Army Boys marching into Germany

“How do you know?” asked Frank, as he and Billy made a grab for the piece of paper on which Tom had jotted down his notes.

“Leave that alone,” said Tom, holding it out of reach. “I had the work of getting this stuff and I’m going to have the pleasure of telling you the news.”

“Get busy then,” adjured Billy impatiently.

“Before I tell you anything else,” said Tom, “listen to this: The Kaiser’s skipped.”

“What?” they exclaimed in chorus.

“Straight goods,” vowed Tom. “He ran away like a cur. He didn’t even wait till the armistice was signed. He struck out like a coyote for Holland yesterday. He had a special train waiting for him.”

“Yellow all through!” exclaimed Frank in disgust.

“He’s a hero—I don’t think,” remarked Billy.

“They say that the crowd in Holland guyed him something awful while he was at the Eysden railroad station,” went on Tom. “Told him that wasn’t the road to Paris and a lot of other little things like that.”

“What’s become of the Clown Prince?” grinned Frank.

“Oh, he’s skipped too, just the same as papa,” laughed Tom. “They don’t know just yet where he’s gone to, but he’s also among the missing.”

“They’re a precious pair,” grunted Billy. “But it won’t do them any good. The Allies will get after them yet and yank them out of their holes.”

“We’ll hope so,” said Frank. “I’d like to have them both put in a cage and exhibited in every city of the world. But let’s lay off his royal nibs and get down to brass tacks. How do you know we’re going to the Rhine?”

“I don’t exactly know that we are,” confessed Tom. “But I do know that a big army of our men are going, and it stands to reason that since we’re the nearest to the Rhine, we’ll be in the bunch. At any rate, even if our special regiment isn’t going, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble in taking the place of some of the others who would rather go back to the States right away. Are you game to go if we can make it? I am.”

“Same here,” ejaculated Billy.

“I am too,” said Frank a little more slowly. “The only thing is that under other circumstances I’d be anxious to get home on my mother’s account. But I’ve got to stay over here anyway until her property affairs are all closed up. So I’m with the rest of the bunch.”

“Good!” said Tom and Billy in one breath.

“You see it’s this way,” went on Tom, referring to his notes. “The Allies are going to occupy all the German territory on this side of the Rhine. Then in certain parts they’re going to cross the Rhine. You see there are three great crossings, one at Coblenz, one at Mayence and another at Cologne. The Allies are going to occupy a bridgehead eighteen miles in size on the other side of the Rhine at these crossings. That’ll cage up the Heinies so that they couldn’t get back into France and Belgium even if they wanted to.”

“Won’t they feel sore to have Allied soldiers on the sacred soil of Germany!” grinned Billy.

“And have to take off their hats every time the Star Spangled Banner is played,” laughed Frank. “I tell you it will be a bitter pill for those fellows to swallow.”

“It sure will,” agreed Tom. “But wait till you hear the rest of the armistice terms. They’ve surely made a thorough job of it. They’ve taken away from Heinie everything except his shirt, and he’ll have to borrow a barrel to go home in.”

“Is it as bad as that?” chuckled Billy.

“Worse,” replied Tom. “Just listen to this and judge for yourself. The Germans have got to give up five thousand heavy and light field guns, one thousand seven hundred airplanes, three thousand trench mortars, thousands of machine guns, all their submarines——”

“For the love of Pete!” interrupted Billy.

“All their submarines,” went on Tom, “ten of the dreadnoughts, eight battle cruisers, six light cruisers, fifty destroyers, five thousand locomotives, one hundred and fifty thousand railroad cars, and a lot more things that I didn’t have time to jot down. But that will give you some idea of what our victory means to us and what defeat means to them. It hasn’t turned out a very profitable thing for the fellows that set out to loot the world, has it?”

“Well, it clinches the whole business anyway,” remarked Frank. “It makes it impossible for Germany to resume the war even if she wanted to, and as far as that’s concerned, the armistice is just as good as an actual treaty of peace.”

“Exactly,” agreed Billy. “I guess we’ve seen our last fighting.”

“And it sure has been some fighting,” observed Frank, as his thoughts went back over all the events of the last few months. “It’s a miracle that we’ve lived through it.”

“There have certainly been times when I wouldn’t have given a plugged nickel for our chances of coming out alive,” agreed Billy, thoughtfully. “Oh, if only Bart was here to celebrate with us.”

For the rest of that day they took the ease and comfort that they had so richly earned. The camp rules were relaxed and it was a general holiday. They were conscious of an immense weariness of body, as the reaction came from the strain under which they had so constantly labored, but their mental exhilaration was so great that they were supremely happy. It was a curious experience to be able to walk erect in perfect security, without having to crouch behind a tree or a trench or throw themselves to the ground at the approach of a shell. It was a day of peace and they enjoyed it beyond measure from the contrast with the terrible days that had gone before.

But the next morning a stir ran through the regiment. The old Thirty-seventh had been chosen as one of the units of the Army of Occupation. The news ran like wildfire through every company and there was a furbishing of arms and a rattle of harness and all the myriad sounds of a regiment on the move.

“I told you we’d be chosen,” chortled Tom. “When you’re looking for a prophet don’t pass me by.”

“You hit the nail on the head all right,” admitted Billy.

“Now we’ll relieve the Heinies from their task of watching the Rhine,” laughed Frank. “From this time on it will be strictly an American river.”

By noon of that day all preparations were completed. The old Thirty-seventh took its place in the line, the bands struck up, and with Old Glory floating proudly overhead the long column swung off toward the line of the German border.