DESPERATE WORK
Chester, having crept a hundred yards, hugged down into another hole
and waited. The Germans who had been about now approached the glowing
heap of the biplane. What they found seemed to satisfy them. At least
they raised no alarm. The shells from the far-off trench guns, which
had been breaking in the fields both to right and to left, began
searching about here now and scattered them. Chester moved forward
toward the lines. And, as he moved, the shells which had been bursting
in that direction, ceased.
The feel of the far-off hand of Captain O'Neill and of his
superiors--the men who had planned this desperate venture--thrilled through
him. Until five minutes to 10 o'clock he would be cared for, Captain
O'Neill had promised. The French artillery, opening a path through its
fire, would throw its shield around him. Simultaneously, it would be
opening another path to Hal, advancing off to the right. Where all the
Germans, who held that ground, burrowed below in dugouts or crept and
ran through the deep defiles of communication trenches, Hal and he
could go at will over the ground and so far as the shells from the
French batteries were concerned, be perfectly safe.
Chester stole on through the blackness. Shells were breaking a hundred
yards before him, behind him, off to both sides, but no shell came
closer. Now, if he remembered rightly, the shells would cease in the
square ahead and to the left; he moved that way--and they stopped.
Over the ground which he had crossed, shells were bursting again now.
When he halted once more, the frightful hurricane of high explosives
swept before him, on both sides and behind--but not close to him. So
for many minutes he advanced.
It was strange, when used to dodging shells behind his own lines and
when accustomed to twist and turn and dive and tumble in the air to
avoid the burst of anti-aircraft shrapnel, to feel shells falling like
a bulwark about him. That was what they were. For the present, at
least, the shells gained for him and gave to him the sole use of the
surface of the earth there behind the German lines.
Troops were all about, of course; but all were hiding. They could not
imagine anyone purposely advancing through the open there; they could
not imagine anyone surviving if he tried it. They noticed,
undoubtedly, that the fall of the French shells intermitted for a
moment in this direction and that; but when any of them went out the
shells burst upon them again and annihilated detachments. The cease
and the start again of the French fire seemed merely capricious, to
tempt them out to destruction. Not having the pattern of the pass by
which the two boys advanced, they could not suspect any pattern about
it.
And now Chester no longer could trust his own memory of that pattern.
He went to the bottom of a deep shell crater, and, lying upon his
stomach, he took a scrap of map from under his shirt and spread it
below him. He took a tiny electric torch from his pocket and illumined
the sheet dimly. A series of squares, into which that sector was
divided, marked his path for the front--each square of the series
numbered in ink and designated by a time, such as 32, 24, 19, 16, 10
and so, forth. They told the moment before 10 o'clock, at which, upon
the square marked, the French fire would cease, not to start again
until the fire ceased, at the next lowest minute, upon the next
square. Down to five minutes to 10 o'clock they showed the safe path,
after that friend and foe alike on this side of the German lines must
shift for themselves.
Chester's mind caught the pattern of the next numbered square; he
repeated to himself the time intervals. He climbed up out of the shell
hole and swiftly passed the next square as the shells began falling
behind him. Had Hal, off there to the right four squares away, now, as
good luck as he? Or, was the French fire opening a path for no one
there now?
By the ceasing of the shells on this square it was 24 minutes to 10
o'clock--the hour when the French forces would stream over the top.
And for ten minutes, upon the square, the French fire would cease.
That was because it was upon this square that Hal and Chester--if
both survived to reach it--would meet. It was under the ground in
this numbered ten minutes to 10 o'clock--that the French were hidden,
of whom Jean Brosseau had told. And as Brosseau had expected and
hoped, Chester and Hal--or whichever of them survived to this
square--were ordered to employ those people.
Chester crept forward, searching for the ruins of the house to mark the
spot. There was a communication-trench some yards away to the left of
it, he remembered. He could hear them working upon it now, calling to
each other as the shells had given them a few minutes respite. He
crept by them and came upon stones--the square stones of the walls of
a house demolished and scattered. Only one house had been at that
point, and, crawling carefully, he dropped into the pit of the cellar.
There, in that cellar, Hal and he were to meet, if Hal yet lived.
Hal was not there; he had not been there. The heap of old charred
beams and rubbish, which covered the opening of the tunnel to the
French hiding in the old cellar deeper and beyond, was undisturbed; he
heard no sound except that of the shells and the scraping and voices of
the Germans at work thirty yards away.
Chester flattened down upon the rubbish of the cellar; he raised a
black beam a little and thrust himself under. Feeling ahead, he found
more rubbish, which he cleared; and then, beyond, his hand found
emptiness and the smell of earth--and the odor of people and the
closeness of foul air. But there was no sound ahead.
He crawled his length and then spoke quietly in French:
"I come for the redeeming of France," words which he had been ordered
to use upon his arrival.
He got no reply from the silence ahead; so he said again:
"I am not Jean Brosseau; he sent me. I come to ask your aid."
"Aid?" a voice repeated; "aid?"
Chester lighted his little torch again, and men's faces showed before
him.
"Quick!" one of the men said. "Get away. It's a trap!"
"The Germans have taken us," said a second voice. "We--"
His voice stopped and choked. It was stilled forever, Chester knew.
He could not see--he had extinguished his light.
A revolver was fired in his face, but the bullet went over him. He
pressed to one side of the tunnel as he pushed back, and the next
bullet went into the sand where he had been. He was back under the
beams; and the Germans, choking, fired no more.
Someone pulled at his leg. Someone jerked him out and pulled him
up--it was Hal.
"The people in there were taken," said Chester quietly. "They--"
"You've still got your grenades," said Hal. "I've got mine. We can do
it alone, with luck!"
The Germans, working on the tunnel off to the left, yelled at each
other to jump for cover, for the French shells were coming again. They
burst all about--except now, just ahead, where Hal and Chester were
running. Two minutes they had to run and crawl and run again across
the square, three minutes for the next one. Then, again, they parted.
Two squares to the left, two minutes for one, three for the next--Hal
was to go; two squares to the right--for three minutes and two the
French fire was to be remitted--Chester must travel. There were two
other small squares to be spared for five minutes to provide for help
which might have been gained from the refugees' dugout.
Those squares were being spared now, anyway.
But the minutes of respite for all were finishing fast.
It was five minutes to 10 o'clock and Chester, running bent over,
stumbled and fell; the frightful concussion of great high explosive
shells, bursting close to him, shook and battered him. He hugged down
into a hole, and from about his neck, he drew a flat bag, which held a
gas mask; he adjusted it quickly. Shells were striking about him,
which did not break; but from the butts of these fumes were floating.
The Germans, showing in the light of the star-shells, had become
snouted creatures in their gas helmets.
They appeared only for an instant, as, jumping up from one trench,
where the shells were falling, they rushed to another deep defile.
Half a score, who had shown themselves in one group, vanished; and
Chester was buffeted again by the shock of high explosives.
Gas and still more gas followed high explosives again.
Chester, creeping now, got, even through his mask, smarting, searing
twinges of the gas. He was among bodies and wounded men. Their masks,
when, they fell, had become torn or broken. The gas had got them.
Five minutes to 10 o'clock had passed.