The Movie Boys
Under Uncle Sam
OR
Taking Pictures for the Army
BY
VICTOR APPLETON
_Author of “The Movie Boys in the Jungle,” “The
Movie Boys Under Fire,” “The Movie
Boys and the Flood,” etc._
[Illustration]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
1926
THE FAMOUS MOVIE BOYS
SERIES
BY
VICTOR APPLETON
_See back of book for list of titles_
COPYRIGHT, 1919, 1926, BY
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I DANGEROUS WORK 1
II TO THE RESCUE 10
III A NARROW ESCAPE 23
IV DECEIVING THE ENEMY 33
V CHEATING THE EYE 41
VI DEATH FROM THE SKY 52
VII CHARGING WITH THE TANKS 61
VIII A CLOSE CALL 70
IX AN EXCITING STRUGGLE 79
X CHRISTOPHER CUTLER PIPER TURNS UP 86
XI THE STORM BREAKS 95
XII THE LOST FILMS 103
XIII A TEST OF PLUCK 112
XIV SURPRISING THE ENEMY 118
XV A NIGHT OF JOLLITY 126
XVI THE TRAIL OF THE HUN 136
XVII WRECK AND RUIN 144
XVIII SWEEPING THROUGH THE SKY 152
XIX THE FALLING PLANE 158
XX SURROUNDED BY FOES 168
XXI PRISONERS OF THE HUNS 175
XXII THE STRUGGLE IN THE CAPTAIN’S ROOM 181
XXIII A PERILOUS SITUATION 193
XXIV PUTTING IT OVER 200
XXV THE LOST FILMS--CONCLUSION 205
THE MOVIE BOYS UNDER UNCLE SAM
CHAPTER I
DANGEROUS WORK
“This sure is hot work!” exclaimed Blake Stewart, as he rose to his
feet and brushed off his clothes.
“That’s what,” agreed his friend and partner, Joe Duncan, who likewise
had thrown himself to the ground when a shell had landed and burst
within a few yards of him. “I’ve barked my shins so often that I’ll
have a case of housemaid’s knee if this keeps up.”
“My eardrums got a dose when that last shell exploded,” remarked their
lanky understudy and assistant, Charlie Anderson. “But we’re still
alive and kicking and that’s something.”
“Especially kicking,” grinned Blake, as he turned once more to the
faithful camera with which the group were taking moving pictures of
a German bombardment. “Lucky that some of that shrapnel didn’t smash
this.”
“It might be good dope to get into a little safer position,” suggested
Joe. “Those Huns are switching their fire over this way, and we’ve
had more shells drop around here in the last five minutes than we had
before all the morning. Let’s shift to that shell hole over to the
left.”
Blake cast an eye in the direction indicated.
“It might be a little safer,” he admitted, “but I’m afraid that part of
the action would be shut off by that clump of trees. Better stick it
out here a little while longer. We haven’t had such a chance for a long
time and I hate to lose it.”
“All right,” agreed Joe cheerfully, for, like his partner, he was game,
and would have gone through fire and water to get a good picture.
“A fellow ought to have as many lives as a cat when he sets put to do
this kind of work,” grumbled Charlie.
“Quit your grouching,” laughed Blake. “You know you wouldn’t miss this
for a farm. Think of the sensation this picture will make when it’s
shown. Some day you’ll be sitting in a darkened theater seeing this
thing unreeled, and you’ll pat yourself on the back and say proudly: ‘I
helped to take that picture.’”
“Maybe,” assented Charlie grudgingly. “And then again when these are
shown, I may be lying in a nice little box six feet under ground.”
“Well, you’ll be over all your troubles then,” Blake was beginning to
say, when Joe Duncan interrupted.
“Look at that!” he cried excitedly. “I could see the shell leaving the
gun that time!”
“Easy there,” returned Blake. “Your eyesight isn’t quite as good as
all that, Joe. What you saw was the bunch of wadding that followed the
shell. The film got it anyway, and it looks enough like a shell to
make most people believe it is one. But we’ll put the right caption on
it, for there isn’t going to be any fake in this series of films. It’s
going to be the real thing.”
“Right you are,” agreed Joe. “We sure don’t need any faking in pictures
like these. All the reels have to do is to tell the story just as it
is, and they’ll make a tremendous hit.”
It was a hot day in early September, and the position of the sun
indicated that it was almost noon. Ordinarily the boys would have had
some shelter from the fierce rays that beat down upon them, for they
were standing just within the edge of what nature had meant to be a
forest, and at this early stage of autumn the trees would have been in
full foliage.
But it was a forest no longer. Shot and shell had ploughed through
it until every vestige of twig and leaf had been torn away. Even the
bark had been stripped from the trunks, and the trees stood there in
ghastly whiteness, like so many ghosts watching over a valley of the
dead.
And there were plenty of dead to watch over, for all that morning
there had been fierce fighting and the ground was thickly covered with
motionless figures.
The American forces for some days past had been in hot pursuit of the
Germans, who were making their way back to the Rhine. But that day the
enemy had made a stand and put up a bitter resistance. They had taken
up their position at the top of a hill, and there they had planted
their artillery, which all the morning had been searching the American
lines in a tremendous cannonade.
The Yankee guns had replied with a fire equally intense, and it was
this spirited artillery duel that the young moving picture operators
had been fixing on their films.
Suddenly there was a lull in the action and the boys looked at each
other inquiringly.
“Seems to be a slowing down,” commented Joe.
“And about time,” grunted Charlie. “I didn’t know there were as many
shells in the world as they’ve been firing this morning.”
“It isn’t because they’re out of ammunition, you can bet,” remarked
Blake. “Not on our side, anyway. Trust Uncle Sam to keep his boys well
supplied. We do things in millions in this war.”
“Right you are in that!” ejaculated Charlie Anderson vehemently.
“Perhaps they’ve slowed down to cool off the guns,” suggested Joe.
“I should think they’d be red hot by this time,” Charlie observed. “And
maybe those gunners aren’t doing some sweating! They’re stripped to the
waist.”
“I think the real reason is that there’s something else in the wind,”
said Blake. “Perhaps our boys are going to charge. They may figure out
that by this time the artillery fire has beaten down the enemy’s wires
so that our men can go up and clean out the trenches.”
“Good guess, old man!” cried Joe, as a long file of khaki-clad soldiers
emerged from the American lines and started up the hill. “There they go
now. Great! Bully boys! Oh, how I wish I were with them!”
“Now the guns are opening up again!” exclaimed Blake. “They’re laying
down a barrage in front of the boys.”
It was a sight that might well have stirred the pulse of anyone not
dead to all emotion. Up the hill, wave upon wave, went the American
boys, over the shell-ploughed ground, clambering over the trunks of
fallen trees, skirting the edge of open craters, sometimes stumbling,
but always advancing. Before them went a wall of fire laid down by
their own gunners to screen their advance.
But now the enemy’s guns opened up again with redoubled fury. Lanes
were made in the charging lines. Men threw up their hands and fell
until the ground was dotted with crumpled figures. Their places were
taken at once by others, and the long lines went on and on until they
burst like a storm upon the enemy’s trenches at the crest of the hill.
Then there was fighting such as the boys had not yet seen in the war.
The Germans, forced from their trenches, came out into the open in
swarms, and their gray uniforms mingled in a terrific struggle with the
khaki of the American troops. The guns stopped, as each side was afraid
of firing into its own men. It became a fierce, hand-to-hand contest.
There was little rifle fire also, for the men had resorted to the
bayonet, jabbing, hacking, stabbing, at times using the gun butt as
well as the point. Against the sky line on the ridge the view from
below was perfect, and the boys were fairly dancing with excitement as
the film clicked off the story of the fight.
“Our fellows will win!” cried Blake. “The Huns can’t stand before our
bayonets. When it comes to hand-to-hand fighting it’s all over with
Fritz.”
“That’s right,” agreed Joe. “There’s no one in the world that can stand
before our boys at close quarters.”
“The Boches are bringing up reinforcements though,” said Charlie
anxiously. “Look at that bunch in gray coming down on their flank.”
“But there goes a new wave of our fellows up the hill,” put in Joe
excitedly. “They’ll even it up all right.”
It was not to be an easy victory, however, for the Germans fought with
the fury of desperation. It was a critical point in their line of
defence, and they had been ordered to hold it at any cost. Crack troops
that had been held in reserve were hurried up to meet the American
onslaught. But the Yankee boys’ blood was up and they were not to be
denied.
For half an hour the fight continued, and then a rousing cheer ran
along the American lines. The ridge was taken, the trenches were
cleared, and the beaten enemy had fallen back to his second line of
defense.
“Hurrah!” yelled Blake wildly. “I knew they’d do it.”
“They’re the stuff!” shouted Joe. “Oh, boy, how they did put it over
them!”
“And these are the greenhorns they said were going to break and run as
soon as they caught sight of a Prussian uniform,” exulted Charlie.
“They run all right,” grinned Blake, “but you’ll notice they run toward
the Huns instead of away from them. It’s Fritz who’s getting exercise
in running toward the Rhine.”
“We hear a lot of German arms,
But, oh, those German legs!”
chanted Joe.
“There go the guns again!” exclaimed Blake.
Now that the hand-to-hand fighting was over, the German artillery had
again opened up, and a perfect hail of shot and shell tore over the
ridge that the Americans had captured and down the slope into the
further lines.
“Look there!” exclaimed Joe suddenly, as he pointed to a spot halfway
up the hill.
The others looked in the direction he indicated and saw a wounded
soldier trying to crawl back toward them.
“Poor fellow,” broke out Charlie sympathetically. “He seems to be
pretty badly hurt, and the shells are falling all around him. But the
ambulances will be along pretty soon.”
“Ambulances nothing!” cried Blake. “Charlie, you stay here and take
care of this film. I’m going out to bring that fellow in. What do you
say, Joe? Are you game?”
“Am I?” replied Joe. “That’s my middle name. I’m with you, old man.
Come along.”
A moment later, with their blood on fire, the chums were on their way
up that hill of death.