Two American Boys with the Allied ArmiesCrockett, Sherman
General
Two American Boys with the Allied Armies
Crockett, Sherman
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
“What was his name, for you haven’t even told me yours yet?” the nurse
continued, as she gave the boy one of her smiles.
“My name is Amos Turner, and his is Frank, but we’ve learned that when
he enlisted he went as Frank Bradford.”
The nurse started, and looked more sharply at the speaker.
“Frank Bradford, you say?” she remarked, quickly.
“Yes, and it’s plain to be seen from the way you act you’ve heard about
him,” continued Amos, his interest growing by leaps and bounds.
“I have even met him,” the Red Cross nurse announced. “Yes, more than
that, it was my privilege to attend to his trifling hurts after he
had returned from one of his most remarkable forays over many miles
of hostile territory, doing an immense amount of damage to the German
concentration camps, stores, railway stations, and Zeppelin hangars.”
Amos colored with pride, for it must be remembered that it was a
Turner, and his own brother, of whom this praise was being spoken.
“We read accounts of that long flight he made that left a trail of
alarm behind,” said Jack, “but there was no name mentioned. We only
heard this very day through a British colonel that it was Frank
Bradford.”
Amos left his work for a minute. He was so excited he felt he must find
out a little more about Frank from the Red Cross attendant.
“How was he injured, Nurse?” he asked.
“The wings of his plane were fairly riddled with shrapnel,” she
explained, “but he had escaped all that in a miraculous way. In fact,
his only injuries consisted of a few minor hurts on one of his arms,
where he had scraped it in falling, after he got back into our lines.”
“Was it his left arm?” asked Amos, quickly, and although the nurse may
have possibly imagined this a foolish question, she answered it after a
second’s thought.
“His left arm--yes, that’s the one he had injured, I remember.”
“My brother Frank had some tattoo work on his forearm,” explained Amos.
“It was done by an old sailor he knew, and whose tales of worldwide
adventure Frank was never tired of hearing. Can you remember, Nurse,
whether the Frank Bradford you attended was marked with colored India
inks--he had an eagle stamped there on his arm, a real screaming
American eagle?”
“Yes, it was an eagle, I remember now,” she affirmed. “He laughed when
I told him it was a shame to allow himself to be mutilated that way,
and said he had dreamed of being a sailor some day, and visiting every
quarter of the globe. He also told me he had been around pretty much
during the last few years.”
Amos exchanged pleased glances with his cousin.
“How strange it seems, Jack, that we should meet two persons in one day
who have known Frank. The tattoo business tells the story good enough
for me; but p’raps I’d better flash that picture out, and make dead
sure.”
When the Red Cross nurse had taken one look she nodded her head.
“That’s certainly the Frank Bradford I met,” she told Amos, “though of
course he looks older than in this picture.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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