Trust a group of soldiers to take charge of a show and run it to suit themselves. But they were pleased, beyond question, as was evidenced by the buzzing conversations during the intermission.
"Hey, Joe! You old son-of-a-gun! How'd you get down here? Thought you were wiped out up at Wipers."
"Huh! Not me! They haven't made the shell that can get me. Look who's over there with a nice cushy wound to keep him out of trouble. Old Dog Face himself. Hey! Dog Face ... Come here!"
Such were the greetings of soldiers who hid their real feelings behind a mask of flippancy.
McGee drew Larkin into an eddy of the milling throng where they could the better watch what Red termed "the review of the nations." A strapping big Anzac, with a cockily rosetted Rough Rider hat, strolled arm in arm with a French Blue Devil from the Alpine Chasseurs. A kilted Highlander, three years absent from his homeland and bearing four wound stripes on his sleeve, was trying vainly to teach the words of "Scotland Forever" to a Russian officer whose precise English did not encompass the confusing Scotch burr. Mixed tongues, mixed customs, variety of ideals; infantrymen, cavalrymen, artillerymen, war pilots; men with grey at the temples and beardless youths; here and there a man on crutches, here and there an empty sleeve, and many breasts upon which hung medals awarded for intrepid courage; here grizzled old Frenchmen with backs bowed by three years of warfare, and there fresh, clean young Americans recently landed and a little amazed that they should be looked upon as the hope of the staggering allies. Color, color, color! Confused tongues, the buzz and babble of a thousand half-heard conversations, the fragments of marching songs! Here was a cross section of the Allied Armies, all of them with but one purpose. How could they fail!
The scene had a telling effect upon McGee and Larkin. Wordless, for a few minutes, they stood watching the throng. It was McGee who spoke first.
"Did you ever see anything like it, Buzz? Just look at the different uniforms. There--look over there! A bunch of American Blue Jackets. Wonder how they got here?"
"Humph! Wonder how all of us got here? That's what I've been thinking about. This is just a moment snatched from the lives of all these fellows. What went before? What homes did they come from, and who is waiting for them? And what comes to them to-morrow? Gee!" He shook his head, slowly. "It doesn't do to think about it. You want to find out about them ... and you get to wishing they could all go on back home to-morrow. Say, who started this talk, anyhow? Come on, let's go back in."