THE KHAKI BOYS
OVER THE TOP
OR
_Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam_
By
CAPT. GORDON BATES
Author of "The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling"
"The Khaki Boys on the Way," "The
Khaki Boys at the Front," etc.
_ILLUSTRATED_
1919
THE KHAKI BOYS SERIES
By CAPT. GORDON BATES
THE KHAKI BOYS AT CAMP STERLING
or Training for the Big Fight in France
THE KHAKI BOYS ON THE WAY
or Doing Their Bit on Land and Sea
THE KHAKI BOYS AT THE FRONT
or Shoulder to Shoulder in the Trenches
THE KHAKI BOYS OVER THE TOP
or Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam
THE KHAKI BOYS FIGHTING TO WIN
or Smashing the German Lines
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, New York
* * * * *
THE KHAKI BOYS OVER THE TOP
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BLOWN BACK 1
II TO THE RESCUE 11
III SENT TO THE REAR 19
IV A DOUBLE LOSS 28
V WHAT'S TO BE DONE 38
VI GOOD NEWS 44
VII UNDER FIERCE FIRE 52
VIII THE OLD MILL 61
IX TRAPPED 70
X FALLING WALLS 78
XI A STRANGE RESCUE 88
XII MUCH WONDERING 98
XIII A PERILOUS JOURNEY 105
XIV THE SENTRY 113
XV IN THE BATTLE AGAIN 122
XVI HELD UP 133
XVII A BATTLE OF THE AIR 139
XVIII CAPTURED 146
XIX THREE PRISONERS 156
XX THE CAPTAIN AGAIN 163
XXI BACK WITH FRIENDS 176
XXII FIERCE FIGHTING 185
XXIII THE LONELY HUT 192
XXIV A GLORIOUS VICTORY 199
[Illustration: [Transcriber's note: original truncated] 'INTO
THE MIDST OF THE']
THE KHAKI BOYS OVER THE TOP
CHAPTER I
BLOWN BACK
"What's that, Schnitz?"
"What's what!"
"That noise. Sounds like a party coming along the communication
trench!"
The talk was in tense whispers, and the listening was now of the same
tenseness. Two khaki-clad Sammies stood on the alert in the muddy
ditch, dignified by the title, "trench," and tried to pierce the
darkness that was like a pall of black velvet over everything.
"Hear it?" inquired he who had first spoken.
"I somedings hears, too," spoke a guttural voice, with a foreign
accent. "Might not it perhaps be--"
"Cut that talk, Iggy!" sharply commanded the first speaker. "Do you
want the lieutenant dropping in on us!" And Corporal Robert Dalton
cautiously moved nearer his fellow non-com., Sergeant Franz Schnitzel.
"Yes, not so loud," advised Schnitzel, who, in spite of his Teutonic
name, was a thorough American, speaking with no trace of German
accent. "Don't forget that the Boches may have listening parties out
right in front of this trench, even though they may have information
that we're going to rush 'em just before dawn."
"But what is that noise?" went on Bob. "It sounds like the relief
coming, and yet we can't be going to be relieved so near the zero
hour. It's impossible."
"Him one big word is," sighed Iggy, trying to adjust his Polish tongue
to the strange language called English. "But thinks me nothing is like
him in dis war!"
"Nothing is like what?" asked Schnitzel, the talk now being reduced to
whispers on the part of all three.
"Him wot you said--repossible," said the Polish lad.
"Hush!" quickly exclaimed Bob, or Dal, as he was variously called by
his comrades. "There _is_ some one coming along the trench. If it's
the Boches--"
This was enough to cause all three to grip their rifles more tightly.
The sound of advancing footsteps, cautious as they were, was now more
audible. Then came a whispered, but sharp:
"Halt! Who goes there!"
"Our lieut's on the job!" commented Bob.
Tensely the three who stood shoulder to shoulder in the darkness of
the foremost trench, waiting, listened for the answer. It came, also
in a whisper, but it carried to their ears.
"Sergeant Blaise and Sergeant Barlow, ordered to report here to you,
sir."
"Oh golly! It's Blazes und Ruddy!" gasped Iggy.
"Cheese it!" cautioned Dal, for the Polish lad, in his enthusiasm,
had spoken above a whisper, and even slight sounds carried far on this
dark, still night.
"Advance, Sergeant Blaise to be recognized," came the order from the
sentry, evidently acting on advice from the lieutenant in command of
this part of the American trench.
There was a period of silent waiting on the part of the three
who stood so close together, and then they heard their immediate
commanding officer say:
"Pass on. You'll find your friends just beyond here."
A moment later the two newcomers were grasping hands in the dark with
the three waiting ones.
"The five Brothers are united again," said Roger Barlow in a low
voice.
"Sooner than I expected," commented Jimmy Blaise. "Now we can go over
the top together."
"Over the top, may we all go together, in the wind and the rain or
in damp, foggy weather," was Bob Dalton's contribution. He sometimes
"perpetrated verse," as he dubbed it--a reminder of his cub reporter
days.
"But say, Jimmy, how did you manage to get here?" asked Franz.
"Walked," was Jimmy Blaise's laconic answer. "They haven't had to
carry me on a stretcher--at least not lately."
"Oh, you know what I mean," said Franz. "I mean, did you ask to be
transferred from your station to this trench?"
"No, and that's the funny part of it," said Roger Barlow. "You know
after we wrote our letters to-night--or, rather last night, for it's
past twelve now--Blazes and I went back to our station."
"Yes, and we came here to wait for the zero signal," interpolated Dal.
"Well, we hadn't been out in our trench very long before we were
relieved, and told to report to Lieutenant Dobson here," resumed
Jimmy. "And when we remembered that this was where you three were
stationed, say, maybe we weren't glad!"
"We are of a gladness also much!" whispered the Polish lad, and there
was rather a pathetic note in his voice. "It is a goodness gracious to
have you here!"
"Say, you can do more things to the English language than the Boches
can on an air raid," chuckled Jimmy.
"Oh, well, it is of a much hardness to speak," sighed Iggy.
"Well, there's no fault to be found with your _fighting_, that's
sure!" declared Roger. "Put her there, old pal!" and he clasped hands
with his foreign "Brother."
"How's everything here?" asked Jimmy, when the five had taken such
easy positions as were available in the narrow trench.
"We're all ready for the zero hour," replied Bob. "Everybody's on
their tiptoes. I wish it was over--I mean here. This waiting is worse
than fighting."
"It sure is," commented Franz. "But it won't be long now."
"What time do you make it?" asked Bob.
"Must be quite some after three," said Jimmy in a low voice. "It was
nearly three when we got our orders to come here."
Roger took out a tiny pocket flash lamp, and, placing one finger over
the bulb so that no rays would escape, held the dim glow over his
wrist-watch.
"Quarter to four," he announced.
"Fifteen minutes more," sighed Dal.
"They'll seem like fifteen years, though, Bob," commented Jimmy.
A reaction, in the shape of silence, came upon the Khaki Boys--"five
Brothers" as they called themselves, for they had become that since
their participation in the World War. Tensely and quietly they waited
in the trench for the hands of time to move to the hour of four. This
was the "zero" period, when in a wave of men and steel, or lead and
high explosives, the Americans would go over the top, in an endeavor
to dislodge the Germans from a strong position.
Only a few hours before, after each had written a letter home, the
missives having been sent back of the lines to be posted, the five
lads had solemnly shaken hands at parting. The two sergeants--James
Blaise and Roger Barlow--went to a distant part of the intricate
trench system, while the two corporals, Robert Dalton and Ignace
Pulinski and Sergeant Franz Schnitzel were together in a ditch near
the middle of the barbed wire entanglements. And now, by a strange
turn of fate, they were all together again, waiting for the final word
that might send then all into eternity, or cause them to live horribly
misshapen.
Something of this seemed to be felt by the five Khaki Boys as they
stood in the mud and darkness waiting. For it had rained and the
trench was slimy on the bottom in spite of the "duck boards."
"I wonder where we'll be this time to-morrow," mused Bob in a low
voice.
"Oh, cut out the 'sob sister' stuff!" said Jimmy, a bit sharply.
"Isn't it gloomy enough here without that?"
They talked in the lowest whispers, and there were the murmurs of
whispers on either side of them, for their comrades up and down the
trenches felt the same strain, and relieved it by talking cautiously.
"I think we'll all be together again," said Roger, trying to speak
cheerfully. "Somehow I've got a feeling that we'll come out of this
all right."
"Me, I hat a dream," slowly remarked Iggy. "Of my dream I now know
only one cling--und dot is my face was all bloody!"
"Oh, for the love of Mike! Don't croak!" exclaimed Jimmy.
"Silence down there!" came a sharp command. Jimmy had spoken too
loudly, and the listening lieutenant had heard him.
Slowly the minutes dragged. Once again Roger carefully looked at his
watch.
"What time is it?" whispered Franz.
"Five minutes of."
"Great Scott! Is it only ten minutes since you looked before! It seems
like a lifetime. Whew! I'm all in a sweat!"
And yet the night was cool.
It was now as silent as death in the trench, and all about it. Earlier
in the night there had been distant shelling, but this had ceased some
time since.
Roger, unable to stand the strain longer, was about to flash his
little pocket electric torch again when suddenly the stillness of the
night was broken by a loud, shrill whistle.
"The signal!" cried Jimmy.
"The zero hour at last!" shrilled Roger in his tense excitement.
"Over the top!" yelled Bob. "Over the top!"
And just as the first streaks of the gray light of dawn began to
pierce the blackness, the five Brothers, and their comrades up and
down the trenches, leaped from their places of waiting with savage
yells, and started for the German lines.
"I am glad! I am glad!" sang Iggy. "Now I can of the fight have a
piece!"
He and Franz sprang out of the trench together. Side by side they
raced over the rough ground, through the gaps cut in the barbed wire.
A little in advance were Jimmy, Roger and Bob.
And now the big guns began their chorus. With boom and roar, roar and
boom they sang their anthem of death. The rattle of rifles came in as
a response, and all this was punctured by fiendish yells.
Then, too, from the German lines, came the answering song of the big
guns. Though the attack had taken them by surprise, they were not slow
in responding. With all that we think of the Boches we must give them
credit for being savage, if unfair, fighters. They seldom declined a
challenge, at least on the front lines.
"Come on! Come on!" yelled Jimmy.
"Up and at 'em! Up and at 'em!" snapped Roger.
"Wow! This is going to be some fight!" exulted Bob.
It was fast growing light, and the disappearing darkness was further
illuminated by the flashes from hundreds of guns. Lines of khaki-clad
Sammies were pouring from the American trenches now, in a mad rush for
the Hun positions.
"Well, we're together yet, anyhow," mused Jimmy, as, looking back, he
saw Bob, the Polish lad, and Franz coming on with a rush.
"Yes, we're together--yet," added Roger. They both had been firing
madly at the distant gray lines of German soldiers in front of them.
They had to yell into each other's ears to be heard above the din.
Suddenly the very earth seemed to drop away from under their feet.
They felt the shock of rushing air. A big, high-explosive shell had
dropped near them.
"That's bad!" shouted Jimmy, as the concussion died away. He looked
behind him and saw, with horror, Iggy, the Polish Brother, literally
being blown back through the air. Whether this was the effect of the
big shell that had exploded, or whether it was caused by a smaller one
going off a moment later, Jimmy could not tell. But he saw Iggy
hurtling through the air, and the face of the Polish lad was covered
with blood, as he himself had said it had been in his dream.