Adventure Magazine Cover, November 10, 1924 — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

56 stockade, shipwreck, trial and various miseries date from the time I tore up my orders and turned in as a deserter. A fool never learns. Now I’ve got to go out and round up fifty-four soldiers between now and seven o’clcck. The name of this city is Rennes. That’s all I know about it. It looks to me like a big town and the bigger it is, the less chance I have of finding the drunken and licentious soldiery that I am hunting for. “This time tomorrow, Jake, Ill be with my own outfit and that’s the only ray of sun on my black sky at present. All the other troubles fade when I think of that. No more of this rat-kissing.”’ Then the sergeant went away, up the broad boulevard that led to the center of the town. Rennes is quite a city. It contains a number of barracks and one that is very new and large. There is also there perhaps as fine a military museum as there is in Europe. Rennes is, in short, not only in time of war, but in time of peace, a garrison town. All those things that go to make the European soldier’s life bearable were in Rennes in abundance. Any city in France is old in the ways of wickedness, a Sodom and Gomcrrah that the most corrupt city administration in the United States would not tolerate for an instant, and a garrison city is to an ungarrisoned city as New Or- leans is to Boston. Americans, both civil and military, having been brought up with “Thou shalt not’ ever before their eyes, take kindly to the cities of France. So the sergeant went up and down. He inquired of the police and he sought assis- tance from gendarmes. He spoke with French, American, and Belgian soldiers. Some of those he sought he found on the streets. Others he perforce found within doors and bribed an M. P. to go in and get them. He dared not send these men back to the station alone. That would be folly, so he kept them with him. After he had accumulated about fifteen, it was easier to get more, for all that beheld the crowd came to see what the excitement was. Eadie noticed after a time, that while he continued to find men walking in the street, reclining in the parks and sitting in cafes and else- where, the number he had with him did not increase. With a large crowd and a dark night and in narrow, winding streets, it is very easy for men to slip away again. Adventure From two o’clock until daylight Eadie did not find a man and at last he reluctantly turned back to the station. Eadie counted his men. “‘Hm!”’ he said bitterly, “twenty-nine.” A voice spoke from the darkness. ‘“‘No, it was nineteen.”’ There was a crackle of laughter to which the sergeant paid no heed, but led his men back through the morning mist. He was sleepy and very tired and his opinion of all the army was most unprintable. An hour’s sleep on an unmattressed wooden slatted bunk in the barrack and Eadie felt better. Jake awakened ‘him in time to have a cup of coffee at the French Red Cross and then the two hurried back to the station. “Are all the gang still here?” asked the sergeant, grinning. It pleased him to think that this was his last day as a Wandering Jew, that his long pilgrimage was at an end, and that he would very probably eat supper with his outfit. ‘Are all the gang still here?’’ he inquired lightly. “All but about fifteen,’’ answered Jake. “Fifteen gone again! Do you mean to say that we’ve only got sixteen men left out of sixty-odd?”’ “Ever try to hold a handful of quick- silver?” asked Jake. iar, THE officer they found very mild. WAN He had nothing to say. Perhaps he == had in mind the possibility of official inquiry regarding his heavy casualties and the fact that the sergeant might say some- thing about the officer’s having missed the train the morning before. On the other hand the sergeant might not say anything, according to the way the sergeant felt to- ward the officer. He loaded the remnant of his command into a freight car and got in himself. Jake and Eadie, having rank, mounted to the little tower on the end of the car where the brakeman sits and set their faces toward the country. This tower is a fine place from which to view the scenery and the sergeant remarked thereon. It was a glorious day and the province of Brittany is not one of the least attractive of France. “Y wonder what become of Corporal Gloom?”’ said Jake. “T saw him,” said Eadie grinning. ‘He was having too good a time to bring him CoMmicbool A) CO =