Meadville stood near the camp gate, watching the motor trucks go by on the main road. Grey, lumbering, and mud-covered, they throbbed by sloughing in and out of the mud holes in the worn road in an endless train stretching as far as he could see into the town and as far as he could see up the road.
He stood with his legs far apart and spat into the center of the road; then he turned to the corporal who had been in the Red Sox outfield and said:
“I'll be goddamed if there ain't somethin' doin'!”
“A hell of a lot doin',” said the corporal, shaking his head.
“Seen that guy Daniels who's been to the front?”
“Well, he says hell's broke loose. Hell's broke loose!”
“What's happened?... Be gorry, we may see some active service,” said Meadville, grinning. “By God, I'd give the best colt on my ranch to see some action.”
The motor trucks kept on grinding past monotonously; their drivers were so splashed with mud it was hard to see what uniform they wore.
“What d'ye think?” asked Meadville. “Think I keep store?”
Fuselli walked past them towards the town.
“Say, Fuselli,” shouted Meadville. “Corporal says hell's broke loose out there. We may smell gunpowder yet.”
“I guess poor old Bill Grey's smelt plenty of gunpowder by this time,” he said.
“I wish I had gone with him,” said Meadville. “I'll try that little trick myself now the good weather's come on if we don't get a move on soon.”
“Listen to the kid. It'll be too damn risky in the trenches.... Or do you think you're goin' to get a cushy job in camp here?”
“Hell, no! I want to go to the front. I don't want to stay in this hole.”
“But ain't no good throwin' yerself in where it don't do no good.... A guy wants to get on in this army if he can.”
“What's the good o' gettin' on?” said the corporal. “Won't get home a bit sooner.”
Another train of motor trucks went by, drowning their Talk.
Fuselli was packing medical supplies in a box in a great brownish warehouse full of packing cases where a little sun filtered in through the dusty air at the corrugated sliding tin doors. As he worked, he listened to Daniels talking to Meadville who worked beside him.
“An' the gas is the goddamndest stuff I ever heard of,” he was saying. “I've seen fellers with their arms swelled up to twice the size like blisters from it. Mustard gas, they call it.”