OMEWHERE" on the Atlantic Coast the "first ten thousand" were ready to start for "somewhere in Europe."

On board one of the transports, a great ocean liner, I went over to a private standing alone by the rail-a thoughtful, dark-haired fellow staring into the distance, past intervening miles, I imagined, clear away to a little farmer mother standing in a doorway, thinking of him. "Are you downhearted?" I asked him.

"I'm just looking," he smiled. "Where?" I smiled back at him. "Oh, somewhere," he laughed. And then, suddenly: "Hell, I got a girl."

Nearly every one of them had girls, I judge. Nearly all had mothers. And some had wives. And many were soldiers of fortune with neither girls nor mothers nor wives. And here they were, all together, bound on the Great Adventure, and if there were any tears shed, neither the ocean nor the officers were any the wiser.

There may have been tears shed, yet mothers who are in dread of embarkations these days should be assured that these thousands were full of fight and of fun, and they went to sea with the soldier "bands" playing. Certainly on one ship the only sign of nervousness I made out was that displayed by a lieutenant, who came up from the ranks by examination, clear up to the point where now he was, with some other officers, on what he called "the roof" of the ship!

He was a little nervous, and a bashful boy, too-one of those condemned to suffer solitude tho thousands are all about him. He fretted. He moved round in circles--for him very small circles. He was accustomed, like many a diffi

BY DONALD WILHELM

dent young officer, to the western fields, I know. He had never before smelled the sea, I am sure. And he was, I think, so intent on appearing selfcomposed that he forgot, as the big vessel turned her engines, and strolled out upon the canvas covering of the top deck-strolled out, and then strolled right back again, very, very quickly!

He laughed at his own nervousness --a queer little laugh. The others laughed. And a moment later he stole off, to be alone, no doubt-alone with "the girl" thousands of miles away. I thought then that he was the kind of impulsive boy who would some day steal off, quite unaided, over the parapet and across "No Man's Land," and do perhaps as Sergeant Leary didkil half a score of Germans, capture a couple more, a machine gun and the "V. C." all in one hour of a busy day.

"What's the difference," mused one of the remaining officers-one young enough to talk quite frankly. "If I get shot my uncle will pay all my bills. And if I don't get shot he says he will pay 'em any way if I bring him a German helmet. So I'll send him two German helmets-C. O. D. Well, what if you do get shot-if there isn't any hereafter for a soldier fighting, who's got one coming to him, then?"

The ship's whistle snorted. The Only Civilian made for the head of the gangplank.

There, at the head of the gangplank, was a little group of soldiers-a couple of wistful boys, an older sergeant, three others. They were near the hatch that led down to their quarters-down to the big space full of bunks, three atop one another, all freshly painted and scrupulously clean.

"Now," said the sergeant, winking, "the funny thing about a torpedo going off under you is that you never know what happened until you feel yourself coming down!"

They laughed, I began to realize that after all these men took the whole situation philosophically, even now, in the first unrushed moment since they had come marching out of the distances that constitute America. Almost all situations in life offer some satisfactions, and this one did likewise. And then the boat moved a littlethe tension was off its hawsers. I got ashore.

"I envy you-I wish I were in your place," I called to one of the men at the rail.

"Perhaps you won't three months from now," he laughed. And then, from the same man: "Give my regards to all the girls

66

other.

99

to Broadway, too," called an

And then another punned on something about Broadway with its skyline of stars, even when it's stormy!

The next moment the boat had cleared, all except two hawsers. I glanced at my watch. There was a minute left till schedule. She waited that minute out. There was that minute's pause, a curt order from the bridge and almost instantly the big craft was moving slowly but surely out toward the sea.

Then there was music. Some boy with a cheerful heart started it with "Tipperary," and the next moment a soldier band had caught up the tune, then turned it to the music that promises to be the marching song that will heal forever the wounds between North and South-"Dixie"!

On the decks, too, were not a few

bluejackets-men assigned to man-or shail we say "mother?"-the plentiful gurs fore and aft.

just like the other privates-Lees, for instance-a few men of wealth, and not a few sons of men celebrated in "What are those guns for?" I asked our down-to-the-date American life. a "jackie."

He laughed. “Just for sociability's sace," he said. "Regards to Fritz-boom!" suggested a private.

The jackie shook his head dolefully. "You fellows are the ones that will see something doing," he said.

"Well, Skinny," retorted the private, "you'll see something doing when you get this bunch of landlubbers out on the briny!"

This, no doubt, proved to be truth. But there is solace, nevertheless, for the privates-so the jackies intimated -in knowing that the jackies will be enjoying themselves even if the landlubbers aren't! And, after all, seasickness leaves hardly any sting!

All of which suggests something important that this trip will constitute an event in the annals of American traditions because it has been very seldom that soldiers and sailors have crost the ocean together, and of course they have never crost on a mission like this one.

IT was startling in its psychological effect-the sudden appearance, right on scheduled minute, of these columns. They came marching up out of all the reaches of America-marching four abreast, in line upon line, till their faces made a passing sweep that played on one's emotions like the flutter of an American flag. They came marching up, into the lighted space, and then flashed on into the shadows, to pause, take a look about and a moment's rest, then file up the gangplanks, down the hatches and up to the upper decks, and pile themselves into bunks for they were tired, every one of them.

They were tired; yet they came marching up out of the depths symbolically, with a vigor that was astounding, marching with full equipment ready to stay in Europe till the Germans burn out and freeze themselves under. They came, thousand after thousand of them, in order that the Imperial German Government would have deemed impossible here, at an embarkation. There was no confusion. They came and there were no consequences

There are men from Army and Navy and from the Marine Corps, too, on this first contingent-men from all ranks of our various services. Amer--just a few low and quict commands, ica was represented in those first ten thousands, represented fore and aft and in the lookouts atop decks, in cabins and under hatches, all of America-typical soldiers from whom one can extract nothing in the way of information about themselves; men from the North and the South, from the East and the West-from all the levels high and low of America. There were men with distinguished names,

a few wheelings and swift and direct execution of movements desired. They came in long columns and went aboard, and the strange, quizzical idea that persisted in me, past all the envy that came to this poor civilian at these fellows who are to have their chance, was this, that it was somehow curious that they were going to the other side of the world and taking nothing but their rifles!

Of course on board there was much more merely than rifles. Of course there was aboard that great armada of men and materials much more-very much more somewhere!

Yet here were all these men, gath ered from far and wide, from all the levels high and low of a country as wide and deep as America, bound to the other side of the world, taking nothing but rifles! Of course this is a crazy idea, and yet it persisted, and it still persists. It seemed to this civilian that it was as if a shoemaker were going to Egypt and taking not an awl but merely a hammer. So I said so to one of the officers. He smiled indulgently. "They're going over to use their rifles," he explained. "And you know," he laughed more and more amused, "they've got their bayonets, too!"

He did not even add-this vigorous, much amused officer-that old adage among the military to the effect that a soidier's life is for his family, his death for his country, and his discomforts for himself.

But they weren't thinking of things like that not these men. The older soldiers, with the love of a fight that is part of their nature, looked forward to action of a kind past all anticipation. And the young ones with the old were full of wonderment, perhaps, yet they took their cues from the old ones. I had spent hours with them. They were cheerful, full of fight and of fun. They were comfortable. And intelligent, too

that is, they looked at the situation as they found it, knew its dangers and enjoyed them. They were not downhearted, taken altogether. They were determined, and it may be guessed that before their journey was over they were not a little eager, too. July, 1917