A STAB IN THE BACK
Jerry Hopkins was of two minds. He knew his orders as sentry required
him to challenge any one trying to pass in or out of camp after hours
without a pass. And it did not seem likely that these persons, whoever
they were, would act so suspiciously if they had passes. In fact, one
came from the direction of the barracks, and the other from the town,
which lay about three miles from camp.
On the other hand, Jerry knew that often some of the boys stayed in
town beyond the legal hour, and tried to run past the guard without
getting caught, for in the latter event it meant punishment for being
out after taps.
The soldier boys were but human, and, naturally, they did not want to
see their fellow soldiers get into trouble. So it was sometimes the
custom not to look too closely when some of the late-stayers tried to
run guard.
“If that’s all it is, I guess I can find something to do at the other
end of my post,” thought Jerry, for he felt that, some day, he might
want a similar favor.
But as he was debating with himself he heard Ned approaching, and he
waited.
“Everything all right?” asked Ned in a low voice.
“Well, not exactly,” was the answer. “Did you see anything suspicious?”
“Suspicious? No.”
“Take a look down in that hollow,” suggested Jerry. As he pointed to
indicate the place to Ned, they both saw two figures in a crouching
attitude on the ground. They were two men, one in the unmistakable
uniform of a soldier, and the other a civilian. And they appeared to be
in close conversation.
“What’s that?” asked Ned in a low voice.
“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” returned Jerry. “I was just
wondering whether to challenge or not.”
“Maybe we can find out who they are first,” suggested Ned. “If it’s
just a couple of boys out late.”
“That’s what I was going to do,” said Jerry.
“But one seems to be a civilian, and he hasn’t any right around camp at
this hour.”
“I’m going over and take a look.” Jerry spoke now with decision.
“I’ll go with you,” offered Ned. “It’s about midway of both our posts.”
Jerry and Ned wanted to do their duty, as they had been instructed by
their officers, but, at the same time, if by a little avoidance of a
strict rendering of the rules they could help out an indiscreet fellow
soldier, they were tempted to do that. It all depended on what was
taking place over there in the dark hollow.
Of course there had been talk of enemy spies and of German activities,
and a great deal of it had a basis in fact, or easily could have. And
it was true that a German spy could do a great deal of damage around
Camp Dixton if he tried. There were great store-houses that could be
set on fire, there were barracks and stables that could be burned, and
more than one fire that did occur during the early days may be set down
as having been the work of an enemy alien. If such were the men meeting
at midnight in the hollow, just off the posts of Jerry and Ned, they
wanted to know it. Even if one did wear Uncle Sam’s uniform, that was
no reason for believing him true. There are traitors in all walks of
life.
“What do you make ’em out to be?” asked Ned in a whisper of his tall
chum.
“I’m not sure. One seems to be a soldier, but the other isn’t. And the
soldier, if he is that, came from the direction of our place.”
“Going to yell for the corporal of the guard?”
“Not yet a while. Let’s see who they are.”
The thick grass muffling their footsteps, Ned and Jerry drew near to
the place where they had last seen the figures. They were not in sight
now, being crouched down in the dark shadows. But as the boys paused to
listen, they heard the murmur of voices, and some one said:
“It’s a little soon to start anything yet. Wait about a week and the
place will be full. Then the damage will be all the greater.”
“All right; just as you say,” came the response. “Only my friends are
getting impatient to have me do something.”
“Oh, you’ll do it all right!” said the first speaker. “And now you’d
better hop along. The sentries may be over this way any minute. I’ve
got to sneak back. See you again in the usual way.”
Then came a silence, and Ned and Jerry looked at one another in the
darkness. They could just make out each other’s outlines.
“Did you hear that?” whispered Ned.
“Sure I did. It was----”
“Pug Kennedy!” filled in Ned.
“And if the other didn’t speak with a German accent I’ll never draw
another ration.”
“Just what I think. But what does it mean? Why should Pug Kennedy be
out after hours, running the guard and meeting with men who may be
enemy aliens?”
“Can’t answer,” replied Jerry. “But it’s up to us to find out. But
let’s go easy. We don’t want to make fools of ourselves, and start a
false alarm. Wait until we see what happens.”
They did not have long to wait. A few seconds later they heard a
shuffle in the grass, and a dim figure came toward them. It was that of
a soldier, as Ned and Jerry could see. Of the second person there was
not a sign. But he might still be in the dark hollow, or he may have
crawled off. At any rate it was Jerry’s duty to challenge, and he did
it.
“Halt!” he cried, bringing his rifle to “port,” as the regulations
called for. “Who goes there?”
“Friend,” was the answer, though the tone of the reply was anything but
friendly. “That you, Hopkins?” came the inquiry.
“Yes. Who are you?” Jerry asked, though he knew full well.
“I’m Kennedy. I’ve been out on a bit of a lark. Can’t you look the
other way a second until I slip past?”
It was not an unusual request, and it was one that was often complied
with. Yet Jerry hesitated a moment. Kennedy might be telling the truth,
and the midnight meeting might be innocent enough. But it looked
suspicious. And Jerry had reason to think that the fighter had come
from the barracks only recently--not that he was just returning to them.
“Go on. Look the other way and I’ll slip past--that’s a sport!” begged
Pug Kennedy, and his voice was more friendly now. “I’ll do as much for
you some day.”
It was an appeal hard to resist, and Jerry was on the point of
complying, while Ned was willing to agree to it, when some one was
heard walking along from a point in back of the three young men.
“It’s the corporal!” hissed Kennedy. “Keep your mouths shut and I’ll do
the rest.”
He suddenly seemed to melt away in the darkness, but he probably
dropped down in the long grass. The approaching footsteps came nearer
and a voice called:
“Hopkins! Slade! Are you there?”
“Here, sir,” was the answer, and Jerry and Ned saw the corporal of the
guard standing near them.
“Anything the matter?” he asked.
“Well, I thought I saw some one over here,” answered Jerry, “and I came
to look. But I don’t see anything now.”
There was a very good reason for this. Jerry had his eyes tightly shut!
“False alarm, was it?” asked the corporal with a laugh. “Well, that
often happens. But it’s best to be on the alert. There are some of the
boys out, and we want to catch them as examples. If you see anything
more give a call.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jerry and Ned turned away to go back on post when something happened.
It was a yell of pain, and came from a point not far from where the
corporal had been talking to the two sentries.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Ned.
“Some one hurt,” answered Jerry. “I wonder----”
He did not have time to complete his surmise, for the corporal called:
“Guard! Over this way! I’ve caught him!”
There was a sound of a struggle, and then a light flashed. Ned and
Jerry, hurrying over, saw the corporal holding Pug Kennedy, and
flashing a pocket electric light into the bully’s face.
[Illustration: NED AND JERRY, HURRYING OVER SAW THE CORPORAL HOLDING
PUG KENNEDY.]
“You were right--there was some one here,” said the corporal. “I
stepped on his hand in the dark and he yelled. Otherwise I might not
have seen him. Sorry, Kennedy, but it’s your own fault,” went on the
non-commissioned officer. “Take him to the guardhouse,” he ordered Ned
and Jerry, and there was no choice for them but to obey.
“I’ll get even with you for this!” growled Pug Kennedy, as he marched
along. “I’ll fix you!”
“We didn’t do anything,” said Jerry in a low voice. “We were going to
keep still.”
“Yes you were! You gave me away--that’s what you did. You called the
corporal and peached on me! I’ll fix you for this!”
It was useless to protest, and Jerry and Ned did not. Kennedy,
muttering and growling, was turned over to the keeper of the
guardhouse, and locked up for the rest of the night. He would be given
a hearing in the morning.
“How much shall we tell?” asked Ned of Jerry, when they were relieved,
and, with Bob, went to turn in.
“Better not say anything until we’re asked,” was Jerry’s opinion. “Let
the corporal do the talking. After all he found him, we didn’t.”
“But about the meeting in the dark, and the talk we heard?”
“Well, if I was sure what it meant I’d speak of it. But we may only get
laughed at for imagining things if we speak of it. And we haven’t much
to go on. Let the corporal do the talking.”
This they did, with the result that Pug Kennedy was punished for being
out after taps and trying to run the guard, no very serious offense,
but one which carried with it an extra round of police work--cleaning
up around camp--and Pug was more or less the laughing butt of his
comrades.
“It’s all your fault!” he declared to Ned and Jerry. “You wait! I’ll
get square with you!”
But as several days passed, and the “scrapper,” as he was called, made
no effort to carry out his threat, Ned and Jerry rather forgot about
it. As for the midnight meeting, it seemed to have been nothing more
than an attempt on the part of Pug Kennedy to be friendly with some
civilian he had met in town.
“Though what they were talking about I can’t guess,” said Jerry.
“Same here,” agreed Ned.
The days in camp were spent in drill. It was drill, drill, drill from
morning until night.
Most of the drills were for the purpose of getting the new soldiers in
good physical shape, fit to stand the hard work that would come later.
To the three motor boys it was much the same sort of thing they had
gone through when training for football. There were the preliminary
steps, the slow movements, followed by speeding-up practice and then
hard driving.
In the course of a few weeks they learned how to march in unison, how
to go through certain parts of the rifle drill without making it look
too ragged, and finally, one day, orders were issued for bayonet drill.
“This is beginning to look like real war, now,” said Ned in delight, as
he and his chums got their guns and bayonets ready for the work.
“What is it to be, trench or with the bags?” asked Bob.
“Bags,” answered Jerry, who had been reading the orders. “The trench
work comes later.”
There are several kinds of bayonet drill and exercise, and among them
are trench and bag work. In the former, which is only used after the
youths have become somewhat familiar with the weapon, there are two
lines of soldiers. One is down in a trench, and they are “attacked”
by another line standing above them, the theory being that the party
outside the trench is the attacking one.
Bag bayonet work is something on the same scale as tackling the
dummy in football practice. On a wooden framework a number of canvas
bags, filled with sawdust, shavings, hay or other soft material, are
suspended. On each bag, which swings freely by two ropes, are painted
two white dots. These, in a measure, correspond to the scarlet heart on
the buffer of a fencer.
Standing in a row before the swinging bags, with leveled bayonets, the
young soldiers endeavor to stab through the object as near the white
spots as possible. This is to train their eyes.
Ned, Bob, and Jerry, with their comrades, were marched to the practice
ground, and then, after some preliminary instruction and illustrative
work by men proficient in the drill, the lads were allowed to do it
themselves.
“It looks easy, but it’s hard,” declared Bob, when he had made several
wild lunges, to the no small danger of the man next him.
“Take it easy, Chunky,” advised Jerry. “You’ve got more than a week to
stay here. Go slow.”
Pug Kennedy, who was stationed next to Ned, had done better than any of
the others. Perhaps his proficiency with his fists stood him in good
stead. However that may have been, he won commendation from the officer
in charge.
“Now for a general attack!” came the orders, after a while. “I want to
see how you’d act if you were told to go over the top and smash a crowd
of Germans! Lively now!”
The boys went at it with a will, one or two fairly ripping the bags
from their fastenings.
Suddenly there was a cry of pain, and Jerry saw Ned stagger in the
line, and drop his rifle. Then Ned fell, and on the back of his olive
shirt there appeared a crimson stain. Ned had been stabbed by a
bayonet.