The platoon awoke in the heat of the day. In the woods the leaves of the trees were unruffled by a breeze. Glaring down from directly above, the sun was a monstrous incinerator. But for it all nature would have been inanimate. The men stretched experimentally. Their empty intestines made them aware of themselves. From among the trees floated a rich odor of frying food. “Steak,” some one guessed. The smell intensified their hunger, weakened them. King Cole, shading the sun from his owl-like eyes, sat up and sniffed. “Who said ‘steak’?” he observed. “Smells like good old Kentucky fried chicken to me.” “Chicken, hell,” said Hartman, the professional pessimist. “It’s probably fried Canned Bill.” “Oh, you make me sick,” Cole answered. “Can’t you let a man dream?” But it was steak. And dipped in flour before it was fried. It was not choice steak, but it was edible, very edible. And the quantity had been prepared for sixty men, while there were only fourteen men to dine. “Go easy,” cautioned Lieutenant Bedford, gnawing a huge steak which he held in his hand. “There’s plenty of chow, so you don’t need to be in a hurry to eat it all. You’ll do better if you eat slowly. Stomach’s not used to this sort of food.” “Je’s, this is jist like bein’ home,” King Cole informed the assembly. “Home? You never had a home. What are you talkin’ about?” jeered McCann, the New York roughneck who had been confined in the hospital twice with delirium tremens. “Ho there, you yellow greaseball, what do you want?” He hailed one of the mess helpers who was approaching. “I heard that R. E. McCann got scairt and shot himself when he got up to the front, and I come down to see if it was true.” The greaseball, whose name describes him well, looked inquiringly around. McCann failed to answer the badinage. The greaseball sat down among the men, who now had become filled and grew confidential. “You fellahs had a pretty tough time up there, didn’t you?” “I’ll say we did.” “You’d a thought so if you’d a been there, you lowlife.” “Yeh, pretty soft for you birds in the galley.” “But not as soft as it’s goin’ to be for you guys,” the greaseball was ingratiating. “Whaddya mean?” the platoon scoffed. “Ain’t you heard?” The greaseball looked surprised. “Heard nothin’,” Cole answered grumpily. “Where’ve we been to hear anything?” “Well,” hesitatingly, “maybe I hadn’t ought to tell.” “Go on and tell, greaseball.” “Yeh, what the hell else are you good for?” “Well ... you guys ain’t goin’ back to the front no more.” “_Hooray!_” they sceptically shouted. “You damned liar.” “Fact. The brigade commander was down here yesterday, and I heard him tell Major Adams that the First Battalion was goin’ on board ship.” “Oh-o. That ain’t so good. I was sick all the way over on that damn transport,” Pugh remembered aloud.