Back From Hell

When the old Chicago cut loose from her moorings in an Atlantic port it was a red letter day for me. She was a good sized craft, of the French Line, and was to carry a lot of other Ameri-cans, besides myself, from the United States to France. We were all in a spirit of expectancy, mingled perhaps with sadness, for we were going over to see and have a hand in the most stu-pendous event of history, the Great War. Although many dif-ferent motives actuated us, our destination was the same, and all of us would soon be within striking distance of the scene of action.Some of those on board were going primarily from a sense of duty and gratitude to the great European Republic, whose men had come over here in '76 to help America kick off the chains which George III had welded on her ankles, and secondarily, because they wanted to kill a few of the Germans whom they right well hated. Others were going, and made no bones about saying so, be-cause they were natural born soldiers of fortune and were in-clined to go anywhere that action and excitement were likely to be found. A few were to be mere onlookers who were crossing the sea as students of a great world movement, who, from an eco

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Samuel Benson is a fiction author.