Jack and Ted were in high spirits, and eager to be off for the naval base at once.  Officer Dunn had informed them they might be forwarded to the nearest navy yard that night with a batch of recruits signed up during the week.  He told them to report back to the recruiting station at seven o’clock “ready to go.”

The boys were anxious, too, to get back to Brighton and break the news.  It was arranged they should spend the dinner hour at the school bidding farewell and later meet their mothers and fathers at the recruiting station.

There was a great buzz of excitement in the mess hall at dinner when the news spread that Jack Hammond and Ted Wainwright had enlisted in the navy and were soon to leave.  As the bell sounded dismissing the student body from dinner, Cheer Leader Jimmy Deakyne jumped up on a chair and proposed three cheers for the new recruits.  And the cheers were given amid a wild demonstration.

Out on the campus the boys had to mount the dormitory steps and make impromptu speeches, and then submit to a general handshaking and leave-taking all around.  “Fair Brighton” was sung, and the familiar old Brighton yell chorused over and over, with three long ’rahs for Jack Hammond and three for Ted Wainwright.

“Makes a fellow feel kinda chokey, don’t it, chum?” stammered Ted as he and Jack finally grabbed their bags and edged out through the campus gate.

They turned for another look at old Brighton.  The boys were still assembled on the dormitory steps singing “Fair Brighton.”  Up in the dormitory windows lights were twinkling and the hour hand on the chapel clock was nearing seven.

“Come on, chum, let’s hurry,” suggested Jack.  They walked in silence for a moment.

“Pretty nice send-off, Jack,” sniffed Ted, finally.  “We’ll not forget old Brighton in a hurry.”

“And you bet we’ll do our best for Uncle Sam and make old Brighton proud of us,” added Jack.

At the recruiting station all was lively.  The boys were told they must be at the depot ready to leave on the seven-thirty express.  A score or more lads were waiting for the word to move, some of them taking leave of their loved ones, others writing postcards home.  Ted’s folks were waiting; Jack’s came along in a few minutes.

A special car awaited the recruits at the railway terminal.  The girls of the Winchester Home Guard had decked it in flags and bunting and stored it with sandwiches and fruit.  In another ten minutes the express came hustling in from the west.  A shifting engine tugged the special car over onto the main line, where it was coupled to the express.  All was ready for the train-master’s signal to go.

“Good-by, mother; good-by, dad,” the boys shouted in unison as the wheels began to turn and the train drew out of the train shed.  A throng filled the station, and everyone in the crowd seemed to be waving farewell to some one on the train.  The Winchester Harmonic Band had turned out for the send-off to the town’s boys and it was bravely tooting “Stars and Stripes Forever.”