And now it was that Jimmy and his chums were advancing across a dangerous stretch, protected by their own barrage. They rushed forward shouting, though it was hard for any one to hear his own voice, so terrific was the din.
There was little use in firing rifles now. The shrapnel from the American guns would take care of any Germans among which it fell. But when the barrage ceased, and the infantry would rush forward to try to take the Hun positions—then would come the most deadly fighting.
Forward, foot by foot, rushed the Khaki Boys, and on either side of them their bunkies also advanced. They were to go forward until their barrage ceased.
But it was not easy going after the first rush, for the Germans had awakened to the importance of the pending battle and they were now sending over a counter-barrage. With a roar that matched the opening chorus of the American guns, those of the Boche sent out their missiles of death.
And many of the shrapnel bullets, or pieces of exploding shells, found their marks. The ground was strewn with dead and dying, for the German barrage was meeting with and passing through that of the Americans.
Yet the advance never stopped. Company after company of khaki-clad youths and men rushed from the trenches and started across that vale of death. They advanced in battle formation—not too close together—for that offered too good a target for the machine-guns, and though many nests had been wiped out, many still remained.
Suddenly the awful ear-rending chorus on the American side died away as if by magic. The silence was almost as appalling as had been the terrific noise, for it portended more.
"Come, on!" cried the officers to their men. "Come on! Wipe out theHuns!"
And the men followed them to victory or death.
Jimmy found himself yelling and firing his rifle as rapidly as he could pull the trigger. For a moment the five Brothers, all together, seemed to be in comparative safety. But then bullets began to sing about their heads like angry wasps.
"Come on! Come on!" cried Jimmy, and no one faltered.
Suddenly, from a little mound of earth in front of the five, there came a sound as of some one tearing stiff cloth, or beating a drum more rapidly than one was ever beaten before. The Khaki Boys knew what it meant—a machine-gun nest.
Instinctively they dropped to earth, and the bullets flew over their heads. If they found living targets farther on the lads did not turn to see.
"We've got to wipe that out!" cried Jimmy.
"We're with you!" shouted Bob.
Franz, looking forward from between two little hummocks of earth, suddenly fired his rifle.
"There goes one Hun!" he exulted.
"And I got a second!" exclaimed Roger.
They were both good shots and each had gotten his enemy.
"Come on—rush 'em!" yelled Jimmy, jumping up. Bob attempted to pull his chum back, for it was almost certain death to stand up in front of a machine-gun emplacement. But it was too late. Jimmy had taken his chance, and he lived through it.
For a brief instant there was no firing from where the machine-gun was hidden and this was Jimmy's opportunity and that of his chums. With wild yells they leaped up and followed his lead.
A moment later they were fighting fiercely with half a dozen Germans who composed what was left of the automatic gun squad. The weapon appeared to be jammed, for one of the Huns was frantically working at the firing mechanism. And it was this same jamming, as was learned later, that, undoubtedly, saved the lives of Jimmy and his chums.
Roger shot pointblank at one Boche and Bob bayoneted another. Then the remainder raised their hands and cried: "Kamerad!"
"We haven't any time to take prisoners!" yelled Franz.
But they did not get the chance. The Germans left alive leaped out of the shallow pit in which the gun had been hidden, and ran toward the rear. But they had not gone far before they were wiped out of existence by the explosion of a shell which fell right on top of them.
"Come on! Come on!" cried Jimmy, when it was seen that the machine-gun was of no further use, since the weapon was damaged. Besides, the American advance would soon be up to this point and it would be within the Allied lines.
Forward leaped the five Brothers, into the midst of the fighting again. And it was hot and heavy. They would advance a little, firing as they went, and then would drop as they realized that they were getting too close to danger. After a moment's rest they would rush on again.
And these tactics were slowly but surely driving the Germans back. True, now and again the Huns rallied, and beat back their foes, but this was not for long. The overwhelming rush of the Americans kept up.
Once, after the battle had been raging with unabated fury for two hours, Jimmy and his chums, with some other brave lads, found themselves cut off in a sort of pocket, surrounded on three sides by Germans.
With exultant yells a squad of Boches rushed up to capture the hated Americans, but the five Brothers never quailed. They fired their rifles straight into the faces of their enemies, killing several, and then a counter-attack by a large number of Uncle Sam's boys turned the tide of the fighting at that particular place, and our heroes were saved.
With rattle and roar, with sweat and blood, the big battle raged. At one time it seemed as if the American advance would be held up because of determined resistance of the Germans on the crest of a certain hill. This was stormed again and again without result. But at last the position was flanked, and the Huns wiped out. Then the American line was made straighter and the battle began to lull. The foe was in retreat.
"Dig in! Dig in!" came the command.
With their picks and shovels Jimmy and his chums, as well as the other fighters, began to scoop out for themselves shallow holes in the ground. And when these had been made as deep as was desired the five Brothers, who had come through the fierce fighting with but minor scratches, had a chance to look about them.
They were down in a little valley, the heights of which were held by their comrades, and so they were comparatively safe, for a while. Realizing this they began to think of food and water. They had very little left in their canteens, and as there was a stream, not far away Jimmy and his chums received permission to go to fill their canteens and bring some to the wounded.
As they finished this work of mercy, and had taken some water themselves, Jimmy saw, through an opening among the trees, a lonely hut not far from the bank of the little brook.
"Wonder if anyone is in there?" he said. "It might have been a German machine-gun nest—just the place for one."
"There may be one there yet," suggested Bob. "Let's take a look. We've got time."
The idea appealed to all, and, a few minutes later, secure in the knowledge that the Germans were on the retreat, our heroes entered the lonely shack. It appeared to have been the home of some French farmer, though now everything about the place was laid waste.
"Nobody at home, I guess," commented Jimmy, as he went from one room to another.
"No machine-gun been here," declared Bob.
At that instant an unmistakable groan was heard. The boys fairly jumped.
"Some one's here now, that's evident!" declared Jimmy, starting toward a small bedroom, whence, it was evident, the groan had sounded.
"Look out for a trick!" cried Roger. "The place may be mined!"
But Jimmy kept on. A second later his chums heard him shout from the inner room, and rushing to his side they saw him gazing at a figure huddled on a small cot bed.
"There he is!" cried Jimmy, pointing. "There he is! We've found him at last!"
"Who?" asked Franz.
"Sergeant Maxwell!" was the startling answer. "There he is!"
And as the others looked more closely they saw that Jimmy was right.
"How did he get here?"
"What happened to him?"
"Is he wounded?"
These were some of the questions that were, literally, fired at Jimmy as he stood over the cot on which reposed the wasted and scarcely recognizable form of Sergeant Maxwell. Jimmy's chums asked these questions of him because, I suppose, they thought he ought to know the answers.
"I don't know any more how poor Max got here, or what happened to him, than you fellows do," said Jimmy.
"Is he hurt?" asked Bob.
"I'll ask him," said Jimmy. Bending over the form of the sergeant, who was now tossing restlessly to and fro, Jimmy inquired: "Do you know us, Max? Are you hurt? What happened to you?" An incoherent murmur was the only answer.
"He's in a fever," said Roger, as he held his hand against the flushed face. "He ought to be taken to the hospital!"
"Give him some water," suggested Franz, holding out his full canteen.
Jimmy raised his friend's head and Bob managed to get a little water between the parched lips.
"Good! Good! I wanted water!" murmured the man somewhat indistinctly."I've wanted water a long time."
"Do you know us? I'm Jimmy Blazes, and here's Bob, Roger, Iggy and Franz," said Jimmy. "Do you know us! Can you tell us where you've been all this while, and what happened to you!"
"Good water! Good water!" was all the reply that came from poorMaxwell.
"He's out of his head," said Bob.
"We'd better send a doctor if we can find one, or get him to a hospital," suggested Roger.
"You go see if you can find any stretcher bearers, or a doctor or anyone like that," suggested Jimmy to Franz and Iggy. "We'll stay with him. Or Bob and I will. You'd better go report to the captain where we are, Roger. He might think we've deserted."
Bob and Jimmy, left with Maxwell, made him as comfortable as they could, washing his face and giving him more water to drink. But he answered none of their questions, murmuring only about the cool water. He was in a delirium of fever.
Of course Jimmy did not ask about the missing money. It would have been useless at this time. But, naturally, he wondered if the sergeant knew where it was.
Franz and Iggy came back with a doctor who, after a brief examination, said the sergeant was suffering from bad treatment and lack of food and water more than anything else. He did not seem to be wounded, but, of course, there might be some internal hurt which did not show at the first examination.
"Hospital's the place for him," decided the doctor. "Ill have him sent back with the first batch of wounded."
And so poor Maxwell was rescued from the oblivion of "missing," and again put on his company's rolls. But the mystery about him was not solved, and over it Jimmy and his chums wondered much.
"Well, things have certainly turned out queerly!" remarked Jimmy, when he and his chums were back once more in their "holes," eating their emergency rations, and wondering when the real "chow" would come up. "To thing of finding Max like that!"
"That place was held by the Germans before we rushed them back," declared Bob. "They might have kept him a prisoner."
"That's very possible," admitted Jimmy. "I'd like to know the whole story, but we'll have to wait."
"And a long time, I'm afraid," added Roger.
"Why, do you think Max will die?" asked Franz.
"No, but this fight has only just started. We've got to go forward, and land knows when we'll ever get back where we can see Max again."
"Oh, well, it isn't as hopeless as it was at first," remarked Jimmy. "I'm not worrying about the thousand dollars—only I'd like to know what he did with it."
As Roger had said, the fighting was not over. Before an order came to turn the "holes" into trenches, another advance was ordered, so that the Germans might be driven, if possible, from the vicinity of the hills dominating the valley in which was located the hut where Maxwell had been found.
"Forward!" came the battle cry again, and once more our heroes joined the advance.
This time, however, the fighting was not quite so fierce. The Germans had had a taste of the kind of medicine dealt out by the Americans, and the Huns had no liking for it.
True, they did not give up without a struggle, and many a poor lad went to his death, or came back from the front with a leg or arm missing, as a result of the renewal of hostilities. But it had to be. It would not have been safe to allow the Germans to have a chance to get back the dominating hills won at such cost.
And there the storm of blood and steel was renewed with fiercer energy, until at last, just as night was settling down, the German flank was turned, and they began to retreat in what ultimately was a rout.
"A glorious victory! A glorious victory!" was shouted from all sides in the American ranks.
It was not the end of the war, by any means, but a dangerous salient had been wiped out, and the American line was straightened, so that now the fighting could go along on more even terms.
"Oh, but I am tired!" sighed Jimmy, as he flung himself full length down on the ground when the signal came to cease firing.
"I'm all in, too," added Bob.
"But we're none of us hurt to any extent," said Franz, binding up a place on his leg where a bit of shrapnel had grazed him. "Won't even get a wound stripe for this," he said, grimly.
It was next morning, when the supply wagons had come up with more substantial food, and hot rations, that the good news circulated around.
"We're due for a rest billet! Hurray!"
"And then I'll have a chance to see about Sergeant Maxwell!" exclaimedJimmy.
That same day, following the one of such fierce fighting, the battalion in which Jimmy and his chums served was ordered to the rear. They would have a week's rest before going into the terrible game again.
Jimmy's first action, once he had been relieved from active duty for the time being, was to seek out the hospital whither Sergeant Maxwell had been removed. He went alone, for he did not want to excite the patient by taking in too many chums, should it prove that the man who had held the five thousand francs was in a dangerous physical or mental condition.
But, to Jimmy's relief, the doctor's and nurse's reports were favorable. It was more a case of exhaustion than anything else, though the sergeant had been wounded.
"Did he tell where he had been ever since he has been missing?" asked Jimmy of a hospital attendant before going in himself to see his friend.
"Well he remembered some of it. It seems he was captured while out on a listening post one night, and taken away a prisoner. Instead of sending him to a camp, as the Huns do with most of our poor chaps they get, the Boches kept the sergeant with them, taking him from place to place. It was their idea, I believe, to either force him to desert and join them, or use him as a decoy—or perhaps make him a spy.
"Anyhow they kept him with them, and once he was struck and wounded by a beast of a German officer. After that they neglected him and he got terribly run down, though his wound healed. Then, just before the last big fight—the one you say you were in—the sergeant was held a prisoner in the hut where you found him. He was in a bad way and I suppose the Germans thought he'd die when they left him—which they did when our boys knocked the spots off 'em, if you'll excuse my slang."
"Oh, I'll excuse it all right!" laughed Jimmy. "It isn't any too strong."
"Well, I guess you may see the sergeant now," said the orderly. "Only don't talk to him too much. He doesn't like to dwell on what happened to him. They must have treated him worse than they would a beast!"
"It's awful!" declared Jimmy. "But they'll be made to pay for it! No, I won't tax him with any talk of the past. I just want to see if he knows me and remembers a certain matter."
"Oh, he'll know you all right," returned the orderly. "As a matter of fact, he has been asking for you."
"That's a good sign!" thought Jimmy.
Sergeant Maxwell held out a wan hand to his friend. "I can't begin to thank you for what you and the other boys did for me," he said, weakly. "If you hadn't discovered me in that lonely hut I wouldn't be alive now."
"Oh, maybe someone else would have found you," said Jimmy, cheerfully."But we're glad we did."
"I've been wishing you'd come in," went on the sick sergeant. "There's something that's been worrying me. It's about that five thousand francs you gave me to keep for you."
"Well, don't worry about it," and Jimmy tried to keep his voice up to the cheerful mark. "Have you got it?"
"No," said the sergeant, "I haven't. But—"
He paused to take a drink of water, and Jimmy's feelings went down to about the zero position.
"But I know where it is," added the sergeant.
"I suppose the Germans took it off you."
"Indeed they didn't!" was the rather vigorous answer. "I didn't have it on me. It's back in the dugout!"
"The dugout!" cried Jimmy, his spirits once more soaring.
"Yes, the one where I was quartered when you gave it to me. I knew we were in for some hard fighting, so before I went out on listening post I hid the franc notes in an old tin can and stuck it up under the roof beams. It's right under where a picture of President Wilson is tacked up. And if the dugout isn't destroyed the money is there yet."
"Well, the dugout can't be destroyed, for there haven't been any Germans there in some time," said Jimmy. "And I do hope you're right about the money being there. Not so much for my sake," he added quickly, "but because I promised to whack up with my bunkies, and I want to keep my word."
"Well, you send a message there and see if I'm not right," concluded Maxwell, and then, being rather weak, he was ordered by the nurse to take a rest.
Elated, but hardly believing the good news, Jimmy received permission not only to send a message, but to go back in a motor truck to the place where the headquarters of the 509th Infantry had been just before the big advance.
Jimmy did not get back to his chums until late that night, for his leave covered him up to midnight, and he was not on duty. He found Iggy, Franz, Bob and Roger in a Y.M.C.A. hut, writing letters, and from the labor Iggy was undergoing, his tongue sticking out and following every movement of his pen, it was evident that the Polish lad was not finding English correspondence any easier as the war progressed.
"Where have you been, Blazes? Back home?" asked Bob a bit sarcastically at Jimmy's absence.
"Sort of," was the answer. "That looks like stuff from home; doesn't it!" and he threw on the table some crumpled and rather stained thousand franc notes.
"Suffering shrapnel!" cried Bob. "The prize money!"
"Where'd you get it?"
"Did Max have it?"
"How'd you get it away from him?"
"How is he?"
"One at a time, please!" laughed Jimmy. "But first I'll tell you good news—Max is going to get well," and he related the story he had heard about the sergeant.
"Well, that's quite a yarn!" exclaimed Roger.
"However, that hasn't anything on what we're going to tell you, JimmyBlazes!" cried Bob Dalton excitedly.
"Have we all won thecroix de guerre?" asked Jimmy, smiling.
"No, but here's a note from the 'spy' we denounced," and Jimmy, as he accepted a paper Bob held out, wondered at the happy looks on the faces of his chums.
It was explained, however, when he read the note. A glance at the signature told him it was from "Captain Frank Dickerson."
"Boys, you only did your duty in exposing me, as you thought you did," wrote the officer. "I congratulate you on your nerve, and on doing what you so plainly disliked to do, after I had saved your lives, as I may flatter myself I did.
"So don't worry about me. I was only doing my duty, too, for Uncle Sam when I was within the German lines and in a German uniform. And I was also doing my duty when I was within your lines in an American uniform. My superior officers know all about it. That is all I can say now, except to add that I was not under arrest very long. But that action had to be taken to keep my plans from becoming known, even to the major. I hope to meet you all again."
"Say, what does it all mean?" asked Jimmy, to whom so many things had happened in the last few hours that it was no wonder he was a bit dazed. "What's all this talk about the government knowing he was in German uniform and all that?"
"Don't you understand?" inquired Bob, with a smile. "He was a spy."
"Of course he was a spy!" asserted Jimmy. "I sized that up all right.He was a spy inside our lines and—"
"Yes, but he was also a spy inside the German lines," put in Roger."Don't you understand, Blazes! Captain Dickerson wore the Germanuniform to get possession of some of their secrets. He's in the UnitedStates Secret Service."
Jimmy looked first at one and then at the other of his chums, until he had faced them all in turn.
"Gee!" he exclaimed at length. "What a chump I was not to guess that, when he acted so coolly after I denounced him! What a chump I was!"
"Oh, well, we couldn't guess everything," said Franz, "And he certainly acted suspiciously at times."
"Yes, so I dinks myself," agreed Iggy, who had not spoken for some time.
"Well, it's all over—at least we've cleared up two mysteries," observed Bob. "I wonder what will happen next?"
"Well, there's going to be more fighting; that's sure," declaredJimmy, "and I want to do my share!"
"Same here!" echoed his chums.
And whether they did or not will be told in our next volume, entitled,"The Khaki Boys Fighting to Win; or, Smashing the German Lines."
End of Project Gutenberg's The Khaki Boys Over the Top, by Gordon Bates