"
Two days later the boys embarked for the passage across the Channel, and
though it was a desperately rough one, they were, by this time, seasoned
travelers and did not mind it.
The journey through France up to the front was anything but pleasant.
The train was slow and the cars uncomfortable, but the boys made the
best of it, and finally one afternoon, as the queer little engine and
cars rolled slowly up to what served for a station, there came to their
ears dull boomings.
"Thunder?" asked Joe, for the day was hot and sultry.
"Guns at the front," remarked a French officer, who had been detailed to
be their guide the last part of the journey.
"At the front at last! Hurrah!" cried Joe.
"Perhaps you will not feel like cheering when you have been here a week
or two," said the French officer.
"Sure we will!" declared Charlie. "We can do something now besides look
at London chimney pots. We can get action!"
As the boys looked about on the beautiful little French village where
they were to be quartered for some time, it was hard to realize that, a
few miles away, men were engaged in deadly strife, that guns were
booming, killing and maiming, and that soon they might be looking on the
tangled barbed-wire defense of No Man's Land.
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