Page:Back From Hell, by Samuel Cranston Benson.djvu/17



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 Americans, 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 stupendous event of history, the Great War. Although many different 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.