Excerpt
CHAPTER I With The American Army in France IT was a bright winter day near the middle of November, the ground hard with frost and light flurries of snow in the air.
Over the sloping French countryside thousands of brown tents arose like innumerable, giant anthills, while curling above certain portions of the camp were long columns of smoke. American soldiers were walking about in a leisurely fashion, or standing in groups talking. Some of them were engaged in cleaning their guns or other military accoutrements, a number were investigating their kits.
Near one of the camp fires a private was singing to the accompaniment of a guitar and a banjo played by two other soldiers, with a fairly large crowd surrounding them. "Johnny get your gun, we've the Hun on the run."
Over the entire American camp there was an atmosphere of relaxation, of cheerfulness, of duty accomplished. The eleventh of November having passed, with the armistice signed, the American soldiers in France were now awaiting orders either to return home to the United States or else to march toward the Rhine. In this particular neighborhood of Château-Thierry no word had yet been received as to what units were to form a part of the American Army of Occupation, only the information that the units were to be chosen with regard to their military accomplishments since their arrival in France.
Therefore the heroes of Château-Thierry and of Belleau Woods, of St. Mihiel and the Argonne Forest were ready to accept whatever fate sent, "Home," or "The Watch on the Rhine."
Finally ending his song the singer stood up; he was wearing the uniform of the United States Marines.
"I say don't stop singing, Navara. What's a fellow to do these days without your music, when we have no longer the noise of the cannon or the shrieking of guns overhead as a substitute?" one of the group of soldiers exclaimed. "The quiet has come so suddenly it is almost as hard to grow accustomed to it, as it once was to the infernal racket."
"Oh, Navara is expecting visitors, feminine visitors. Some people have all the luck!" Corporal Donald Hackett protested, placing his banjo in its case and also rising. He spoke with a slight southern drawl and was a tall, fair young fellow with brilliant blue eyes, and both his hair and skin burned red by exposure to the outdoors.
"Come along then and be introduced to my friends; a good many of you fellows know them already," Carlo Navara answered. "Mrs. David Clark and six Red Cross nurses are motoring over from the Red Cross hospital. I suppose you have been told that sometime this afternoon half a dozen of our men are to be cited. An officer is coming from headquarters to represent the commander in chief, and present the medals. In a short time we must be ready for inspection."
Moving off together the two men formed an interesting contrast.
Carlo Navara was dark, a little below medium height, with closely cut brown hair, rather extraordinary black eyes and an olive skin.
The young singer, an American of Italian ancestry, had first fought among the snow-clad hills of Italy....