WAR IS--WAR!
Yes, it was war. There could be no question about its being the real
thing, with all the frills and thrills that go along with a gigantic,
brain-taxing, muscle-straining attempt to kill an enemy and not be
killed by him.
If Sherman designated the kind of war practised two generations ago as
having a resemblance to the infernal regions, what would he call war as
practised in this generation? A combination it is of dozens of varied
Hades, with all the little devils of hate and villainy and slow torture
thrown in.
Corporal Herbert Whitcomb, though a mere boy, had been placed in the
command he held, however small, because of his wonderful skill in
shooting, together with his manliness, strength of character and the
reputation he had earned for doing everything well that he was set to do
at the training camp back in the dear old United States.
With his introduction to the combined trench and gun pit on the French
front and the duties he was compelled to assume as commander of a squad
of snipers, he was at once impressed with the fact that this was war;
and in a very short time thereafter that war is hell.
Lieutenant Jackson, of the old Regular Army and a veteran of long
service, who was in command of the pit and was Herbert's superior
officer, had told him enough to render such a verdict and to impress him
with the seriousness of the job before the Allies, the American Army and
their small body of men, fifty-seven in all, in the pit. These comprised
the platoon of Regulars, thirty-two men, four corporals, two sergeants
and the lieutenant, the artillery squad of eight men and one corporal,
and the sniper squad of an equal number.
The Regular Army men were generally rough-and-ready fellows, admirably
fitted for any duty of war, except that only two or three of them were
admittedly expert shots. These had tried sniping, but were too few in
numbers to awe the German long-distance sharpshooters making attempts to
kill off the artillerymen.
The men who handled the gun were a mixed lot. Three had been in the
Marines, two were Regular Army artillerymen, one was a recently enlisted
man who possessed a special talent for hitting the mark with a cannon,
another was a fighting cook for this outfit; and the corporal, James
Letty, had been a football star.
Anyone could look over the platoon and see that they were a hard crowd
to beat. Therefore, when Whitcomb sent Flynn and Marshall out on the
first scouting and sniping duty, thus honoring them, and to Flynn said,
"Go to it, old scout!" he felt most truly the importance of the
statement that they were there for the purpose of warfare.
By "Go to it!" Herb meant that their first business was to let no German
get into a position where he might drop bullets into the gun pit where
the squad was operating so successfully as to actually threaten the
maintenance of the German position at that point.
With Roy went Dave McGuire, one-time glove salesman in a city department
store. He had shot one of the highest, very long range rifle scores at
Camp Wheeler, and he possessed certain characteristics that did not seem
to be at all in keeping with his former calling.
Herbert could not help wondering at the fellow's bravery. He possessed a
manner that by some would have been termed "sissy;" he drawled his words
and lisped a little, opened his mouth to speak with drawn lips, seemed
to have the idea that army life should be on the order of a social
gathering; and his khaki clothes, by long habit, were put on and worn
with scrupulous neatness.
Could he stand the strain of being shot at, of living long in a muddy
hole in the ground, under the constant expectation of something or other
happening that might cost him and his companions their lives?
Not far down the hill several piles of heavy stones offered the American
riflemen excellent shelter for observation and marksmanship. There were
some shell holes also and at one spot a partly wrecked bomb canister of
heavy sheet iron within which a man might crouch unseen by the enemy
beyond.
All of these places offered a fair view of the zigzag German trenches
for a distance of more than five hundred yards where the trench dipped
behind a wooded rise of ground. Beyond this the enemy had their hands
full opposing the extension of the American trench which wound about
from near the gun pit to and also beyond the wooded slope.
Herbert saw his two boys go out on the hill with a feeling of nothing
else than sorrow. To be sure this was the game of war, but he could not
help feeling a marked aversion for the possibilities uppermost in this
death-grapple business.
For his men particularly and for all his fellows in battle, companions
in discomfort, danger, suffering, perhaps death, was the lad concerned.
Especially did he feel this now regarding Roy. His chum, ever bright,
smiling, jesting, never grumbling nor down-hearted, was going out there
to be the target for men trained in this wholesale killing business and
eager to play their part. It was true that the boy could hardly be
caught napping and he would probably give a little better than he was
sent, but still there were the chances of warfare, often more potent,
more death-dealing than the best laid plans.
Herb had never since babyhood known anything of a mother's teachings
that to the many well-balanced, gentle-dispositioned lads often mean so
much for good. His father had well cared for him when he was a little
fellow and then he, too, had died without ever having rightly influenced
the boy at a time when this would have counted best. And though
Herbert's inclinations had all been healthy, clean, vigorously manly and
honest, it is doubtful if he had said or thought a prayer a half dozen
times in his life, or that he really knew how to pray in the commonly
practised manner of those who habitually turn to a Higher Power.
But now, watching Roy and Dave ascend the stepped slope out of the pit
and by Herb's order begin to slip off cautiously, screening themselves
behind various obstacles and making for the objects of shelter below,
the young corporal was suddenly overcome with a dejection very unseemly
for an officer engaged in fighting. Unseen, the boy bowed his head
against one of the timber stanchions of the shelter.
"Oh, God, if you're willing, if it isn't laid down in the Book of Fate
otherwise, don't let that chum of mine get killed! He's too fine a chap;
he brings too much happiness to others in this world and does too much
good generally for him to become the victim of a bullet or bayonet, or
anything like that! And the other fellow, too; he seems like a good sort
of fellow. Most of my men are; all in this pit are worth being kept
alive. I'm sure of it! But, of course, some of us must get it; be
killed or wounded some way. So don't think I mind being one, if that
would spare the percentage and spare these other fellows who have homes
and people to mourn for them. Anyway, God, above all, no matter what may
be going to happen, see to it that we all do our duty and give us what
ought to be coming to us if we don't."