n.

A youth on crutches, passing along the deck behind them, lingered,
listening to the conversation, slightly amused at Stent's game list and
his further ambition to bag a Boche.

The young man's lameness resulted from a trench acquaintance with the game
which Stent desired to hunt. His regiment had been, and still was, the 2nd
Foreign Legion. He was on his way back, now, to finish his convalescence
in his old home in Finistere. He had been a writer of stories for
children. His name was Jacques Wayland.

As he turned away from the group at the rail, still amused, a man
advancing aft spoke to him by name, and he recognized an American painter
whom he had met in Brittany.

"You, Neeland?"

"Oh, yes. I'm fed up with watchful waiting."

"Where are you bound, ultimately?"

"I've a hint that an Overseas unit can use me. And you, Wayland?"

"Going to my old home in Finistere where I'll get well, I hope."

"And then?"

"Second Foreign."

"Oh. Get that leg in the trenches?" inquired Neeland.

"Yes. Came over to recuperate. But Finistere calls me. I've _got_ to smell
the sea off Eryx before I can get well."

A pleasant-faced, middle-aged man, who stood near, turned his head and
cast a professionally appraising glance at the young fellow on crutches.

His name was Vail; he was a physician. It did not seem to him that there
was much chance for the lame man's very rapid recovery.

Three muleteers came on deck from below--all young men, all talking in
loud, careless voices. They wore uniforms of khaki resembling the regular
service uniform. They had no right to these uniforms.

One of these young men had invented the costume. His name was Jack Burley.
His two comrades were, respectively, "Sticky" Smith and "Kid" Glenn. Both
had figured in the squared circle. All three were fed up. They desired to
wallop something, even if it were only a leather-rumped mule.

Four other men completed the supercargo--three French youths who were
returning for military duty and one Belgian. They had been waiters in New
York. They also were fed up with the administration. They kept by
themselves during the voyage. Nobody ever learned their names. They left
the transport at Calais, reported, and were lost to sight in the flood of
young men flowing toward the trenches.

They completed the odd dozen of fed-up ones who sailed that day on the
suffocating mule transport in quest of something they needed but could not
find in America--som