The matter of epithets was crucial, for each entrant to the European War, save one, had monikers crafted by another player. So, courtesy of the English, the French were poilus, because they were very hairy. And the French called the British “Tommies,” and the Australians named the Turks “Abdul,” and the Australians were “diggers.” When the first Americans landed at Brest, the crowds, with equal measures of derision and romantic longing, called them “cowboys.” But the Americans, who were not actually Allies but Associates, disavowed the name and instead went by the mysterious, self-generated nickname of “doughboys.”

The twenty-five Americans followed Lieutenant Gordon along the railroad tracks, ignoring the calls by other units to join them. As their land legs returned, they walked with the swagger of city boys whose reputations were growing. They followed Gordon, tromping as if each step pounded in their point: Detroit made cars, tanks, ammo, stoves, and, best of all, Americans.

Gordon, with a rainwater smile, frequently plastered into sweet agree-ability, was well liked by his men. He and Hugo had gone to the University of Michigan together. Hugo had taken more difficult classes and scored higher grades than Gordon. But Gordon had dressed à la mode, and was frequently covered in girls. Hugo sniffed that the only heroism he’d shown then was having mashie-nibbed out of a double-bunkered trap on the Grosse Pointe Country Club golf course. Further, Gordon had successfully grown both a mustache and a faint British accent since becoming an officer.

There was an abandoned steam shop on the second story of a rat trap quayside sawmill. The windows hadn’t been shattered, so the mosquitoes were kept out. But the platoons had hardly dropped their bedrolls and cracked open their mustard-colored phrase books before sharing a feeling that something had just been snatched from their grasp.

It was admitted the Bolos hadn’t left that fast. They didn’t expect anyone to chase them. From the steam shop, the doughboys could look out the smeared windows and see other locomotives and trains just standing there. Hugo, in exasperation at this point, reminded them that their charter was to protect Allied matériel, not to chase anyone. There was some debate as to what exactly matériel was, and if, it was surmised, with rising excitement, it was possible that matériel might be spools of copper wire.

“Then,” said Private Wodziczko, who Hugo had noted was helpful, “to safeguard it, we have to get it back.”

“No, we don’t,” Hugo responded, and was ignored. There was a discussion: what was stopping them from taking a train and hunting the Bolos down like yammering whelps?

Of course, the only thing stopping them was that none of them knew how to operate a locomotive.