UNDER FIRE
Ahead of them was a small wooded ridge and towards this they made their
way. The field was littered with corpses and it was necessary to
exercise great care to prevent stepping on the dead bodies.
A few moments later the eleven soldiers reached the ridge and there
came up with their battalion; at least what was left of it, for it had
suffered heavily during the charge. The three boys were very glad
indeed to rejoin their company and were soon in their accustomed places.
"We're pretty well protected here," remarked Earl when they were in the
abandoned German trench under the shelter of the ridge.
"Yes," agreed Jacques. "Those scrubby little pine trees hide us from
the sight of the German observation posts. Their artillery won't
bother us much here."
"We don't want it to," said Leon grimly. "It has done enough of that
already."
"And it will do a whole lot more," added Jacques.
As he finished speaking the order to advance came and once more the
troops moved on. They followed the zig-zag course of the German trench
they occupied. It was filled with dead soldiers for it was through
this trench that the Germans had tried to rush reinforcements when the
attack started. The French guns, however, had had the range and
inflicted cruel losses on their opponents.
"This trench leads right over the top of the ridge," remarked Jacques.
"Wait until we get there and we'll catch it."
"Not if we stay in the trench," objected Leon.
"But I don't think we will."
"Do you know for sure?"
"No, I don't, but I imagine we'll have a chance in the open again."
His guess proved to be correct. Arriving at the summit of the hill the
battalion halted. The men were formed in sections about fifty yards
apart.
"What's the idea?" asked Earl.
"When we leave the trench each section will charge in Indian file,"
answered Jacques. "Instead of being abreast we'll be one behind
another. In that way we'll offer a much smaller target."
"True enough," exclaimed Earl. "That's a great scheme."
A moment later the order came. The soldiers debouched from the trench
and in long lines advanced down the hill. From the German positions
the French formation gave more or less the impression of one man every
fifty yards charging at them.
Almost immediately, however, their appearance was greeted by a storm of
shot and shell. Guns of all caliber belched their deadly missiles at
the charging French. The attackers quickened their pace and breaking
into a run, raced down the hill.
At the bottom of the incline were numberless great pits blasted out of
the ground by the prodigious explosions. Into these the attackers dove
pell-mell and a halt was called for a few moments' rest.
Leon, Jacques and Earl found themselves in one of these, along with
five other men of their company.
"Look at those two big howitzers," exclaimed Leon pointing to two big
German guns lying half-imbedded in the earth.
"Where are the men to attend to them?" queried Earl.
"Ask our gunners," advised Jacques grimly. "Perhaps they can tell you."
"What do you mean?" demanded Earl somewhat puzzled by this remark.
"Simply this," said the young Frenchman. "One or two of our big shells
made direct hits on this battery and the gunners are not in existence
anymore."
"I see," said Earl simply.
As these eight soldiers sat in the pit and waited, their spirits began
to rise and they seemed to forget the horrors they had been through and
their present danger. They even began to make jokes and laugh over
certain incidents of the fight. The thing that amused them most was
the recollection of the German prisoners shuffling off with their hands
in their pockets to keep up their trousers. One of the men had even
had time to pick one German's pocket of a package of cigarettes.
He passed them around with great glee and soon every one was smoking
except Earl, Leon and Jacques. They had never acquired the habit and
knowing that they were better off without it had no desire to start.
Their main desire was to keep themselves in perfect physical trim.
As they sat there talking the shells flew over their heads in a steady
stream. In the great crater, however, they were comparatively safe
unless some stray shell should chance to land directly in the hollow
where they were seated.
"And if one ever does," exclaimed Jacques, "it's good-by to us."
"Why so?" demanded Earl. "In a hole as large as this we might get
nothing worse than a spattering of dirt."
"Yes," said Jacques, "but don't you know that there are probably
several thousand rounds of ammunition buried under here? If there
should happen to be an explosion, what do you think would happen to us?"
"Well there wouldn't be enough to make much of a fuss over, I guess,"
remarked Leon with a grim smile.
A man suddenly appeared on the rim of the pit and slid over the edge.
"Ho, Coudert," one of the soldiers greeted him.
"Got orders?" asked another.
"Yes," said Coudert who acted as order-bearer in the battalion.
The men crowded about him, eager to learn what their next move was to
be. Coudert spoke rapidly in French and Jacques translated his message
to Earl and Leon. The two young Americans spoke that language fairly
well but when it came to a question of orders they always had Jacques
interpret them if possible, so that there should be no mistake.
"We are to leave here," said Jacques, "and go on down to the bottom of
the hill where we are to dig shelters for ourselves. We cannot go
forward until our artillery has had a chance to do a little more
execution."
"Then we'll probably have to stay out all night," remarked Leon.
"I should not be surprised," said Jacques simply.
"That'll be nice," exclaimed Leon with a wry smile.
"Coudert says," continued Jacques, "that that trench we just left back
there on the hill is half full of reinforcements for us."
"We can use them," said Earl shortly.
"Ready," came the order, and with a final adjustment of his equipment
every man prepared himself for the dash that was to come.
The men scrambled up the sides of the giant crater. From the pits on
both sides of them the other sections were doing the same thing.
"Spread out," was the order. "Advance in open formation."
With several feet between them the French dashed down the hill. The
German machine-guns barked at them angrily and the spiteful crack of
the rifles could be heard now and then above the din of the cannonade.
Two hundred yards from the enemy's positions they flung themselves down
upon the ground and began digging furiously. Every man had a shovel in
his equipment and he made the dirt fly.
In an incredibly short time a parapet a little over a foot high was
thrown up and every man's knapsack was placed to keep the dirt in
position so that they were fairly safe against infantry and machine-gun
fire. This done, every soldier then began to dig a little individual
ditch for himself. Three feet deep and two feet wide and long enough
to lie down in they furnished excellent protection against anything but
a direct hit by one of the enemy's shells.
"Hello, Jacques," called Leon. "How do you feel?"
"Fine. Do you know our section didn't lose a man on the way down the
hill?"
"That so? Good for us."
"Where's Earl?"
"The other side of you, I think. Yell at him."
"Hey, Earl," called Jacques.
"Hello," came the answer. "What do you want?"
"I just wanted to know if you were all right."
"Surely. I don't see the point in these piles of dirt in between the
ditches though. It seems to me that the dirt would do more good in
front."
"We've got enough in front," said Jacques. "You'll see the use in that
dirt in between us if a shell should ever land squarely in one of the
ditches."
Scarcely had he spoken when a 105-millimeter shell dropped directly
into the ditch next to Earl's. It was occupied by a man named Dumont
and he, poor fellow, was blown to atoms. Earl, however, thanks to the
"dirt" he despised so much was untouched.
"Their fire is slackening," remarked Jacques.
"Yes," agreed Leon. "There seems to be only one battery firing at us
now."
"That shows how good our artillery is," said Jacques proudly. "That
one battery that's left would have been silenced long ago too if it
hadn't been hidden pretty well."
"How do you know it's hidden?"
"Because they'd have located it before this time if it wasn't."
The French aeroplanes which had been soaring overhead for a long time
now began to swoop lower. Evidently the aviators were searching for
the battery in question. A swift biplane swept past, barely two
hundred and fifty yards above the trenches. Amid a perfect storm of
shot it returned safely to its lines.
"Dig the trenches deeper," came the order.
"Hear that?" demanded Jacques. "That means we stay out here all night,
I guess."