BETWEEN THE LINES
The Army boys looked at each other in blank inquiry, but the corporal
did not offer to enlighten them, and they were too good soldiers to ask
questions when orders were given.
"What do you suppose is in the wind now?" asked Bart, as they made their
way to their sleeping quarters.
"Search me," replied Frank.
"Aeroplanes," chirped Billy.
Bart made a thrust at him which Billy dodged.
"I guess we're picked for a scouting party," remarked Tom. "The captain
may want to confirm some of the information he's getting from those
chaps."
"Information!" snorted Bart. "More likely misinformation. Those fellows
struck me as being dandy liars."
"They wouldn't be Huns if they weren't," remarked Billy. "You know Baron
Munchausen came from over the Rhine, so they come rightly by their
talent in that line. But what's the matter with Tony here?" he added, as
they passed by one of the field kitchens in a protected nook, where one
of the bakers was kneading away desperately at some dough and muttering
volubly to himself.
"He seems all riled up about something, for a fact," commented Frank.
"What's the matter, Tony?" inquired Bart of the perspiring baker, an
Italian who had spent some years in the United States and who was
generally liked by the boys of the old Thirty-seventh because of his
customary good nature and his skill in compounding their favorite
dishes.
Tony looked up in despair.
"I can't maka de dough," he complained. "I worka more dan hour. It lika
de sand. It getta my goat."
The boys laughed at his woe-begone face.
"Put some more water with it," suggested Billy at a venture.
Tony looked at him with such a glare of contempt that the amateur baker
wilted.
"I usa de water!" he exclaimed. "Plent water! No maka de stick."
"It looks all right," remarked Frank, as he picked up some of the
substance on the kneading board and let it dribble through his fingers,
"but as Tony says, it's like so much sand."
"And it tastes queer," said Billy, putting a bit of it on his tongue.
"Looks as though some of the food profiteers were trying to put
something over on us," observed Tom.
Just then one of the commissary men came along, evidently looking for
something.
"There's a bag of trench foot powder missing," he said. "Have any of you
chaps seen anything of it?"
"Not guilty," returned Bart. "Though the way my feet feel it wouldn't do
them a bit of harm to have some of that powder on them right now."
A sudden light dawned upon Frank.
"Say, Tony!" he exclaimed, "let's see the bag you got that flour from."
Tony complied and brought forth from one of his receptacles a large
paper bag which was two thirds full.
Frank seized it and turned it around to see what was stamped on the
other side. Then he almost dropped the bag in a wild fit of hilarity.
"No wonder Tony couldn't make his dough!" he exclaimed, when he could
speak. "Some chump in the supply department has handed him out a bag of
foot powder when he asked for flour."
He showed the others the marking on the bag, and their merriment equaled
his own, while Tony alternately glowered and grinned. He had begun to
think that somebody had cast on him the "evil eye," so dreaded by his
countrymen, and he was relieved to find that his plight was due to
natural causes. Yet the thought of all that wasted effort stirred him to
resentment.
"That's one on you, Tony, old boy!" chuckled Billy, with a poke in the
ribs.
"It's lucky the dough wouldn't stick," laughed Frank. "There wouldn't
have been much nourishment in that kind of bread."
"Dat guy a bonehead," asserted Tony, as he scraped his board with vigor.
"A vera beeg bonehead."
The boys assented and passed on laughing.
"And now for grub!" exclaimed Billy. "Oh, boy, maybe it won't taste
good!"
"I guess we've earned our breakfast, all right," said Bart.
"I can stand a whole lot of filling up," observed Tom. "Talk about
exercise before breakfast to get you an appetite. We've sure had enough
of it this morning."
"I never ran so fast in my life," declared Billy. "A Marathon runner
would have had nothing on me."
"We must have covered the space between those trenches in about twenty
seconds," agreed Bart.
"Well, as long as we weren't running in the wrong direction it was all
right," grinned Tom.
"The Boches haven't seen our backs yet, and here's hoping it will be
some time before they'll have that treat," said Frank with a laugh.
They ate like famished wolves and then threw themselves on their bunks
to get a long sleep in preparation for the strenuous night that lay
before them. And so used had they already become to roaring of cannon
and whining of bullets and shrieking of shells, that, although the din
was almost incessant all through that day, it bothered them not at all.
It was nearly dusk when the corporal passed along, giving them a shake
that roused them from their slumbers and brought them out of their bunks
in a hurry.
"Time to get up, boys," said the corporal. "Not that we're going to
start out right away. But we've got quite a job before us and I want you
to have plenty of time to think over your instructions and have them
sink in."
They dressed quickly and after a hearty supper reported to Wilson at
their company headquarters.
They found the corporal grave and preoccupied.
"As I suppose you fellows have already guessed," he began, "we're going
to-night on a scouting party. We're to find out the condition of the
wire in front of that third trench that the Huns still hold, and we want
to get more exact information about the location of the enemy's machine
guns. Anything else we find out will be welcome, but those are the main
things.
"It's going to be pretty risky work," he continued. "Not but what
there's always plenty of risk about a job of this kind, but to-night
there's more than usual. The fierce fighting to-day has got the enemy
all stirred up and he'll be on the alert. Likely enough he'll have
scouting parties of his own out, and we may run across them in the dark.
Then it will be a question of who is the quicker with knife or bayonet.
Now you boys scatter and get your crawling suits and hoods and masks,
and we'll be ready for business.
"I can see that there'll be no monotony in our young lives to-night,"
observed Frank to Bart, as they obeyed instructions.
"Not that you can notice," agreed Bart. "The corp has quite a little
program marked out for us."
"So it seems."
"And No Man's Land is going to be a little rougher land to-night than it
ever was before," predicted Tom. "That mine explosion hasn't done a
thing to it."
"All the better," chimed in Billy. "There'll be better places to hide in
when Fritz throws up his star shells. But let's get a hustle on or the
corp will be after us."
They got into their "crawling suits," so named because they were used
only on scouting duty, when it was necessary to move over the earth on
their stomachs or at best on hands and knees. They were a dead black in
color, and in addition to the suit itself comprised a black mask and
hood. The hood was loose and shapeless, so as to avoid the sharp outline
that would have been afforded if it were tight-fitting.
Dressed in this fashion and lying prone and motionless on the ground
whenever a star shell threw its greenish radiance over the field, the
scouts were reasonably safe from detection and sniping. They would seem,
if seen at all, to be just so many more objects added to the hundreds
that littered up the ground between the two armies.
Since they had been in France, the boys had had special training in
scouting duty, and the one thing that had been drilled into them perhaps
more than anything else was the necessity for "playing dead," as Tom
expressed it. One of their exercises compelled them to lie on the ground
absolutely motionless for an hour. Not even a muscle could twitch
without bringing a reprimand from their keen-eyed instructor. Another
part of the drill made them take half an hour merely to rise to their
feet from a prostrate position, each move in the process being marked by
the utmost caution. It was hard drill, but necessary, and in time the
boys had gained a control over their muscles that would have done credit
to an Apache Indian.
In a few minutes they were fully arrayed in their crawling suits and
reported to Corporal Wilson. He looked them over carefully and noted
with satisfaction that nothing that was essential to the success of
their night foray was lacking.
"With a fair share of luck we'll bring home the bacon," he remarked, as
he led the way from the trench.
At the start there was no special caution necessary, as would have been
the case the day before. For the two trenches in front of them that had
been occupied by the enemy were now in the possession of the United
States troops.
All that day, since the mine explosion had given the signal for attack
and storm, the Germans who had been driven from their first two lines of
trenches had made desperate efforts to get them back. There had been
fierce counter attacks, many times repeated, but through them all the
Americans had stood like a rock and thrown the enemy back without
yielding a foot of the conquered ground.
At nightfall the enemy had ceased his infantry attacks, although the big
guns on both sides, like angry mastiffs, kept growling at each other.
"It's been a great day for our fellows," exulted Frank, as they picked
their way through the welter of debris that bore testimony to the
violence of the fighting.
"It sure has," agreed Bart.
"We've got there with both feet," remarked Tom.
"And in both trenches," chimed in Billy.
"Yes," said Frank. "I'm glad we didn't stop at the first one. The mine
caught the Boches napping there and stood them on their heads. But in
the second it was an out and out stand up fight, man to man, and we
licked them."
"And licked them good," asserted Billy. "I guess they won't do any more
sneering at the Yankees after this day's work."
They passed the place where Bart had so nearly met his death through the
treacherous attack of his captive.
"Here's where you nearly went West," remarked Tom.
"Don't talk of it," objected Bart with a grimace. "It makes the chills
creep over me to think of it. I could stand being knifed in a square
fight, but I'd hate to get it the way that fellow meant that I should."
"One of the Frenchmen was telling me of something like that that
happened at Verdun," said Frank. 'Two Frenchmen were carrying a wounded
German officer on a stretcher to the hospital. The officer got out his
revolver and shot the first stretcher bearer dead."
"That's gratitude for you," remarked Bart. "Something like another
German in a hospital, who pretended he wanted to shake hands with the
Red Cross nurse who was tending him, and then with a sudden snap broke
her wrist."
"You hear it said sometimes," said Billy, "that 'the only good Indian is
a dead Indian.' That's always sounded a little tough on poor Lo. But if
the Huns keep on the way they are going, it won't be long before all the
world will be saying that the only good German is a dead one."
"I'm beginning to say it already," replied Tom.
They passed stretcher bearers carrying away the wounded, and burial
parties engaged in a business still more sad. There was plenty for them
to do, for death and wounds had come to many that day, which had been
the most strenuous for the United States troops since they had come to
the fighting line.
That many of their regiment had fallen and still more been wounded the
boys knew well, although the full toll of their losses would not be
known until the next day. But the enemy had lost still more, and a large
number of prisoners were in American hands. They had taken two trenches
on a wide front, and that night American boys were eating their suppers
in the dugouts where Germans had breakfasted in the morning. It had been
a dashing attack with a successful result, and Uncle Sam had reason to
be proud of his nephews.
"One more step on the road to the Rhine," exulted Frank, voicing the
thought that stirred them all.
"Right you are," replied Bart "It's a long, long road, but we'll get
there."
"Do you remember what old Peterson said just before we left for France?"
queried Tom. "'The United States has put her hand to the plow and she
won't turn back.'"
"Good old Peterson!" remarked Billy. "He was a dandy scrapper himself in
the old days when he wore the blue. I'll bet he's rooting for us every
day."
"Sure he is," agreed Frank. "Everybody in the old firm is."
"Reddy's rooting the hardest of them all," laughed Bart, referring to
the red-headed office boy. "Do you remember how excited the little
rascal got when the old Thirty-seventh went past? He almost tumbled out
of the window. And how he cheered!"
"He's got the right stuff in him," said Tom. "Do you know, I shouldn't
be a bit surprised to see that kid turn up here some time."
"You're dreaming," replied Bart.
"You wait and see," prophesied Tom. "When any one wants a thing hard
enough he usually gets it. He'll ship as cabin boy or something of the
kind and some day, when we're least expecting it, Reddy will pop up
here. Watch my hunch."
"How scared the Huns would be if they knew that Reddy was coming to
clean them up," mocked Tom.
"He might account for some of them at that," remarked Billy. "A bullet
from Reddy's gun would go as fast and hit as hard as any other. You know
what David did to Goliath."
By this time they had passed the second captured trench and were facing
the enemy's trench about three hundred yards away. Their talk ceased or
died down to whispers.
Before them stretched the desolate waste of No Man's Land, pitted with
shell holes, blasted and seared by the pitiless storm of fire that had
swept it all that day.
Once it had been fertile and beautiful. Now it was withered and hideous.
It was a grim commentary on the war that had been as ruthless toward
nature as it had been toward man.
"Now, boys," said the corporal in a low voice, "you know what we've got
to do. Keep together as much as you can and--Drop!"
The last command came out like a shot, and was caused by a star shell
that rose from the opposing trench and burst in a flood of greenish
light.
Had they been standing, it would have revealed them clearly, but at
their leader's word they had dropped instantly to the ground, where they
lay motionless until the light died away.
Then they rose and like so many shadows moved cautiously forward, with a
motion more like drifting than walking, their ears alert, their eyes
strained, their hearts beating fast with excitement.