Colonel Bainbridge did command, and Sergeant Scott, Billy Barry and
Henri Trouville went along.
“I wish they would let us ride Bon Ami.”
Billy had noted the handsome horse they had captured prancing along
carrying a heavyweight cavalryman, while Henri and himself were perched
beside a teamster on the front seat of a supply wagon.
“Maybe they were afraid that you would run away,” drawled the teamster.
“Sergeant Scott says you’re too skittish to turn loose.”
“The sergeant will be putting handcuffs on us next,” laughed Billy.
The teamster set his teeth in a plug of tobacco, snapped the whiplash
over the big bay team and with a twinkle in his eye started the verse
of some soldier ditty:
“‘Said Colonel Malone to the sergeant bold,
These are the traps I give you to hold,
If they are gone when I come back
You’re just the boy I’ll put on the rack.’”
“That’s just it,” added the teamster, changing from song to the usual
drawl, “if the sergeant lets you come to harm the colonel would cut the
stripes from his coat. And what’s more the sergeant is kind of struck
on you himself. Git-ap,”--to the horses.
It was at the crossing of the Lys at Warneton that the boys had another
baptism of fire.
The crossing was strongly held by the Germans with a barricade
loopholed at the bottom to enable the men to fire while lying down. The
Allies’ cavalry, with the artillery, blew the barricade to pieces and
scattered the defenders.
In the square of the town the boys saw the greatest display of
fireworks that ever dazzled their young eyes.
One of the buildings appeared to leap skyward. A sheet of flame and a
shower of star shells at the same time made the place as light as day.
Out of the surrounding houses the Germans poured a terrific fire from
rifles and machine guns.
The Allies’ cavalry got away with a loss of eight or nine men, and
Sergeant Scott headed volunteers that went back and carried away
wounded comrades from this dreadful place.
Billy and Henri rushed at the sergeant when he returned from this
daring performance and joined hands in a sort of war dance around their
hero.
“The Victoria Cross for yours, old top!” cried Billy.
“You ought to have it this minute!” echoed Henri.
“Quit your jabber, you chatterboxes,” said the big sergeant playfully,
shaking his fist at his admirers, but it could be plainly seen that he
was mightily pleased with the demonstration.
“You and I will have to do something to keep up with this man,”
remarked Billy to Henri, with a mock bow to the sergeant.
“None of that,” growled the sergeant, “your skylarking doesn’t go on
the ground, and not on this ground, anyhow.”
But the boys had grown tired of being just in the picture and not in
its making.
“The sergeant doesn’t seem to think that we have ever crossed a danger
line the way he coddles us.” Billy was ready for argument on this point.
“Wish we had him up in the air a little while,” said Henri, “he
wouldn’t be so quick to dictate.”
It was in this mood, during the advance and on the night of the next
day, that the boys eluded the vigilant eye of the sergeant long enough
to attempt a look around on their own account.
In the dark they stumbled on the German trenches.
Billy grasped Henri’s arm and they turned and made for the British
lines, as fast as their legs could carry them, but the fire directed at
them was so heavy that they had to throw themselves on the ground and
crawl.
There was no cover at hand, and the chances looked mighty desperate for
the pair, when Billy saw, close by, an enormous hole in the ground,
made by the explosion of a “black maria,” the name given by the
soldiers to the projectiles of the big German howitzers.
Into this the boys scrambled, panting and scared to the limit.
“Wouldn’t this jar you?”
Henri had no answer to Billy’s quickfire query. He didn’t think it
required any just then. He was “jarred,” in the way the word was used.
“It’s a pretty pickle we’re in,” Henri managed to say when a shell
screamed over the hole.
“It sure is,” admitted Billy, as a round-shot scattered dust particles
and showered them into the hiding place.
“‘We won’t go home till morning,’” this warble by Henri, a rather
feeble attempt to be gay.
“Maybe you won’t go home at all,” was the gloomy expression of opinion
by Billy.
“I wonder if the sergeant has missed us yet?” Henri was wondering.
The ground was shaking and then a sound as though the earth was being
hammered with ten thousand clubs in as many giant hands.
In the early dawn the Allies were charging the German entrenchments.
The howitzers thundered; battle cries and commands resounded.
The Allies’ forces whirled by and on both sides of the underground
shelter where the boys were crouching.
With the clash of arms behind them Billy and Henri clambered out of the
hole and spurted for dear life and safety.
When the troopers came back from the fight, the sergeant, with heavy
stride, came to the wagon into which the boys had crawled.
“Come out of there,” he commanded.
The boys instantly obeyed and in sheepish manner presented themselves
to the severely erect soldier.
“You’ll be buried without the benefit of a preacher if you try another
trick like that.” This was all the sergeant said, but he looked
daggers.