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Uncle Sam's Boys on Field Duty
Uncle Sam's Boys on Field Duty / or, Winning Corporal's Chevrons
CHAPTER I
A SQUAD-ROOM MISUNDERSTANDING
"I SEE by the paper – " began Private Green, looking up.
Instantly the doughboys in the squad room turned loose on him.
"You can never believe what you read in the papers," broke in Private Hyman.
"Cut it and study your guard manual!" yelled another.
"Is it going to rain to-night, rookie?"
"Let him alone. He wants to prove that he can read," jeered another, which witticism brought a swift flush to the face of Private Green.
For Green was as verdant as his name. He was a new recruit, just in after his probationary period at a northwestern recruit rendezvous. He was so green, in fact, that the men in the squad room, and throughout B Company of the Thirty-fourth United States Infantry accused the young fellow of having joined the Army so that he could get a wall of bayonets between his own inexperienced self and the bunco men.
The young recruit's mistake lay in pretending to know a lot more than he really did know. He had been put through the unmerciful hazing that always awaits a very "fresh" rookie, or recruit, but even that had taught him little. Private Green was always looking for the chance to prove to his new comrades among the regulars of the Thirty-fourth that he knew something after all. This afternoon his trouble had taken the form of trying to find something in a two-days' old newspaper on which he could discourse for the enlightenment of the other men.
"I see by the paper," continued Private William Green, as soon as his tormentors would let him proceed, "that we of the United States are now manufacturing the biggest and finest guns in the world."
"Meaning cannon?" quizzed Private Hyman innocently.