There was a continuous stream of officers entering and emerging from the headquarters opposite and twice within half an hour companies of soldiers were brought into formation and passed silently away along the dark road. "You'll be in Germany in a couple of hours," called a private sitting alongside Tom as some of them passed. "Cantigny isn't Germany," another said. "Sure it is," retorted a third; "all the land they hold is German soil. Call us up when you get a chance," he added in a louder tone to the receding ranks. "Is Cantigny near here?" Tom asked. "Just across the ditches." "Are we going to try to take it?" "_Try_ to? We're going to wrap it up and bring it home." Tom was going to ask the soldier if he thought there would be any chance for _him_, though he knew well enough that his business was behind the lines and that the most he could hope for was to carry the good news (if such it proved to be) still farther back, away from the fighting. "This is going to be the first offensive of your old Uncle Samuel and if we don't get the whole front page in the New York papers we'll be peeved," Tom's neighbor condescended to inform him. Whatever Uncle Samuel was up to he was certainly very busy about it and very quiet. On the little village green which the cottage faced groups of officers talked earnestly. An enormous spool on wheels, which in the darkness seemed a mile high, was rolled silently from somewhere or other, the wheels staked and bound to the ground, and braces were erected against it. Very little sound was made and there were no lights save in the houses, which seemed all to be swarming with soldiers. Not a civilian was to be seen. Several soldiers walked away from the big wheel and it moved around slowly like one of those gigantic passenger-carrying wheels in an amusement resort. Presently some one remarked that Collie was in and there was a hurrying away--toward the rear of the village, as it seemed to Tom. "Who's Collie?" he ventured to ask. "Collie? Oh, he's the Stormy Petrel; he's been piking around over the Fritzies' heads, I s'pose." Evidently Collie, or the Stormy Petrel, was an aviator who had alighted somewhere about the village with some sort of a report. "Collie can't see in the daylight," his neighbor added; "he and the Jersey Snipe have got Fritzie vexed. You going to run between here and the coast?" "I don't know what I'm going to do," said Tom. "I don't suppose I'll go over the top, I'd like to go to Cantigny." "Never mind, they'll bring it back to you. Did you know the old gent is here?" "Pershing?" "Yup. Going to run the show himself." "Are you going?" "Not as far as I know. I was in the orchestra--front row--last week. Got a touch of trench fever." "D'you mean the front line trenches?" Tom asked. "Yup. Oh, look at Bricky!" he added suddenly. "You carrying wire, Bricky? There's a target for a sniper for you--hair as red as----"