However, one of these priceless packages arrived not long ago for Eddie Gillette, all the way from a little town in the Northwest. Eddie tore off the wrapper, and almost set his teeth into the paper. Everything was there for which his soul hungered—news about America, about his own town, about people whom he knew personally—conveyed by means of the arresting headline, the pointed phrase, and the intellectual pemmican of the heavily leaded summary. The War news, of course, was weeks old, but Ed devoured it rapturously. He knew now how the War was really going. “This guy Allenby must be some dandy fighter,” he observed to Al Thompson, looking up. “Sure, Ed!” replied Al pleasantly. “Why?” “He’s been doing fine in the Holy Land. See what it says here.” Ed held up the newspaper for Al to see, and pointed to the head of a column: BRITISH CRUSADERS IN NAZARETH ALLENBY WINS JESUS CHRIST’S HOME TOWN FROM TURKS “That’s the goods!” remarked Ed approvingly, as he folded the paper with reverent care and tucked it inside his shirt. “The feller that writes that stuff has gotten the real idea for a story. The others over here”—designating apparently the editors of the London _Times_ and Paris _Matin_—“ain’t got nothing _to_ them. No, _sir_! They don’t write nothing but small-town stuff!” “You said it, Ed!” agreed Al. “All the same,” observed the critic, rising and stretching his giant limbs, “this yer reading the papers from home may give a feller a grand and glorious feeling, but it makes him feel mighty lonesome and homesick too.” He raised a pair of great fists heavenward. “Oh, _Boy_! when I get back home after this War, if the Statue of Liberty ever wants to see Ed Gillette again, she’ll have to turn around to do it!” CHAPTER TEN S.O.S. TO DILLPICKLE To most of us hitherto the letters _S.O.S._ have signified calamity of some kind—appeals for succour from sinking liners, and the like. Our British liaison officers, too, tell us that S.O.S. is the epithet applied to the rockets which are always kept in position in British front-line trenches, to be discharged as an urgent intimation to the gunners behind that the enemy are attacking in mass. But in the American Army S.O.S. means “Service of Supply.” It denotes, not panic, but order, and control, and abundance. It covers the whole chainwork of activity known in most armies as the “Lines of Communication.” The town where we find ourselves to-day is a great S.O.S. centre. On its outskirts lie mushroom cities of huts and sheds. Here is a great cold-storage depot: there are eight thousand tons of frozen beef in this single building. Here is a big station for assembling aeroplanes, where de Haviland planes of British design are being fitted with Liberty engines. Through the town itself there flows by night and by day a never-failing stream of food and munitions and replacement troops. Needless to say the town lies upon one of the main roads along which the Race to Berlin is being run.