Army Boys marching into Germany

It would have been hard to analyze the feeling of the Army Boys when the meaning of it all dawned upon them.

Their first feeling was that of satisfaction at work well done. Uncle Sam had sent them over to finish the job. Well, they had finished it.

Their next sensation was that of delight at having accomplished the downfall of the Huns. They had saved the world from slavery to the most brutal nation that the modern world had known.

Then there was the feeling that at last they could be free from the daily danger of wounds and death. They had risked this freely and gladly as long as it was necessary. Yet life was sweet and they were young.

“I told you they’d sign,” exclaimed Frank as he gave Tom a resounding thump on the back. “Now what have you got to say for yourself, you old croaker?”

“I’m the goat,” admitted Tom with a joyous grin. “Josh all you like. I’m too happy to want to come back at you. But don’t forget,” he added, as a thought struck him, “that they may back out yet. They’re the greatest crawfishes on earth.”

“Not a chance,” chimed in Billy. “They’re down and out. Gee, wouldn’t you like to be in little old Camport this minute? Can’t you see them all out on the streets and the laughing and the crying and the shaking hands and all the rest of it?”

“Just wait till the old Thirty-seventh goes swinging through the Camport streets,” gloated Tom. “They’ll give us the town. Nothing will be too good for us.”

“We’ll surely be It with a capital I,” agree Frank happily. “If only good old Bart could be with us,” he added, and a shadow came over his face.

“That’s the one fly in the ointment,” admitted Billy. “But he will be with us and don’t you forget it. He’s liable to turn up any minute.”

“And now that the fighting is over, we may have a chance to look for him ourselves,” put in Tom. “It stands to reason he can’t be very far from here. But now let’s go to chow. We ought to have an extra good meal this morning with a lot of victory sauce to season it.”

They found the rest of the regiment as wildly excited as they were themselves, and there was a perfect Babel of voices as the matter was discussed in all its bearings.

“Look at the fellows’ faces,” chuckled Billy. “They’re like so many full moons.”

“Rather different from what they were when the Germans seemed to have the upper hand in the Spring,” grinned Frank. “If anyone then had told us that the Germans would have caved in before Christmas, we’d have thought he was crazy. But here it isn’t Thanksgiving yet and they’ve cried quits.”

“I suppose there’ll be a little more fighting yet this morning,” said Tom hopefully. “You know the armistice doesn’t go into force until eleven o’clock.”

“Hear the glutton,” chaffed Frank. “He hasn’t got enough fighting yet. He wants to get another crack at the Hun.”

“I suppose there will be a show of fighting until the last minute,” said Billy. “But I guess it will be a matter of form. The artillery will open up but they’ll fire wild. There’ll be just enough to show that the army’s on the job.”

Billy was right. The morning wore away in a desultory fashion, with every man looking at his wrist watch every five minutes until eleven o’clock approached. Then when the moment came, all the big guns let go at once in one tremendous salvo that seemed as though it would split the heavens.

The war was over!

The silence that followed was the most curious sensation that the Army Boys had known. Day and night, the guns had been growling for months, sometimes faintly, sometimes strongly, but always growling. Now all along that vast battle line of five hundred miles there was that moment of blessed silence for which those millions of men had been waiting and fighting. The end of the long agony had come.

Frank, Billy, and Tom dropped their rifles and looked at each other. Usually they were talkative enough, but just now they were too full for words.

Over the hill in front of them appeared a group of German soldiers. They advanced a little, then hung back, then advanced again, and made signs that indicated that they wanted to talk with the Americans. But they were waved sternly back. The Americans wanted to have nothing to do with them.

The strictest rules had been laid down by the American officers that there was to be no fraternizing with the enemy. While hostilities had ceased, the war was still formally regarded as being on until the actual treaty of peace was signed. It might yet be necessary to take up arms again, and the Americans were going to take no chance of German propaganda getting in its nefarious work.

“A mighty good rule it is too,” commented Frank, as he saw the discomfited Germans slink back into their own lines. “If those fellows had played the game fairly and gallantly as we played it, I’d be the first one to shake hands with them after the fighting was over and let bygones be bygones. But there isn’t a decent rule of civilized warfare that they haven’t violated. I’d as soon shake hands with a rattlesnake.”

“I didn’t know a rattlesnake had hands,” gurgled Billy, and dodged the pass that Frank made at him.

“Well, now that the fighting is over, what’s the next thing on the program?” asked Tom.

chanted Billy.

“That’s a question for our officers to settle,” remarked Frank. “Of course we’ll all go back to the good old U. S. A. eventually. At that, it will be a tremendous job to get over two million men back to the States. But I imagine a good many of us will have to stay over here and do police duty until the peace treaty is signed. Let’s go down to the headquarters bulletin board and see just what the armistice terms are. That may give us a little light on the subject.”

The men had been given liberty now to leave the ranks, and they found a great crowd gathered about a number of bulletin boards where the printed terms of the armistice had been posted. So great was the throng that they found difficulty in getting near the announcements.

“Here,” said Frank giving Tom a push. “You’ve got gall enough to get in anywhere. Buck the line and come back with the dope.”

Tom obeyed and wormed his way through the crowd until he got a good view of a board. He jotted down some of the main points and came back with his eyes bulging.

“We’re going to the Rhine, fellows!” he exclaimed. “We’re going to the Rhine!”