Trent had been under canvas only a few days when he obtained leave for a few hours and set out to the church. He counted three Anthony Trents whose deeds were told on mural tablets. One had been an admiral; one a bishop and the third a colonel of Dragoons at Waterloo. He sauntered by the old house and looked at it enviously. “If I bought that,” he thought, “I would settle down to the ways of honest men.”
He shrugged his shoulders. There were many things yet to be done. It was only since he had been in England and seen her wounded that he realized what none can until it is witnessed, the certainty that there must be much suffering before the end is achieved.
The men in his company were not especially congenial. They were friendly enough but their interests were narrow. Trent was glad when the training period was over and he embarked in the troop train for Dover _en route_ to the Western front. He made a good soldier. More than one of his mates said he would wear the chevrons before many weeks but he was anxious for no such distinction.
At the time his regiment arrived in France the American troops were at grips with the enemy. It was the first time that they held as a unit part of the line. The Germans, already making their retreat, left in the rear nests of machine gunners to hamper the pursuers. To clear these nests of hornets, to search abandoned cellars and buildings where men or bombs might be lying in wait was a task far more deadly than participation in a battle. Only iron-nerved men, strong to act and quick to think, were needed. There was a day when volunteers were asked for. Anthony Trent was the first man to offer himself. Under a lieutenant this band of brave men went about its dangerous task. The casualties were many and among them the officer.
He had made such an impression on his men and they had gained such favorable mention for gallant conduct that there was a fear lest the new officer might be of less vigorous and dashing nature. It was work, this nest clearing danger, that Trent liked enormously. He had come to know what traps the Hun was likely to set, the tempting cigar-box, the field glasses, the fountain-pen the touching of which meant maiming at the least. And against some of these trapped men Trent revived his old football tackle and brought them startled to the ground. It was the most stirring game of his life.