they wereforced to tear themselves away.
Those few moments had been precious ones to Frank and his mother, forin them they had compressed a world of affection, that fell from theirlips and looked from their eyes.
"I won't say good-bye, little Mother," said Frank. "It's just _aurevoir_."
"Yes, dear," agreed his mother tremulously. "_Au revoir_. What isthat?" she interrupted herself with a start. "Ah, it is the whistle.My boy, my boy, I cannot let you go. Yes, I will be brave," Frankturned his head aside to hide his own emotion as his motherpathetically tried to smile. "There, go, dear, go,--before myresolution breaks entirely. _Au revoir_--my boy--my boy--"
With a little strangled sound in his throat Frank tore himself awayand, without trusting himself to look back, climbed into the car withhis jostling comrades. Then he leaned far out of the window, caughthis mother to him and kissed her.
The whistle shrieked again, and amid a storm of cheers and waving ofhandkerchiefs the train moved out. The old Thirty-seventh had startedon the road to victory!