RECOGNITION
Naturally, after what had happened and bearing in mind the strange
sight Roger and Jimmy had witnessed, there was but one thought in the
minds of at least four of the Khaki Boys--Iggy was temporarily out of
it. And this thought was that some disaster had overtaken the American
forces above ground while much was happening to them below ground, in
the dugout and tunnel. Perhaps the Germans had made a counter-attack,
retaken the trenches from which they had been driven, and were now
about to swarm down into the dugout, where the Khaki Boys were, to
capture them.
"Don't give up!" cried Jimmy fiercely. "Stand 'em off as long as you
can, and then----"
Once more he was interrupted by a voice coming from the passage leading
from the dugout.
"Lively now!" was the command. "There's a bare chance we may get 'em
out this way, but we've got to hurry!"
"You won't get us out alive!" said Bob fiercely, and he looked around
the dugout for some way of escape. There were only two entrances--or
exits--whichever one might choose to call them--the one by which the
boys had emerged from the tunnel, and the other by which they hoped to
leave. But this last was now blocked by an approaching party.
"Stand together, boys!" said Sergeant Jimmy in a low voice.
"Shall I douse the glim?" asked Franz.
He was about to blow out the candle when into the dugout came hurrying
a squad of khaki-clad soldiers, and it needed but a glance from the
Khaki Boys to show them that they were their own comrades of the 509th
Infantry. Lieutenant Morrison was in charge--an officer of whom the
five Brothers were very fond.
"Here they are!" cried the lieutenant. "How in the world did you boys
escape? We saw the place where the big German shell struck, and we
didn't think there'd be more than half of you left alive after the
dugout caved in, as it must have done. Yet here you all are."
"One's missing, sir," said a corporal.
"There were five and----"
"Here I iss!" exclaimed Iggy. "Part of me is alife, anyhow!"
There was a laugh at this--a laugh that told of overstrained nerves
being mercifully relieved.
"Is he badly hurt?" asked Lieutenant Morrison, as he looked at the
Polish lad, his friendly guard moving away from in front of him.
"Something fell on one foot when the dugout gave way under pressure
from the Hun shell," explained Roger. "I hope it isn't bad."
"Well, we'll get him to a dressing station as soon as possible,"
went on the young officer. "There's been a merry ruction up above,
as I suppose you boys have guessed. As soon as I got things a bit
straightened out, some one told me about a party being on leave down in
the old German dugout, and I at once organized a rescue squad. How did
you manage to escape?"
Jimmy and his chums related their experience, and, in turn, Jimmy asked:
"Have the Huns put one over on us?"
"They tried to," was the grim answer. "But I think we gave them back
a little better than they sent. We've got the upper hand now, but how
long we can keep it is another question. There's going to be a big
fight soon."
"Good!" cried Franz, his eyes brightening. "The more the fights, and
the bigger they are, the sooner the Boches will quit."
"Let us hope so!" ejaculated the lieutenant fervently. Then, as he
caught sight of the revolvers in the hands of the four non-commissioned
officers, he asked, with a show of surprise: "What's the game? Did you
have to shoot any Huns to get out of the dugout after it collapsed?"
"Why, no, sir," answered Jimmy. "The Germans didn't break in--it was
only the big shell they sent over. But you must have met them if you
came along the tunnel just now."
"Met who?" Lieutenant Morrison queried.
Jimmy explained, Roger putting in a word now and then. The officer
shook his head.
"We met no one," he remarked. "It's queer, too, for there doesn't seem
to be any side passage from this tunnel, though there may be some we
don't know about. We didn't stop to look, as a matter of fact. As soon
as I heard there were some of our boys in the smashed dugout I began to
plan a rescue. Some one remembered this unused tunnel and dugout, just
as you remembered it, Sergeant Blaise, and this was the only way we
could get in to save you. But we met no one on our way."
"That's queer," declared Jimmy.
"It is," agreed Lieutenant Morrison. "This matter must be reported to
headquarters. But now let's get out of here. No telling when this
place may come down about our ears."
Iggy was feeling a little better, having had the weight off his injured
foot for a while, and soon they were progressing along the tunnel
toward the exit. This tunnel was wider, and on the way along it the
four Khaki Boys, as well as the members of the relief party, looked for
side openings or shafts.
"Here's one!" exclaimed the lieutenant. "Corporal White, you take a man
and go along it and see if you can find any trace of the four mentioned
by Sergeant Blaise. Be on the alert. Even two of the men being in
American uniforms would not guarantee anything. But this is probably
how they eluded us," he said to Jimmy, nodding to indicate the passage.
A little later the party emerged from the tunnel that led into the
dugout, and they were welcomed by their comrades, many of whom had
thought that Jimmy and his chums had been killed, or at least badly
wounded when the big German shell smashed in the top of the shelter.
Iggy was taken to a dressing station, and later it was learned that he
was not as badly hurt as was at first feared. He would be back in line
again within a few days, it was said.
The exploration of the side passage leading off from the tunnel
amounted to little. Corporal White said he saw no trace of the four
men, but he reported that there was a maze of passages leading from
the one he examined, and it was possible for the four to have hidden
in these, or to have made their escape along one of the dark, winding
tubes of earth.
"Well, this makes the mystery all the more puzzling," said Jimmy, when
he and his chums talked it over. "I certainly would like to know who
those fellows were--especially the ones in uniform."
And there was a deeper mystery about it than he even dreamed of.
But little the worse from their nerve-racking experience in the
collapsed dugout, Jimmy and his chums finished their period of leave
and once more took their places with their comrades, ready to fight or
do anything else required of them. Iggy was given a detail as orderly
to a major, which made his duties light. But he was anxious to get on
the firing line again.
It was early one morning--quite a zero hour, in fact, though none was
set--when suddenly there began a furious firing from the German lines,
removed only a short distance at this particular part of the front
where the Khaki Boys were stationed.
If the German gunners hoped to take the Americans by surprise, and by
a sudden and unexpected barrage pave the way for an attack, they must
have been sorely disappointed. For almost at the very instant that the
German pieces began their grim music there was response from Uncle Sam,
and in greater volume.
But it was not to be altogether an artillery duel. The word was passed
up and down the line to get ready to repel an attack in force, and
Jimmy, Roger, Bob, and Franz tumbled out of their blankets, their eyes
heavy with sleep, ready for the fight.
It was not long in coming, for no sooner did they have their equipment
on, from gas masks at the alert position to their canteens and mess
kits, than they were ordered over the top.
"Forward! Forward!" was the cry.
The American fire, at first a mere reply to the challenge of the Boche
artillery, was soon changed into a protecting barrage for the thousands
of doughboys who scrambled out of their trenches, and in less time than
would seem possible a fierce battle was raging.
Jimmy had one glimpse of Bob, Roger, and Franz being directed off to
the right, while his party was ordered to the left. So, for the time,
Jimmy lost sight of his chums.
The battle was fierce and hot. In spite of the American barrage,
the Germans broke through at one point, and there was hand-to-hand
fighting, grim and terrible while it lasted.
Jimmy Blaise was in the thick of this. He had one vision of a big burly
German charging him, his mouth wide open in a yell, and his bayonet
dripping red. Then Jimmy's rifle spoke, and the German was no longer
in front of the Khaki Boy, who leaped over his body to keep beside his
comrades.
Sergeant Jimmy saw another Hun taking aim at Lieutenant Morrison,
who was engaged with a German officer. There was no time to warn the
lieutenant, and Jimmy did the next best thing. His bayonet put the
Hun out of the battle for all time, and the lieutenant, who had just
defeated his opponent, turned with a look that meant much to Jimmy.
There was no time for words.
Guns and shells were crashing on all sides. The Germans had brought
up some machine guns, and these were doing fearful execution among
the Americans until the nests were located and the crews working the
automatic death-dealers killed.
Sergeant Blaise led in one of these raids, and he and his comrades had
swept triumphantly over the place, leaving only dead Germans to tell
the tale, when Jimmy suddenly felt a great blow on his head. Instantly
all became black around him, and he fell.
For one fearful moment the thought flashed through his mind that he was
killed--that this was the end of it all. And then, as he landed with a
thud on the ground, his senses seemed to come back to him.
His face was wet, and something seemed to cover his eyes. He put his
hand to his face as he lay on the ground, a horrible fear coming to him
that his eyes had been blown out.
To his great relief he found that his vision came back to him when he
rubbed his hand over his eyes. And as he looked at his hand he found
that it was not covered with blood, as he had feared, but with mud. A
shell had exploded in a mud hole directly in front of Jimmy, and had
deluged him with the mucky stuff, completely covering his face and eyes.
"But I'm hit, though," he mused, as he felt his head, and this time
there was blood on his hand. But it did not seem to be an alarming
amount. In fact, after the first shock, Jimmy felt as though he could
get up and go on fighting. But an officer, leaping over him, sensed the
situation and cried:
"Lie down where you are! Some one will come for you presently. We've
got 'em on the run, but they may sweep this place with machine guns
again. Lie still where you are!"
Jimmy had sense enough to obey, and presently he became aware of the
fact that the firing in his immediate neighborhood was growing less.
In a few minutes it seemed to die away altogether, and it was not long
after that before two men came along with a stretcher.
"Here's a live one!" the leader cried, as he caught sight of Jimmy, who
cautiously raised his head.
"Hurt much?" the second stretcher bearer asked.
"Don't know," was Jimmy's laconic answer. "Wait until I stand up and
see."
But as soon as he tried to get on his feet he felt so weak and dizzy
that he would have fallen had not one of the men caught him.
"I guess it's a first-aid station for yours, old man," was the grim
comment. And Jimmy shut his eyes.
When he opened them again it was to find himself lying on a sort of
table, with a doctor bending over him.
"How do you feel?" asked the surgeon.
"Oh, sort of--sort of----" remarked Jimmy weakly.
"You'll do," was the reply. "Got a nasty knock on the head, but your
skull isn't damaged--just a scalp wound. We'll wash you up a bit and
send you back. Here, orderly, some water and bandages."
Jimmy closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. The mere touching of
the wound on his head, to wash and bandage it, was most painful, but
he did not utter a sound. Then he seemed to doze off, and when again
full consciousness came to him it was to open his eyes in a temporary
hospital. He was lying on a cot under a screen of bushes--a camouflaged
place, to prevent, if possible, the Huns from dropping bombs from
airships on this oasis of mercy.
And it was while lying on the cot, feeling more comfortable now that
his head was bandaged, that Jimmy saw a squad of soldiers from the
signal corps passing along the road. They had been ordered to the front
to establish better communications, now that the German raid had been
repulsed and the Boches were being forced to retreat.
As Jimmy looked at two men in the signal squad carrying a black box,
which he recognized as one containing part of a wireless outfit, Jimmy
felt a queer sensation.
"Why, I know those two fellows!" he told himself, as his eyes followed
the marching twain carrying the black box. "I know them, though this is
only the second time I've seen them, as far as I can tell. The other
time was in the dugout. Those are the two army fellows who were talking
to the two civilians. And now to find them in the signal corps! What
does it mean?"