PLUCK
“I GOT a objection to quittin’ any o’ me buddies.” Jennings was always
the first to announce an opinion and it ever rang true.
“Sho! Me, too. I’ll stick t’ him, if all the rest leave!” Gill
exclaimed vehemently, loyal beyond measure to the man he loved to
banter.
“Lieutenant Richards and I feel the same way,” Herbert said, “but
we want to do what is the best not only for ourselves, but for our
country. If we stick here, we’ll likely stay forever; if we try to
break through tonight some of us may be successful and can go on
helping to lick the Huns. Perhaps, though----”
“Let’s all stick,” Farnham suggested. “We can do just as much here.
Even if they get us, we can get a lot of them and the fewer Heinies
there are, the sooner they’ll get what’s coming to them.”
“You bet, Lieutenant, they won’t get us without we do up a lot more of
them!” Kelly declared.
“It seems to be the general desire, Herb, to stick,” Don said.
“Stick we will, then. Back to the mines!” Herbert turned to the rock
basin. “Wilson, better set up that Browning again. Corporal, detail
two men to fix up some comfortable beds out here on the ridge and four
others to make a couple of rough litters to carry these wounded men.
We’ve got to get them out of here. Don--you’re a doctor’s son--can you
see what these fellows need and look after them a little?”
“Sure. They all have first aid kits. I’ll pick out those who are the
least hurt and get them to looking after the others. Corporal, I’ll be
one to fix up a hospital. Who--? Gerhardt? Come on, then, young fellow;
we’ll have these poor chaps comfortable as possible in a jiffy.”
But one of the wounded Germans was far gone, with a bullet evidently
through the bottom of his right lung. He was coughing blood and slowly
bleeding to death. Another was terribly ill from a shot through the
abdomen; eventually he would die. Of the other seven one was blinded,
another had a part of his jaw shot away, the rest had injuries to legs,
arms, shoulders, a hip. And one was a medical student, which fact he
made known to Don in mixed German and bad English, the former of which
the boy understood a little, or guessed at it.
The student was genuinely grateful for the care that Don insisted that
the wounded men must have and for the help in getting his own shoulder
bandaged. Then, beneath an improvised cabin of poles, with thatched
roof of spruce boughs, the embryo surgeon went to work with one hand.
Jennings, meanwhile, somewhat against his will, had made a trip to
the spring run and refilled the water bucket for the wounded foes and
returned to fill the empty canteens of the squad.
“Didn’t see nary Jerry on the way,” he announched. “Reckon we got ’em
scared off.”
“Sho! You’ll find out about ’em bein’ scared a bit later. Trouble with
you is your swelled head,” Gill asserted.
“I’ll swell your head with my foot if you don’t go away from me!” the
big mountaineer threatened.
“If you sling your old hoof this a-way, I’ll jest bite it off,” Gill
chuckled.
The two went on working side by side, still further strengthening
the defenses. Presently they were seen, with arms over each other’s
shoulders and carrying their beloved rifles, sitting on the stone wall,
swapping experiences about shooting deer and bear.
During the rapid work about the stronghold, Lieutenant Whitcomb had
gone out on picket duty, choosing the valley side of the hill. The
corporal was on the hillside above. The orders then to the squad
were that all who could must get some sleep before morning. The food
had been exhausted, but the boys, though ravenously hungry, made no
complaint. Some coarse rye bread, found in the Kits of the dead Huns,
did not go very far nor give much satisfaction. Into the shelters
several of the boys went and to sleep almost immediately; others
were too wakeful to think of closing their eyes. Jennings and Gill,
questioned as to their need of rest, declared they were too empty to
sleep and being used to long night vigils when hunting, they preferred
to chat awhile.
“Ever go on a coon hunt, son?” Jennings asked Kelly. The latter had
never experienced that pleasure.
“Me, I’ve been coon hunting three nights straight an’ follered the plow
all day between,” Gill said.
“Huh! Four nights straight fer me,” was Jennings’ boast.
“Sho! ’Course you’d lie to beat the world’s record for stayin’ up. Jen,
listen: I’m an awful good liar myself, but you make me jealous.”
“Fact, you runt! Four nights. Me an’ my brother Ben. You knowed Ben an’
you kin ask him.”
“Now? Where is he?”
“Back home; when you go back----”
“Mebbe I won’t, so I better do it now, only my holler’s a little wore
out tryin’ to talk sense into you and I reckon Ben wouldn’t hear me
’bout four thousand miles.” Then the two went on bantering over some
trifling incident.
Herbert moved slowly across to where the German wounded were ensconced
and was accosted by Don as the latter was leaving.
“I suppose human nature doesn’t differ much the world over,” Don said.
“Those poor chaps in there are a queer lot, nevertheless. Some of them
seem grateful for what I was trying to do for them; one of them caught
and tried to kiss my hand. Another, who is very bad, kept talking to
me and when I held my torch and stooped over to say something that he
might understand for sympathy, I’m hanged if he didn’t reach up and try
to strike me and he spit at me, too, like an angry cat. It made the
young surgeon so mad that he slapped the fellow’s face; then apologized
to me most profusely. And the string of German talk--ugh! I’ll never
want to hear a word of it again when I get back home.”
“You won’t ever hear much of it, I’m thinking,” said Herbert.
“Why, do you think we’re not going to get out?”
“I was meaning that the language is going to be very unpopular at home
for a long while.”
“How about Professor Meyer at school?”
“Just before I left I heard that he had left; was fired. They traced
some propaganda to him, and other things.”
“Hurrah for old Brighton!” Don said.
“And may we enjoy her bright halls once more, Don.”
“Amen! But it’s a toss-up; eh, Herb?”
“It must be getting near morning now. Have you had any sleep?”
“No; I don’t need it. I couldn’t go to sleep. But how about you? I’ll
take this watch and you can go up and turn----”
“Listen! Firing. Away to the south.”
“Southeast, too. Must be all along the line. And more and more. Herb,
is it a _barrage_?”
“What else could it be? Is another drive on--the one that was soon to
come off? Oh, Don, if it is, there’s a chance for us. If it is not,
then before long----”
“I know it’s serious, old man, and I guess you and the corporal see it
clearer than the rest of us. But--it’s a _barrage_ in full force and
the drive will follow.”
“Look! It’s getting gray over yonder; morning. Let’s go up and get
the fellows awake and in their places. If the Heinies are chased back
again, and they will be, some of them may want to stop on the way and
take another fling at us. I wish we had more ammunition; there are
barely fifty cartridges left to each man. I have about seventy, but I
must have been a little more careful.”
“Slower and surer, Herb. I tried to follow your example. There are
about seventy in my box; poor McNabb’s. How about pistol ammunition?”
“Plenty, I guess, Don. We must fall back on that at close quarters. Oh,
hear the music of that cannonade!”
“I hope they don’t drop any long ones over on us, Herb.”
“They won’t. The barrage is not much good in the woods, nor are shells.
East of the Aire in the more open country, you know, it’s different.
What we hear in the south is the Hun machine guns and our rifle fire.
Our divisions are attacking again in force all along the line. The boys
are at it, Don; they’re at it and they’ll get here!”
The young commander’s joy and enthusiasm were shared by all the others
of the squad except Jennings.
“Lieutenant, we’re havin’ a right good time here, ain’t we? Nobody hurt
much, except McNabb, and laws! most ev’ry year some feller gets killed
even huntin’ deer. Some fool takes him fer a ol’ buck an’ lets fly.
Well, me an’ Gill, my buddy, we’re havin’ a little fun makin’ these
here Huns wish they’d stayed home an’ if----”
“Sho! You talk for yourself, Jen,” Gill said, for the first time
deserting his friend. “I told you, Lieutenant, that the big boob wasn’t
right; he’s got bog mud in his head ’stead o’ brains. Thinks he can
lick the whole German Army.”
“I kin, too, if they’ll give me a chanct t’ hunt a tree an’ then come
at me one at a time in front,” asserted Jennings.
“You couldn’t lick a postage stamp if it was sick a-bed,” Gill
muttered, evidently angry because the big mountaineer didn’t seem to
know good news from bad.
There was no levity in Gill’s manner nor speech and the others appeared
to share his feelings, though Jennings’ statements generally caused
a laugh. However joyful the squad may have felt over the resounding
evidence of a new drive, they all sensed that the final hour or so
before their probable delivery must hold for them the question of
survival. They knew that their leader’s foreboding was correct; they
would be furiously attacked by some of the re-established Huns, and in
greater numbers than before, for then men had been needed to hold the
line elsewhere.
Therefore, it was a quiet and serious lot of young fellows that looked
to their weapons and lay behind the rocks of the little basin as the
continued sound of firing came slowly nearer and nearer.