Later in the morning this meeting was actually accomplished.  There were ten troop ships, some of them very large boats, and six destroyers.  The men stood about the whole morning, gazing spellbound at their sister transports, trying to find out their names, guessing at their capacity.  Tanned as they already were, their lips and noses began to blister under the fiery sunlight.  After long months of intensive training, the sudden drop into an idle, soothing existence was grateful to them.  Though their pasts were neither long or varied, most of them, like Claude Wheeler, felt a sense of relief at being rid of all they had ever been before and facing something absolutely new.  Said Tod Fanning, as he lounged against the rail, “Whoever likes it can run for a train every morning, and grind his days out in a Westinghouse works; but not for me any more!”

The Virginian joined them.  “That Englishman ain’t got out of bed yet.  I reckon he’s been liquouring up pretty steady.  The place smells like a bar.  The room steward was just coming out, and he winked at me.  He was slipping something in his pocket, looked like a banknote.”

Claude was curious, and went down to the cabin.  As he entered, the air-man, lying half-dressed in his upper berth, raised himself on one elbow and looked down at him.  His blue eyes were contracted and hard, his curly hair disordered, but his cheeks were as pink as a girl’s, and the little yellow humming-bird moustache on his upper lip was twisted sharp.

“You’re missing fine weather,” said Claude affably.

“Oh, there’ll be a great deal of weather before we get over, and damned little of anything else!” He drew a bottle from under his pillow.  “Have a nip?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” Claude put out his hand.

The other laughed and sank back on his pillow, drawling lazily, “Brave boy!  Go ahead; drink to the Kaiser.”

“Why to him in particular?”

“It’s not particular.  Drink to Hindenburg, or the High Command, or anything else that got you out of the cornfield.  That’s where they did get you, didn’t they?”

“Well, it’s a good guess, anyhow.  Where did they get you?”

“Crystal Lake, Iowa.  I think that was the place.”  He yawned and folded his hands over his stomach.

“Why, we thought you were an Englishman.”

“Not quite.  I’ve served in His Majesty’s army two years, though.”

“Have you been flying in France?”

“Yes.  I’ve been back and forth all the time, England and France.  Now I’ve wasted two months at Fort Worth.  Instructor.  That’s not my line.  I may have been sent over as a reprimand.  You can’t tell about my Colonel, though; may have been his way of getting me out of danger.”

Claude glanced up at him, shocked at such an idea.

The young man in the berth smiled with listless compassion.  “Oh, I don’t mean Bosch planes!  There are dangers and dangers.  You’ll find you got bloody little information about this war, where they trained you.  They don’t communicate any details of importance.  Going?”