on the morning air. Fuselli's heart was thumping. He felt proud of himself and of the company—the damn best company in the whole outfit. The company ahead was moving, it was their turn now.
“Forwa—ard, march!”
They were lost in the monotonous tramp of feet. Dust rose from the road, along which like a drab brown worm crawled the column.
A sickening unfamiliar smell choked their nostrils.
“What are they taking us down here for?”
“Damned if I know.”
They were filing down ladders into the terrifying pit which the hold of the ship seemed to them. Every man had a blue card in his hand with a number on it. In a dim place like an empty warehouse they stopped. The sergeant shouted out:
“I guess this is our diggings. We'll have to make the best of it.” Then he disappeared.
Fuselli looked about him. He was sitting in one of the lowest of three tiers of bunks roughly built of new pine boards. Electric lights placed here and there gave a faint reddish tone to the gloom, except at the ladders, where high-power lamps made a white glare. The place was full of tramping of feet and the sound of packs being thrown on bunks as endless files of soldiers poured in down every ladder. Somewhere down the alley an officer with a shrill voice was shouting to his men: “Speed it up there; speed it up there.” Fuselli sat on his bunk looking at the terrifying confusion all about, feeling bewildered and humiliated. For how many days would they be in that dark pit? He suddenly felt angry. They had no right to treat a feller like that. He was a man, not a bale of hay to be bundled about as anybody liked.
“An' if we're torpedoed a fat chance we'll have down here,” he said aloud.
“They got sentries posted to keep us from goin up on deck,” said someone.
“God damn them. They treat you like you was a steer being taken over for meat.”
“Well, you're not a damn sight more. Meat for the guns.”
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