THE MARCH OF TRIUMPH
“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.