ken heart he just hates to see all the misery and suffering
these poor Belgians are enduring."

"There's the last call to go ashore. Come along, Josh, and you too,
Hanky Panky. Boys, to be honest with you I more than half wish I was
going along. Home would look mighty fine to me just now."

"Oh! shucks! you'll soon get over that feeling, Rod," said the lanky boy
called Josh, taking the alarm at once, for he seemed perfectly contented
to stay where he was; "just wait till we're spinning along on our bully
machines down through Ostend, Dunkirk, and Calais to Boulogne, where we
may take a steamer to the U. S. if we can find berths."

"Be sure to keep a regular daily log of your happenings, Josh, so we can
look it over when you get back home," begged the boy who went by the
strange nick-name of "Rooster," doubtless because he crowed so much over
his accomplishments.

"Good-bye, and good luck!" called out Elmer, waving his hand again.

"Remember us to everybody in Garland, particularly all the pretty
girls!" shouted Hanky Panky, after the last exchange of handshakes, when
with his two chums, Rod and Josh, he hurried down the gang-plank to the
dock.

The steamer for London was leaving its Antwerp pier, and all seemed
excitement. Many people were already fleeing madly from Belgium, now
partly overrun by the vast invading army of the German Kaiser. At any
day Antwerp was likely to be bombarded by the tremendous forty-two
centimetre guns that had reduced the steel-domed forts at Liege and
Namur, and allowed the conquering hosts entrance to Brussels.

While the trio on the dock continued to frantically return the salutes
of their two chums as long as they could distinguish their figures on
the hurricane deck of the staunch steamer bound down the Scheldt, a few
brief explanations might not come in amiss. Possibly some of those who
start to read this book may not have had the pleasure of meeting Rod and
his four friends in previous volumes of this series.

The boys who wore the khaki lived in the enterprising town of Garland
across the water in the States. How they came by the fine motorcycles
they owned would be too long a story to narrate here, and those who are
curious about the circumstances must be referred to earlier stories for
the details.

They called their organization the Big Five because they planned to
carry out numerous enterprises that might have daunted less courageous
spirits. Rod Bradley was really the l