War is—War!
Yes, it was war. There could be no question about its being the real thing, with all the frills and thrills that go along with a gigantic, brain-taxing, muscle-straining attempt to kill an enemy and not be killed by him.
If Sherman designated the kind of war practised two generations ago as having a resemblance to the infernal regions, what would he call war as practised in this generation? A combination it is of dozens of varied Hades, with all the little devils of hate and villainy and slow torture thrown in.
Corporal Herbert Whitcomb, though a mere boy, had been placed in the command he held, however small, because of his wonderful skill in shooting, together with his manliness, strength of character and the reputation he had earned for doing everything well that he was set to do at the training camp back in the dear old United States.
With his introduction to the combinedtrench and gun pit on the French front and the duties he was compelled to assume as commander of a squad of snipers, he was at once impressed with the fact that this was war; and in a very short time thereafter that war is hell.
Lieutenant Jackson, of the old Regular Army and a veteran of long service, who was in command of the pit and was Herbert's superior officer, had told him enough to render such a verdict and to impress him with the seriousness of the job before the Allies, the American Army and their small body of men, fifty-seven in all, in the pit. These comprised the platoon of Regulars, thirty-two men, four corporals, two sergeants and the lieutenant, the artillery squad of eight men and one corporal, and the sniper squad of an equal number.
The Regular Army men were generally rough-and-ready fellows, admirably fitted for any duty of war, except that only two or three of them were admittedly expert shots. These had tried sniping, but were too few in numbers to awe the German long-distance sharpshooters making attempts to kill off the artillerymen.
The men who handled the gun were amixed lot. Three had been in the Marines, two were Regular Army artillerymen, one was a recently enlisted man who possessed a special talent for hitting the mark with a cannon, another was a fighting cook for this outfit; and the corporal, James Letty, had been a football star.
Anyone could look over the platoon and see that they were a hard crowd to beat. Therefore, when Whitcomb sent Flynn and Marshall out on the first scouting and sniping duty, thus honoring them, and to Flynn said, "Go to it, old scout!" he felt most truly the importance of the statement that they were there for the purpose of warfare.
By "Go to it!" Herb meant that their first business was to let no German get into a position where he might drop bullets into the gun pit where the squad was operating so successfully as to actually threaten the maintenance of the German position at that point.
With Roy went Dave McGuire, one-time glove salesman in a city department store. He had shot one of the highest, very long range rifle scores at Camp Wheeler, and he possessed certain characteristics that did not seem to be at all in keeping with his former calling.
Herbert could not help wondering at the fellow's bravery. He possessed a manner that by some would have been termed "sissy;" he drawled his words and lisped a little, opened his mouth to speak with drawn lips, seemed to have the idea that army life should be on the order of a social gathering; and his khaki clothes, by long habit, were put on and worn with scrupulous neatness.
Could he stand the strain of being shot at, of living long in a muddy hole in the ground, under the constant expectation of something or other happening that might cost him and his companions their lives?
Not far down the hill several piles of heavy stones offered the American riflemen excellent shelter for observation and marksmanship. There were some shell holes also and at one spot a partly wrecked bomb canister of heavy sheet iron within which a man might crouch unseen by the enemy beyond.
All of these places offered a fair view of the zigzag German trenches for a distance of more than five hundred yards where the trench dipped behind a wooded rise of ground. Beyond this the enemy had their hands full opposing the extension of the American trench which wound about from near the gun pit to and also beyond the wooded slope.
Herbert saw his two boys go out on the hill with a feeling of nothing else than sorrow. To be sure this was the game of war, but he could not help feeling a marked aversion for the possibilities uppermost in this death-grapple business.
For his men particularly and for all his fellows in battle, companions in discomfort, danger, suffering, perhaps death, was the lad concerned. Especially did he feel this now regarding Roy. His chum, ever bright, smiling, jesting, never grumbling nor down-hearted, was going out there to be the target for men trained in this wholesale killing business and eager to play their part. It was true that the boy could hardly be caught napping and he would probably give a little better than he was sent, but still there were the chances of warfare, often more potent, more death-dealing than the best laid plans.
Herb had never since babyhood known anything of a mother's teachings that to the many well-balanced, gentle-dispositioned lads often mean so much for good. His father had well cared for him when he was a little fellow and then he, too, had died without ever having rightly influenced the boy at a time when this would have counted best.And though Herbert's inclinations had all been healthy, clean, vigorously manly and honest, it is doubtful if he had said or thought a prayer a half dozen times in his life, or that he really knew how to pray in the commonly practised manner of those who habitually turn to a Higher Power.
But now, watching Roy and Dave ascend the stepped slope out of the pit and by Herb's order begin to slip off cautiously, screening themselves behind various obstacles and making for the objects of shelter below, the young corporal was suddenly overcome with a dejection very unseemly for an officer engaged in fighting. Unseen, the boy bowed his head against one of the timber stanchions of the shelter.
"Oh, God, if you're willing, if it isn't laid down in the Book of Fate otherwise, don't let that chum of mine get killed! He's too fine a chap; he brings too much happiness to others in this world and does too much good generally for him to become the victim of a bullet or bayonet, or anything like that! And the other fellow, too; he seems like a good sort of fellow. Most of my men are; all in this pit are worth being kept alive. I'm sure of it! But, of course, some of usmust get it; be killed or wounded some way. So don't think I mind being one, if that would spare the percentage and spare these other fellows who have homes and people to mourn for them. Anyway, God, above all, no matter what may be going to happen, see to it that we all do our duty and give us what ought to be coming to us if we don't."
A Double Surprise
Roy and Dave had come back unharmed from the first sniping expedition of the squad against the enemy's snipers. The former was elated at having seen a German who had crawled out of the enemy trench some distance into "No Man's Land," as the space between the opposing trenches has been nicknamed, stick his head and gun above a fallen tree trunk, shoot at Roy, and upon Roy's returning the compliment go down quickly, not to reappear. The German's bullet had chipped a bit of stone off not five inches from Roy's nose.
"Think sure I got the sucker and I hope he was Kaiser Bill himself! I kept watchin' for him, Herb, for about half an hour and he never showed up. Now, who'll get out there to bury him, I wonder?"
"Let us hope somebody does tonight," Herb said.
"Hope that? Cracky, me lad, not so fast! If they got that far they'd forget the deadone and try to make one of us live ones a dead one. But, say, if some of us can sneak down there and lay for them when they do come out for him, we could take 'em prisoners easy. How 'bout it?"
"Don't seem like fair and square fighting," said Herb.
"Buttheydo these things!" Roy argued.
"Two wrongs don't make a right."
"They will make a capture, though, sure as you're a foot high! Try it and let me in on it."
"But it will be your time sleeping. Well, maybe we can plan it. I'll talk with the lieutenant."
That night it came on to rain, harder than it had yet come down since the squad had been in France. Everything was soggy and soaked; the atmosphere seemed like a big sponge surcharged with endless dampness. Slickers were in demand and all guns and revolvers for those going forth were well cleaned and oiled.
Out of the pit and through the intense darkness Corporal Whitcomb led a party of six others, one-half of his own men and two Regulars of the platoon, all prepared for dealing a surprise. But, along with theenemy, they, too, experienced the unexpected, which in this case might better be called simply a streak of luck.
Long before dark, though compelled to dangerously expose himself, Herbert had drawn up a rough but effective map of the slope between the pit and the German trenches, actually going over some of the ground afoot and being shot at several times from the trench, but from a safer place covering the rest with his glass. Especially prominent on the map was made the fallen trunk where lay the German victim of Roy's superior marksmanship. And when Roy showed this map and his plan of action to Lieutenant Jackson the latter said:
"That's the stuff! It ought to earn you a commission. Hope you can carry it out. Yes, take Murphy and Donaldson, if you want. We'll lay low up here ready for a counter-raid if you signal us."
Now, down the slope the men followed, single file, until they had covered nearly half the distance; then Herb felt a touch on the arm. Dave McGuire saluted and whispered:
"Have a notion that—ah—these fellows are expecting we shall undertake something like this and—all—are going to lay for us.Maybe we might divide up, go two ways—ah—and get the drop—ah—on them, as they-ah—say, corporal."
"I have already planned for that; but thanks, old man. We'll do that very thing."
One group of four went a little to the right of the fallen tree and sought places of hiding; the other two, with Herbert, went to the left and found an old shell pit into which they all crawled. The instructions from the lieutenant had been for all to pull some grass and leaves to partly camouflage themselves.
The wisdom of this was shown not half an hour later when a low-flying airplane suddenly rose, sailed over the spot and threw a rather uncertain searchlight upon the slope, surely not detecting one of the hidden Americans.
The gun in the pit did not fire a shot at the flying-machine. The enemy might have been suspicious of that, though they must have believed that the birdman offered too uncertain a mark on which to waste shells in the dark, and then the flier's report gave them an assurance of safety.
The boys lay waiting long and not too patiently—for who can easily endure such conditions? There was no let-up to thecold rain, which after a time became half sleet. Lying on the cold, soggy ground, chilled and uncomfortable, the boys after a time grew restive. Roy, with the four on one side, cautioned silence. Herbert wondered how the fastidious McGuire was putting up with all this. Then, suddenly:
"Hist!" from one side. "Hist!" came from the other and at once the silence was more impressive than death itself. For, perhaps, as they all thought, death might soon follow.
Up the slope beyond and slowly approaching came the sound of many heavily-shod feet, and dark figures began to loom in the blackness, coming straight for the tree.
The American youngsters lay ready as pumas to spring amongst fat deer; they hardly breathed, the tense situation holding every man to the duty expected of him and in which he now gloried, eager to act.
More and more gray figures came dimly into view until, around the fallen tree, nearly a score of men stood silently, only one of them occasionally uttering an exclamation, or a word or two. Herb knew that Ben Gardner, once a buyer of toys in Europe, spoke German fluently and he had kept Ben beside himfor a purpose. Asking him afterward what remarks the leader of the Germans had made, Gardner explained:
"Well, first he asked: 'Where is he?' and then: 'How can I believe it?' and once he said: 'Where could the American have been to kill him with the first shot?' When they explained this to him he only grunted about ten times. It must have been a stumper."
But in Corporal Whitcomb's mind was a more engrossing question than any normal actions of the Germans could have further created. Greatly outnumbered, was he to give the signal to act on the offensive, or to let the chance go by and run no risks?
Had he known then that a German division commander, a general of note, had been examining the trench at length and hearing of the death of Godfrey Schmaltz, once big game hunter and one of the best shots in all the Fatherland, had risked the chance to come now and inspect the place and manner of the great marksman's defeat, the young corporal would have hesitated not at all and have risked everything. But now he seemed disposed to wait too long. Gardner, however, must have guessed the situationmore clearly. He nudged Herbert and whispered:
"Big gun, I believe! Better get him! Now's our chance!"
And Herb, his mind suddenly set to the task, gave the signal—the flash of an electric handlight into the mist.
The seven were all on their feet in an instant and advancing upon the enemy. At the same moment Gardner shouted in the German tongue:
"Hands up, or death to all instantly! You are our prisoners!"
Herbert called to Roy and Martin Gaul, who were nearest, to quickly disarm the Huns; and the way the few guns were snatched from the men and tossed aside must have much surprised them. One big fellow struck at Roy, and the man got a blow in the face which staggered him.
There was an attempt at a scurry among the German officers when the ambush was sprung and the order given them. It was a palpable effort to shield or to effect the escape of one of their number, the general.
Dave McGuire saw this, having come around on that side in the movement to surround the huddled enemy, and he actedwith the speed of a hawk. Shoving his pistol into the face of the nearest Boche, the young fellow began lisping some words in English which were probably poorly understood, if at all, but he did not get very far with his speech.
Dave's arm was knocked aside and a Hun officer leveled a pistol at him, fully getting the drop on him. By all rules of the game, this was a signal for surrender on Dave's part, but Dave wasn't abiding by any rules just then. The Hun officer suddenly felt in the pit of his stomach a boot that had the force of a Missouri mule back of it and when he rose from the mire he found himself a prisoner.
Dave made the others believe, seeing their companion fall and the American's pistol again threatening them, that there was nothing left them but to accept the situation; and though the general, much to his credit for pluck, made another attempt to get away, he also got Dave's foot with equal force, but on the shin, and he couldn't have run then to save his life.
Meanwhile all of the other six had performed quite admirably and impressed upon the German officers and men the fact that they were at the mercy of the Americans.
"Tell them to keep mighty quiet, Gardner," Herbert ordered, and this also was conveyed to them in words the prisoners clearly understood. "And to head up the hill and step lively," the corporal added.
They headed up and stepped. Two lagged a little, but one of the Regulars, Murphy, prodded those grumbling Huns with his brawny fist and they fell in with the others. As though by previous drill, the captors arranged themselves about the prisoners with instant comprehension of the entire situation. Ready to pour in a murderous fire with the first movement in an attempt to escape, and believing that such an attempt might be made at any moment, two of the squad marched to the right and two to the left of the captured Germans, while Herbert and Donaldson followed in the rear and Gardner led the way, walking backward up the slope, now and then urging the captives to step along quickly.
They had covered two-thirds of the distance to the gun pit when one of the general's aides or staff suddenly gave a low order, and turned and rushed boldly upon the nearest American. Half the number of Germans, with something like a roar, followed his example in what, against a less determined resistance musthave been a successful break-away for most of them.
But half a dozen revolvers barked and just as many Teutons went to the ground, two never to rise again by their own efforts, for the distance was short and the American boys were ready. The Huns fell back again into a bunch, the general unwounded.
And then out came the raiders. The firing proved a signal and they knew that their commander was in danger. From the German trench the soldiers climbed; and though they could not be seen, the rapid commands, the rattle of fixing bayonets, the tramp of hasty feet were very audible. Herbert listened for a second and then shouted:
"Never mind picking up those fellows, but get the rest up to the pit! Rush 'em now; rush 'em! Flynn," he called, "go for the pit like the Old Scratch was after you, and tell Lieutenant Jackson the enemy's out and coming!"
Just then the entire bunch of captors and captives found themselves in what was equal to the glare of day; a searchlight from the German trench had found them.
The sharp roar of the American gun in thepit jarred the earth, and instantly the darkness was over everything again. The Yankee artillery-men had found the searchlight and with the first shot.
But that moment of white light had shown some morose, ugly, hate-bearing faces and booted figures huddled in a group, and on the ground some lying prone, others in a sitting posture, while about them stood a number of grim fellows, with pistols in hand. And the light had shown on the hill Roy Flynn going up the grade at a speed that would have done credit to most sprinters on the level. Roy had been the hundred-yards man at Brighton for three terms.
Lieutenant Jackson had his Regulars down the hill into the center of No Man's Land almost before the Germans had all climbed out of their trenches, and when the latter came on in the darkness they were received with such a withering fire that the survivors broke and fled back in a hurry.
"By jingo, corporal, you certainly have done yourself and all of us proud!" was Lieutenant Jackson's remark to Herbert a half hour later when the prisoners had been questioned, disposed of and a guard set over them, and in their warm dugout shelter thesquad of snipers were gathered about the trench stove.
"All you fellows," he went on, "ought to be promoted for this night's work; that's a fact. I don't want to take a bit of the glory away from you; I want you to make out and send in with mine a complete report of your work in capturing these——"
"I'll be perfectly content to have you do it all, Lieutenant," Herbert replied.
"But I won't. You can write better than I can. When they hear you've snared this big chump, General What's-his-name, they'll tumble over themselves to get you a commission. You deserve it. We're all finding out what the Johnny Bulls tell us: the non-coms and the subs have about as much to do with this scrap as the generals and colonels."
Hunting Big Game in No Man's Land
There was nothing of self-consciousness about Corporal Whitcomb over the capture of a high commander of the enemy on almost the first night of his experiences at the front. As Roy Flynn put it:
"Herb's never chesty; wasn't at school, though heaps o' duffers who couldn't stay with him in anything, indoors or out, would swell up like poisoned pups. That's Herb."
Just then the object of the conversation walked into the dugout.
"When are they going to send his nibs, General Sauerkraut, to the rear, Corporal?" asked Sniper G. Washington Smith.
"As soon as the patrol arrives; to-morrow at the latest. I believe he talked some to Gardner last night; tried to bribe him. Flynn, your turn on guard duty, now, over the prisoners. Relieve Watson. The lieutenant wants one of our men with three of his over them all the time. Gaul, you go on to-night.
"Have most of you fellows washed, shaved, and eaten breakfast?" continued Herbert. "If so, we'd better all go out on the hill again for a little while and try to head off those snipers from the other side. Letty says they are getting busy after the big gun. Two bullets flattened on his sight guard a little while ago; one of them must be closer than they've been yet."
"Ain'tyouthe feller to get him?" queried Martin Gaul.
"What's the matter, Gaul? Anything getting on your nerves?"
"No more'n on yours or anybody's. Show me the man who's in love with all this. That old gun up there would drive a stuffed dummy crazy, and bullets droppin' in here every now and then and expecting them Boches to drop in, too; and dirt and filth and crawlers and cookin' your own meals, and cold nights——"
"Do you think that's showing the right spirit? All of us are putting up with the same discomforts, the same nerve strain and we're getting sport out of it, or at least the consciousness that we must sacrifice comforts for the cause. You are the first I have heard complain. Best to chime in, old man, and cut out the kicks."
"Mebbe you'd kick, too, if you were sick," Gaul said.
"Sick? Well, now, that's different. What's the matter? Just how do you feel?"
"Sore all over. Cold, I reckon. Head aches. Pain in my face, too. Got no appetite."
"Sudden, then; eh? Saw you eating a while ago as if you never expected to get any more. You know the grub lorries get here once in so often and enough. But turn in on your cot now and cover up warm. Geddes, you heat Gaul a cup of tea and take and dry his shoes. And put on dry socks, Gaul. I'll get you some pills. Get ready, fellows! Geddes, you join us when you can. Are all your guns clean? Remember, you want your gas masks along. There's no telling when the Boches may let go some of that stuff."
Sneaking, crawling, seeking every bit of cover, getting into pits made by formerly exploded shells when the Germans had driven the French for a time a year before from this same spot, the five snipers worked over the slope and sought by every means to locate and fire upon those of the enemy who were at the same job.
Herb lay behind a pile of débris once tossed up by a shell, his gun over a mass of pebbles in which he had, with a stick, pushed two narrow grooves, one for his weapon, the other as a peep-hole. To get him, a bullet would have to hit exactly in this groove, in line with it; otherwise the stones would deflect it upward.
The lad studied the entire landscape all the way to and beyond the German trenches, a third of a mile away. If, in the equal number of hiding places below, there was a decided motion of any kind he should have been able to see it.
He heard no shots from his men now scattered over the slope; evidently the Hun marksmen were not out, or were keeping very still. He lay silent, alone, under the warming, welcome sun of late autumn.
It had been a beautiful day, following almost a week of incessant rain. The sun shone in a sky almost without clouds. All along the trenches for a long distance there was not a sound of firing, not an impression on the ear that even slightly suggested two opposing armies seeking to shed each other's blood.
Far over beyond the hillside a bird, welcomingthe sunshine also, caroled a lively ditty over and over again. Herbert guessed it was some kind of a linnet and wished that he might calmly arise without a sense of danger and go to spy on the singer. A plucky, little feathered adventurer it must be, indeed, to boldly invade this area of killing and to give such small heed to the deafening boom of great cannon and the frequent crackle of rifles and machine guns.
McGuire it was who crept on hands and knees or advanced in a stooping posture, according to the depth of the sheltering stones or bushes between himself and the enemy, and when within speaking distance of Herbert, began a desultory conversation.
"I—ah—know they are on the—ah—hill," he announced, meaning, of course, the Germans. "Saw one, if not—ah—two, or more. They are lying just as low—ah—as we are and are—ah—taking no chances, I presume. Is it not a most beautiful day?"
"A ripper, sure!" was Herbert's reply. "You ought to keep mighty well down, McGuire. 'Tisn't safe to show yourself too much."
"Do you—ah—know," said the ex-glove salesman, "I do not believe those fellowscan shoot well enough to—ah—hit me this far away. It is very fine shooting to do so."
"They are not all poor shots, by any means," asserted Herbert.
"I think I—ah—would take chances with the best of them and how greatly I—ah—hope for the opportunity." The young man smiled in the very sweet but sad sort of way that must have helped him sell many a pair of gloves. He turned about and crept to a pile of stones and began another survey of the hunting field.
Herbert wondered where the German marksman could have been located that had harassed the gun crew earlier in the morning and that he had come out to locate and drive off. There were plenty of hiding places, to be sure, but the fellow must disclose his position now if he began shooting again. And it was the business of the sniping squad to stop this.
To the right three of Herb's men had located themselves, this offering the likeliest situation for protection to the gun. It was too far away from the German trench to be in danger from rifle fire, but here enemy snipers could venture out.
Over to the left the ground was clearerof long grass, low bushes and rocks and still beyond that, in No Man's Land, perfectly bare.
The young corporal had about given up the idea of snipers immediately opposing his position. He was thinking of returning to the pit to perform certain duties falling constantly upon a leader of even a few men, for he must do all in his power for their comfort and well being, when he heard a low exclamation come from McGuire. Herbert even recognized the halting "ah" somewhere in it, though he did not fully catch the words. But he saw the man quickly level his gun over the stone pile and fire.
There was no answering shot, and for some little time McGuire lay there inert. Herb could not fully see the precise object of the ex-salesman's marksmanship; he was aware only of a shell pit and its tossed-up earth pile, and a gun muzzle sticking above it. This gradually was lowered.
"Lay low, McGuire!" Herbert cautioned, seeing the fellow beginning to rise up and peer over his stone pile in an effort to see what effect his last shot had taken. And then he was aware that McGuire was not looking in the direction of the shell pit.
Far beyond and to one side of the shell pit, easily a distance of three hundred yards, a German sniper was crawling flat on his stomach in an effort to gain a better shelter; perhaps he believed himself unseen. He was almost hidden from Herbert.
McGuire's gun spoke again; the fellow had risen on one knee to shoot with a clearer view. The crawling German rolled over, appeared as though he were trying to tie himself into a knot and then suddenly collapsed and lay still.
Twice again and in rapid succession McGuire fired; Herbert saw all this, but not clearly, though he was about to shoot also on a chance. The other had the nearer and better view and he was now on his feet.
One of the enemy, on his knees and still farther below, had leveled his gun, but before he could pull the trigger he had pitched forward, where he lay still; another, too, had bravely risen to his feet and was taking an aim at McGuire when he also went down.
And then there was a crack from the rifle in the near shell pit.
Out of the corner of his eye Herbert saw McGuire fall to the ground; he knew by that momentary instinct that is never failingwhat this meant. But he did not then turn his head. Instead his eyes were leveled along his pet gun barrel and beyond to where merely the helmet, the forehead and the eyes of a man showed above the shell-pit mound.
Herb had to make quick, sure work of it. But with the crack of his rifle, knowing just where that bullet would go, the boy could not resist a sickening, pitying sensation, for proof of his accurate aim came when the German half rose out of the shell pit and lay prone across his fallen gun.
The corporal, himself now almost unmindful of danger, stooping, crossed to where McGuire lay, and knelt beside him. A glance told him enough. With something like a sob Herbert began to work his way back to the gun pit.
"Dead instantly," was his remark to Lieutenant Jackson. "But he died a hero's death. Outshot the German snipers, as he said he could, and got three of them before a fourth got him. Poor chap, he was as brave as ten tigers and as gentle as a lamb. Our first man to go."
"There will likely be others, Whitcomb. You must get used to it. The fortunes of war, you know."
But a fellow of Herbert's make-up never could, nor did he ever, get used to such a thing. Though not the less determined to do his duty, he was now more than ever down on and disgusted with the whole useless, hateful, miserable business of war.
Down the slope toward the German trenches lay four dead Germans, perhaps some of them not quite dead; possibly still suffering, bleeding, dying slowly, and where they could not be reached because of the unremitting desire of both sides to take every advantage of an enemy. There was no such thing as the white flag for purposes of succoring the wounded in No Man's Land.
The Traitor in Camp
Corporal Whitcomb could not sleep. There was no particular reason for this, except mental worry and a too vivid imagination. Was the life in trench and gun pit getting on his nerve? Was he, a mere boy, too much over-wrought with his responsibility? Not so; the sort of happy disposition that he possessed never balks at nerve strain nor breaks with the effort of duty, no matter how urgent, or disappointing the result.
Despite the trials upon his sense of justice and naturally gentle regard for humanity he knew only duty and strove with an intense effort to perform every task entrusted to him.
The squad had been but five days in the gun pit so far, and it seemed like twice that many weeks. There had been the almost incessant hammering of the big gun on the trenches and distant works of the enemy and at the airplanes venturing overhead, four of which it had brought down in thistime, added to three others since the long-barreled wonder had been set in place. It had been a surprise to the enemy and a masterly bit of work to place these several weapons in such close proximity to the enemy's lines and the duty had fallen upon well-picked troops and expert riflemen to guard these guns.
There had been the constant sniping, night and day, by successive numbers of the sharpshooters' squad. There had been fifty-seven men in the pit when Herbert came, his own included; now there were but fifty. Three lay in the graveyard beyond the hill; two were sick; two, badly wounded, had been taken by the last patrol to the base hospital at LaFleche. Besides these, nine altogether, mostly of the gun crew, had so-called trench feet, from standing long in cold water and mud and not caring immediately for the first consequences of frost bite.
But it was a very different matter from the impressive call to duty that bothered Herb Whitcomb. It was simply that he could not help feeling doubtful of one of his men.
When Martin Gaul had qualified for the snipers, with a very fair score at the rifleranges, Herbert had frankly requested that he be assigned to another squad, but the officers making the drawings had refused this.
Before Gaul had been three days in the pit he had begun to grumble; once he had shown the white feather by remaining behind a nearly perfect shelter, instead of venturing out to hunt for enemy marksmen. And yesterday he had developed his old-time grouch and ready excuses.
Returning to the dugout, Herbert had found Gaul much better and even inclined to be facetious. Learning of McGuire's death, he had expressed no sorrow, as the others had done, or would do when they got in.
There had been all along a warm fraternal spirit shown among the members of the rifle squad, each one showing a generous sympathy for and an interest in his comrades, but Gaul had been the exception; by his own choice he had withdrawn from the human touch and brotherly affections naturally springing up between men living the same strenuous existence.
Was it a sense of impending danger that troubled Herbert this early night? Some materialistic philosophers tell us that there are no such things as premonitions, whileothers, perhaps wiser, insist that, logically, we possess a sort of sixth sense that is not always easy to analyze. Therefore, we may receive an impression and only half guess its meaning or hardly know that we have received it.
Herbert rose from his straw bed, pulled on his shoes and walked softly into the adjoining earthen chamber separated from that of the snipers' squad by a vertically cut mass of clay and a short partition of boards. He knew that the lieutenant labored therein over his reports, the small deal table lighted by a dim oil lantern.
The officer in command looked up quickly, but Herbert put his finger to his lips, even before saluting. Then he spoke in a whisper. "Do you sort of feel something in the air? I don't know what makes me feel that way, but——"
"I reckon I've been feeling something of the kind; yes," answered the lieutenant. "At any rate, I didn't seem to want to get sleepy at my usual hour. This sort of thing bothers a fellow at times."
"I think we must hear things we don't know we hear, or get a notion of them in some way," offered Herbert.
"Well, as a Southerner—and we are quite religious in our parts, my boy—we give the Almighty credit for that sort of thing."
"Yes, of course." Herbert sat, deeply thinking for a moment. "Lieutenant, I have wondered lately about the strategic wisdom of our position here, to use the words of Brigadier-General Harding and of Captain Leighton, of our company. They often gave us a talk about that. It has struck me of late that a very few of us are defending a point of great importance, one that the Boches would like to capture and destroy. How about that, if I may ask?"
"A natural and a wise question, Corporal; very," Lieutenant Jackson made answer. "But rest easy. You came through at night and could not see much on the way. Right back of us, not a quarter of a mile and on the other side of the ridge, one whole division is in barracks, not in billets, as the French term them, but in good, old American log houses, shielded by sand bags on this side and roofed the same way. And a mile beyond, on each side, there are some more infantry regiments; I don't know just how many, but enough. And there must be almost half a division in the trenches, nearlytwo in all, guarding this one quiet sector and ready to start toward Berlin when the order comes."
"I suppose putting these men in barracks is to save crowding the trenches," offered Herbert.
"Exactly; and it's a great scheme. But even without them I have a large idea that the Huns couldn't get enough men on this ground to push us back an inch, much less get our trenches. And heaven help them if they try it!"
"We don't want them to get this gun pit."
"They'll have to go some to do it! We're always ready for them."
"Might they not want to attack now, especially; to recapture their general?"
"Let them come. Two of your men and two of mine are out on the slope against surprises. Three quick shots near will put us wise and the 'phone will bring as many as we want to help us in ten minutes."
"Thanks for your information, Lieutenant. I'm going to try to nap a bit. Good night."
"Good night, my boy. Some sleep we've all got to have."
But as Herbert passed into the outer corridor, he turned softly and in the darknesswalked noiselessly away from his quarters into the next hollow dug in the hill, this being more enclosed and better roofed than the others, as it was the store-room for ammunition.
The boy paused and stood for a long time silently; why he did so he could not then nor afterward have told. Surely there seemed to be something in the air, though he could hear nothing except the audible breathing of sleepers on every side, the scratching of the lieutenant's pen, the occasional rustle of paper as one of the prisoners' guards turned the pages of a magazine he was reading and once the yawn of the other guard as it drew near the time when he was to be relieved.
These two guards, Herbert knew, were in the center and at the far end of the section where the Germans were confined; his own man, Gaul, was nearest the partition of the supply chamber.
The corporal settled back upon a stack of hand-grenade boxes and leaned his shoulder and head against the wall. He was as wide awake and alert as a cat at night, but physically tired, nevertheless. For he had been through much the night before and since and without a moment of rest.
Breaking in almost imperceptibly on the night sounds the low mumbling of an indistinct word or two came to his ears; the prisoners talking among themselves, probably; what else? Leaning forward, Herbert put his eye to a very narrow opening between the partition boards. The reading guard had the back of his head turned that way; the other man was nodding, half asleep, a punishable offense. Squinting sidewise, he saw a hand and arm reach out from the other side of the partition and a hand reach up from a man sitting on the ground at the edge of the bunch of Germans. He had a glimpse also of something white that passed from one to the other.
Herbert almost stopped breathing; his ears caught every fraction of sound that disturbed the still air. Seconds, perhaps half a minute, passed. Then suddenly a whispered word:
"More!"
Again the hands met; again the white thing passed.
"Right! I'll do that!" was again whispered. Then the figure on the ground collapsed and all was silent for a time. Herbert slipped away into the corridor, waited a moment,then walked noisily back to the prison section and going straight to Gaul, standing by the partition, said:
"I've been thinking you're not fit for duty. I'll stand guard here awhile and you go back to bed. Give me your gun and revolver."
"But I feel all right, Corporal," Gaul protested.
"I mean this as an order, Gaul."
The fellow handed over his weapons. Placing them aside, Herbert covered him with his own pistol. "Now, hand over that paper you just received from the general here, and be quick about it!"
Gaul went white and stammered:
"I—I didn't get——"
"Don't lie! Hand it over, or I'll bore a hole through you! You hear me!"
"But, honest, I—you are wrong, I——"
"Oh, well, then, blast your ugly carcass, I'll just fill you full of holes and take it, anyway."
Gaul, scared, visibly trembling even in the dim light, with shaking fingers fished into an upper blouse pocket and brought forth a bit of scrap paper with torn edges and thrust it at Herb. The corporal glanced at it, then ordered his man to march down the corridor, following to the lieutenant's quarters.
"Please read that; it came from the captured German general to this fellow. He first asked for more, then agreed to do something."
The officer held the paper near the lantern.
"It's a scrap torn from some book, I guess. German print on it. Oh, on the other side. What is it? Pretty poor writing, by jingo! Wait; it says:
"'Set loose if men come. See as I shall get loose of hand bands. Then see in fight I escape free. Then come to trenches by night and inquire by me, General von Lutz, and I pay 5,000 marks quick and you mak safe.' And down farther are more words: '10,000 marks I will mak it; hav no dowts.'"
A broad, solemn-looking grin covered the lieutenant's face and he nodded his head several times.
"Might have expected this, really. Always had my suspicions, but hoped otherwise. Well," turning to Gaul, "did you really think——"
"If you suppose, Lieutenant, that that Dutchman could buy me, you fellows get another think. I was only strafing him a little. He wanted me to do this, but you don't think I would? Why, Corporal, youknow me better'n that. Haven't I always——?"
"Corporal, it would have been better to have got up a pretended alarm and observed what this man would really have done. But I guess we have it on him all right, after what you heard. Anyway, we'll send him back when the patrol comes for the Huns. Take him and put him under guard now."
Life and Death
The night wore on. Clouds overhung the sky and it began to drizzle. Roy Flynn, on duty in No Man's Land, felt that in a little while he and Watson would need their slickers and he was about to return for them, believing that his comrade and two others on the watch could be certain of any improbable attempts of the Huns to make a raid, when a strange thing happened.
The ground was suddenly lighted up as though by flashes of fire; a tearing, ripping sound came to the two riflemen, and they saw bits of earth, stones, grass, bushes, torn, blown, lifted, and whizzing by them. Myriads of bullets sung mournful snatches of promised death and howled in derision of life as they struck the rocky earth and bounded onward.
"Back to the quarry! There's no place like home!" yelled Roy to Watson, and firing three shots into the air he turned to see thetwo Regulars who had also been out on the slope running for the pit. Watson also started and Roy felt conscious that, go as they might, he would not be the last to get under cover. And then suddenly he knew he would be the last and as the pain in his hip seemed to shoot up into his very vitals he wondered, as he pitched headlong, whether he would ever get under such cover again as would protect him from the barrage. Would he, indeed, have a chance to get behind some very nearby shelter while the innumerable bullets paved the way for a German attack on the pit? And, even so, would the coming Huns not find and kill him?
It was hard going. He held to his rifle, believing that it might be the means of either saving his life or of avenging it at the last moment. Once the barrel was struck by a bullet that glanced harmlessly, but with a wild shriek, as a flattened bullet will.
Then the stock was struck and splintered, and even amidst the awful danger, the near certainty of death in a veritable rain of lead, the boy felt one swift regret for an injury to his beloved weapon. Such are the vagaries of the human mind.
Roy dragged himself forward toward a rise of ground. It was terribly painful going, but he must get out of this first; see to his wound.
"If I've got to pass up, or down," he said aloud to himself, "I want to do it according to Hoyle and not as Hamburger steak or mincemeat. Let us proceed where we can estimate on repairs, if the works are worth it."
He got on, suffering from time to time bitter stabs of pain just below his hip when his limb twisted. Not able to lift the lower portion of his body from the ground by his uninjured leg because of the agony when the other dangled he was compelled to drag his entire weight on his elbows, gun still in hand, but the lad's pluck and spirit never left him.
"A turtle's got nothin' on me for getting down to it. Wish I was a snake. Then I could bite a Hun. Mebbe this little thing—" thinking of his pistol—"might do it yet; drat 'em! Here's this little old heap of earth, and—oh, glory be! It's a shell pit! Like home and mother! In we go! Whurrah! That'n nearly got me!"
It had almost. A conical mass of iron ripped clear across his back, cutting thecloth like a knife, but doing no other damage. The boy spread himself out, feeling a little easier, and lay still for a moment. The cold rain fell on his face and he pulled his hat over his eyes.
"But ye don't sting quite like those Boche hailstones," he said. "Well, I've luxuriated enough now. Go to it, m'lad, and look to your hurt. If not, the rain'll help to make this slope all unnatural blue with me arterial fluid; me ancestors way back to Brian Boru would have it that it's as blue as indigo. Better look to see the damage; but how can I?"
How could he, indeed? Was there nothing for him but to lie there and let his blood ebb away, unless his comrades missed him in the pit and the barrage fire ceased? And then a fear seized him. Would they tell Herb and would that loyal friend risk his life to reach him?
The bullets fell thicker and faster now, the rattle of the guns at the German trench had increased and no man could steal out from the pit and hope to survive. Perhaps Roy could drag himself out again and up the slope in time to keep his friend from attempting——
The boy struggled to get his arms fully under him and then to sustain the weight of head and shoulders. But the former effort had been too great; the reaction now was final. He sank back on the soggy ground and the hem of his blouse stretched across the wound, his weight firmly holding it. This and the coagulating effect of the cold earth must have stopped the flow. But the lad lay white and still, no longer gazing up at the black sky, nor conscious of his hurt, nor the curtain of lead and iron above and about him.
"Flynn? Where is he?" was Herbert's first question of the men who had leaped into the welcome shelter of the pit.
Watson glanced around. "He was with me; yelled to me. Must have been hit! I was; my heel's off, and one hit my pocket fair. And there's what's-his-name, wounded, though he got in. Flynn must have been hurt bad, or he'd made it!"
One of the Regulars limped away to his couch, a bullet had cut his side and broken a rib, but this was a minor matter. The other man who had been out on the slope had lost his hat; a shot had struck his gun also. A barrage fire is truly a curtain of missiles,a shower of bullets that, like rain, reaches in time every spot in the area against which it is directed.
"You musn't go out, Corporal! My orders, please! You couldn't live to reach Flynn now, and he may be dead or out of harm's way in some shelter."
"But, Lieutenant, think of it! He may be suffering, dying out there, unable to help himself, bleeding to death! If I could only try to reach——"
"No! A thousand times no! You are too useful here; have done too much of value already to run a risk of that kind. Just wait a bit until our fellows down there in their trench start a fusillade. I wish Letty could get at his gun and perhaps he can."
And Letty did. The telescopic-looking weapon stood on a revolving iron base at such a height as to be within zone of the enemy's fire when the gun was being used; and though it took but an instant to elevate, aim and shoot with accuracy under ordinary conditions, it now was likely to be pelted thoroughly by the barrage. So Corporal Letty called on his men to sand-bag the gun clearance space, standing by to pull bags away where he would indicate it; this gavehim a chance, after he had timed his fuse, to slip in a shell, elevate and let her go straight at the line of barrage guns.
"There goes Susan Nipper at last!" exclaimed Smith, who was a reader of Dickens and had named the big gun after a noted character in "Dombey and Son," which name stuck.
"Yes, and a few of them placed like Letty knows how to place 'em will fix their feet good and proper. Hit 'em again, old girl!"
And the old girl did. She was a termagant, altogether too violent of tongue and slap to suit those "laying down the barrage," as they term it, and after a lot of the German machine and rapid-fire gunners, who had believed they were so strafing the Americans as to have rendered the big gun useless, had felt the effects of her bursting shells even fifty feet away, they lay down on their jobs.
But this was only a little sooner than they expected to do it, anyway. As soon as the firing ceased, out of their trench and up the slope came the Boches, more than two hundred of them to oppose less than quarter their number in the pit. But the pit boys were on the job.
It took the clumsy, heavily-booted Hunsquite a while to get up the slope and Susan Nipper paid them some compliments as they came, but when ordered to do a certain thing by their superior officers they tried hard to do it, or they died trying.
Yes, they died trying, and the Americans, experienced now in the fighting game, saw to it that this program was carried out.
Two things the Boches had for an objective: the recapture of their general, made a prisoner the night before, and the destruction of the terrible gun of American manufacture.
Lieutenant Jackson lifted the little 'phone in his quarters and spoke quite calmly into it.
"Jackson talking. North side gun pit. The Germans are coming; from the sound and what lights we have been able to use I think there are a great many of them. You heard the barrage, of course. They're hot foot after these prisoners of ours. Better come a-runnin' some of you and if I might be permitted to suggest it, have a company or two make a detour over the hill and below the pit; this might cut off the Huns when they go back and get a good many of them. What's that? Oh, yes. We can hold them awhile. Eh? Sure! Good-by."
Rapid orders quickly followed, the Regulars,however, knowing well their places and having already had experience in repulsing two small raids, much to the enemy's discomfort. But Herbert's squad was a little green in the matter.
"Get your men out there on their bellies, on the hillside, so you can pick off all the Huns you can get a line on! Letty, got your Colt spitters placed? Good! Now, boys, line up at the trench and use your guns first, but hold your bayonets till the very last; they'll outnumber us, as you know. Make use of your revolvers; that's the game! Every man of you ought to be good for about four Germans at close range, counting the misses. A revolver will reach farther than a hand grenade or liquid fire. Give it to them a little before you see the whites of their eyes and make every shot tell! Go to it!"
They went to it, with a muffled cheer that the Germans must have thought was an expression over a game or a joke, perhaps; anyway, it seemed apparent that, until two powerful searchlights were thrown upon the advancing enemy, they had believed they were taking the Americans entirely by surprise.
But when the beams of light suddenlyglared upon them, to be followed instantly by the staccato of the three machine-guns and the crack of rifles, the first phalanx of Teutons became demoralized for a moment, with more than half their number struck down.
The second rank also had suffered, but their purpose now was a big one and with that dogged determination for which the German soldiers under training and supported by each other in close touch are noted, rather than a dashing bravery that sweeps all before it, they rallied and returned to the charge.
On they came again, in open formation, and at a run, the darkness enveloping them, except when the flashes of gun fire illuminated dimly the surroundings. For they had instantly shot out the searchlights and their objective was now the black hillside in the center of which they knew the gun pit and dugout lay. And they meant to penetrate that spot and wipe it out past further injury to them.
Is it not best, even when the most graphic recital seems necessary in the portrayal of a battle scene, to draw the mantle of delicacy over those details of horror that follow a close conflict between forces long trained and superbly fitted to kill?
It suffices to say that the Americans found their Southern leader, experienced in the choice of weapons with which man can do most injury to his fellowman when he so desires, was right concerning the revolver as a most effective means of defense and offense.
Even in the dark the pet American weapon worked wonders. An arm drawn back to hurl a grenade or bomb was pretty sure to drop limp, with its owner down and out, and a flashing bayonet in the hands of a chap tumbled over by the same means was hardly a weapon to be feared, even against vastly inferior numbers.
After the machine-guns and rifles had performed their work the ready revolvers, each hand holding one trained in its use to practical perfection, did a work that was more murderous than anything the Huns had so far witnessed.
It is not pleasant to think even of enemies going down in such numbers. The death of one man, forced into a death grapple by the red-tongued furies of war, is enough to draw pity from all who are humane, but when dozens, scores, in the space of a few minutes are made to suffer and die for a cause not rightly known to them, and others also,because of the inhumanity of a power-mad despot, it is beyond the full telling.
If the raiders were slaughtered and turned back from their purpose, they did not make their effort entirely in vain, as was proved shortly after the Americans had seen the last of the dusky backs of the remaining Huns disappearing down the slope and the defenders of the pit had turned to take account of the results.
When they counted their own dead and wounded, could they be greatly blamed for being overjoyed upon hearing, half way to the German trenches, several more shots fired and a clear American voice call out: "Surrender, all of you!"
The lieutenant's suggestion had been adopted and all that were left of the raiding companies, fully a hundred men, were cut off in their retreat and so swiftly disarmed and thrust back over the hill that no rally to their relief from the farther trenches could be made.
But however ill the wind that had blown those raiding Huns to the attack of the gun pit, leaving death and suffering in their wake and many more of their own to care for, it was indeed ill if it blew no good.
Part way down the slope a German helmet, knocked from the head of a soldier boy by a fateful bullet, rolled into a certain shell pit and lay by a prostrate form.
In the retreat, with the glare of a renewed searchlight upon them, the vengeful Huns would have thrust a bayonet into every one of their enemies that might possibly have been alive, but the helmet deceived them; this must be one of their own who had fallen in the first fire. And so they went on.
After the supporting force and their prisoners had gone to the rear, there crept into the renewed blackness of the night figures that searched everywhere for the unfortunate.
"Here's a Boche, Corporal, that looks as if he was asleep, not dead. A young fellow, from the get-up of him, but can't quite see his face. Red-headed—and, hello, look here!"
Herbert, with his one free hand, the other having had a Boche bullet cut across the thumb, flashed the electric torch on the occupant of the shell pit. Then, with an order, he was down on hands and knees and with knowing fingers feeling for possible heart beats.
"Bring a stretcher, quick, two of you! It's Flynn! Dear old Roy! I believe he's alive! Yes, yes; he's still alive! Come on, you fellows, quick!"