The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling; Or, Training for the Big Fight in France — John Shaqi
The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling; Or, Training for the Big Fight in FranceChase, Josephine
General
The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling; Or, Training for the Big Fight in France
Chase, Josephine
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
The exigencies of drill that morning drove the incident from the minds
of the four for the time being. Keyed up to the highest pitch of desire
to do well, Ignace partially retrieved himself in the eyes of the
impatient drill sergeant. Though he could not know it, that efficient
individual laid the Pole's marked improvement of carriage to the
dressing-down he had launched at Iggy on the previous day. Proud of his
ability to "whip these rookies into shape" he showed considerably more
patience with the still clumsy recruit, and the end of the morning drill
found Ignace again escaping the dreaded awkward squad.
Not yet obliged to put in full time at drill, the squad to which Iggy
and Jimmy belonged was dismissed at 10:30 not to resume their work until
called out again after one o'clock Assembly. The instant he was
released, Ignace hot-footed it for barracks, there to begin the "stoody"
of Military Tactics as laid down by Bob. As the latter had shrewdly
calculated, when the idea for them had taken shape in his fertile brain,
he could not have devised a better way of impressing the first, simple
Army commands on the slow-thinking Polish boy. Aside from feeling highly
honored that his "smart" Brother should have gone to so much trouble for
him, Ignace regarded the jingles with much the same delight which a
child takes in its first book of nursery rhymes.
Reaching the barrack soon after Ignace, Jimmy was not surprised to find
the latter seated on his cot, busily engaged in droning Rule No. 1
aloud. As it happened the squad-room was almost deserted. The three or
four rookies it contained beside themselves were wholly occupied with
their own affairs. Thus Ignace had a free field with no one to object to
the sing-song murmur of his voice.
"Come on, Iggy," Jimmy urged. "Let's go over to the 'Y' and write our
letters again. We'll have plenty of time before mess, if we hustle."
"I can no go." Ignace stopped in the middle of a verse to make this
stolid refusal.
"Don't you want to write to your mother?"
"Y-e-a. Som' day. No now. I am the busy. Better I stoody the rule firs'.
Mebbe to-night write. Mebbe, no. Now am on job. So stay I. You see. This
morning, no get the cross word. No yet go to what call you it, that bad
squad? So have I do good. Soon much good. Pretty soon fine solder, I
work hard."
"All right. Keep up the good work." Smiling, Jimmy turned away to get
his note-paper. "Guess I'll stay here and write," he added, half to
himself. Extracting a small leather portfolio from his suit-case, he
settled himself on his cot, his back braced against the wall, and
started the re-writing of his letters. Every now and then he raised his
head to grin at Ignace, whose voice droned on, a steady, monotonous
murmur. Far from disturbed by the sound, Jimmy was merely amused.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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