Читать книгу Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 8

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“That’s the way it is,” thought Tom, “you get to know fellers and like ’em, and then you get separated and you don’t see ’em any more.”

Perhaps he was the least bit homesick, coming into this new sector where all were strangers to him. In any event, as he sat there finishing his meal he fell to thinking of the past and of the “fellers” he had known. He had known a good many for despite his soberness there was something about him which people liked. Most of his friends had taken delight in jollying him and he was one of those boys who are always being nicknamed wherever they go. Over in the Toul sector they “joshed” and “kidded” him from morning till night but woe be to you if you had sought to harm him!

He had been sorry, in a way, to leave the Toul sector, just as he had been sorry to leave Bridgeboro when he got his first job on a ship. “That’s one thing fellers can’t understand,” he thought, “how you can be sorry about a thing and glad too. Girls understand better—I’ll say that much for ’em, even though I—even though they never had much use for me——”

He fell to thinking of the scout troop of which he had been a member away back in America, of Mr. Ellsworth, the scoutmaster, who had lifted him out of the gutter, and of Roy Blakeley who was always fooling, and Peewee Harris. Peewee must be quite a boy by now—not a tenderfootlet any more, as Roy had called him.

And then there was Rossie Bent who worked in the bank and who had run away the night before Registration Day, hoping to escape military service. Tom fell to thinking of him and of how he had traced him up to a lonely mountain top and made him go back and register just in time to escape disgrace and punishment.

“He thought he was a coward till he got the uniform on,” he thought. “That’s what makes the difference. I bet he’s one of the bravest soldiers over here now. Funny if I should meet him. I always liked him anyway, even when people said he was conceited. Maybe he had a right to be. If girls liked me as much as they did him maybe I’d be conceited. Anyway, I’d like to see him again, that’s one sure thing.”

When he had finished his meal he felt of his tires, gave his grease cup a turn, mounted his machine and was off to the north for whatever awaited him there, whether it be death or glory or just hard work; and to new friends whom he would meet and part with, who doubtless would “josh” him and make fun of his hair and tell him extravagant yarns and belittle and discredit his soberly and simply told “adventures,” and yet who would like him nevertheless.

“That’s the funny thing about some fellers,” he thought, “you never can tell whether they like you or not. Rossie used to say girls were hard to understand, but, gee, I think fellers are harder!”

Swiftly and silently along the moonlit road he sped, the dispatch-rider who had come from the blue hills of Alsace across the war-scorched area into the din and fire and stenching suffocation and red-running streams of Picardy “for service as required.” Two miles behind the straining line he rode and parallel with it, straight northward, keeping his keen, steady eyes fixed upon the road for shell holes. Over to the east he could hear the thundering boom of artillery and once the air just above him seemed to buzz as if some mammoth wasp had passed. But he rode steadily, easily, without a tremor.

When he dismounted in front of headquarters at the little village of his destination his stolid face was grimy from his long ride and the dust of the blue Alsatian mountains mingled with the dust of devastated France upon his khaki uniform (which was proper and fitting) and his rebellious hair was streaky and matted and sprawled down over his frowning forehead.

A little group of soldiers gathered about him after he had given his paper to the commanding officer, for he had come a long way and they knew the nature of his present service if he did not. They watched him rather curiously, for it was not customary to bring a dispatch-rider from such a distance when there were others available in the neighborhood. He was the second sensation of that memorable night, for scarcely two hours before General Pershing himself had arrived and he was at that very minute in conference with other officers in the little red brick cottage. Even as the group of soldiers clustered about the rider, officers hurried in and out with maps, and one young fellow, an aviator apparently, suddenly emerged and hurried away.

“What’s going to be doing?” Tom asked, taking notice of all these activities and speaking in his dull way.

Evidently the boys had already taken his measure and formulated their policy, for one answered,

“Peace has been declared and they’re trying to decide whether we’d better take Berlin or have it sent C.O.D.”

“A soldier I met a couple of miles back,” said Tom, “told me to tell you to give ’em Hell.”

It was characteristic of him that although he never used profanity he delivered the soldier’s message exactly as it had been given him.