The men in our barge as it bobbed about began to pass jests, in whispers, of course. Not that they felt giddy--funny. Or, yes, in a way, a bit giddy--nervous tension, you know. Like a small boy whistling in the dark. And yet willing and eager to meet whatever dragon might be there. For now we felt and knew that all we had trained for, prepared for, thought about, imagined--the big time of actual warfare was at hand. That was what was most alive in every man’s mind. But they joked. “I’ve remembered you in my will, Jimmy,” said one to a pal two rows behind him. “You’ll get nothing short of a million, my son.” “What--‘cooties’?” demanded Jim. I think I need not stop to describe “cooties,” those “bosom friends” of the trenches. “Don’t waste your millions on him, Bob,” advised another. “Just leave’m a lock o’ your ’air.” A small but very sharp voice cut in: “Silence!” It was the middie, but for all save the pitch of the voice it might have been a veteran commander. “Cast off and drift astern,” directed a basso from the transport’s deck. Our little man expeditiously carried out the order and slowly we drifted astern until there came sudden twangs from the hawsers, startling because everything had been so quiet or muffled before. This was as the hawsers coupling boats and barges went taut as each boat in succession, filling with men, drew suddenly to a halt its drifting predecessor. Two of the men in our boat who were standing were caught by the jerk of the hawser and snapped overboard. They were fished out with boathooks under the rapid, cool direction of the indignant middie. “Disgusting carelessness,” he called the incident. [Illustration: The Military Cross] When all the boats of our string had been filled, there came the order to the tugs: “Full steam ahead!” Our tug was quite ready for it. Our string straightened out in a jiffy and we got off to a racing start--bounding, dipping and rolling. Sometimes we shot ahead in a straight line, sometimes in a half circle. “God bless that damned old moon!” said a man near me. His jumble of reverence and profanity came from the fact that the old green wicked eye of a moon had blinked out behind the cliffs. A moment before I had looked back and could see the battleship coming on slowly in our rear with the obvious purpose of covering our attack. Then I couldn’t see a blessed thing. The green waters had turned to ink. You only knew your comrades were with you in the same boat by the press of their swaying bodies against your shoulders and your ribs. About this time some of the gay Johnnies got another severe reprimand from our kiddie commander. They had undertaken to rise and were holding their bayonets out over the waters like fish poles, chaffing one another as to which of them would catch the first Turk. All said they wished it would be a particularly fat one--say, a three hundred pounder. But the middie’s eyes had got used to the inky darkness and he spotted the jokers.