Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 39: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Casual’s Return GaN IT WAS at this time that Jake de- KO) livered himself of some bitter howls. He beat his brow and raved. The French engine room crew watched him from below the gratings and called to one another that the “big red” had gone mad. “‘What’s eatin’ him?” asked the other Americans. Eadie seized Jake by the wrist, but at that moment Jake ceased his cries and became perfectly silent. “What’s the matter?’ ~- “Are you hurt?” “T’ve lost my bacon ’n’ condiment cans,”’ said Jake soberly, “in which was my snuff and terbaccer.”’ The loss was terrible. Eadie and Jake discussed it for a long time. The other men were not very sympathetic. They felt the need of tobacco themselves, they felt it very strongly, but theré-was none to be had. One man fished a wet mass from a shirt pocket, but even if dried, that brown mystery would be unsmokable. Some one suggested going on deck, but the majority agreed that it was too cold, and since most of the men were clothed in shirt and drawers and the rest stark naked, they preferred to remain where it was warm. There was an interval of quiet, during which some of the men slept. The destroyer asked Eadie. lost way and voices could be heard on deck. . Feet clattered down the ladder and a French officer appeared. Behind him were an American army officer and an interpreter. ‘Well, well,” cried the, American officer, “here we are. In such a hurry to get to France you tried to swim, eh? How’s your courage?” The men assured him that it was good. The officer did ot pass around cigarets. “Well, boys,” he said, after an inspec- tion and a silent counting of the men there, “‘let’s go on deck and we'll see about getting you ashore.”’ The men went up, crawling slowly up the perpendicular ladder. After the heat of the engine room, the outer air was doubly cold, but there was an American flatfoot on the deck with a great pile of blankets, which he issued out, one to each man. Eadie was surprized, when his head came above the level of the deck, to find that he was in a harbor. It was astonishing to go below decks at sea and come up so close to a dock that one could almost spit ashore. There were trees like any trees one might 37 find at home. The houses looked strange; they were built of plaster, apparently, and of a peculiar type of architecture. “Come, guy, never mind the scenery, you're holdin’ up traffic!”” Thus the man on the next rung of the ladder. Eadie thereupon climbed to the deck. Jake was already at the rail or rather the lifeline that ran along the side of the de- stroyer. “Come here, sergeant,”’ he called. ‘Hey, lookit. Here’s some Bushes.” All within hearing crowded to the life- line, wrapped in their blankets like Indians. There was a track that ran along the edge of the dock, and on the track a toy train with ridiculous cars and a child’s size en- gine, that whistled piercingly. The sol- diers exclaimed at the size of the train, but could see no Bushes. ‘“‘Where’s them Huns you see?” asked one of the blanketed men. “Standin’ by that car there, see? The one with the canvas over it. See ’em?” “Yeh, sure. Lookit, there’s another one. What’s he got on his head?” The French crew were warping the de- stroyer into the dock. A destroyer is a met- tlesome ship to handle, and it is a bold man that will lay one alongside a dock under her own power and against the set of the stream. The French prefer to do it by warping, even if the destroyer is equipped, as some of them are, with bow rudders. The soldiers knew nothing of this. Their attention was all for the line of cars on the dock, where, as the ship came nearer, they - could clearly see their enemy, a half dozen of him, standing against a car. They had burlap bags over their heads to keep off the rain that fell at intervals. They wore clothes of pea green, with little round hats, and bore upon their breasts the white let- ters, P.G., which signify Prisonnter de Guerre. They stared at the Americans and the Americans stared back. A Yank sailor, evidently a sentry, passed along the dock, twirling a club. The enemy grinned. It pleased them to see this evi- dence of the might of the United States, a score of shivering men, clad in blankets, teetering ashore from a French destroyer. It did not take very long for the Ameri- cans to disembark. They had no luggage to look after and no farewells to say. A gangplank was thrown ashore and they went down it followed by the American officer. Comicbook (© =