Over There with the Marines at Chateau Thierry

Top Sergeant Phil Speed did not know exactly where he was when the long train of trucks bearing hundreds of khaki-clad American Marines stopped at a small town within easy gun-roar of the battle front in France. They were making little demonstration now. For weeks they had been cheering and been cheered until their throats became sore and well again—calloused as it were. So spontaneous and so nearly universal had been the enthusiastic reception extended to them everywhere that it seemed as if every person who didn’t yell his head off must be pro-kaiser.. With the noise of battle becoming more and made distinct through the rumble roar and rattle of trucks and ordnance racing toward the scene of conflict into which they themselves were about to plunge the hearts of these messengers of liberty were not so gay as they had been for weeks aye months before. Everywhere among all sorts and conditions of men even among fighting patriots there are bound to be a few “smart” ones who forget the proprieties sometimes as their bright ideas go skyrocketing. And this sort of gay wight was not lacking even among the pick of America’s young manhood; but for once the gayest of them were serious and sober minded.. The person who would joke in the face of death or with a messenger of eternity lurking in the vicinity must be a philosopher “to get away with it.” Phil had no idea of putting the thing in such language but if somebody had stepped up close to him and whispered the conceit in his ear he probably would have responded “That fits the situation exactly.” Still a considerable period of time elapsed before he was able to dispel all doubt as to the occasion of such unwonted sobriety.. “I wonder if we’re not all cowards and if that isn’t the reason we’ve all stopped our noise” he mused. “I hope we don’t turn tail and run lickety-cut when we see a big bunch o’ boches swinging over the top at us.”. As if in reply to his musing Timothy Turner a training-camp chum who stood at his elbow in the midst of the throng of soldiers waiting for orders to move along spoke thus rather grimly:. “We’re quite a solemn bunch aren’t we Phil? I guess what we need is the explosion of a few bombs in our midst to get us good and mad.”. “Maybe” Phil replied regarding his friend meditatively. “Well it won’t be very long before we’ll have a chance to find out. Do you think an explosion a few feet away from you would make you mad Tim?”. “Yes I do” the latter replied unhesitatingly. “I believe it would make me want to telescope with the next shell that came whistling along.”. Tim was a kind of bullet-headed Yank “built on the ground” his school-boy friends used to say. Really he looked as if he might be accepted as a personification of that irresistible force which would create “the most powerful standstill” if it struck an immovable object. But in spite of his bullet-headness Tim was anything but dull. Both officers and fellow soldiers regarded him hopefully as one of the prospective star fighters of the regiment because of his mental keenness as well as his physical prowess.. .... [EXCERPT OF CHAPTER 1]