Christopher Cutler Piper shook his head.

"You'll probably be blown up if a shell doesn't get you," he said. "The
mortality on the Western front is simply frightful, and the percentage
is increasing every day."

"Say, cut it out!" advised Charlie Anderson. "Taking moving pictures
over there isn't any more dangerous than filming a fake battle here when
some chump of an actor lets off a smoke bomb with a short fuse!"

At this reference to the rather risky trick C. C. had once tried, there
was a general laugh, and amid it came the cry:

"All aboard! All ashore that's going ashore!"

The warning bells rang, passengers gathered up the last of their
belongings, friends and relatives said tearful or cheerful good-byes,
and the French liner, which was to bear the moving picture boys to
Halifax, and then to England, was slowly moved away from her berth by
pushing, fussing, steaming tugs.

"Well, we're off!" observed Blake.

"That's so," agreed Joe. "And I'm glad we've started."

"You aren't the only ones who have done that," said Macaroni. "Somebody
else has started with you!"

"Who?"