The War Board, said Dick to himself, has settled down to enjoy the war.
It spent its nightly sessions in recounting tales of heroism. Every list of citations for bravery was gone over item by item, under the leadership of Captain Billy. At first they set out to remember the names, those wonderful names, not only American, but Russian, Greek, Rumanian, Pole, Italian, Serb, Chinese and--yes, German--even German. "By the Jumping Jehoshaphat," Captain Billy would say, "we've got them all--every blamed nation on earth--and every one Americans. They have all got it--good American grit. It don't make any difference where their names come from, there isn't one of them but dies with his face to the Hun." Over and over they recounted the gallant stories--of men going out from shelters into which they had been ordered, to carry in wounded, and sometimes receiving their own death bullet as they laid their man in a place of safety--of their quick strategy in surrounding machine gun nests and their fearless hand to hand fights with the crews. And then those tales of the way they ran in their prisoners. Captain Billy was never tired relating the historic tale of the sergeant from the New York East Side who came back with 159 prisoners and complained to his superior officer that "one had died on him."
And nothing so delighted Captain Billy as the tales that came over of the doughboy's directness and common sense in an emergency. "Just like them. Don't phase them a bit. Just as much at home over there as here. I guess they're teaching them down-trodden European countries the kind of men a free country makes. Read about the doughboy and his mules? Harness broke--mules ran away--turned them into a tree--smashed one--jumped out, looked at him, saw he was done up, shot him, rigged up and went ahead,--never said a word, never asked anybody anything, just did what was necessary. They say those French poilus haven't stopped talking about it yet. They would have held an inquest, sent in a report, and probably stopped the work of that train for a week. That's the difference."
Dick was deeply touched to notice how every now and then in the rejoicings somebody in the War Board would nod up at Lieutenant Mikey, looking down on them from the wall, and say, "What a pity he couldn't have been in it now; couldn't have fought with his own men. But he was our first one, we must never forget that." Nor did they forget their other heroes. Often and often they would nod up to Albert on the wall, and say, "Hold on, old fellow, your time is coming." Or to Joffre, "Feeling pretty good to-night, ain't you, Papa Joffre?" Oh, the War Board was certainly enjoying the war--now that it was going their way.