Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

6 Adventure through all this rigamarole for?” asked Colburn. _ “You mean to say you went and got broke and tried and everything to get sent up to the front?” cried Olsen. ‘““That’s whatever,” agreed Colburn. “Well, how about the commission?” “That’s all part of it.” “Well, ’m !? said the first sergeant. “What’s the rush? There’s rumors that we're going up ourselves any time.” ““There’s been rumors to that effect ever since we struck France four months ago, but we ain’t up yet. An’ I can’t wait any more. I got to get going.” “Well, what did you take that jerry out with you for? You could have got broke without puttin’ the rope round your neck by such a fool trick as that.” “Well, I was lonesome and sad, and so was he, and I was afraid they might just break me. 5So I was going to get some dope from him about the German army and go down town some night to that café where the M. P. said they had a spotter tendin’ bar and get soundin’ off. An M. P. told me that every once in a while some one sounded off in that place, and the next week he went sailin’ up to the front.” “You fool,’ said the top again, “they don’t send enlisted men up like that, only goldbrick officers that go shootin’ off their face. When an enlisted man below grade seven talks too much he gets his face pushed in; he don’t get sent to no front.’ “Well, the jerry got snarled with the frogs and I saw I was in wrong, and I didn’t know what I’d do till I thought of letting the major hear me say I didn’t want to go to the front, and then he might send me there and sure enough he did. I was goin’ to get broke, and then ask for a transfer.”’ | “How come you thirst to get to the front like that?” asked Olsen. “Well,” said Colburn, “I crave excite- ment.” _ “Sergeant,” said Olsen, addressing the top, “go get a doctor. This guy is off his nut complete.” “Maybe he is,” said the top, ‘“‘but the orders says to get him to the Fourth Pro- visional Company, and the major told me if he got away from me not to never show up here again; so gather up your clothes, 9 9) private, and we’ll be goin’. YY TWO days later the Fourth Provisional Replacement Com- pany descended from its box cars at Chateau-Thierry. They did not need to ask if they were at the front. The railroad station was a wreck, a near-by repair shop was a pile of brick and rusty iron, and the telegraph wires still hung in great festoons from every pole, like spa- ghetti from a fork. They lined the company up, counted noses and ushered them into some trucks. “Do you know what outfit we’re going to?” ex-Sergeant Colburn asked one of his companions, as they clanged over.the bumpy street. | “T don’t know,” said the other, ’n I don’t give a They’re all the same. I been hounded up an’ down from this to that and back again for eight months now, an’ they’re all the same. One hog-wrastle after another. [m glad I’m gettin’ to the front at last. I waited long enough. What’s that sign mean?”’ The sign was a great black plank, with the word in white on it— UNTERSTANDEN. f fino,” said Nell, “it’s a Boche sign. This must be where we chucked ’em out. I wonder how far we’ve gone. Say, this was quite a town to be all knocked to chewin’ gum. It’s a wonder they couldn’t clean it up.”’ | The truck by now had left the town and turned into a highroad running out into the country. The white dust billowed up and surrounded the men, so that conversation came to an end, on pain of smothering in the clouds. When the dust would lower for a second, glimpses could be caught of broken carriages, a ditch with German helmets scattered about in it, Yank over- coats hanging to trees, a rifle stuck into the ground by its bayonet. The men began to show excitement. They wanted to appear calm, they wanted each other to think that the approach of battle meant nothing to them, but the strain finally became unendurable. When at last a squadron of planes appeared high overhead in the cloudless sky, and black flowers began to bloom beneath them, the men could restrain themselves no longer. “Yay!” they cheered. ‘Bring ’em down, kid, hit ’°em in the eye! Pepper ’em, — 7em, shoot ’em all down!” COMIGDIOOKSEEO