OVER THERE SERIES
THE MARINES AT CHATEAU THIERRY
THE CANADIANS AT VIMY RIDGE
THE DOUGHBOYS AT ST. MIHIEL
PERSHING’S HEROES AT CANTIGNY
THE ENGINEERS AT CAMBRAI
THE YANKS IN THE ARGONNE FOREST
[Illustration:
THE GERMANS GAVE WAY UNDER THE TERRIBLE FIRE OF THE TANKS.
[The Marines at Chateau Thierry]
]
OVER THERE
WITH
THE MARINES
AT
CHATEAU THIERRY
_By_
CAPT. GEORGE H. RALPHSON
Author of
OVER THERE WITH THE DOUGHBOYS AT ST. MIHIEL, OVER THERE WITH THE
CANADIANS AT VIMY RIDGE, OVER THERE WITH PERSHING’S HEROES AT CANTIGNY
[Illustration]
M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
CHICAGO NEW YORK
Copyright, 1919
M. A. DONOHUE & CO.
CHICAGO
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I PHIL AND TIM 7
II FOUR KILOS ON HOBNAILS 11
III DIGGING IN 17
IV GAS MASKS 22
V A MACHINE-GUN BARRAGE 27
VI THE BOCHES CHARGE 32
VII TIMBER FIGHTING 37
VIII AID FROM THE AIR 44
IX “KILL, KILL, KILL” 48
X A NOVEL DISARMAMENT 52
XI PHIL A PRISONER 57
XII A BARBED WIRE PRISON 62
XIII MR. BOACONSTRICTOR 69
XIV A NEW PRISON 75
XV A LIGHT WITHOUT MATCHES 81
XVI PLANS FOR ESCAPE 87
XVII TUNNELING 92
XVIII THE PRISONERS TAKE A PRISONER 96
XIX OVERHEARD IN A SANDPIT 102
XX ESCAPE 107
XXI THE PLOT 112
XXII GOOD-BY 118
XXIII THE FIGHT IN THE CELLAR 122
XXIV ANOTHER CAPTURE 127
XXV A CHAPTER OF WIND 131
XXVI TURNING THE TABLES 135
XXVII FOOD FOR PROHIBITION 141
XXVIII THE PRISONERS FLEE 145
XXIX IN HIDING 150
XXX AN AUDACIOUS SCHEME 155
XXXI PHIL’S STRATEGY 159
XXXII MR. BOA AGAIN 164
XXXIII TANKS AND “WATER CURE” 170
XXXIV FROM TANK TO LIMOUSINE 178
XXXV IN A TIGHT PLACE 183
XXXVI SUGGESTIVE FLATTERY 188
XXXVII A USELESS ARGUMENT 193
XXXVIII WHAT THE LIGHTNING REVEALED 199
XXXIX “THE CASTLE OF THE HUMAN SNAKE” 204
XL A ROOM OF TORTURE 209
XLI THE “SUBTERRENE” 215
XLII RESCUED 220
Over There with the Marines
at
Chateau Thierry
CHAPTER I
PHIL AND TIM
Top Sergeant Phil Speed did not know exactly where he was when the long
train of trucks bearing hundreds of khaki-clad American Marines stopped
at a small town within easy gun-roar of the battle front in France. They
were making little demonstration now. For weeks they had been cheering
and been cheered until their throats became sore and well
again—calloused, as it were. So spontaneous and so nearly universal had
been the enthusiastic reception extended to them everywhere that it
seemed as if every person who didn’t yell his head off must be
pro-kaiser.
With the noise of battle becoming more and made distinct through the
rumble, roar, and rattle of trucks and ordnance racing toward the scene
of conflict into which they themselves were about to plunge, the hearts
of these messengers of liberty were not so gay as they had been for
weeks, aye, months, before. Everywhere, among all sorts and conditions
of men, even among fighting patriots, there are bound to be a few
“smart” ones who forget the proprieties sometimes as their bright ideas
go skyrocketing. And this sort of gay wight was not lacking even among
the pick of America’s young manhood; but for once the gayest of them
were serious and sober minded.
The person who would joke in the face of death, or with a messenger of
eternity lurking in the vicinity must be a philosopher “to get away with
it.” Phil had no idea of putting the thing in such language, but if
somebody had stepped up close to him and whispered the conceit in his
ear, he probably would have responded, “That fits the situation
exactly.” Still a considerable period of time elapsed before he was able
to dispel all doubt as to the occasion of such unwonted sobriety.
“I wonder if we’re not all cowards, and if that isn’t the reason we’ve
all stopped our noise,” he mused. “I hope we don’t turn tail and run
lickety-cut when we see a big bunch o’ boches swinging over the top at
us.”
As if in reply to his musing, Timothy Turner, a training-camp chum, who
stood at his elbow in the midst of the throng of soldiers waiting for
orders to move along, spoke thus rather grimly:
“We’re quite a solemn bunch, aren’t we, Phil? I guess what we need is
the explosion of a few bombs in our midst to get us good and mad.”
“Maybe,” Phil replied, regarding his friend meditatively. “Well, it
won’t be very long before we’ll have a chance to find out. Do you think
an explosion a few feet away from you would make you mad, Tim?”
“Yes, I do,” the latter replied unhesitatingly. “I believe it would make
me want to telescope with the next shell that came whistling along.”
Tim was a kind of bullet-headed Yank, “built on the ground,” his
school-boy friends used to say. Really he looked as if he might be
accepted as a personification of that irresistible force which would
create “the most powerful standstill” if it struck an immovable object.
But in spite of his bullet-headness, Tim was anything but dull. Both
officers and fellow soldiers regarded him hopefully as one of the
prospective star fighters of the regiment because of his mental keenness
as well as his physical prowess.
Phil was built along different lines. He was strong and athletic, but he
would hardly have been expected to be able to push over a stone wall.
Whether or not he was more intelligent than Tim may be a matter for
debate. It may be admitted, perhaps, that he was not so shrewd, but if
they had both lived in the middle ages, Phil undoubtedly would have
listened with interest to the first declaration that the world was
round, while Tim would just as surely have repelled it with derision.
But in business Phil might have fallen a comparatively easy victim to
the wiles of a trickster, where as the cleverest “con man” would have
had to get up very early in the morning to catch Tim napping.
So here we have a double-barreled standard for measuring intelligence
among men and among boys. Shall we call Phil more intelligent than Tim,
or vice versa? Let us dismiss the debatable question without answer,
while we admit that they were both intelligent, but different; and in
spite of their difference—some would say “in consequence of their
difference”—they were very good friends.