AT GRIPS WITH DEATH
There was a series of clicks as the bayonets slipped in their sockets.
“In less than five minutes now!” muttered Tom.
Suddenly the great American guns opened up with a roar that sounded as
though the earth had split asunder. There was a deeper bass note than
usual that the Army Boys’ trained ears detected in an instant.
“Those must be the naval guns we’ve been hearing so much about,” said
Frank to Billy.
“That’s what,” replied Billy, “and they’re some guns, too. I hear that
they throw nearly a ton of metal a distance of sixteen miles. They’re
the biggest guns that have ever been used in battle, and they spell
hard luck for the Heinies.”
“I wonder how we’re going to get across this canal,” pondered Tom, as
they waited for the word to charge.
“Our engineers will have seen to that,” said Frank confidently. “Trust
those boys to be on the job. Maybe it will be rafts, maybe pontoons.
You remember how we got across the Meuse the other time. At the worst
we can swim it.”
But as it grew lighter with each succeeding minute, they saw that they
would not have to swim. During the night, the engineers had assembled
a string of barges which they had laid beside each other and covered
with planking. The work had been done under fire and the losses had
been heavy, but the engineers were of the same plucky type as those who
had dropped their picks and shovels and gone into the fight at Cambrai,
and those others who had helped Carey to stop the gap on the road to
Amiens. They had stuck to their job until their work was done, and
several such bridges were now ready for use at different points along
the American line.
“Stand ready,” came the command that thrilled the Army Boys from head
to foot.
“Charge!”
With a rousing cheer the line swept forward, and the greatest battle of
the war was on.
The American guns laid down a barrage, a veritable curtain of fire
that went before their men and kept lifting as the line advanced so as
not to kill their own men. The Americans were so eager to get forward
that this was an ever present danger, and many lives had been lost in
the earlier battles of the war from this cause. But now the men were
veterans, and while they were just as full of ardor and eagerness as
ever, they had learned not to throw their lives away by being over rash.
A hail of fire came from the German guns as the first detachments
reached the bridges and began to cross. Great lanes were torn in the
American ranks, but they closed up at once like the water in the wake
of a ship.
The tanks went first, and though the floating bridges swayed beneath
their weight they were soon safely on the other side of the canal.
After they had reached the bank, they halted for the infantry to come
up and form rank in the shelter of their armored sides. The bullets
rattled against them until the din was like that of a boiler factory.
Two of them were struck by monster shells that put them out of action,
but the majority of them came through the storm of fire without
material damage.
In the meantime, the first detachments of infantry had crossed the
bridges, although their losses were heavy and the planks of the bridge
were red. Some had been swept into the canal and the water was dotted
with bodies, some motionless, while others, who were only wounded,
sought to swim to the nearer shore or were rescued by American boats
that put out into the stream.
The old Thirty-seventh had been given the post of honor in their
section of the line and the Army Boys were in the first rank. A bullet
clipped off a lock of Billy’s hair just above the ear, and one had
pierced the sleeve of Frank’s arm, blistering the skin as it went along
as though it had been seared by a hot iron. But the lads were so full
of the spirit of the fight that they scarcely noticed these trifles
when they brought up breathless on the further side.
“So far so good,” gasped Frank, as he and his comrades halted to draw
breath in the shelter of a great tank.
“Talk about hundred yard dashes!” exclaimed Billy. “I’ll bet we came
near beating the record for crossing bridges.”
“I don’t know,” grinned Tom, as he took off his helmet to wipe his
forehead. “I think we beat it that time when we scurried over the
broken bridge like jack rabbits with the Uhlan cavalry only a dozen
jumps in the rear. But we’re lucky this time as we were then, and we’ve
come through with scarcely a scratch.”
“Knock wood,” warned Billy. “This is only the curtain raiser. The real
play is yet to come.”
In less than an hour, sufficient forces had crossed the bridges to
justify the officers in ordering an advance against the first line of
the enemy trenches that had been established just within the edge
of the forest. The trenches were heavily manned and bristled with
field and machine guns, while back of them in the grim and forbidding
forest stretched other lines of defense that the boys knew would cost
thousands of American lives to take. But the job was there and had to
be done. And they vowed in their hearts that it should be done.
The huge tanks lined up for the attack and got once more in action.
Into the woods they went, crushing down trees as though they were
pipe stems, lurching into and out of shell craters, tearing into the
barbed wire entanglements, plucking up the posts to which they were
fastened and opening huge gaps into which came pouring the long lines
of shouting, cheering men. Like an avalanche they struck the trenches,
and the Germans poured out to meet them.
The opposing lines swayed back and forth like gladiators in a death
grip. Then they broke up into hundreds of battling groups, a dozen men
here, twenty there, struggling with bayonets and rifle butts, hacking,
stabbing and at times throwing their empty guns aside and fighting with
knives and even with fists. It was the kind of close-in fighting in
which the Americans excelled and which they always sought when the plan
of battle made it possible.
Frank, Tom and Billy fought as closely in company as they could, and
many a blow had been warded off by one of the three from the others
that would otherwise have found its mark.
For a long time the battle seemed to be fairly even, for the Germans
fought with the fury of desperation and were constantly reinforced from
heavy divisions kept in reserve. Each side attached especial importance
to this first stage of the fight, because of the influence it might
have on the morale of their men. The side that lost in the first phase
of the battle would be depressed, while the side that won would be
correspondingly elated and strengthened in spirit for the struggles
that were yet to come.
But American blood and American fighting qualities were not to be
denied. Gradually the Germans were pressed back, but as they retreated
they kept up a stubborn resistance by means of machine gun nests posted
in every conceivable place, at every turn in the forest paths, in
clumps of bushes, in forks of trees. They made the Americans pay dearly
for every foot of ground that they gained.
But the Americans had learned by long experience not to advance in
mass formation against these messengers of death. They spread out in
units and in groups, worming their way through the bushes, seeking the
shelter of every rock and tree and shell hole.
In following up this method of fighting, the three Army Boys were
separated. Frank found himself in a shell hole alone. He peered over
the edge and could see nothing of Tom and Billy. He crouched low in the
hole, reloading his rifle. Then he took stock of his position.
About three hundred feet ahead of him was a machine gun nest that was
spitting bullets in a steady stream. It was sheltered by a barricade of
logs about four feet high. Behind this the German machine gunners were
snugly ensconced and seemed to defy capture. They kept slewing their
gun from side to side of the barricade so that it commanded the whole
front of the position, and their bullets went hissing over the open
space like so many snakes and quite as deadly.
Frank pondered as to what he should do and a wild thought came into
his mind. At least it would have seemed wild at the beginning of his
experience in the war. But he had taken so many risks and gotten away
with them that he had grown inclined to trust his luck.
He was going to put that particular machine gun out of business. But
how could he do it single-handed?
They could fire a hundred bullets to his one.
His keen eye studied the ground in front of him.
There were perhaps half a dozen shell holes between him and the
barricade. But they were too far apart for him to slip from one to
another without being seen. And to be seen in that bullet swept place
meant certain death.
But he also noted another thing. A heavy German field gun from a
distance of miles behind the lines was sending huge shells that were
falling with tolerable regularity in the space between him and the
barricade. Every minute or two, a shell would explode with a tremendous
roar, sending a volume of black smoke and tons of dirt into the air.
Here was the solution of Frank’s problem.
He measured the distance between him and the next shell hole, and
poised himself for a spring when the next shell should fall.
It came, and on the instant Frank was out of his hole and rushing
toward the next behind the screen of smoke and dirt. He dropped into it
and waited for the next shell. Several times this was repeated, until
at last Frank found himself in the last shell hole less than fifty feet
away from the barricade. This was his limit of possible shelter. The
rest of the way he must be in the open.
He crouched low in the hole, waiting for a favorable moment. Just at
that time bullets were whistling directly above his head. But he had
noted that the gunners were sweeping their gun about in a semicircle,
so as to command all portions of the open space, and he knew that in a
moment or two the line of fire would be on one side or the other of the
direct line that lay between him and the barricade.
How many men there might be in the machine gun crew he did not know.
There would surely be two, perhaps half a dozen. He did not greatly
care. In that moment of intense exaltation he would have fought a
regiment.
The bullets ceased to sing above his head. He peered cautiously above
the edge of the hole. The wicked looking muzzle of the machine gun was
pointing considerably to his left.
He leaped from the hole and raced for the barricade.
There was a startled shout and a frantic effort to slew the gun around.
The next instant Frank sprang high in the air, struck the topmost log
of the barricade with both feet and sent it tumbling down upon the
machine gun crew while he went down with it.