Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/248

 came over just for the novelty of going to France; they had had a rather disagreeable trip and now that they were finally in France they were only allowed to leave the boat on special permission. Even then they couldn't leave St. Nazaire, which is a little town and not too interesting. None of them knew more than a few words of French, but it was a simple matter getting what they wanted in their time off duty. As for the fellows in jail, they had been impudent and insulting to the officers and would probably be taken back to America in irons. They didn't know exactly when the boat was to sail, but told me confidentially, it wouldn't be more than a day or two, since only the flour and eight of the big guns remained to be unloaded. They had taken fourteen days to cross; and figuring on this, we will get home about the nineteenth of August. Jack Fenton, the quartermaster clerk who signed me up, said I could sleep on the settee in his cabin tonight. So I am tucked up on it now, with a port-hole above me instead of the canvas curtain on the rear of my ambulance.