Dave Porter's war honors

“Why, Nat Poole! what brings you here?” exclaimed Dave, as he moved forward to meet the young fellow from Crumville. The fact that Nat was in uniform and had his left hand done up in a sling made our hero for the time being forget his antagonism to the slacker who had never been a friend.

“Oh, I got my wrist sprained—I don’t know but that it’s broken,” replied the son of the well-known money lender of Crumville. He turned anything but a pleasant face to Dave. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I got wounded in one of the little musses we had with the Germans.”

“Wounded? I didn’t know you engineers got into any fighting. I thought your job was a soft snap well behind the lines,” returned Nat Poole.

“We have had more or less fighting to do ever since we came over,” returned the young sergeant. “Even when we were at the front with the Canadians the Germans tried to rush us two or three times, and blew up one of the bridges we were building.”

“Was it much of a wound?” went on Nat curiously.

“I got a bullet through my side and another one grazed the back of my hand”; and Dave exhibited the scar left by the latter hurt. “I’ve been at the hospital for several weeks. I’m just getting ready to leave now.”

“You don’t say! Where are you going—home?”

“Home! Not much! I’m going to the front again just as fast as I can get there.”

“Well, if you were wounded as bad as you say they ought to give you a chance to go home and rest up,” continued the money lender’s son.

“But I don’t want to go home, Nat. I want to go to the front and stay there until this war is over and we have licked the Heinies out of their boots!” cried Dave. “Why, I wouldn’t miss the fun for anything!”

“You must be a queer sort, Dave Porter, to consider being shot fun,” grumbled Nat. “I guess you weren’t hurt much. Maybe you only got a scratch or two and wanted to show off,” he added, with a touch of old-time envy in his voice. At Oak Hall, Nat Poole had always envied Dave his popularity and had done everything in his power to depreciate it.

“Well, all I can tell you about the wound in my side is what the doctors and nurses here have said,” returned our hero calmly. “They all think I ought to stay in the hospital a little longer. They say they never heard of a fellow getting up so quickly and starting back for the front. But I’m tired of staying here doing nothing. I want to get with the rest of the bunch and see what is going on.

“But tell me about yourself, Nat,” continued Dave kindly. “Were you in a fight?”

“Yes, I was!” replied the other sourly.

“What, with the Huns?” questioned Dave incredulously. He could not understand how the money lender’s son had been able to get to the fighting front so quickly.

“No, it wasn’t at the front,” growled Nat. “I got into a row with our company cook. He served us some chow that wasn’t fit for a dog to touch. I laid him out good and proper, and he hit me with a frying-pan. He had no right to do it, and I reported him.”

“And was it the frying-pan that knocked out your wrist?” queried Dave, and now he had all he could do to keep from grinning in Nat’s face.

“Yes, it was. And it pained awfully at first. I used my first-aid kit, but it didn’t seem to do any good, and so I asked for permission to come up here to the hospital and have the wrist examined. I want it attended to properly, too! I don’t want any two-cent army doctor mussing with it. I don’t intend to go through life with a stiff wrist, or a crooked one, either. Do you suppose they’ve got any really good doctors at this place?”

“There are several surgeons here who are just as good as you’ll find anywhere, Nat. And the nurses and the nursing couldn’t be better. Then you came over on your own account?”

“Oh, I got permission, of course.”

“Is the camp you are at in this vicinity?”

“It’s about two miles from here. Say, take me in and show me where to go. This wrist of mine is beginning to hurt again,” went on Nat Poole.

Had it been anybody but the money lender’s son, Dave might have felt more sympathy for him. But as it was, he knew that when Nat was hurt he was inclined to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Though Dave aided as much as he could, the money lender’s son had to wait until the more serious cases had been disposed of by the surgeons in attendance. Then a rather elderly man, the same who had attended Dave, took hold of Nat.

“I can’t find any bones broken,” said the surgeon, after a careful examination. “The wrist is bruised a little and probably feels somewhat lame. We’ll put some liniment on it and bind it up well, and I think you will find it as well as ever in a day or two.”

“Don’t you think I’d better stay at the hospital for a few days and make sure of it?” questioned Nat, eagerly.

“What! Stay? Not at all! This place is only for those who are more or less seriously wounded. That isn’t a hospital case at all. In fact, I can hardly understand why you took the trouble to come here to have it attended to. Many of the men get hurts much worse than that and say nothing about them;” and then the surgeon turned his back on Nat to show that the interview was at an end. Evidently he had met such slackers as the money lender’s son before and knew exactly how to handle them.

“I knew just how it would be,” growled Nat, as he walked out, followed by Dave. “As long as there isn’t any extra money in it for them they don’t care how they treat a fellow! I know how my wrist hurts, even if he doesn’t. I’ll go back to camp and take care of it myself. But I am not going on duty yet awhile, and I’ll tell the top sergeant so. By the way, I see you are a sergeant.”

“Yes.”

“It’s funny how some fellows just tumble into luck,” went on Nat, more sourly than ever. “I came pretty near becoming a sergeant myself, but a big bruiser of a fellow from up the State did me out of it.”

“Well, you’ll have a good chance to work your way up, Nat, now you are over in France. They are promoting fellows every day for duties well done and for bravery under fire.”

“Humph! I know all about that. Those who are in favor with the fellows higher up get all the plums, and the rest of the poor dubs can whistle.”

“I don’t believe that at all, Nat. I’ve been over here now since the middle of last summer, and so far as I can see, promotions have been only according to merit. Of course, here and there a person who doesn’t particularly deserve it may get ahead, but that is the exception to the rule. Most of the men who have gotten honors have well deserved them.”

“Humph! you’ll never make me believe that, Dave Porter. I know too much about such things. I know that money talks, for one thing. I think I might have had a lieutenancy if my old man would only have shelled out enough money. But you know how tight he is—just as tight as the bark on a tree.”

“What did he say when you were drafted, Nat?” questioned Dave, with pardonable curiosity.

“What did he say? What could he say? I was drafted, and that was all there was to it. You knew my sentiments when you were in Crumville. Didn’t you break up one of my peace meetings—a meeting I had a perfect right to hold?”

“I deny that you had a right to hold that meeting, Nat. However, all of that is now past and gone. You’re in the army, and it is your duty to do the best you can for Uncle Sam.”

“Oh, I’ll do my duty—don’t you fear about that, Dave Porter. I’m just as patriotic as anybody. But, at the same time, I claim I have a right to be patriotic in my own way.”

“Well, you let me give you a little advice, Nat,” was Dave’s earnest comment. “The fellows over here in France are rather serious-minded, and they won’t stand for any nonsense. If they get the least intimation that you are any kind of a slacker, they’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

“I don’t need your advice!”

“Very well then, Nat; I won’t say another word.”

“You think just because you’ve been over here a year or so and they have made you a sergeant that you know everything. I haven’t forgotten how you tried to run things at Oak Hall. Of course, some of the fellows toadied to you, but if you’ll remember, I wasn’t in that crowd.”

“Now, Nat, don’t get so hot under the collar. It won’t get you anywhere. We’re both over here to do our duty, so what is the use of quarreling? I was going to ask you about some of the folks at home and how Crumville looked and all that; and I thought maybe you would like to know something about Ben Basswood and the other fellows you know who are over here.”

“I don’t want to know anything about Ben Basswood or any of the others of the bunch who are under your thumb. I’m with a crowd that suits me a great deal better than that Oak Hall bunch ever did. But I’ll tell you one thing, Dave Porter,” went on Nat suddenly. “There is one fellow in our command that you had better keep your eyes open for.”

“And who is that?”

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough—that is, if you ever get any real news from Crumville,” answered the money lender’s son insinuatingly.

“Then you don’t want to tell me?”

“Well, if you want to know so bad, it’s Lieutenant Max Gebauer, the son of that millionaire jewelry manufacturer of Philadelphia,” went on Nat triumphantly. “You know their firm and the Wadsworth concern have a whole lot of business dealings.”

“Well, what has Lieutenant Gebauer and those business dealings to do with me?” questioned our hero, although he knew about what was coming.

“I guess you thought you had it all settled with Jessie Wadsworth and had it all fixed just how you were going to tie fast to the Wadsworth fortune,” continued Nat. “Well, maybe you’ll have another guess coming. I don’t imagine Jessie Wadsworth thinks as much of you as you think she does.”

“Don’t you think you had better let Jessie drop, Nat? Our feelings for each other are our own, not yours.” And Dave’s voice grew a trifle cold.

“Oh, of course! And I don’t intend to butt in. I never cared for her, and you know it. She’s an only daughter, and thoroughly spoiled.” Nat did not seem to realize that he was an only son and over-indulged. “Just the same, I think Lieutenant Gebauer has got the upper hand of you. He helped her at some charity exhibitions, and took her out riding, and to one of the dances, and I don’t know what all. He’s been calling on her right along, and the rumor is around Crumville that they are secretly engaged.”

“Nat, you’re making that so-called rumor up yourself!” cried Dave. “I know all about how Max Gebauer has been calling on Jessie and how he forced his attentions on her. She herself has written to me about it, if you must know. I don’t give that fellow any credit for what he has done. But now that he is in France and she is done with him, why not let the whole matter drop?”

“Oh, so she wrote to you about him, did she? Well, maybe she told the truth and maybe she didn’t. Oh, now don’t get too hot!” cried Nat hastily, as Dave’s eyes suddenly flashed fire and he clenched his fists. “I’m only telling you about things that I saw with my own eyes. I know that she went out with him a great deal and that she seemed to like his company. And whether you want to believe it or not, there is a rumor that they are secretly engaged and that they are to announce the engagement publicly as soon as she can get some sort of a decent pretext for breaking off her engagement with you. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

And having thus delivered himself, Nat Poole turned to where a motor-lorry bound for his camp was standing, and a few minutes later was off, leaving Dave in a much disturbed frame of mind staring after him.