TO THE RESCUE
It was a perilous adventure on which the moving picture boys had
entered.
The German fire had increased in intensity, and now was sweeping the
woods with a perfect hail of destruction. Great shells were exploding
with thunderous roars, digging deep craters in the ground and sending
their missiles of death far and wide.
The boys knew that they were taking their lives in their hands by
venturing over that ground, but the appeal made to them by that wounded
figure was too strong for them to resist.
Moving swiftly, yet taking advantage of every shattered stump and
protecting rock as they advanced, they soon reached the injured soldier.
He saw them coming, and his face lighted up with gratitude as he
attempted to smile.
“Go back!” he gasped. “I guess they’ve done for me, but what’s the use
of you boys getting killed?”
“That’s all right, old fellow,” answered Blake, as he deftly slipped
his arms around the man’s shoulders. “Here, Joe, you take his feet and
we’ll try to get him into that nearest shell hole. We can give him
first aid there, and every minute counts.”
Joe did as his comrade directed, and they hurried the man to a deep
crater a little way down the hill. The shell that made it had heaped up
the dirt in the direction of the enemy, so that the edge overhung and
formed something like a shallow cave.
Under this projecting edge they laid their burden. There they were
comparatively safe unless a shell should chance to drop right into the
hole itself.
Blake quickly got out the surgical kit he always carried and brought
forth a roll of bandage. Joe, in the meantime, had been going over the
wounded man with his hands to see how badly he was hurt. A bullet had
ploughed through his scalp and blood had flowed freely from the gash,
but the boys, who in their various adventures had become fairly expert,
recognized that this was not a serious injury. It was only when Joe
felt the man’s left leg that he detected at once that it was broken.
“That’s where the Huns got me,” groaned the sufferer. “I guess I’ll go
on one leg now for the rest of my life.”
“Nothing like that,” said Blake cheerfully, for to him it seemed like
a simple fracture. “You’ll be trotting around as well as ever in six
weeks from now. Hand me some of those pieces of wood over there, Joe,
and we’ll make a splint.”
The bottom of the shell hole was covered with twigs and branches which
had been torn from the near-by trees by the bombardment, and they
soon improvised a rough splint, creditable enough for amateurs, that
held the broken bone in place. The man’s face went white during the
operation.
Blake unstrapped his water bottle and washed out the ragged wound in
the scalp. Then he bound it up with a surgical bandage.
“There you are,” he said briskly, when his task was finished and they
had placed the patient in as comfortable a position as the narrow
limits of the space permitted. “Now, just as soon as the ambulance
comes down the line, we’ll get you off to the hospital and they’ll
finish the job.”
“It must have been mighty tough, dragging that broken leg along,” said
Joe sympathetically.
“It wasn’t any fun,” agreed the soldier. “It was all-fired good of you
fellows to come after me. Another shell would likely have got me by
this time if you hadn’t. But you boys were taking an awful chance. What
regiment do you belong to?”
“We just don’t belong,” replied Blake with a smile. “We’re doing
special work for the War Department in taking moving pictures of
the fighting. My friend here is named Joe Duncan. My name is Blake
Stewart.”
“And mine is Tom Wentworth,” said the wounded man. “So you’re the
moving picture boys,” he continued, his eyes brightening with interest.
“I’ve heard about you from some of the others. They said you were as
plucky as they make ’em, and I’ve found out that’s true.”
“Oh, everybody here is taking risks,” said Blake modestly. “Look at
yourself, for instance. You got closer to the line of fire than we did.”
“It was pretty hot,” admitted Wentworth, “but I don’t know that it was
any worse than it was at Belleau Wood and Chateau-Thierry.”
“Were you there?” asked Joe eagerly, for he always felt a special
thrill when he heard the names of those places where the American
troops had covered themselves with glory.
“Very much there,” replied Wentworth with a faint smile. “So much there
that I thought I’d always stay there, under the ground if not on top of
it.”
“That was some scrap!” exclaimed Blake enthusiastically. “Two green
American regiments fighting six crack Prussian divisions and putting it
all over them.”
“It was lively work,” grinned Wentworth. “I remember when we first went
in. We met the French coming back and their officers told ours that
orders had been given to retreat. ‘Go back,’ they said, ‘the enemy’s
too strong.’ Our old colonel looked at them. ‘Go back?’ he blurted out.
‘Thunder! We’ve just got here.’”
The boys laughed.
“That’s real American talk,” chuckled Blake.
“American as she is spoke,” added Joe.
“You must have got some mighty good pictures this morning,” went on
Wentworth with interest, though a twinge in his broken leg contorted
his features as he spoke.
“You bet we did,” answered Blake enthusiastically. “Wasn’t it great
the way that bunch of doughboys went up the hill? Say, we’ll have the
people holding on to the arms of their seats when they see that film in
the States.”
“I knew the boys would take that crest if they could only get to the
top before the shells swept them away,” said Wentworth. “When it comes
to hack and stab, the Heinies aren’t in it with our boys. The cold
steel makes them squeal. They’re all right in a crowd, but we’ve got
their goat when it’s man to man.”
The shelling had died down somewhat while they were talking, and Joe,
who had thrust his head cautiously above the edge of the crater, gave a
sudden exclamation.
“Hullo!” he cried. “The whole regiment’s on the move! They’re swarming
out of the trenches like bees out of a hive. They must have ordered a
general advance.”
“We mustn’t miss that!” exclaimed Blake. “We’ve got to go along with
them. But first we’ll have to see that this man gets to the hospital.”
“Don’t bother about me,” said the wounded soldier. “You’ve done plenty
for me as it is. Our ambulances will be along soon and pick me up. You
boys just go along.”
“Not on your life, we won’t,” replied Blake. “The pictures can wait.”
“Here come some stretcher-bearers now,” observed Joe.
He jumped out of the hole, waving his hands to attract attention. A
group of men with litters came hurriedly toward him.
“Lend a hand here, fellows!” cried Joe. “We’ve got one of the boys here
with a messed-up head and a broken leg.”
It was but the work of a moment for willing hands to lift Tom Wentworth
out of the hole and arrange him comfortably.
“I’ll never forget the way you boys risked your life to save mine,” he
said gratefully, as the men grasped the handles of the stretcher and
prepared to start off with him.
“Nothing at all, old man,” answered Blake heartily.
“All in the day’s work,” smiled Joe.
“And now for a quick sneak back to the camera,” Blake remarked, when
the bearers with their burden had gone. “I hope that Charlie has been
right on the job. It’ll be too bad if he’s missed any of this fighting.”
“Let’s hope a bullet hasn’t keeled him over while we’ve been away,”
said Joe with some anxiety.
“Nothing like that,” answered Blake, as his quick eye caught sight of
their assistant.
“But he’s turning the crank with his left hand,” cried Joe in alarm. “I
wonder if anything could have happened to his right.”
They broke into a run.
Charlie saw them coming and a look of relief came into his eyes.
“So you’re back again safe and sound,” he cried. “I was afraid that
perhaps a shell had dropped into the hole and knocked you out.”
“We’re all right,” ejaculated Joe. “But how about yourself? Why are you
working left-handed? Did you get hurt?”
For answer, Charlie held up his right hand that was smeared with blood.
“Only a scratch,” he said. “A bullet grazed the back of my hand. Didn’t
break any bones, but I bled like a stuck pig. Didn’t have time to bind
it up or I’d have missed some of the picture, so I just kept plugging
along with the good old left.”
“Give me the crank,” commanded Blake, at the same time taking it from
his associate. “Joe, bind that hand up for him. Your nerve is all
right, Charlie, but I’d rather lose the picture than have you neglect
yourself. How about it, Joe? Is it a bad wound?”
“No, I guess not,” replied Joe, as he fixed a bandage around the
injured hand while Charlie involuntarily winced. “But it must hurt a
lot. Charlie will have to be a southpaw for a while, but that’s all.”
“I’m mighty glad it’s no worse,” said Blake in a tone of relief. “I’d
have felt partly responsible if it were, since I skipped the job and
left it to Charlie.”
“Say, it was the best thing you ever did,” broke in Charlie
enthusiastically. “I caught the whole action while you were making your
way toward that fellow and believe me it’s some sweet film. It’ll make
the chills go up and down the people’s spines when they get a squint at
it.”
“Well, now let’s be hiking along,” remarked Blake, as Joe completed his
work. “The regiment’s on the move and all the rest of the fighting will
be done on the other side of the hill. We’ll have a splendid view of it
there, too, so get a move on.”
They gathered up the camera and the tripod and hurried along in a line
parallel with the advancing troops.
The long slope was dotted now with stretcher parties hunting out the
wounded, in order that they might be taken to the first-aid dressing
stations, which were established in bomb-proof shelters a little way
back of the lines. Prisoners, too, were met coming back in swarms,
sullen and dejected for the most part, though on the faces of some
there was a look of relief that the ordeal of battle was over. Some
of the more slightly wounded had their arms about the necks of their
comrades for support as they staggered along.
Most of them seemed to be holding onto their trousers with both hands,
and Joe remarked on the strangeness of this.
“There’s a reason,” grinned Blake. “One of the fellows was telling
me about it last night. It seems that when they take a big raft of
prisoners like this the first thing they do when they round them up is
to cut their suspenders. Then they can’t run away, for their trousers
would slip down and trip them up. They’re so busy holding them up that
they don’t have time to think of anything else and it only takes a few
men to guard them.”
“Good idea,” laughed Joe. “It takes away from their dignity, but it
does the trick.”
The boys soon reached the top of the hill, and as they surmounted the
crest a simultaneous gasp came from all three at the sight that met
their eyes.
And while they are standing there, with their eyes shining and their
hearts beating like trip-hammers, it may be well for the sake of those
who have not read the preceding volumes of this series to tell who the
boys were, and sketch something of their lives and exploits up to the
time this story opens.
Blake Stewart and Joe Duncan were bright, stalwart American youths,
whose early years had been spent in the country. They were working
on adjacent farms when they came in contact with a moving picture
company that was staging some film scenes in the vicinity. They became
fascinated with the work, for which they seemed to be peculiarly
adapted, and the manager of the company, a Mr. Hadley, took a great
liking to the boys and gave them a place in his organization. They were
quick and ambitious and eager to learn, and it was not long before
they developed into skilled operators. Their experiences in New York
while they were learning the ins and outs of the business are told in
the first volume of the series, entitled: “The Movie Boys on Call”; or
“Filming the Perils of a Great City.”
Mr. Hadley soon learned that there was no danger so great as to daunt
the boys while in pursuit of a picture, and he was able to branch out
in a line of work from which many of his rivals shrank because of the
peril involved. The boys took pictures of the cowboys and Indians and
took big risks in filming a wreck off the Pacific Coast. They had many
hairbreadth escapes later on in jungle scenes with wild animals and in
regions where floods and volcanoes threatened them with death from one
day to the next. Few adventures were more fraught with peril than their
going down with a submarine, described in the eighth volume of the
series.
While they had been having these experiences, the United States had
been goaded into war with Germany because of the intolerable outrages
on her citizens. Blake and Joe were ardent patriots, and they eagerly
accepted a proposition to visit the battlefront in France and take
pictures of American war-like activities for the benefit of the
government. The difficulties they met in getting into the fighting
zone, their narrow escape from a submarine, the way they met and
checkmated the intrigues of a German spy, are told in the volume
preceding this, entitled: “The Movie Boys Under Fire”; or “The Search
for the Stolen Film.”
Now with their faithful assistant, Charlie Anderson--known familiarly
as “Mac,” a shortening of his nickname “Macaroni,” because of his long
and lanky shape, they had reached the very forefront of the American
army which had started on its victorious drive against the Germans.
As the boys reached the top of the hill, they saw coming toward them a
tremendous mass of gray-clad figures on the double quick. The Germans,
desperate at the loss of the hill, had hurried up reinforcements and
organized a fierce counter-attack in the resolve to sweep the Americans
from the hill. On came the ranks, wave upon wave, from as far back as
the boys could see.
“Gee whiz!” cried Joe. “It looks as though we were going to be attacked
by the whole German army!”
“Quick!” exclaimed Blake. “Set up that tripod and get the machine
going. We never had a chance like this, and we may never have it again.
Hustle now.”
On came the ranks as relentless as fate. The American guns had been
signaled, and they opened up a devastating fire that tore great holes
in the close-formed lines. But they closed up at once like water in the
wake of a ship and kept coming.
The camera now had been set up, and Joe was turning the crank with
apparent calm, although he had never been the prey to such intense
excitement.
Then, like a tidal wave, the Germans struck the American lines!
The impact was tremendous, but the Americans were ready for them and
the attack beat against granite.
Back and forth the lines swayed like two great anacondas in mortal
combat. Men went down in heaps and the survivors fought over their
bodies. The lines broke up into struggling groups where resort was had
to the bayonet and gun butt. It was a battle to the death.
The boys had found a position a little to the right of the line,
where they commanded a view of the greater part of the fighting, and
Blake had just relieved Joe at the crank, when suddenly there was a
tremendous explosion, the earth beneath them opened, and tons of earth
and rock went hurtling toward the sky.
A great blackness came down on the moving picture boys like a blow and
for a time they knew no more.