tewi'.-^ji'.vf^x^ ?•,} i GHTING WIT THE U.S. ARM :\PT. CHARLES A.BOTSFORRC! 7 Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2008 witin funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/figlitingwitliusarOObotsricli • • • » ' » »» » 3 1 3 »J 3 .9 > » . LET ME HAVE A LOOK FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY By Captain Charles A. B.otsford Canadian Expeditionary Force Author of ** Joining the Co lor s^^^ etc. Illustrations by Dons^ld S. Humphreys THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 1919 COPYRIGHT 1919 ^ Y THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY • • •• • • • • • • • • • ^* ••• Fighting With the U. S. Array Introduction In this present story, the second one of " The Victory Series," the author has endeavored to pre- sent without exaggeration a picture of conditions in England and France as they existed when the ad- vance divisions of the mighty American Army, that upon the President's decision poured with such amazing celerity in one unbroken stream across the Atlantic, made a brief and welcome halt on their way to a much longer sojourn in the training camps and trenches of our great sister republic. As in "Joining the Colors," the first of this series, the hicidents of this second story of " The Victory Series " are in no sense mere figments of the author's fancy. Every one of them actually happened, and the descriptions of the details also are as accurate as a fallible memory will permit. Since completing the story the writer has been asked: "Was Baptiste, the French Canadian, really killed in that raid? " and " Did * The Duke ' finally recover? " The answer to both questions is, " Yes." That trench away do^vn in Lorraine was, and is, the last resting place of the brave French M32071 INTRODUCTION Canadian; and " The Duke " is at this writing still flying in and for France. " In the Trenches," the third story of " The Vic- tory Series," and now in press, will tell of the fur- ther adventures of the Dale Academy boys in open and trench fighting, and Jack Morgan will be there with his " tank." Captain C. A. Botsford^ C. E. F. Ogdemburg, N. F. ; Contents I. Two Friends II. Jack Morgan . III. The Second in Command IV. The Special Idea V. The Depth Bombs VI. Zeebrugge VII. News from Home VIII. The Answer IX. Baptiste . X. The Gas Instructor XI. The Class XII. The Front XIII. The Salient XIV. The W^iggler . XV. The Listening Post . XVI. The Patrol XVII. The Colonel Agrees XVIII. The Raid . . . 9 26 43 61 76 89 ic6 121 133 152 162 184 204 221 237 258 279 ^93 Illustrations ** Let Me Have a Look " The Cross of the " Legion d'Honneur " Dover and Other Channel Ports , The Victoria Cross or " V. C." Zeebrugge — Harbor ** We Are to Wait for a Signal " " I'm All Right " . How Zeebrugge Harbor Was Blocked A French " Poilu " ... The ** Penguin " — or Training Plane He Straightened Up With a Snap . An American Gas-Mask . The Famous French " 75 " Artillery Attack on Earthworks (i) Artillery Attack on Earthworks (2) Diagram of Fire-Trench . Rifle Grenade — Often Called *' The Pippin *' Cross-Section of a Trench , Cross-Section of a Trench, Showing Dugout 7 PAGE Frontispiece 12 47 55 64 65 96 98 124 138 H5 178 188 192 194 211 213 229 245 ILLUSTRATIONS Trench Periscope 249 The Sap . . . . . v 254 The " Saw-Buck " 263 The Mills Bomb (Exterior) 268 The Mills Bomb (Section) . . , . , . 270 ** He*s Trying for a Landing" , . , , .301 Hand Grenade 308 Fighting With the U. S. Army 8, Fighting With the U. S. Army CHAPTER I TWO FRIENDS **Come one, come all, to spend your lives and gold, Come heroes, gentlemen, the hrave, the hold. To France!*' Private soldiers, hung with accoutrements like Christmas trees, bumped up against staff officers with never a salute nor " beg pardon, sir " ; porters ran about with valises, bags and packs; subalterns butted rudely into generals who merely smiled; for this was at Victoria railway station, that great dividing point for the khaki throng just up by train from the cross-Channel boat from Boulogne to Lon- don and points farther throughout the length and breadth of " Blighty." Everybody there had come to meet with eager welcome somebody else. Among the arrivals there were no broken men, for this train carried only soldiers on well-earned short-leave, after months spent in the inferno of the front-line trenches. On the platform were relatives and friends, each 9 FmWU^Q Jf^lTH: THE U. S. ARMT anxiously looking for his or her own especially be- loved one among those who scrambled promiscu- ously from the coaches. Towering head and shoul- ders above all the waiting throng that scrutinized each officer as he passed by was one who attracted attention even among that anxiously preoccupied multitude. One pensively pretty maiden, wearing on her sleeve the national badge of proud mourning, said eagerly to the sombrely gowned matron by her side: " Look, Mother, there's that American, the one we have read so much about lately in the papers! His picture has been in The Daily Mirror more than once." A young wife leaning fondly upon the arm of a lame officer asked: " Who is that distinguished-looking young of- ficer, Arthur? He is the tallest man I ever saw." The lame officer turned his glance from the pass- ing arrivals to the direction indicated by his wife. With a gleam of warm approval his eyes rested for a moment upon the tall youth in the uniform of a lieutenant of Canadian Infantry. " That must be Van Home, V. C, of the Ca- nadians. He is a young American who was per- sonally decorated by the King at Buckingham Palace only last week." 10 TWO FRIENDS " Have you ever met him? " asked his wife. " No, but I am sure that's the man. He has been described as the second tallest man in the B. E. F/ There is but one other soldier who is taller, a private in one of our Highland regiments; they say he is over eight feet tall. Besides, he is wearing the ribbon of the Victoria Cross on his coat. Do you not see it? " " Oh, yes," the lady replied, " I remember read- ing about it. The papers all said it was one of the finest and most unselfish things done since the war began. With a handful of men he captured a machine-gun emplacement, carried on his shoulders a wounded man all the way across No Man's Land under fire, and after he had reached the safety of his own trench, though wounded, he left it again to go to the rescue of an officer who lay dying out there in a shell hole. That was the young Amer- ican you meant, was it not, Arthur? " " Yes, it was a bit of all right, that," replied her husband in accents of keen admiration for the brave deed of a comrade-in-arms, an action the true significance and detail of which only one, who, like himself, had been there, could really appreciate. "And he * clicked ' another bullet the second time in the head," he added. " I do hope he is better of his hurts," the little * British Expeditionary Forces. II FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT wife said, looking up wistfully, though proudly, at her own soldier hero who would always be lame now. Lieutenant Van Home, V. C, rendered from long habit quite unconscious of the notice one of his magnificent physique must attract in any gath- ering, continued undisturbed his scrutiny of the line of Pullmans. He paid no attention to the happy laughing soldiers of various ranks who passed. From where he stood he could view over the heads of the crowd the whole length of the train. He had come down to Victoria that evening to meet his old friend and schoolmate of former days, Ralph Storm, now also a lieutenant of the Canadian Ex- peditionary Force, and who was in reality that very same soldier whom Van Home had carried to safety across No Man's Land amidst a hail of rifle and machine- gun bullets. Lieutenant Storm was return- ing to London on furlough after three months of continuous service in the trenches, during which he had sufficiently distinguished himself in the eyes of our gallant French allies to receive from them the decoration of the "" Legion d'Honneur" 12 The Cross of the "Le- gion d'Honneur" — the decoration worn by Ralph Storm. TWO FRIENDS In that repulse of the " flammenwerfer " attack, during which he had saved his friend's life when the latter had dropped in the middle of No Man's Land with a bullet in his knee, Rodman Van Home had himself been much more severely wounded than Storm. Although he was then fully recovered from his wounds he had not as yet been returned to France; but had been employed since his convales- cence on staff duty in London. He was anxious to meet Storm again, for there were many and serious thmgs that he wished to talk over with him; so his whole countenance brightened with a smile of great satisfaction when he at length perceived his friend emerging from one of the railway coaches. His lion-like head and massive shoulders loom- ing above the heads and shoulders of all others there, and waving aloft one of his great hands in signal to his friend, Van Home made his way irresistibly, yet gently, through the crowd that parted with smiling good humor for this eager young giant in khaki. They met like two big schoolboys, who greet one another for the first time after the long vacation. And after all they were really at heart but two big American prep-school boys, in spite of their sol- dierly bearing, smart uniforms, and fighting deco- rations. As their hands met in eager clasp, and their eyes 13 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT smiled into eyes that smiled again, they greeted each other simultaneously. "Hello, Ralph, old boy!" laughed Rod Van Home joyously. " Hello, Van, old top, how goes it? " cried Ralph. " I heard about it, and was awfully glad, old man," said Van Home, touching with the index finger of his left hand the ribbon of the " Legion d'Honneur" on the other's breast, while giving Storm's hand an additional gentle squeeze with his right that ordinarily would have caused the latter to jerk his suffering fingers away. Now, however, he merely retorted laughingly, while at the same time pointing to the ribbon of the Victoria Cross on his huge friend's coat: "And Father told me just the other day in Paris what a swell you were getting to be. Van. Calling on the King, and by special invitation, no less, at his royal palace of Buckingham! When you get time, old top, you must tell me how it feels to walk and talk with kings? I am just dying to know." "All right," smiled Van. " But let's go and get something to eat first. You must be good and hungry, and I'm nearly famished ; I have been wait- ing to have lunch with you." Had some stolid and respectable British civilian observed these two fine young officers pointing so gleefully at each other's military decorations, and 14 TWO FRIENDS overheard them thus merrily chaffing one another about them, he might well have thought that here were two American schoolboys, who thought it a huge joke to go down into the very jaws of death and emerge therefrom wearing as their due the badges of the highest award for acts of signal and unselfish personal valor. " Come on! " said Van Home, " let's duck out of this before the people around begin to think we're nutty!" Together they passed out through the gate, and there being a dearth of taxis in those days, they had to be satisfied with a " growler." ' " Claridge's ! " Van directed the driver, as he took his seat beside Storm in the ancient horse-drawn four-wheeler. " Claridge's?" echoed Storm interrogatively. "I say, Van ! I always knew there was nothing small about you, from your hands to your feet, both in- cluded. But there certainly is some class to 'Claridge's.'" " Well, you see," explained Van Home apolo- getically and with a little whimsical smile curling up the corners of his mouth, " it was just like this. You know, I'd never been in London before, and when I asked the Commandant at the hospital what hotel I had better stay at, he said that as I was 'Growler: London slang for cab. 15 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY about to be summoned to Buckingham Palace it would perhaps be as well for me to go there for a few days, even if it did come a bit high. Anyway, my pay and allowance almost cover my hotel ex- penses." "All right, your highness ! " laughed Ralph. " I suppose I can afford to stay with you there just about long enough to have a good look at the office clock." "Nonsense!" said his companion, just a trifle irritated by his friend's chaffing, " you are going to stay with me just as long as you are in town." As they drove along Storm began to look about him curiously, and there was a momentary silence between them. "What's the matter, Ralph?" Van Home, noticing the perplexed expression on his friend's countenance, at length demanded. " That's just the question I have been asking myself," replied Storm, " and the answer has but just now come to me. It's the darkened street lights, the small dim twinkling will-o'-the-wisp lamps of the cabs, and the shaded lights of the shop windows. You know, it was before the air raids when I was here last." " Yes, in that case I can readily believe how strange the appearance of the town must be to you," observed Van Home. " Since I came up i6 I TWO FRIENDS two weeks ago there has been but one raid. It was at night, and I knew nothing about it till next morning." " Great guns ! And you slept right through it ! " ejaculated Storm. " I am quite sure that I'd feel more nervous about bombs here than in the trenches, where we are more or less used to hearing explo- sions of one kind or another almost all the time." " Tell me, Ralph," queried Van curiously, chang- ing the subject, " about that bit of work for which you were decorated. I read the brief oflBcial ac- count of it; but you know how little real informa- tion there is in them. Tell me the whole story, Ralph." "Oh, pshaw! I can't tell you much about it. You know how it is yourself. A fellow taking part in one of those little shows cannot describe after- ward what took place half as well as some one who was merely looking on. You do things on the spur of the moment, scarcely realizing what you are doing, or remembering faintly the details of it afterward." " From the official notice which I clipped from one of the daily papers," observed Van, " I judged that your * little show,' as you call it, somewhat resembled that affair in which we were both wounded, about six months ago." " Not much! " replied his friend. " It was not 17 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT half so lively as that one. It was like it only in that it was another machine-gun mix-up. Our battalion, on the extreme British right, occupied a point of * liaison ' with the French. They had lost a minor position just on our right, and we jumped in to help them get it back again. We succeeded. I got an enemy machine gun myself, and got back without a scratch. And that's about all I can tell you about it." Ralph was quite sincere, and was not at all en- deavoring to assume an affectation of modesty. He was no exception; the best fighting men as a rule are those who can tell you least about the en- gagements in which they participated. The offi- cial Record Office report, however, which Van had clipped from the newspaper, read as follows: " By collecting all available men and charging the enemy Lieutenant Ralph Storm regained a lost position on our extreme right. On a second occa- sion when his platoon was suffering heavy casual- ties he rushed alone across the fire-swept ground and attacked a hostile gun crew with bombs before the gun could be got into action. He succeeded in killing the whole crew, and in bringing back the machine gun to our position. Lieutenant Storm is by birth an American." Before Van could question him further Storm himself captured the offensive. i8 TWO FRIENDS " Tell me about the performance at the Palace, Ralph. I'm not fooling. I really want to know. Although it is perhaps a bit previous to say any- thing about it, I have been told on pretty good authority that I am to be recommended for the M. C in Haig's next list, so I'd like to know how to perform, in case I too get a chance to line up with the rest of you fellows who walk and talk with kings." At his friend's half -mocking request, and the reminiscence which it called up. Van enjoyed a quiet chuckle. "'Performance' is good! That's what it was, all right, so far as I was concerned, at least. But I can't tell you much more about it than you can tell me about your * little show ' over there. I know I'd just as soon go over the top any day as to go through that * performance ' again." Van again interrupted himself with a hearty burst of laughter. Storm, knowing his friend's innate bashfulness on all such occasions, was able to appreciate the latter's present merriment, and smiled in sympathy, while at the same time he urged the other to proceed. " There must have been something very funny about it, to make you laugh like this. Van? " " I guess I was about the funniest thing there," * Military Cross. 19 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT said Lieutenant Van Home. " I felt like a big chump, and I know that I must have looked and acted like one. You made some personal remark, not in the best of good taste, I must say, about my large feet and hands just a few minutes ago, Raljjh. Well, that morning at Buckingham Palace I felt as if I were all feet and hands. " But here we are at Claridge's ! I'll tell you all about it some other time," broke off Van as the " growler " drew up before the great hotel entrance. The two young American officers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force took considerable time to make even their simple soldier toilets, so continuous was the rapid-fire exchange of question and answer. " There is one subject in particular that I want to talk over with you, Ralph," said Rod Van Home, pausing in the act of smoothing down his unruly top hair, his brush paused in momentary immobility above his head as if he were stiffly posing for some hair tonic advertisement. "And I think I laiow what that subject is," re- joined his friend, Ralph Storm, unfastening his leggings, preparatory to changhig from riding breeches to slacks for the rest of the evening. "What do you think it is, then, Mr. Mind- reader? " queried Van smilingly. " You're getting homesick," replied Ralph. "What do you mean?" demanded the other, 20 TWO FRIENDS dropping the hair-brush to his side, and turning from the mirror to face the speaker. " Simply this," smiled Storm, " now that the good old U. S. A. has more than a quarter of a million doughboys already in France and three times as many more on the way, you are getting lonesome to be among your own people again," " I guess you are right, Ralph," confessed Van Home, "but, besides the natural desire to be among our own fellows, which I am sure you too feel, I know that the United States has need of every one of her sons who is already a trained sol- dier, and she should have the first claim upon our services." " I thought so," returned his companion chaff- ingly; " I told Father the last time I saw him that I was as certain as I could ever be of anything that you would resign your commission in the C. E. F. as soon as you were finally discharged from hos- pital, in order to enlist as a private soldier in the army of Uncle Sam." "And you were quite correct, Ralph," Van re- joined gravely. " Last week I tendered my resignation as a Lieu- tenant of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, giv- ing my reasons therefor just as I have but now stated them to you. I am at present merely wait- ing to be officially notified of its acceptance." 21 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY "And how about yourself, Ralph? " "Well, dear old thing, knowmg just exactly what you would be about under the circumstances," returned Storm mockingly. "And also feeling that you should always have some level-headed friend handy in order to restrain you from again attacking the whole German army single-handed, I too put in my resignation last week, and gave precisely similar reasons for do- ing so." " Good old Ralph! " said " Big Van " softly, and with a pleased smile lighting up his whole strong, homely countenance. " I rather thought you would." "And what do you think, Van? " pursued Storm, " When I spoke to Father of my intentions, and what I thought yours would also be, he got busy at once, with the result that there is an appointment waiting for each of us in the good old United States Army as soon as we are free to accept them." " Dad says that they will be glad to have us," he continued. " But we shall have to be satisfied to act as in- structors for a while at least. They have as yet to depend almost altogether on French and British officers and N. C. O.'s * for instructors, and even at that cannot get enough of them, although our 'Non-commissioned officers — sergeants, etc. 22 TWO FRIENDS allies are letting them have all they can spare for the purpose." " That will suit me, Ralph, and I cannot thank you and your father enough, I am sure," rejoined Van heartily, and then he went on even more gravely: " I would rather instruct than fight, any day. You know, Ralph, I am by nature and at heart a pacifist, after all." "Ahem! Yes, I know," rejoined Storm without looking up from the shoe he was lacing. " And Uncle Sam wants just about five hundred thousand more pacifists of the same stamp as you are. If he had them he'd be in Berlin before Christmas." And then before Van could make reply he pro- ceeded: " Did you know that Father had been promoted? He's a lieutenant-colonel now." " No, I hadn't heard. But that is fine, Ralph. And I am sure that he well deserved the promo- tion." " Yes, I think so too, even if he is my dad," said Storm proudly. " He offered his services to Gen- eral Pershing as soon as the latter arrived in France; but the General thought that Father was doing such good service for the combined Allied Forces in connection with the Canadian Forestry 23 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT Corps that for the general good of all he had better stay where he was." For the benefit of our readers who are not al- ready conversant with the adventures of Lieu- tenants Van Home and Storm/ let us refer briefly to events occurring previous to the opening of the story. Less than a year before Rodman Van Home and Ralph Storm had been Seniors at a celebrated prep- school in one of the Eastern States. Lieutenant Storm's father, then Major Storm, was an officer in the Canadian Forestry Corps, organized for the purpose of converting the forests of France into lumber for army use. He paid a visit to the school to inform his son, Ralph, of the latter's appoint- ment to a lieutenancy in the Canadian Expedition- ary Force, and to take him back to Canada. This, of course, was before the United States entered the Great War. Rodman Van Home, who, in spite of his ex- traordinary stature and physical development, was by nature and home training averse to fighting of all kinds and under any circumstances, shared the same room with Ralph Storm at Dale Academy. From listening to the conversation of Major Storm he became so interested in the Great War that after the latter's departure from the Academy with his *See "Joining the Colors." 24 TJVO FRIENDS son he, too, resolved to take a trip up into Canada for the purpose of seeing for himself some of the war preparations there going on. The result of Van Home's trip was that while in the City of Toronto he became so convinced of the justice of the allied cause, and the urgent need for every man's utmost in this cause, that he enlisted as a private soldier in the C. E. F., in spite of his abhorrence of fighting and bloodshed — a repug- nance that bordered closely on cold-footed fear. All this, as we have just said above, happened be- fore that fateful day in April, 1917, when our great and good President declared war to the limit of force on Prussianism and all that it stood for. 25 CHAPTER II JACK MORGAN "Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra!'' (Do your duty, come what may!) Next morning Rod Van Home accompanied his friend to Canadian Headquarters, where the latter had to report his arrival in London on leave. After that they made their way to the United States Army and Navy Club, which was at that time located in a magnificent residence on Curzon Street, which a British nobleman had generously lent to the American officers for a home so long as the war lasted. In strange lands it is always a pleasant surprise to meet with, or even merely to see, people from one's own home. To afford mutual pleasure under such circumstances it is not even necessary that the persons interested should have been on former intimate terms of friendship, nor even of acquaint- ance. The mere fact of having known the same familiar things, and having the power to recall the same well-known incidents of ordinary past life, is a sufficient bond between them. 26 JACK MORGAN Just such a surprise and pleasure the two friends found in store for them at the Army and Navy Club. Lieutenant Van Home, during the period of his enforced stay in London, had formed the habit of dropping in there two or three times a week, in the forlorn hope that he might find among the young officers who already foregathered there in some numbers, some one whom he had formerly known at home; possibly some of the boys from his old school, Dale Academy. Although he had hitherto been disappointed in this hope, it was nevertheless always a pleasure to mingle with the alert and enthusiastic young fellows who made the Curzon Street Club a rendez- vous during their brief sojourns in the world's metropolis on their way to France, or who were over in " Blighty " on short furloughs from the American training camps already established in the country of the incomparable " poilu." Ralph Storm had never been at the Club before, but he eagerly accepted his friend's suggestion that they should visit it. As the former was in the act of paying and dismissing the driver who had piloted their " growler " to Curzon Street, Van's attention was attracted to a group of three young men in a taxi, which had just pulled up at the curb in the rear of the conveyance which he and Storm had 27 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT used. By their uniforms and the rank badges of their cuffs and shoulder-straps he knew them to be junior grade lieutenants of the United States Navy. Not at this first casual glance recognizing any one of the trio as a former acquaintance, he was about turning to accompany his friend into the Club, when one of the blue-coated naval officers cried boisterously: " Why, look who's here! If that is not big Rod Van Home, then my name's not Jack Mor- gan!" At the same time he advanced quickly toward Van, his right hand outstretched in greeting, and his flat face, brick-red from exposure to sun and sea winds, beaming with the sudden pleasure that he made no effort to conceal. Van wheeled on hearing his name thus familiarly used. "Why, Jack Morgan, can it be really you! Well, I surely am right glad to see you, old timer! And in uniform, too; that's fine!" "And here's old Ralph with me, too, Morgan," said Van, at length relinquishing the sailor's hand and drawing his attention to his companion. Storm then also shook hands warmly with the naval lieutenant; but it was quite evident that the latter's greeting to Storm was not so spontaneously 2^ JACK MORGAN hearty as it had been to Van Home. An old-boy of Dale Academy might have wondered at this, for it was not Ralph Storm, but Rodman Van Home, who had fought Jack Morgan, the erstwhile school bully, to a finish, down back of the old school pump- house. No recollection had they of the disagreeable things that had sometimes happened perforce in those dear old days at the Academy. As they mounted the club-house steps side by side only the never-to-be-forgotten happy incidents of their school life recurred to their memories. In a quiet bay-window of the reading room they drew up three comfortable chairs, so that they might sit knee to knee. Then for a long hour they chatted animatedly about the past, the present, and the future of all three. " I knew that you were here, Van, for I had read about you in the papers. And on one or two occa- sions when I was on shore I tried to locate you, but my time ashore was always very short, and I never succeeded," began Jack Morgan. " Morgan, have you had any news from the old school lately?" " No, I never wrote to anybody there after I left. You know, I was never very popular among the fellows," replied the naval junior lieutenant bluntly. 29 FIGHTING fFITH THE U. S. ARMT " I thought you might perhaps have run across some of the fellows somewhere, before you came over," said Storm. " Well, now that you remmd me of it, I did meet Jimmy Lawson, him we used to call * Shorty,' just about three weeks before I sailed. You remember him, I suppose? " " Remember Shorty Lawson? Well I should say we dol " ejaculated Storm. " Of course you would. Silly of me to ask that question, since it was he who refereed that scrap between you and me, Van^" grinned Morgan who, in spite of the fact that he had been soundly thrashed on that occasion, always looked back to it with evident pleasure, for it had proved a blessing in disguise to him, because his friendship with Van Home dated from that event. " When did you meet Shorty, Jack, and what was he doing? " "At the Grand Central Station in New York. He was on his way back to camp after a week-end leave." " Oh, so Shorty is in the army also? Which branch of the service is he in, Jack? " " He was wearing the uniform of a first lieu- tenant in the Field Artillery. He seemed right glad to see me in uniform, too," replied Morgan with a glow of pleasure at the recollection. 30 JACK MORGAN " He looked smaller than ever in his tight-fitting uniform; but as neat as a pin, and just as alert and smart as he always was." " I'll bet Shorty will make a rattling good artil- lery officer," chimed in Storm. " He was always a top-notcher in mathematics. Don't you think he will. Van?" " Yes, I am quite sure of it," rejoined the latter. " Shorty always did put his whole heart and soul into everything he took up. I hope that we may run across him sometime over in France, when we get our appointments in the United States Army, Ralph." ** Oh, and, by the way," pursued Morgan, " he told me that Dick Fletcher, the ' Duke,' you know, had failed to return to Dale Academy after the same Christmas vacation on which I left; and that even before the United States had entered the war the Duke had gone up to Canada, and had joined the British Royal Air Force at one of their newly established depots up there. " Shorty also told me that even at that time when he and I were talking in the Grand Central Station, the Duke was already flying in France." " Good old Duke ! I do hope we may meet him, too, some day." " How long have you been in the navy, Jack? " queried Van. 31 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr " I did not go back to the school the Christmas after you and Storm left,*' replied Morgan. " Be- fore the United States went into the war, you know, I owned a fast motor yacht, sixty-six feet long, thirteen feet beam, and drawing four feet of water. She is equipped with two-hundred horse-power en- gines. She has a speed of better than twenty-eight miles an hour, and possesses all the other govern- ment requisites for Naval Patrol work." " Motor engines were always a hobby of yours, Jack," commented Lieutenant Storm. " Yes, and you may remember also," continued Morgan, more particularly addressing Van, who had been sergeant-major of the cadet battalion at Dale Academy, " that I never had much use for soldiering; that is to say, the turning, and wheeling, and marching, and all that sort of stuff. So, after the President declared war and the draft law was enacted, I just thought that I had better make the best of a bad bargain, and get into the navy." "What do you mean by 'bad bargain'?" in- terrupted Storm sharply. " You are surely not of the opinion that we might better have kept out of this war?" "Well," responded Morgan, regarding his in- terrogator obstinately, and somewhat truculently, out of his small near-set eyes, " I think it might 32 JACK MORGAN have been just as well if we hadn't been forced into it, and I am not alone in that opinion among good citizens of the U. S. A., either." i " Jack Morgan, I am surprised at your speak- ing so," returned Storm hotly, for he was almost of as hasty a temper as Morgan himself. " Would you have American ships sunk without warning, Amer- ican subjects drowned without apology, as a matter of German right? " " No, and, as always, Ralph Storm, you are picking me up before I have fallen," retorted Mor- gan angrily. " What I mean to say is that I regret that the Germans in the third year of the war should have deliberately provoked America to de- clare war against them, not that under the circum- stances she was not right in doing so. " I am not one of your pacifists," he pursued, earnestly. " When Germany threw the Hinden- burg Line over the shores of America, and told us Americans that we could not cross it, I believe that it was up to us then to show them that the place for that line was not on the shores of America, nor on the Atlantic either, but on the Rhine." " Hear, hear! " murmured Van, and he added in a tone meant to be conciliatory, while he looked re- proachfully at his friend, Storm, for having ruffled the feelings of the irritable Morgan, " I am sure Jack's heart is in the right place, Ralph, even if he 33 FIGHTING WITH THE U, S. ARMT does not as yet view things from the same angle as you and I." " Have you been in France yet at all. Jack? " he then inquired. "No such luck!" growled Morgan, "and I'm heartily sick of the job I've had ever since crossing over here, and just about ready to throw it over- board." " It is a pity that you have not had an oppor- tunity to spend a little time with the boys in France. I believe that if you had, your opinions would change somewhat," said Van. " In what way? " demanded Morgan. " I think that you would then realize," replied Van Home, " that America came into this war be- cause she saw that it was a battle of honor against perfidy, of freedom against despotism, and because the peace which she desires can be obtained only by striking down the great enemy of peace, and not wholly for the selfish reasons you attribute to her, Jack." " Yes, Morgan," interposed Storm, " and I too feel sure that if you had a chance to use your eyes and ears in France, as we have had, you also would see the light, and begin to fight for gallant bleeding France because of the justice of her cause, and would realize that that cause is also the cause of the Allies, and of America." 34 JACK MORGAN " Haven't I just told you that I believe it is now our cause? What do you suppose I gave my little flivver to the Government for, and joined the navy myself? I am not yet of draft age, and was not obliged to join. I hope you fellows don't think that I'm in uniform because I was afraid of being forced into it? " " No one who knows you as well as we do. Jack, could doubt your courage for a minute, if that is what you mean," answered Lieutenant Van Home; " but what did you mean by saying just now that you were thinking of giving up your job? We know that you are no quitter. What's the trouble? " " Why, I think it ought to be great fun, with a lot of excitement thrown in, to be in command of a * flivver,' as the service calls the smaller class of patrol boats such as yours," said Storm in his turn. " Besides, the work they do is a very important one, and I am told that no destroyers that have ever been built keep the sea better than those same little flivvers that we have been sending over in such numbers." " Important, yes, there's no doubt of that, al- though thus far it has seemed to me like the work of a park policeman. As for excitement, there simply isn't any, unless you call it exciting to be always on the lookout for what never seems to 35 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT turn up. Spotting every object on the waves, from a chip to a whale, on the chance of seeing a peri- scope, is about as interesting as looking for a needle in a haystack," replied Morgan. " Why, do you Imow, fellows," he contmued, " in the whole three months that I have been chasing that flivver around in these European waters I have never even seen the trace of a U-boat, nor the sus- picion of a periscope. It's the fearful dreary monotony of it all that's getting on my nerves. I never had much patience, anyway, and I feel that I can't stand it any longer." " You astonish me. Jack," said Van. " Some- how or other I have always had the idea that you chaps were continually chasing in the wake of some one or the other of those yellow tin sharks." " Where in the world have you been stationed, and what have you been doing all this time, then? " queried Storm. " Until yesterday, when I was ordered back to England to dock for overhauling — though why there was any need for it I haven't the faintest idea — and to await further orders before putting to sea again, I was for two weeks loafing about the entrance to a French harbor — ^just loafing about, and never able to land because of orders — and that's the nearest I have been to France yet," grumbled Junior Naval Lieutenant John Morgan. 36 JACK MORGAN " Nevertheless you must have been stationed there for some definite purpose, Jack? " queried Van Home. " I was. I had orders to stick around and go to the rescue of any naval hydroplanes, if any of them should get into trouble while out scouting. Why, even my crew were fed up with the job, to a man!" " But you must have had some more exciting ex- periences than that? " laughed Lieutenant Storm. " Why, for three weeks previous to that," pro- tested Morgan, " I was leading a fleet of steam trawlers, skippered by old deep-sea fishing captains. We were stationed just outside of one of the Eng- lish harbors then, and it was our special duty to sweep up the waters for enemy's mines day after day, in order to make sure that the entrance to the harbor was always clear of them, and so rendered safe for shipping incoming and outgoing." " I should think that fishing for live mines would have been risky enough business to suit anybody. Wasn't that dangerous enough work to suit you? " asked Van. "Dangerous enough, yes!" replied Morgan, " but still more monotonous than the last job. And before that I was engaged on cross-channel convoy duty." " Well now, Morgan, I am sure that that at least 37 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT must have been interesting work," chuckled Storm, who, knowing of old that their former schoolmate was a chronic grumbler with a perennial grouch, rather enjoyed drawing him out. " Huh! " snorted Morgan, " it's easy to see that you don't know anything about it. The transports full of doughboys move across the ocean between a line of cruisers for all the world like a wedding procession — and almost as safe at that — coming down a church aisle escorted by the ushers. "At a certain appointed point of latitude and longitude over on this side we small fry of the mos- quito fleet go out and meet them. We salute and wigwag, and the big gray cruisers fade away like ghosts into the mists. At the same time, if you wanted to risk a crick in the back of your neck, you could look up and see some small specks flying about in the sky miles overhead; those would be the watching hydroplanes. They say that the higher up they are, the farther down into the water they can see." " That's certainly fine. Jack, and your descrip- tion is almost poetic," interrupted Van seriously. " I just wish that I might accompany you on one of those trips." "Poetic! Who, me?" ejaculated the sailor, eyeing the last speaker quizzically to see if he really meant what he was saying or not. Then being 38 JACK MORGAN satisfied that Van Home was not chaffing him, he resumed: "All right for the first time or so, maybe! But once the transports steam safely into harbor don't imagine that we also are allowed to tie up at the wharves for a bit of a change and pleasure ashore. No such luck! That's not on the program. We just nose out to sea again, and repeat the per- formance over and over, for the transports are ar- riving in a constant stream nowadays, you know. That's what makes it so all-fired monotonous." " I dare say that the constant repetition must pall upon one," acquiesced Ralph. " You would appreciate the truth of what I say about it if you could but make even one trip with me. I am sure that you would not then be sur- prised at my desire for a change. And, by the way, now that I have happened to think of it, why can't you two come out with me on my next trip ? " demanded Morgan warmly, and then continued: " There's no reason really why you should not, even if we are not supposed to take passengers aboard." " Do you really mean that, Jack, or are you just fooling? " queried Van. " I really mean it. I'd like very much to have both of you fellows come along with me," answered the young sailor. 39 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " I am not sure for the next two or three days just when I'll have to put to sea again, nor to what duty I may next be assigned; but I could let you know an hour or two ahead of time." " What do you say, Ralph? " queried Van Home. " I am sure that I'd just be delighted to go," an- swered the latter. " We'll have plenty of leisure time on our hands for the next few days, I expect." "All right then. That settles it. Where can I let you know when I have orders to sail? " de- manded Morgan. " We are staying at Claridge's," answered Lieu- tenant Van Home. " It will have to be on my next assignment or not at all," added Morgan, " for that in all prob- ability will be my very last trip." " Have you then actually made arrangements to leave the service? " questioned Storm in surprise. " I have formally applied for a transfer to the ' Tanks,' " answered the naval lieutenant obsti- nately, " and if my request is not allowed I have made up my mind to resign my commission out- right. I still possess that privilege, at any rate." " The tanks ? What tanks ? The United States have no tanks as yet, have they?" asked Van Home. " No, not yet; but they are building them," re- plied Morgan. 40 JACK MORGAN "And a detail of officers from our navy is about to be sent to one of the British training quarters for * Tanks,' to learn how to run them, and all about them. There ought to be some fun in running a tank over there in France." " There surely is," commented Storm dryly. " My platoon had occasion to work with one of them not more than three weeks ago. They are certainly some machines, now I can tell you." " But I am afraid they have turned down my application," pursued Morgan discontentedly. " That would be just like my luck. I have no one over here with any influence to put in a word for me, and there are a good many more fellows apply- ing than there are places on the detail. I put in my application over two weeks ago, and have heard nothing from it yet." " I say, Ralph, what's the matter with your writ- ing to your father, and asking him to put in a good word for Jack, since he has set his heart on making this change? " asked Van. " I could do that with pleasure, although I don't know whether it will do any good," acquiesced Storm. " I am sure it will," interposed the young sailor eagerly. "All that will be necessary to turn the trick, will be to have the attention of our Headquarters spe- 41 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT cially directed to my application ; there is no reason why they should not appoint me to the detail." "All right then, I'll write to Dad about it to- night." " That's awfully good of you, Ralph, and I shan't forget it," said Morgan, warmly grasping Storm's hand. " What's the matter with going for an omnibus ride? " interrupted Van Home. " This is too fine a day to stay inside, and we can talk just as well on the roof of a bus as in here." "Good idea!" agreed Morgan. "They go slowly enough to give a fellow a good chance to see the city, and take in the sights." " Where shall we go? " demanded Storm, rising, as did the other two. " Let's just take the first omnibus that comes along, and go to the end of the line," suggested Van. " We have loads of time." " Right oh ! " chorused the others. 42 CHAPTER III THE SECOND IN COMMAND *'For the wild North Sea, the hleak North Sea Threshes and seethes so endlessly.'* There followed days of waiting for Van and Ralph Storm, but they were far from eventless. For one of them the Germans chose for a cruel air raid on London, and the boys will never forget the horror of those hours during which a public school was bombed and helpless children killed and maimed. And on another day, as if in stern answer, came the arrival of the first American troops, their parade through London and their review by the King. Morgan joined the others, and the three friends were fortunately recognized by an officer who gave them a place near the reviewing party in front of Buckingham Palace. It was a glorious day. On their way back to Claridge's Hotel, the three stopped for lunch at a restaurant. There they fell to discussing further their proposed brief trip to sea. Morgan professed to be still discontented with 43 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT his lot. Had Van and Storm been left to form, from that yomig sailor's accomit alone, their opin- ion of the service being rendered by the mosquito fleet of American motor-boats and destroyers, they might have been pardoned for believing that the work of these boats was not very hazardous, and of little assistance in the maintenance of " The Free- dom of the Seas." To know, however, the real part that those small craft were playing against the nefarious form of submarine warfare that the enemy was waging, one would have had to do more even than merely dip into the log-books of some of the American des- troyers engaged on anti-submarine patrols. In one of those log-books, opposite a certain date, one might have read some such entry as this: " Shortly after dawn we engaged and sank by gun-fire an enemy U-boat. We rescued and took on board eight of her crew. She was of the latest type, armed with two six-inch guns, and had a crew of twenty-three." But to know what really happened you would have had to put to sea with the destroyer ; you would have had to feel the smack of the sea air off the foreland at dawn, as she crept around under the lee of the misty cliffs, her lookouts gazing unwink- ingly over the measureless waste of turbulent black waters. 44 THE SECOND IN tOMMAND To realize the anxious and arduous life that her crew were living from day to day, and taking all as merely a part of the day's work, with no thought of the unconscious heroism of it all, you must have gone down to wallow with them and with her in the cavernous troughs of the mountainous seas ; you must have heaved and tossed about and panted for air in the narrow confines of her cabin reeking with the stench of burning lamp-oil. And this you must have done while she buffeted her blind way through the darkness far from the friendly shore lights, un- able to distinguish anything anywhere, when all that you could do was to sit tight and pray for morning light and calm. And then to get to grips with the adventure and hazard of it all, when morning had scarcely yet dawned and the troubled sea had not yet wholly subsided, you must have been aboard her when she caught sight of the desperate enemy, and swung about just in time — and only just in time, to escape the torpedo that scraped her side. You must have felt the thrill of eternity weaken your spine when the staunch little boat turned then, and made to ram the sea-snake, and overrode the reptile as it dived. And finally to share in the moment of victory, that is the sufficient reward to her devoted crew for all they have endured, you must have been present on the deck of the plucky little destroyer when a 45 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT few moments later the submarine's reappearance was greeted with a salvo of shells from the vicious little six-inchers, and her crew began to scramble out along the iron hull, their hands above thejr heads and screaming for aid, ere the submarine plimged into the depths for her very last dive. And the whole night-long thrilling adventure would at last be sunmied up and dismissed in a bald and bare entry of two lines in the destroyer's log- book, as just above quoted. But this very willingness of the United States of America to lay aside for a time their natural ambi- tion to lead, that they might play the very strongest and most serviceable part in the titanic struggle then going on, indicated the trend of the new Amer- ican thought. The somnolent young giant among the nations had aroused himself from the easy self- satisfied contemplation of his own growth. The message that Jack Morgan had brought to Van Home and Storm at the hotel just before they went out to see the parade was that he was going to put to sea again that night sometime before mid- night. He had run up from Dover to London to see the parade, and to deliver this message in ac- cordance with the promise he had made them some days before, and to repeat the invitation he had then given the two lieutenants to accompany him. " There's something big on," he said as they 46 THE SECOND IN COMMAND hastily consumed their coffee and hot rolls at the restaurant. " Just what it is, I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to. All I know is, that a dozen or so other flivvers besides my own reported at Dover for overhauling about the same time, and have been laid up there for that purpose ever since. All of our engines have been especially tuned up. " To-day we all got the same notification. I know several of the officers in command of the other boats, and they all have the same brief notice; but none of them as yet knows any more than I do. " We have also all received orders to report for final instructions at seven o'clock this evening," he continued, " and it's altogether likely that after that we shall have to go aboard our several craft, and wait there for the signal to weigh anchor. So if you wish to come out on this trip you had better come down to Dover with me on the next train. Scale of Miles ^ (^ 2p 40 Ostcnd BELGIUM \ DOVEE AND OTHEE CHANNEL POETS " Somehow or other, I think that this is going to 47 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT be a bit more interesting than usual; I have a notion that it is some special convoy work, but I am not certain about it. ' In any case you will have to put up with a tedious wait of some hours at anchor in the harbor. But that can't be helped ; the waiting stuff is all part of the game," he concluded. " What's the next train for Dover? " asked Van, looking at his watch. " Three-fifteen," replied Morgan. " It's now nearly two o'clock, so we haven't much time to spare if you fellows wish to go to your hotel first." " What shall we bring with us? " asked Storm, rising from the table, as did the other two. " You'd better each bring a sweater to wear under your jackets," replied the sailor. " Both the Channel and the North Sea get pretty cold at night. "And you had better bring your water-proof coat, Van," he added. " I am afraid there is not an oilskin on board large enough to fit you, in case there should come on a blow before we get back." At Dover the three young officers boarded a navy launch, and were speedily conveyed out to where Morgan's trim little yacht lay at anchor in line with a number of other similar craft. There he made them acquainted with his second in command, a middle-aged sailor, Ned Harkness by name, who by the crossed anchors on his sleeve they knew to be 48 THE SECOND IN COMMAND a boatswain's mate. Then Morgan left his two companions, while he reported ashore for final orders and instructions. More than two hours elapsed ere the young lieu- tenant returned. That interval Van and Storm passed very agreeably in the company of the boat- swain's mate. Harkness was a very intelligent man. He had sailed out of nearly all ports of the world in his time. He knew ships from keel to masthead, from the stealthy submarine to the majestic super-dreadnought, and what was more, could talk interestingly about them all. They first of all accompanied him over the curi- ously camouflaged little motor-boat. Often Hark- ness patted affectionately some part of the little motor patrol with his horny palm, just as a lands- man might have caressed a horse or some other living, sentient pet that could feel the caress, as he did so making some such remark as: " She's a staunch little lady! " when praising her seagoing qualities; " She can show 'em a pretty pair o' heels ! " when speaking of her speed, or; " She has teeth too, the precious little vixen!"/ when displaying to the two friends her tiny arma- ment. ^ When Harkness uncovered reverently the slender rifled gun at the bow. Storm asked: 49 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " Who's your guiiner? " " I am," replied Harkness proudly. " I have worn the crossed cannons of a gunner's mate more than once m my tune; but I've had no chance to test this little barker yet. I suppose Lieutenant Morgan has explained to you how that happens. But it looks as if there might be something doing this trip, though." " What makes you think so? " asked Van. " For several reasons," answered Harkness. " For one, our old common shells were to-day exchanged for a supply of the new diving shells." " Diving shells? " queried Van; " I never heard of them before. Wliat are they? " " I'll just show you one," said Harkness, extract- ing one of the new shells from a locker. He then proceeded to point out a new feature on these shells, explaining how certain grooves or flanges caused the missile to sink into the water in- stead of ricocheting, or bounding, as the ordinary shell was most likely to do when fired at such a low-lying target as the submarine. " I've often known one of the common shells to travel more than a mile through the air after bound- ing from the surface, before hitting the water again," he added. " So you see what an improve- ment these new diving shells must be." 50 THE SECOND IN COMMAND " But don't you always aim at the periscope of a submarine? " queried Storm. " Not always," smiled the boatswain's mate. " You see the periscope's a mighty small target. Even if it is from eighteen to twenty feet high, it is for the most part only a five-inch pipe." " Have you ever sailed on a submarine, Ned? " asked Van. "Aye, that I have ! But it's not me that's hanker- ing for a berth on one again," replied Harkness significantly. "About how far can you see a ship through a periscope? " queried Van Home curiously. " That all depends on how far out of the water the periscope is sticking up. If it is just barely showing above the top of the water it could spot a battle cruiser a mile away, and if it were pretty nearly all the way up out of the water — say about sixteen feet of it — it could see her about five miles away." " So far as that? " ejaculated Ralph in surprised accents. " I had no idea that they could see any- thing like that distance. Had you, Van? " " No, that's a new one on me, too," replied Van as they started to follow Harkness aft to where the depth bombs were fastened to the stem. There the boatswain's mate explained the ap- paratus for carrying and discharging the depth 51 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT bombs. He pointed out the levers by pulling one by which a bomb could be instantly dropped into the sea astern. " Is there no danger of them exploding too soon, before your own boat has got far enough away from them? " asked Storm. " Not if you are careful," answered Harkness, " and have set them to explode at a proper depth." At the same time he pointed out to them the regulating device attached to the bombs, and ex- plained how this could be set to explode the bomb at any required depth below the surface. " I know that you need not necessarily make a direct hit with one of them in order to get results," observed Van. " But how close must you get to a submarine with one of those bombs to damage it effectively? " he asked. " Each one of them," replied Harkness, pointing to the bombs in question, " is loaded with two hun- dred pounds of * T. N. T.' ' — and they are the small size; the bigger boats carry much larger ones. Even at that, the force of their explosion under water is something enormous. It's good-night U-boat, if one of them explodes anywhere within a hundred feet of it." * Trinitrotoluol — high explosive. 52 THE SECOND IN COMMAND " Have you ever seen them used, Ned? " asked Storm eagerly. " Aye, sir, many a time! " replied the latter. " I was serving on a U. S. destroyer just before I was detailed to help Lieutenant Morgan aboard this tight little craft." " Would you mind telling us," pursued Ralph, " just how you set about attacking a subma- rine? " " Why, sir, we just goes at her head-on at full speed, a-firin' from the bow-chasers as we goes. If we don't hit her, and are a little distance away from her when she first sees us, she'll likely have plenty o' time to dive, for it takes one of them only about three minutes to disappear." " In that case we keeps right on and drops a bomb just over the spot where she went down, and then we turns, in case that was not enough, and cuts across the track in which she was heading when she dove, and watch for her trail of bubbles or oil along the surface to get a line on a likely spot to drop another bomb." As they were making their way aft again Van called the attention of the boatswain's mate to some unpainted boxes pierced witH many small holes, which were strung along the deck on both sides of the boat. " What are those for? " he demanded. " From 53 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT the way they are ventilated with holes one might think you had some kind of live stock in them." " They furnish another reason why I think there are to be some big doings to-night," answered Harkness. " Those are smoke-boxes," he continued. "They were brought aboard just to-day also. The boxes are filled with chemicals, and when they are thrown overboard the water rushes in through the holes, and then a heavy thick white smoke is produced. If enough of them are thrown overboard to leeward the ship — or, for that matter, a whole fleet — can be hidden just as if in a dense fog." " That's even better than our method of produc- ing a smoke-cloud from the trenches," commented Storm. " How do you soldiers make it, sir, if I might ask? " queried the boatswain's mate respectfully, in his turn. " We fill empty ammunition boxes with coal-dust, petrol and tallow. Then we push them over the top of the parapet when the wind is right, and set them off by means of fuses. " Then we have what we call * Fumite Candles ' too. They are made of cardboard tubes filled with the same kind of stuff as the smoke-boxes. We stick them up over the top of the parapet in groups of three, and light them with matches." 54 THE SECOND IN COMMAND Harkness then led them to the small cabin to show them the yacht's arsenal of small arms ; rifles with their long straight bayonets attached, re- volvers, and even some of the old-time cutlasses. These decorated all four of the walls. Our two friends, however, were not as interested in these as they had been in the little vessel's outside armament. There was nothing novel to them about the small- arms equipment. Before leaving the cabin Ned Harkness, who had at the very moment of Van Home's coming aboard noticed the ribbon of the V. C. on the breast of his coat, and had ever since been aching to ask about it, could restrain himself no longer, and blurted out in an apologetic tone, addressing the big American youth: " Pardon me, sir, but I noticed your decoration when you boarded us, and naturally I'm mighty proud to see an American wearing it, and I am curious about it too. I hopes as how you'll not think I'm makin' too bold, sir, but would you mind telling me a bit about it, sir? " Lieutenant Van Home smiled good-naturedly at the diffidently respectful, yet independent, manner in which this experienced Yankee sailor 55 The Victoria Ceoss or "V. C. The decoration worn by Van. FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ^RMT thus appealed to him and was about to reply, when Storm took the word from him, saying hastily: " I'll tell you about it, Ned. I know all about it, for it was partly in saving my life that he won it." Storm then launched forth into a glowing ac- count of the action in which Rodman Van Home, at that time only a sergeant-major in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, had won his commission as a lieutenant and the Victoria Cross at the same time, while his big friend, embarrassed, stood by and listened. Toward the last Storm particularly dwelt upon the grievous nature of the wounds which the big fellow had himself received on that occasion, and the wonder of his complete recovery therefrom at all. When he had at length concluded, the sailor gazed at Van with great admiration showing in his keen gray eyes, and said: "That was fine, sir, simply fine! I wish I'd been there to see it." "And ain't it simply wonderful, sir," pursued Harkness, " what a man can go through sometimes and still live to tell of it? A few of us had a turn last winter that I wouldn't have believed any man could pull through with his life, if I had not been one of the bunch." 56 THE SECOND IN COMMAND " Tell us about that, Ned," demanded Storm at once. " You don't know how those tales of the sea in- terest us soldiers. They are all so different from the things that happen to us." " There was nothing very exciting about it, sir. That is to say, about the part I had in mind when I made that remark just now. It was that matter of human endurance I was thinking about. " It happened in the North Sea last winter," Harkness continued. "As I think I have already told you, I was then serving as gunner's mate on one of Uncle Sam's destroyers. " For more than a week the weather had been as steadily cold as it ever gets in that cold North Sea, and you've said a mouthful when you've said that, I can tell you. Every vessel above the water-line was shrouded with a coat of white ice inches thick. " The night the convoy was attacked by the sub- marines was as black as the inside of a squaw's pocket. Just how many of the U-boats there were I don't know; but there must have been half a dozen at least. We of the protecting destroyers got into action as quickly as might be; but not be- fore one of the largest of the liners was twice tor- pedoed. She got 'em both at almost the same in- stant, one aft and the other amidships, and she went down like a stone. 57 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " Our skipper, a lieutenant of the Naval Reserve not much older than either of you gentlemen, I should say," continued Harkness with an involun- tary shiver at the recollection, " steamed right into the mess and switched on his search-light. Of course it showed us up against the night, and made us an easy mark for another torpedo. "And we got it; but not before we were right among the castaways of the liner. We could hear their voices out of the gloom, the voices of men whose blood was already thick with cold, as you might say. And then the next instant we was floundering in the ice-cold water among them, grop- ing and splashing about in the darkness with no sense of anything but to keep above water. " Other destroyers dashed to the rescue, their search-lights flashing as recklessly as ours had been. Their lights began to pick us out, but it was all a mere matter of chance, sir. The beams might sweep right in front of a man, and yet miss him altogether. " One of the rays flashed over me, and the end of a rope splashed in the water in front of me. I managed to get hold of it, and began to pull it to- ward me. It yielded, and I kept on pulling it to me hand over hand, thinking all the time that in the darkness the boat from which it led was drift- ing down upon me, you see." 58 THE SECOND IN COMMAND Ned Harlaiess paused, gulped with emotion at the recollection, and heaved a deep breath ere he proceeded: " Well, sir, you must imagine my feelings when, after fisting my way along that rope, all but ex- hausted I came to the end of it and found there was nothing there. The other end had not been made fast when it was thrown to me. " I had given up, and in despair had stretched my two hands up, still clinging to that end of rope, when again the light shone full upon me. A noose was neatly dropped over my hands and fell down beneath my arm-pits. Ahnost unconscious, but not quite, I was drawn on board a destroyer. " And would you believe it, gentlemen," pursued the boatswain's mate earnestly, " when I was pulled aboard I still clung to that rope, and they could not pry my hands open, so stiff was I with the cold. They had to cut off the end of the rope between my clenched fists, and it was more than an hour before they could remove it. "And others there were rescued in still worse case than I, others who had been in the freezing waters longer than I. Some were brought aboard as rigid as statues from head to heel, and clinging to bits of wreckage or life-belts from which they could not be separated till long afterward. Some were pulled out of the water all doubled up, too, and 59 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT could not be straightened out for an hour or more. "And yet, gentlemen, most of us thawed out and limbered up and got well again. That's why I say it's a marvel what a man can go through when he has to." In conversation like this, all of it most interesting, the moments sped. It seemed almost no time since Lieutenant Morgan had left them, ere the scrap- ing of a navy launch along the " flivver's " side an- nounced his return. And yet he had been gone for more than two hours. 60 CHAPTER ly THE SPECIAL IDEA **yi et armis," {By force and arms.) They knew by Jack Morgan's face, before he opened his mouth, that big business was afoot. His small eyes glistened with excitement, and a smile of great satisfaction, almost genial, curled his habitually close lips. Van Home and Storm were still engaged in animated conversation with Ned Harkness when the skipper of the little motor-patrol boat came aboard again. He beckoned them to the tiny cabin, into which he himself at once disappeared. As they entered it he was taking a folded docu- ment from the inside pocket of his coat. This he laid upon the small chart-table in the centre of the cabin. Then he removed his coat, pushed his cap far back upon his head, and as he drew a light canvas stool up to the table, he said, addressing his second in command : 6i FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT "At last, Ned, we are going to see a little ex- citement, or I am very much mistaken." And there was an exultant ring in his voice as he spoke. "And you fellows, too," he added, glancing up at Storm and Van Home, " are right in luck, to happen along for just this particular trip." He lowered his voice, as if even out there on the waters of the harbor, with none near save these three and the four trusty jackies who made up his small crew, and who were at that moment yarning away the time aft, the matter that he was about to communicate to them was of such moment and called for such great secrecy that it must needs be spoken of in guarded accents, and with bated breath. He had their absorbed attention at once. " We are going to take part, — even if it is only a very small part — in one of the biggest shows that the British Navy has pulled oflP since the war began. " Gather around close behind me here," he directed them, at the same time motioning with his free hand. And then he paused to say to Van Home and Storm, as if it were something that but just then had occurred to him: "And — ^by the way — it will perhaps be as well, Van and Ralph, for you two to keep out of sight in the cabin here till we up anchor. There's nothing wrong about having you here, and yet this affair 62 THE SPECIAL IDEA is so special and absolute secrecy is so all important to its success that the presence of even two army officers on one of the patrol boats might at least excite comment. You will not have to remain un- der cover so veiy long, as we shall weigh anchor at ten o'clock, and immediately put to sea. You get me, eh? " The two boys merely nodded their understand- ing and acquiescence as they and Ned took up positions behind the sitting skipper, so that they could look over his shoulders, and examine the paper which he then proceeded to unfold and smooth out upon the table, saying, as he did so: " This is a small scale diagTam drawing of the chief German U-base on the North Sea, Zeebrugge Harbor." At this simple remark, although they were pre- pared for something out of the ordinary, all three of the young skipper's hearers were so startled that they involuntarily straightened up for an instant behind the speaker's back, and cast significant and inquiring glances at each other. " The first positive inkling that any of us got as to what was really astir," pursued Morgan, turn- ing his head parrot-wise to look up at his audience, "was at this meeting of the commanders of the destroyers and patrol-boats from which I have just returned. 63 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " Each of us has his own cut-and-dried little stunt assigned to him, and each of us has been warned to Zeebrngge, on the Belgian Coast, lies about 70 miles across the North Sea from Dover, England, and is about 135 miles from London. A railway runs out almost to the head of the Mole (or breakwater), the top of which is covered with sheds and warehouses. A—Entrance to Channel leading to Lock, steel swing-bridges, and canal to Bruges. B — Point inside Mole where troops from a cruiser and two auxiliary vessels made assault. C— Trestle bridge. D-— Coast line. EE — Railway running out onto Mole. F— Canal Lock. G — Turning Basin of Canal. H — Lighthouse at head of Mole— Zeebrngge Light. attend to that alone and never mind what the other fellow is domg. 64 WE ARE TO WAIT FOR A SIGNAL *' tec « ' etc"- < ' ' ■■ THE SPECIAL IDEA " Our particular job, Ned," he continued, look- ing straight into the eager questioning eyes of his second in command, " is to make a landing on the Belgian coast somewhere about here." And he indicated with a finger a point on the coast line shown on the diagram of the Harbor of Zee- brugge that lay outspread before them on the table. " I know the spot," volunteered Ned Harkness. " Where you have your finger is just about half a mile south of the point at which the breakwater leads out from the coast-line to the mole. I have been in the harbor more than once. Before the war, that was." " Good ! And you are right, Ned," agreed his skipper. "And our job," he continued, " is simply to lay a course for Zeebrugge Light, and after we have picked it up, to lie about half a mile off that part of the coast I have just indicated. There we are to wait for a signal, and when we get it, to make a landing and set off about a dozen or so flares. That is practically our whole job. The problem that is up to us alone, is to make that landing unobserved from the shore, if possible." " Some problem, too! " rejoined Harkness, shak- ing his head gravely. " German coast-guards will be as thick as flies on a dead horse in June all along 6s FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr that coast-line now. I don't see how even a row- boat could make it without being discovered." " I know it's going to be some job," rejoined Morgan, " but it's got to be done; that's all there is to it. So it's up to us to think of some way to do it; for do it I will, if I have to run the flivver's nose smack up on shore, and fire the flares from her deck!" The speaker clamped his bulldog jaws together and looked from one to the other truculently, in the old way that Van and Storm remembered so well. " But you haven't told us what the 'special idea' ' is, Jack. Nor what the immediate object of setting off the flares there is. If we had some idea of what the plan of operations is, perhaps we could help you think of some less desperate way of doing your share. Not that we for one moment would think of objecting to your casting away the flivver if there is no other way," ventured Storm. " Perhaps Jack is under obligation to keep silent about that, Ralph," observed Van, considerately glancing at Morgan. " No," replied the latter, " all the orders we had were that we were not to discuss the matter with * Special Idea — In all military "Operation Orders" the main object to be accomplished is technically known as the "Special Idea." 66 THE SPECIAL IDEA any one till we were aboard our own vessels again, and that once aboard them we were on no account to go ashore again before sailing time, nor to allow any one else to do so. That was all.' "And I have no objection to telling you all I know myself," he added. " In fact, I intended to, whether you had asked me or not. " Outside of what concerned the part that each fellow's own particular craft had to carry out, we were informed just briefly as to what the special idea was, and were given a scant outline of the general plan, as a whole, so that we could see what relation each bit had to the success of the * special idea.' " But, oh boy! if it all works out all right, we are surely going to put one over on Fritz to-night that he will not forget in a hurry! " he interjected with a momentary burst of enthusiasm at the thought. Then relapsing into his mood of perplexity, he continued : "And as I have already said, we, each one of us, had impressed upon him individually the impor- tance of his own bit, as an absolutely essential part of the whole machinery, and we were told that if each one of us took care of his own part as ordered, the whole thing was bound to be a success, and not otherwise. 67 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT "And that's what's getting my goat just now," he concluded lamely. " I never did have much of a bean, anyhow!" Van saw that the youthful skipper was so filled with anxiety as to his part of the general plan that he could not think coherently of anything unless he were pinned down to definite questions, so he inter- posed quietly, but firmly: " Well, Jack, let us get down to brass tacks now! And tell us, first of all, what is the * special idea'?" Van Home, as he spoke, placed one of his big hands on Morgan's shoulder, and leaning over him tapped the diagram on the table imperatively with the index finger of his right hand. "All right, Van! " Morgan readily replied, as if glad of a lead. He placed the square tip of one of his short, thick fingers exactly upon the entrance to the channel of the great ship canal that leads from the ancient city of Ghent far in the interior of Belgium through Bruges to Zeebrugge on the low lying coast of that devastated land, then he added dramatically: " The * special idea ' is just to sink five old battle cruisers right there, and thus to bottle up whatever submarines Germany may have resting in the canal basins!" Just here it may be stated tliat Morgan was not 68 THE SPECIAL IDEA strictly correct in saying tliat the enemy submarines would be bottled up within the seagomg canal, pro- vided its seaward entrance were blocked. From Bruges, another, though lesser canal, led in a south- westerly direction to Ostend, another of the Ger- man U-bases on the Belgian coast. Zeebrugge was their principal submarine base, however, and it was the intention of the Allied Naval Forces to deal with the Ostend outlet later. Suffice it to say here that this matter was attended to within the fort- night. Jack Morgan paused and with his thick finger still resting on the drawing before him, seemed waiting for further questions, as if not knowing how to proceed. His three hearers for a moment were silent also. Knowing, as each of them did, from their training and past experience, the magnitude of the prepara- tions necessary for so great an operation, they paused in the effort to visualize them. Ned Harkness was the first to break the momen- tary silence. In tones that seemed something be- tween a sigh and a gasp, he thought aloud: "It's impossible! It can't be done! Those blockade ships will be blown out of the water half a mile or more before they can even make the entrance to the harbor, let alone get right across it to the mouth of the canal. Why, that mole and 69 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr harbor fairly bristle with guns of all sizes and ranges — from * typewriters ' * to ' Berthas.' " Besides, the whole harbor will be as bright as in full daylight! What with the hundreds of powerful search-lights they have always ready to turn on, and the hundreds of thousands of star- shells and Very lights they will send up! " Why, they have guns there with which they can drop shells accurately to the square yard for twenty miles out at sea ! It can't be done ! " he con- cluded, shaldng his grizzled head pessimistic- ally. The boatswain's mate was on just the right track to rouse the young skipjper, and perhaps he knew it. Jack Morgan was never patient in the face of objection and contradiction. He flared up at once, and striking the table forcibly with his clenched fist, and half turning about on his stool so as more nearly to face his second in command, he asserted in a tone that brooked no argument: " But it is going to be done, I tell you! We are going to have a tremendous covering fleet of Amer- ican, British, and French cruisers and monitors armed with guns that will carry as far, and farther, than their shore guns. The blocking cruisers are to *" Typewriters "—machine guns. " Berthas "—German guns of large caliber, so named by the allied troops because of Bertha Krupp, one of the principal owners of the Krupp gun factory at Essen. 70 THE SPECIAL IDEA make their way toward the harbor behind a smoke cloud thrown out by a large number of destroyers and flivvers that will precede them. As soon as these last pick up the harbor light, before they fire a single shot themselves, they will signal the great covering fleet, which will at once open with all that it has, and throw a blanket barrage right into Zeebrugge itself. " With the front line of small craft there is to be one fast cruiser with two other swift auxiliary ves- sels loaded to their gunnels with boarding troops armed with bombs and flame-throwers. When the monitors and cruisers open up with their long-dis- tance barrage these three ships will scoot ahead of all others. They will make for the inside curve of the mole, and take it by boarding attack right about here, if I understand the plan." He indicated with his finger as he spoke a point within the inner bend of the mole. "And their signal is to be our signal, too. The in- stant our barrage starts those flares must be lighted down here." And he moved his finger to that place on the diagram which he had first of all pointed out to them. Then again the young skipper came to an abrupt pause, and once more Van, seeing that he was about to lose himself again in a brown study, jolted hin) back with a peremptory question. FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " Go on, Jack! You have not told us yet the object of lighting those flares." " Oh, yes, sure!" replied Morgan with a start, as if suddenly aroused from dreamland. " I beg your pardon, fellows. " Those conventional marks there," he then con- tinued, moving his finger to a point on the diagram about midway between the head of the mole and the junction of the ferro-concrete breakwater with the shore, " are meant to indicate a trestlework bridge joining the mole with the breakwater. The break in the concrete there is to allow for the ebb and flow of the tide, and so lessen the strength of the wash around the head of the mole. " Well, as soon as the general forward move- ment starts, two old submarines are to dash up at full speed and jam themselves right up among the pile-work under that bridge. They will be loaded to the neck with * T. N. T.' On that account they can be only partly submerged, and may be detected long before they reach their objective. It's to draw the enemy's attention and fire from them, tempo- rarily at least, that the flares are to be set off just below the breakwater, just as if a landing in force were being made there. "As a matter of fact," he added, " the first plan was to make a real landing with a force there ; but it was finally decided that if a sufficient number of 72 THE SPECIAL IDEA flares were set off there it would do every bit as well, as the enemy would then be fooled into think- ing that a landing was being made. Don't you see? " " I see now. I get you, Jack! " interjected Van just the least bit excitedly. " The submarines are to be blown up under the trestlework. The plan, as I see it now, is to make the enemy believe that the main object is to destroy the mole and break- water, and by doing so distract his attention from the blockading cruisers. Then under cover of this fierce assault on the mole they will slip into the harbor and sink themselves at the canal entrance." "Exactly!" rejoined Morgan, "and if we all pull off our own little stunts the whole thing will succeed like clockwork." " The plan's a ticklish one, but it may work at that," observed Harkness, who meanwhile had been intently studying the diagram of the harbor. " But what's going to happen to the crews of the submarines when they blow up? " asked Lieutenant Storm. " Oh," answered Morgan carelessly, "there's half a dozen flivvers detailed to chase them up closely and take off their crews as soon as they are jammed into position under the bridge, and the time fuses that are to set them off have been lighted." "And after the whole operation has been com- 73 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT pleted, then what?" queried Lieutenant Van Home. " Why, as soon as the blockade ships have been sunk in position at the canal entrance the recall signals will be fired, and we will then all pull out — that is, all of us who can — and hike for home again. " There's a whole raft of flivvers detailed to fol- low up the blockade ships, and in fact all the other craft that enter the harbor, to take off, or rescue their crews, should that prove necessary. "And, believe me, fellows," the young skipper continued in a troubled tone, looking up at Van Home and Storm, " I'm mighty sorry that I got you two into this mess. I had no idea what we were going to get up against." " If it is on our account that you are worrying. Jack, old man,"^ said Van, " why, just don't, that's all ! And as for your getting us into this mess, as you say, you are all wrong. If I remember rightly it was we who insisted on your taking us." "But, don't you see, Van?" persisted Morgan. " I just have to set off those flares, no matter what it costs. And if I have to run the boat ashore to do it, we'll all be taken prisoners and be locked up for the rest of the war. I just wish they had detailed me as a tender to one of the larger ships, the same as all of the rest of the flivvers are." " If I were in your place, Jack," interposed 74 THE SPECIAL IDEA Ralph Storm, laying his hand lightly on Morgan's shoulder, " I should feel highly complimented at bemg chosen for the dangerous and important post. Your superior officers, Jack, evidently knew the man they were choosing to light those flares, when they picked on you, old top." "Anyhow, we are a long way from the German prison camps yet," smiled Van reassuringly. "And we will not cross that bridge till we come to it, any more than those two old submarines will try to blow up that bridge at Zeebrugge till they get under it. What's worrying me more than any- thing else just now is a gnawing emptiness under my Sam Browne. Have you no chuck on board, Jack?" " Sure thing, I have! " cried the young skipper, relieved to find his guests taking the matter so coolly. " Why, what am I thinking of? None of us has had anything to eat since lunch in Lon- don. I am hungry myself, now that you have men- tioned it! " I say, Ned," he continued, turning to Hark- ness, " tell Sam to fry us up a mess of bacon and eggs, and make some coffee. Hustle him up ! And come right back yourself, Ned, so that we can talk over our plans further! " 75 CHAPTER V THE DEPTH BOMBS '*When will a year of man's short life count more than here and noivf Ned Harkness left the cabin to order Sam, who prepared such " al fresco " meals as in cases of emergency it was necessary from time to time to serve aboard the motor patrol, to fry eggs and bacon, and to prepare coffee for four to be served without needless delay in the tiny cabin. Storm then observed to the young naval lieu- tenant, " Now, Jack, I don't wish you to think that I'm butting in on your business, nor get the idea that I think I know more about running this affair than you do. But two heads must be better than one, even if one is a cabbage head, and not coupling you up with the vegetable kingdom either." Storm spoke lightly, for he knew Morgan's sensi- tive nature and hasty temper. As he paused Mor- gan looked up at him inquiringly, with an air of some surprise, but said nothing. "And without meaning any offense, Jack," con- tinued Lieutenant Storm, " I think that I may say 76 THE DEPTH BOMBS that Van here and I have had a bit of training and experience in things military, and so I should like to make a suggestion to you about those flares." " Well, what in thunder are you beating about the bush for?" burst out the young skipper. " What do you take me for, anyway? By all means, let's hear it. I always did say you had some bean, Ralph." "All right then! I have the floor," laughed Storm. " In the first place, then, we soldiers, before mak- ing a move of any kind, always find out all we can about the territory we are going to operate over, and the disposition of the enemy's forces." " Yes, I know that," said Morgan. " Hush, I'm supposed to have the floor, remem- ber! If it is at all possible we make a reconnais- sance to get this necessary information. If we cannot do that we study maps, provided we have them. And if we have no maps we question some one who has already been over the ground. This last alternative is the only one open to us in the present case." Just at this moment the boatswain's mate re- turned to the cabin, and Storm turned to him, say- ing: " Ned, what sort of a beach is there where we have to set off those flares? " 77 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " It's a wide stretch of sandy beach, sir. It slopes away gently up from the water to the sand- dunes half a mile or more inland." "And how about the water? " " It shoals very, very gradually out to sea." " How near to making a landing could we get, without running aground? " " We'd run her nose into the sand bottom per- haps two hundred yards from high or low water mark ; it depends on how the tide might be running," positively and promptly asserted Harkness. " I thought as much," said Storm. " So, you see, Jack, that settles your desperate plan of cast- ing away the flivver. It would be absolutely of no use to do so; we should still be too far out to de- ceive any one on the shore into thinking that the flares were meant to show the way for a landing of troops." Even the young skipper could not help seeing the truth in his words. His jaw fell, his little near-set eyes opened wide, and he stared at the speaker in helpless disappointment. Ralph had something else up his sleeve, how- ever. He turned to Harkness again: " Under ordinary circumstances, Ned, how near to the shore could we get without risk of being seen? " " If the night is clear, as it promises to be," an- 78 THE DEPTH BOMBS swered the boatswain's mate, " we can use our smoke screen effectively to within half a mile of the land. We'll have to leave the smoke behind us then, and can be easily picked up by the shore search-lights. " But there's generally a haze hanging over that part of the North Sea o' nights at this time of the year, no matter how fine the weather otherwise may be. You can almost depend upon it. And if the night is hazy we could run in just as far as the depth of water will allow us to." "Good!" said Storm, much to Morgan's sur- prise, for to him the information that the boatswain had just afforded seemed anything but good. Even Van seemed a little bit surprised. But neither of them ventured to interrupt the dialogue. " Supposing, then, that we can run the flivver to within about two hundred and fifty yards of the shore, what would the prospect be for making the remainder of the way in a small rowboat such .as one of these we carry?" was Storm's next ques- tion. Morgan pricked up his ears and leaned a little forward on his stool in the direction of the speaker. Van Home threw him an approving glance. They thought they were beginning to see through his plan. " The chances would be fair," said Ned Hark- 79 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY ness slowly and thoughtfully. " With muffled oars, of course. There'd have to be at least two men in the boat also, one to stay by her, and the other to land and set off the flares." The grizzled veteran, as he spoke, however, had lowered his glance to the planking of the cabin floor, and was shaking his head dubiously. " Only fair, eh, you think, Ned? " " There's big risk even in that way, sir," an- swered Harkness, looking up again. " You see, sir, there's the oar-wake of the boat. No matter how easy you rowed it would show for nearly twenty-five yards behind you in still water. Even if the flash-light missed the boat — and their long beams are all night long playing over the water, sweeping hither and yon and crossing each other — the chances are they'd pick up her wash. Then the light would leap for the boat herself, and then the shells from the quick-firers and the bullets from the * typewriters ' would get you before you could say * torpedo.' " There's just a chance that you'd make the landing without mishap," he continued; "but I doubt if one of our small oared boats even could ever make its get-away again." " It would have a much better chance than the motor-boat, though, eh, Ned?" "Aye, for the fliwer'd have no chance at all." 80 THE DEPTH BOMBS " In a nutshell, then, the whole thing boils itself down to this," pursued Storm; " the smaller the ob- ject on the surf ace of the water, the less chance of its being picked up by the lights. One man swimming alone on the water would be taking a great deal less risk than if he were in a boat, eh? " "Why, surely, sir!" replied Ned. "Besides showing nothing but his head and shoulders above the water at any time, a man could watch the lights, and when one made as if to come near he could quietly sink under water at once and wait till it had passed over." Storm turned his attention to the young skipper again; but before addressing the latter he cast a significant glance at his friend Van Home. They exchanged a quick wink of mutual understanding. Storm's fleeting glance said plainly, " Don't butt in, leave this to me." And the answering twinkle of his friend's eyelid replied just as plainly, " Fire ahead, I'll stand pat!" "About a dozen flares, I think you said, would be enough, Jack? Did you not? " " Yes, less than that would do, if they were scattered along the beach far enough," replied Morgan in a puzzled and inquiring tone. He was about to ask a question, but Storm proceeded with- out pausing: 8i FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " Well, Jack, you know that I am a crack swimmer. You remember that I captained the swimming team at the old school. Now I could easily carry three dozen of those flares if it were necessary, tied up in a bundle on my shoulders, and there would be little or no risk." "Not if this court knows itself!" burst forth Morgan before Storm could proceed further with the development of his project. " I'm the party responsible for the lighting of those flares, and if anybody sets them off, I'm going to do it. Besides, I'm some swimmer myself. What's two hundred and fifty yards! " Then the young skipper in his turn was inter- rupted by the appearance in the cabin doorway of Sam, the jolly faced young jacky who had been detailed to prepare their supper. Sam, smiling from ear to ear, bore aloft, bal- anced in true waiter style on the outspread thumb and fingers of his right hand, a tray laden with shiny dishes, a platter of deliciously browned eggs and bacon, sweet as nuts, and a huge pot of steam- ing hot coffee that filled the tiny cabin with its appetizing fragrance. In his left hand he carried a bunch of napkins and knives and forks, and from the deft way in which he sifted these down in front of each of the party about the table no one would have dreamed that just the week before Sam had 82 THE DEPTH BOMBS captured the International Heavyweight Boxing Championship of the Mosquito Fleet. All four of them began to sniff the appetizing odors which Sam had introduced into the cabin with himself, and for the moment they omitted all fur- ther discussion. As Sam was in the act of serving each of them with his ration, however, Storm did not forget to cast a fleeting glance of triumph and an almost imperceptible wink in Van's direction, and received a quick smile of complete understanding. Storm had not for one moment thought that Morgan would allot to any one but himself the post of danger. He had merely worked up to the crux of his plan by thus plying Harkness with questions in order not to provoke stubborn objection and argument on the part of the junior naval lieutenant, till his complete project had been presented. " Well, thank goodness, that part of it is settled, at any rate! " volunteered the young skipper when Sam had again departed, just as if there could have been no possible objection from any of them to the last statement he had made in regard to swimming ashore from the flivver and lighting the flares him- self. " You have taken a load off my mind, Ralph," he went on. " Simple and all as your plan is, I might not have thought of it till too late. In my 83 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr usual thick-headed way I suppose I should have cast away the yacht, and then we'd all of us have had to swim the rest of the way for it, and would have had nothing to make our get-away in after- ward. You certainly have a head, Ralph!" he concluded admiringly. Neither Van Home nor Storm had any mind to claim the honor of lighting the flares. They would have been glad to do it, either of them; but they knew that it was Morgan's right, and that were the positions reversed they would do as he was doing. And, of course, so far as Harkness was concerned, it was not his place to gainsay his superior officer. Storm merely asked, although he could at once almost have bitten his tongue off for doing so, so near did he come to meddling with what concerned him not at all : "And if anything should happen to you. Jack, what shall we do then? " Morgan, however, seemed to find nothing amiss with the question, and answered simply: " Ned automatically succeeds to the command of the flivver when I am not on deck, and he will know how to carry on. " Ned does all the real navigating, anyway," he frankly added. " I'm only a figurehead after all, eh, Ned? " " 'Tisn't every young officer, sir, as would have 84 THE DEPTH BOMBS sense enough to let me run her," smiled the boat- swain's mate. Van Home could not help smiling when Storm muttered, " Carry on, sergeant!" When they had finished supper, and the chart table had been again cleared, they again fell to dis- cussing the whole blockading operation, and the time, until ten o'clock came with its signal for weighing anchor, passed very quickly. Weather conditions at the start were quite all that could be desired. A light northwest wind was blowing; but the sea was tranquil enough to be favorable to small craft. There was a clear sky, and the visibility was good. Some cruisers and a force of monitors from the Harwich command there were ; but the greater part of the attacking and blockading squadron was made up of the destroyers and motor-boats from Dover. The operation they were undertaking was a par- ticularly intricate one, and had to be worked out to a time-table. On the part of each individual vessel, great and little, it demanded delicate and in- dependent navigation on a hostile coast, without lights, and largely under unknown navigational conditions. There was the added danger of en- countering mine-fields, also. The outward passage from the narrow Strait of Dover into the trackless depths of the inhospitable 85 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT North Sea was made without untoward incident. The larger craft followed in the wake of the motor- boats which led the column. They moved out of the harbor like shadows, showing no lights, and, turning one by one into the outer channel, hugged the coast for a way, the smoke of the destroyers and larger craft drifting grayly to leeward. Then they turned from the land in a northeasterly direction, and began to deploy at wider intervals apart until they quite lost sight of each other, each vessel steering its own desperate course. The motor-boats still led, and gradually in- creased the distance between themselves and the destroyers that in turn increased their lead on the cruisers and monitors following in their wake. Several British submarines were sneaking their hidden way along somewhere in their midst or ahead of them. They had been at sea for more than an hour. To all intents and purposes Morgan's little flivver was all alone on the wide North Sea. An experienced sailor was at the wheel and Harkness stood close to him. The young skipper with his two old schoolmates had taken up a posi- tion well forward. They were not saying much. They earnestly scanned the waters ahead and to each side as far 86 THE DEPTH BOMBS as they could see. On either side and astern mem- bers of the crew were stationed as lookouts, also. Without warning the periscope of a submarine came up with a sudden rushing splash not more than one hundred yards dead ahead of the little flivver, then speeding along at about twenty-five miles an hour. It would have been impossible to shift her course effectively, even had her skipper been of a mind to do so. Obviously the only course was full speed ahead. The U-boat caught sight of the oncoming flivver at the same time, and at once began to submerge. At the first rushing splash of the periscope above the water Jack Morgan had himself leaped to the wheel, crying aloud to Harkness as he did so: " It's a German boat. The depth bombs, Ned! " The boatswain's mate leaped to obey. Morgan, fearful of having her sides ripped open, steered his little craft so as to avoid hulling the sub- marine. It seemed to Van Home and Storm, standing tense in the bow, that scarcely had they passed over where the periscope had been, when there was an upheaval of the ocean that literally lifted the staunch little boat out of the water. And then al- most before they had time to realize what had al- ready happened they perceived that the yacht was already circling around, and though still rocking 87 FIGHTING WITH THE U, 5. ^RMT crazily from side to side from the concussion, was about to return to the fatal spot again. Jack Mor- gan meant to make sure; he was intent on giving Harkness a chance to drop another bomb. Fortunately for them they were still more than a hundred feet from the point where the submarine had sunk, when a veritable geyser of white foaming water spouted high into the air from the spot, and then subsided into a spreading film of oil on the surface of the sea. Some small pieces of wood arose to the surface; but nothing more, although they lay-to there and scanned the surrounding surface of the water for several minutes. Harkness came forward, and as Morgan re- linquished the wheel to him, that he might lay the yacht on her proper course again, the young skipper breathed to his second in command: ** I guess we got her, Ned? " " Sure thing! " replied the boatswain's mate in a matter-of-fact tone. " That second explosion could have been made only by the blowin' up o' his compressed air tanks." Morgan rejoined his two friends in the bow; but none of them had anything to say for some time. The awful horror of it had appalled them; silence was the only thing. It was the first time, too, that Morgan had come to grips with the enemy. 88 CHAPTER VI ZEEBRUGGE *'No mound of moldering earth shall show The fighting place of the men helow; But a swim of seas that gather and spill, And the wind's wild chantry whistling shrill,'^ When those on board the motor-boat were at length assured that there were to be no survivors from the destroyed submarine, the little craft re- sumed the gentle throbbing of its interrupted way, and some two hours later Harkness had unerringly picked up the Zeebrugge Light. As the boatswain's mate had earlier predicted, a thin haze rendered the visibility low. They were then two and a half miles off shore. The time was one-thirty a. m. " We have half an hour to the good," said the young skipper to the boatswain's mate, who, now that they had entered the dangerous waters, had himself taken charge of the wheel, and would re- main at that post till the night's work was done. ** Run in slowly opposite the point where you think I ought to land," he went on. 89 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " Put two men in the bow with boat-hooks to fend her off from pushing her nose too solidly into the sand and getting stuck there. Then as soon as I have slipped overboard with the flares back her off, and lay-to about a half mile out, or at what- ever distance you think best. Use your own judg- ment for the rest, Ned! " "Aye, aye! " replied Harkness sententiously. Morgan turned to Van and Storm, who were at his shoulder. Storm was holding in his hands a haversack containing the flares, the strap of which he was adjusting so that the sack might be carried well up on the bearer's shoulders. The flares were incased in tin, to keep them dry. " We have arrived on the ground almost ac- cording to schedule, and I've no doubt the rest of the motor-boats are lined up at intervals north of us. The destroyers will about now be overhauling them, as all close in on the land. The cruisers and monitors will finally line up about where we are now, and open fire from here. The troop ships will make a dash for the harbor entrance as soon as the smoke screen is abandoned. Then the fun will commence." The speaker, barefooted and stripped to the waist, looked like anything but an officer of the United States Navy. His arms, shoulders, neck, and face were black with malodorous engine grease. 90 ZEEBRUGGE As he was speaking, Storm and Van Home were strapping the pack firmly upon his big-muscled bare shoulders in such a manner as to interfere as little as might be with his swimming powers. They had barely completed this task when the slow- gliding motion of the motor-boat ceased, softly yet solidly. With a low, " Good-bye, Jack, old man! " from his two friends, and a "Good luck, sir!" from Harkness, Morgan without a word slipped over- board into the black waters of the North Sea, and a few yards away was lost to the straining eyes that strove to follow him. The motor-boat was then pushed off again by the sailors in the bows with their boat-hooks. The boatswain's mate elected to remain as close inshore as possible to await the return of his young com- manding officer, and was satisfied to back out just far enough to give him sufficient sea-room to turn around. For nearly fifteen minutes that was certainly; as the French say, " Un mauvais quart d'heure." The attention of the boat's passengers and crew alternated between the coast-line directly opposite them and the mole of Zeebrugge to the north. It was pitch dark all about, save for the intermit- tent flashing of the search-lights, rendered distant by the haze, and none of them penetrating seaward 91 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT for more than four hundred yards. Upon the sea all was perfectly still; even the little breeze that had been blowing earlier in the night had died down. Then in one moment it was all different. The swift cruiser chosen to lead the attack upon the mole was picked up by one of the lights. In that same instant star-shells, brighter than anything the onlookers had ever seen, pierced the gloom and showed the attacking cruiser and her two consorts as clearly as if in broad daylight. In another second it seemed as if every shore battery had concentrated upon them. Seventeen- inch shells and smaller ones fell all about them like hail. The cruiser was hit, but she plunged on and turned inward at the head of the mole. Her twin consorts followed close at her heels. It was such a picture as no man may hope to see twice in his life. The first shot had been the signal for the out- lying cruisers and monitors to bombard the shore batteries. The work of the American monitors in this respect was particularly fine. The scene became a wild one. There was at once a thundering of guns on sea and land, augmented by the deafening and constant explosions of hun- dreds and hundreds of shells and bombs. More than two hundred shells were fired at the three attacking ships alone. Search-lights crisscrossed one another, and 92 ZEEBRUGGE darted lance-like through the haze. Star-shells, and floating parachute flares in the air, and stationary flares on mole and quays, illuminated the whole scene with the brilliance of midday. Such was the picture stupendously magnificent for more than an hour. At the first burst of fire naturally all eyes were turned toward the opening picture of the drama at the mole-head; but almost at once Van and Storm bent their anxious glances shoreward. Far down the shore line — farther than they had ex- pected — one magnesium flare burst the pitch darkness there with its scintillating white light; then another and another in two lines above the beach at varying intervals apart broke into sudden illumination, till the anxious watchers aboard the motor-boat counted eleven in all. There should have been twelve, and the failure of the twelfth flare to ignite filled them all with poign- ant suspense. " Are you sure there were twelve in the haver- sack, Ralph?" breathed Lieutenant Van Home anxiously. ** Yes, I am sure," replied his friend in as low a tone, straining his vision shoreward. The ruse was successful. The batteries along that section of the breakwater nearest the shore be- came alarmed. They thought that a force was 93 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr landing there to make a flank attack upon them, and directed a searching fire upon that part of the beach where the flares had been set off, their whole attention for the moment distracted from the sea in front of their position. Before these batteries had discovered the trick that had been played upon them the two old British submarines laden with high exj^losive, which were destined to blow up the bridge connecting break- water and mole, had almost undetected dashed in so close to the high sea-wall of the mole, that it was then impossible to depress the guns sufficiently to bear upon them. Four satellite motor-boats trod upon the heels of those two old submersibles to pick up the crews, who were to leap overboard as soon as their charges had been safely rammed in among the piles, and the short time fuses ignited. The enemy star-shells which were being set off from the top of the bridge merely served to show the way for the submarines. A whole company of more than two hundred German soldiers rushed out upon the top of the bridge, and stood shouting and gesticulating immediately above the two old submersibles wedged fast among the piles beneath. They apparently thought that these had lost their way, and were rejoicing in the belief that they were about to capture them. 94 ZEEBRUGGE The old " subs" pushed under the bridge still farther, and when their cargoes of trinitrotoluol were touched off they blew up the bridge and all standing upon it, so that for a little time afterward fragments of men and wreckage were falling into the water all about. By the blowing up of the bridge the mole was isolated, and no heli^ could be sent from the shore to the enemy forces already being attacked on the mole-head by men from the three troop ships. But meanwhile there was great anxiety in Jack Morgan's little motor-boat. When the first flare was lighted Harkness at once headed down the coast, and when directly opposite the position on the shore where the brilliant magnesium lights were breaking out, began to run cautiously toward the land. Approaching it as nearly as he thought safe, he brought the motor-boat's own small but power- ful search-light into play, despite the risk of draw- ing the enemy's fire. And that this was no purely imaginary danger was soon evidenced by the angry shriek of an eighteen-pound shell that passed over them and fell into the water beyond. This first shell was followed by another and an- other, each nearer and nearer the motor-boat. Un- heeding them, the boatswain's mate continued to flash his narrow beam of light over the intervening sea, searching for, and as a guiding signal to, the 95 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT ** landing party." Then, as suddenly as they had begun, the shells ceased to come that way. The two old British submarines had been sighted, and the shore batteries had more pressing business to attend to, nearer home. And still there was no sign of the young skipper. Harlmess was in a quandary. He turned to Van Home, standing near him at the wheel, and in- quired anxiously: " Don't you think we'd better put off a boat, sir, and land a couple of men to search the beach? " Van was about to agTce, when a voice from out the darkness on the flivver's port side called hoarsely: " Douse that glim, Ned! I'm all right! " and in another moment the well-nigh exhausted skipper was floundering in the water alongside. In order to give the yacht as much chance as pos- sible of remaining under cover of the darkness, Morgan on landing had crept do^vn the beach for several hundred yards, to await there the proper moment for firing his flares. After setting them off — all except one, the percussion cap of which had failed to explode when the striker had been re- leased — ^he ran back along the shore, and swam out to sea in the direction in which he judged that the yacht would be waiting for him. After swimming out some distance he stopped, 96 I M ALL RIGHT ZEEBRUGGE and treading water began to look about in the dark- ness for some sign of his boat. Backwards over his shoulder he had seen the flashing search-light of the yacht away down opposite the spot where some of his flares were still burning fitfully. He had at once turned and started to swim down to- ward the light. The swim was a long one, the water was very cold, and he was almost exhausted when his eager friends drew him on board. But those on board the boat did not get this ex- planation till some time later. As soon as Morgan could control his panting breath sufficiently he directed the boatswain's mate to steer a course for the bridge, about which at that moment evidences of great excitement were beginning to show. They had barely started upon their new course, and were still nearly a quarter of a mile distant from the bridge when the explosion of the sub- marines, as already described, took place. Jack Morgan, exhausted though he still was, at once sprang to take the wheel himself. All on board were awed momentarily to silence by the dreadful magnificence of the lurid spectacle. They speedily drew near the gap in the break- water where the bridge had been. There the four plucky motor-boats that had taken off the crews of the submarines were still cruising about among the floating debris, looking for survivors of the ex- 97 FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ARMT plosion, if such there might be any on the water. The batteries on the breakwater and mole were silent. When the young skipper saw that the services of his boat and her crew were not needed in the vicinity of the bridge he steered a course concentric with the outer curve of the mole, with the intention of actu- ally entering the harbor itself. He was not alone in his reckless daring among the youthful com- manders of the little American mosquito fleet. How Zeebrugge was Blocked A— Position of the three cement filled cruisers blocking the entrance from the Harbor of Zeebrngge to the great canal for seagoing ships. B—Great basin for ships lying at anchor. C— The Harbor. Others there were who were actuated by the same brave spirit. One and all the little motor launches 98 ZEEBRUGGE had behaved in the most gallant manner, dashing into the harbor utterly regardless of their own safety in order to see that no one was at last left behind on the blockading ships when they were sunk at the mouth of the canal, nor on the mole when the signal to withdraw should be finally given; and all this under conditions of light as bright as day and amid an incessant hail of shrapnel and high-explosive shells. Every commander and every crew displayed the greatest pluck and de- termination. As Morgan's launch skirted along the mole those aboard her could see silhouetted against the bright lights of the harbor inside the masses of soldiers fighting hand to hand singly and in groups on its top. The sight was rendered all the more awesome by the raging conflagration of the huge freight sheds there, which had been set on fire by de- tails of the attacking forces who had been especially armed with flame-throwers and fumite bombs for that purpose. Every now and then the explosion of an ammunition dump within one of the sheds added to the light and uproar. The noise of the firing, mingling with the shouts and cries of the men, was terrifying. Two miles out at sea the cruisers and monitors in- cessantly stabbed the darkness with a spurting arc of red flame as they despatched their shrieking mes- 99 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT sengers of death against the batteries on the quays and farther inland. From the three attacking transports more than six hundred men were landed upon the mole. The Germans, as soon as they saw the attacking party land, shouted almost with one voice: "Americans ! It's the Yankees ! " ' While these various auxiliary operations were being carried out, under cover of them the old cruisers laden almost down to their gunwales with cemented concrete, which were intended to block the canal, made their way through the harbor ac- companied by only one submarine as escort. There were five of them at first; but only three of them reached their goal, the other two being prematurely smik by shell-fire. The three which won their way through were anchored and swung around on their cables. In sinking them machinery was used which enabled their crews to do this without exploding any bombs within them, and within twenty-three minutes of the time their anchors were dropped. Not a shot was fired from any of them. The net l^esult of this famous and daring opera- tion on the Harbor of Zeebrugge was the destruc- tion of every gun on the great mole, the complete *This fact has been vouched for by British sailors who par- titipated in the assault on the mole of Zeebrugge Harbor. ICO ZEEBRUGGk annihilation of the great sheds along its entire length, and along with them immense stores of ammunition, and, most important of all, the ef- fectual blocking of the canal and waterway leading through the harbor. When Morgan's little " flivver " at length turned the lighthouse at the mole-head and made her way into the harbor proper her young skipper was for a moment undecided which way to turn. His first intention was to make for the position where the three blockading cruisers were even then in the act of swinging about on their cables. Van, on perceiving that this was his evident in- tention, plucked him by the sleeve, and pointing to where the troop transports lay alongside the mole, shouted in his ear: " The wounded! They are taking them off ! " Morgan seemed to catch his drift at once. In- deed, he could hardly help having done so, had he been never so dull of comprehension. A steady stream of casualties were being carried doAvn the steep, sloping gangways from the top of the mole to the transports, and thence across their decks to motor-boats that lay alongside of them. By these smaller vessels the wounded would be carried with- out delay to the great cruisers of the bombard- ing squadron. A launch that had already received its quota of lOI FIGHTING WITH THE U. S, ARMT wounded pushed off from the largest of the attack- ing ships, and Morgan, without orders or instruc- tions, guided the flivver quietly into the place left vacant. The stretcher-bearers — who had no stretchers there — began to pass the casualties over the side at once. Every one on board Morgan's boat lent a hand, and the wounded were laid groan- ing side by side along the decks. Thirty-two men and two wounded officers in all they took on board, and then they pushed off to make room for still another launch. This, the grisly and horrible phase of war, was Morgan's first experience with it, and he never in all his after life forgot it. For himself it was a good thing that this gruesome aspect of it all was pre- sented to him first. Afterward in the heat of the fray the recollection of it tempered the vengeful fury that would have been his. At her top speed of twenty-eight miles an hour the little motor-yacht cut her way through the water to the double line of cruisers and monitors two miles out at sea. Her sad load was quickly transferred to one of these, and again Morgan headed her back toward Zeebrugge. When they were half-way there the terrific bar- rage from the bombarding ships suddenly ceased for a moment, and the recall signals were given. This meant that the blockading ships had been sunk at 102 ZEEBRUGGE their appointed berths, and that the " special idea " of the operation had been accomplished. Accord- ing to orders upon this signal the retirement was to begin at once, and each vessel, when its appointed task was finished and it had cleared the harbor, was to make without further orders for its own home port. Jack Morgan had already exceeded his instruc- tions, which had regard to the setting off of the flares only; so on perceiving the recall signal he turned over the wheel to the boatswain's mate, who all the time had been standing fast by his young skipper's shoulder, saying in a tired voice merely: "Home, Ned!" Harkness took a squint at the stars, and then by them and his compass proceeded forthwith to lay a course for " Blighty." The bombing ships had resumed their barrage in order to cover the withdrawal of the vessels still within the harbor. Jack Morgan turned to his two friends, and in a tone unusually mild for him, said: " I must go aft for a minute, fellows, and wash up, and get some clothes on." He was still attired only in the wet trousers and black engine grease he had worn during his swim ashore. "All right, Jack!" replied Van and Storm to- 103 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT gether and in almost an affectionate tone, although no response at all was necessary. Morgan, washed and dressed, rejoined them in a few minutes. Alreadj^ the conflagration and flares of Zeebrugge were growing less bright, and lower on the horizon astern. The bombardment too had ceased, and from this they knew that all of their comrades who would ever leave Zeebrugge had cleared the harbor-bar. " Suppose we turn in for a while, boys? " asked the naval lieutenant. " For my part, I am very tired. The watches are set, and if anything un- usual is sighted Ned will call us." Van and Ralph also felt strangely wearied. Al- though their physical exertions had been incon- siderable, the emotional strain had been tense and exhausting. So they were glad to follow the young skipper to his cabin. There, after seeing that the port-hole covers were in place, Morgan turned on the blue-shaded light that served little more than to make the darkness visible. He produced blankets from the lockers beneath the cushioned benches along the cabin's sides. It was then found that these benches were all too short for Van Home's great length of body, and with some subdued merriment they made him a bed diagonally across the cabin floor and between the legs of the chart-table immovably fastened to 104 ZEEBRUGGE the middle of the floor. Aiid in spite of what thej^ had just gone through these three wholesome American boys were soon fast in dreamless sleep. 105 CHAPTER VII NEWS FROM HOME **Take up our quarrel with the foe. To you from falling hands we throw The torch — he yours to hold it high; If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders' Fields/' —Col. John McCrae, C. E. F. Next morning Rod Van Home was the first of the trio to awake. At first he could not place him- self, and for a moment lay quiet, gazing up in mute wonder at the unfinished bottom of the chart-table between the legs of which he lay outstretched upon the cabin floor. It was bright daylight once more and Morgan's little yacht again swung upon her anchor chain in- dolently and safely in Dover Harbor. Van glanced at his wrist watch, and perceiving that it was high time for them to be astir, if Ralph and he were to catch the eight o'clock train for London, as they had intended, he proceeded care- fully to extract his long frame backwards from be- neath the table. He got to his feet and, as was his wont on rising zo6 t^EWS FROM HOME of a morning, attempted to stretch his great arms full length above his head ; but in the still dim light of the cabin he had not yet fully realized his posi- tion. The top of his bared head itself almost grazed the cabin roof, and the sharp and sudden rapping of his knuckles against the low rafters awakened him painfully and fully to a clear knowl- edge of his surroundings. Smiling sleepily, while ruefully caressing the knuckles of one hand with the palm of the other, he glanced around at his two friends still fast asleep, outstretched upon their backs on the cushioned benches that ran along either side of the cabin. Storm, his arms folded across his chest and his rolled coat beneath his head for a pillow, slept as quietly as any babe. He scarcely seemed to breathe. Morgan, on the other hand, muttered uneasily and unintelligibly in his sleep. One of his hands hanging down over the side of the bench opened and clenched again at times. In his uneasy sleep he looked even more ugly, if possible, than when awake. He had not fully removed the engine- grease with which he had camouflaged his face and body the night before; it was still quite thick about his eyes and ears. " Poor Jack," muttered Van Home to himself as he gazed at the uneasy sleeper, " you got your 107 FIGHTING WITH THE U, S. ARMT baptism of fire last night all right; but you are not blooded yet!" Then he turned again to Storm, who was nearest him, and, leaning over his friend, pressed the palm of his big hand gently yet firmly upon the sleeping boy's face. It was a trick he had learned in the trenches. A man awakened thus seldom cries aloud or even speaks at once. His first impulse is to grab at the hand. By that time he is fully awake and knows where he is. To be sure, there was no need of such precaution just then; Van Home merely did it from force of habit and training. Storm at once raised his hand to the hand resting lightly upon his face, and then opened his eyes and looked up. " Time to get up, Ralph, old man," smiled Van. "Yes? What time is it?" queried Storm, at once fully awake, and swinging his feet off the bunk and his body simultaneously to a sitting position upon it. " It's just six-thirty," replied Van Home. " Great guns! " yawned Storm, " it seems as if I had but just this minute stretched out to go to sleep. Where are we now, anyway. Van? " "At anchor, I should judge," replied his friend. " We must be safely back at Dover. I have just now awakened mj^self." io8 NEIVS FROM HOME The sound of their voices disturbed Morgan. With a loud cr}^ : " The bombs, Ned, the depth bombs! " he sprang to his feet with one bound. He regarded the two friends dumbly for a mo- ment. Then, grinning sheepishly and digging his thick knuckles into his two little near-set eyes, he fell back into a sitting position on his bunk again, saying: " Guess I must have been having an awful night- mare, fellows. I thought we were just going to run over that awful submarine again. What time has it got to be, anyway? " Then glancing at his watch he sprang to his feet again, saying as he hurriedly left the tiny cabin to receive the report of his second in command: " By thunder! I forgot to leave Ned orders to call me at six o'clock, as I had intended, and here it is six-thirty." A moment later he returned, and addressing his friends in an apologetic tone, said: " Sorry, fellows, but I'm due to report ashore at seven. I'll not have time to have breakfast with you fellows; but Ned will see to it that some breakfast is ready for you two before you go ashore." " Not at all ! That will not be necessary, old man. Don't mind us ! We wish to catch that train 109 FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ARMT for London that leaves Dover at eight o'clock, and we can get a bite at the railway station restaurant," rejoined Van Home. " It doesn't seem like treating you just rights to let you go away hungry," observed Morgan, " but I suppose it can't be helped now." " That's all right, Jack, we'll accept your good intention for the real breakfast," laughed Storm. "While they were washing up at the buckets astern the crew had been lowering one of the yacht's boats alongside. After bidding Harkness a hearty good-bj^e with the added wish that they might all meet again some time Van and Storm took their places in the boat, in the stern of which Morgan had already seated himself. With Sam, the sturdy handy-man of the yacht, at the oars they were soon landed upon the quay. There they paused before separating to go their different ways, Morgan to repair to Admiralty Headquarters to compile his report of his share in the doings of the night, and Van Home and Storm to make their way to the railway depot. " I want to thank you, Jack," said Van, grasp- ing the young sailor's hand, " for an experience that I would not have missed for the world. I have scarcely yet begun to realize what a big show it was." no NEWS FROM HOME " It was certainly some night," grinned the junior naval lieutenant. " ' Them 'ere's my sentiments too,' " quoted Storm smilingly, while extending his hand for a good-bye hand-shake with the young skipper. And as he did so he could not refrain from ob- serving mischievously: " You can hardly expect us to agree with you, Jack, in any statements you may after last night make regarding the monotony of your job in the Navy. Are you still of a mind to transfer to the tanks?" " Why, yes, I surely am. Why not? " rejoined Morgan in accents of surprise. " Just as likely as not I'll be ordered out on harbor patrol again to- day. And, anyhow, even last night it was more like going to a moving-picture show than anything else, for all the part that we had in the actual fight- ing. At least that's the way it struck me." " Well, it was certainly some * movie,' at that," laughed Storm. "Any film company that could have photographed one-tenth of what we saw last night would never need to worry about their next film. Their fortunes would have been made there and then." "Good-bye, Jack!" said Van again. "And when you do get into the * tanks ' I hope we'll meet you somewhere in France." Ill FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " Thanks, I hope so, too. Good-bye and good luck to both of 3^ou! " In London and at their hotel once again Van and Ralph found several letters awaiting them. There were three for Storm ; one from his father, which of course he opened first; one officially stamped " O. H. M. S.," which means " On His Majesty's Service "; and one, the address of which he recognized to be in the once familiar handwriting of Doctor Wilde, principal of their old school. Dale Academy. Van Home had a like number of epistles; one official, another also from the good Doctor Wilde, and the third addressed to him in an unfamiliar hand. Presently Lieutenant Storm broke in upon Van Home's perusal of the Doctor's letter, saying in a tone of boyish excitement that he could not help, even though all along he had been expecting to re- ceive just such tidings: " Good news, old sobersides ! Dad says for us to come right over to France at once, even if our dis- charges from the C. E. F. have not yet officially come through. " He says that we shall be put to work as in- structors almost at once," pursued Storm, " in one of our own camps, as we are very much needed there. If necessary we can get our leaves ex- 112 NEWS FROM HOME tended, he says, after we get there, and there will be no difficulty about that." " That's fine, Ralph," smiled Van, looking up from his perusal of Doctor Wilde's letter, in which he had been deeply interested. "And he writes, too," pursued Ralph, " that he has just had a communication from our Overseas Naval Headquarters in reply to his personal re- quest regarding Jack Morgan's transfer to the ' tanks.' " " I do hope that it is good news for good old Jack," interjected Van Home fervently. " It is," rejoined his friend. " Dad tells me that he has been advised that Jack's application has re- ceived favorable consideration." " That's good news," observed Van Home. " But look here, Ralph," he continued, " aren't we rather imposing on your father's generous good nature by always asking him to do things for us? " " Not at all," returned Ralph with assurance. " Father likes to do those things for us. I know he does. Why, I'll bet it gives him just as much pleasure to put those applications through for us as it gives us to have them go through. " But I see you have a letter from the old school, too," he volunteered, changing the sub- ject. " Yes, here's one from Doctor Wilde, much like "3 FIGHTING TFITH THE U. 5. ^RMT yours, probably. What has the good old Doctor to say?" " His letter is almost all about young Matson, that youngster the boys used to call * Wiggler.' You remember him, don't you? " " Yes, I think I do," replied Storm a trifle dubi- ously, for at Dale Academy Ralph had not con- cerned himself much with what he was at that time wont to call " the small fry." " Rather a mischievous kid, wasn't he? A pal of young Brooke's, if I remember rightly?" " Yes, that's the youngster. Full of mischief he was, all right, just as you say," replied Van Home, " but a good-hearted little beggar, and just as honest as the sun, even at that." " Well, what about him? " queried Storm with- out much apparent interest, as he picked up his official letter and proceeded to tear it open. " He has run away from the old school, and Doc- tor Wilde seems to be in a peck of trouble about it." "What's that got to do with us?" demanded Storm carelessly, proceeding meanwhile to unfold his letter. "Listen!" rejoined Van Home. " The Doctor says that the old school is fairly boiling over with patriotism. Every boy in the school, big and little, he says, wants to join either the Army or Navy, or so at least it seems to him. 114 NEWS FROM HOME " This year's senior class, he writes," pursued Van Home, " have ahnost all gone; in fact all of them, to a boy, who were eligible and fit, have signed up in either one branch of the Service or the other." " Good for the old school! " interjected Storm, listening with more show of interest. " I hope that we may run across some of them over there. " But what about young Matson? " he queried. "As I have already told you, the lad has run away from the school. They can find no trace of him, and it is suspected that he has joined either the Army or Navy under an assmned name. He was a pretty well developed youngster physically, you know, even when we were there, Ralph, and could easily pass for a year or two older than he really is." "Well, why is the Doctor writing to us about it? I suppose he wants us to keep an eye open for the kid over here, eh? " " Yes, Ralph, that's it, and he wants us to write him, if we run across the youngster, or hear any- thing about him." " Well, I for one," rejoined Storm, glancing again over the official document now outspread be- tween his hands, " glory in the youngster's spunk, and I'll not feel very much inclined to squeal on him if I do chance to run across him, "5 FIGHTING WITH THE XL S. ARMT " I think it would be a shame," he continued, ** to have the kid ignominiously dragged back home like a baby, after he has been man enough to make his way over here; provided always that he has done so." " That's not the Doctor's idea, either," smiled Lieutenant Van Home, glancing again at the letter in his hand. "It is not to drag him back, as you put it, that Doctor Wilde wishes to find out his whereabouts. Wiggler has two brothers considerably older than himself, it seems. They are very anxious to locate the boy so that they can keep tabs on him to some extent at least. They do not intend to claun a discharge for him against his will if he is found to be in either branch of the Service. " The dear old Doctor himself is very careful to exi)lain that he would not for one moment ask us to play the spy on the kid." " Then what does he want? " queried Storm. " He merely wishes us to tell the boy, in case we come across him. And we are to assure him that they will give their consent to his remaining in the Service, if he will only write to them occasion- ally." " Oh, that's different," observed Storm. " That puts quite another face on it. In that case I'll not only tell the kid to write home; but I'll jolly well ii6 NEWS FROM HOME see that he does it too, if I should ever happen to run into him. " But, I say, Van," Storm pursued, as he held out his other letter: " This is the official acceptance of my resignation as an officer of the C. E. F., and I guess yours is in that long blue envelope beside you, also." Van Home hastily tore open his official envelope and quickly scanned its meagre contents. " Yes, this is mine also," he sang out joyfully. " Now we need lose no further time in getting over to France, and mixing up once more with the fel- lows from the good old U. S. A." The eyes of the usually and naturally self -re- strained Van Home shone with delight and excite- ment, and he hastily arose from his chair. Whereat Storm began to laugh, saying, "Are you going to walk over, or will you wait for the boat? But I see you have still another letter there. Van. Perhaps you had better see what it is about, too, before we start? " " That's right, Ralph," agreed Van Home, re- suming his seat a bit shamefacedly at having so boyishly displayed his great joy at the prospect of getting into immediate active service again, and especially as a soldier in the A. E. F. Then relapsing into silence, he picked up and proceeded to open his remaining letter, the one ad- 117 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT dressed in an unfamiliar hand, while Storm became immersed in the contents of the letter which he too had received from the principal of Dale Academy. Presently Van observed, " I say, Ralph, I guess the Duke was here in that air raid a few days ago, all right enough." " The Duke? Oh, yes. You mean Dick Fletcher, eh? " queried Storm, looking up from the letter and evincing great interest at once in this new topic of conversation. " What makes you think so? " " This is a letter from that Lieutenant Harding on the H. Q. Staff of the B. R. A. F.' We met him, you may remember, at the Army and Navy Club some few days ago." " Yes, I remember," rejoined his companion. " You asked him to find out for us whether the old Duke was flying in England or France, and to let us have his address, if he could. What has he to say about it? " " He says that there has been a Lieutenant Rich- ard Fletcher attached for instructional duty to the London Division of the Flying Force for some weeks past; but that he is no longer there." " I'll just bet you it was the old Duke himself. Just like our luck to miss hmi ! Does Harding say where he is now? " * British Royal Air Force. Ii8 NEWS FROM HOME " Last Saturday only, so he says, Lieutenant Fletcher was temporarily detailed for duty at the great French Aerial Training Camp near Paris. He also adds that the Duke — that is, if this par- ticular Lieutenant Fletcher is really the old Duke — is one of the best * stunt ' flyers in the B. R. A. F." " If he is not far from Paris," observed Lieu- tenant Storm, " perhaps we may have a chance to visit the flying camp there before we are assigned to work with our own army." " I certainly should like to see him if we possibly can manage it," assented Van. Then he added suddenly, " I wonder if he is as finicky about his dress and appearance as he used to be." " Trust the old Duke for that," laughed Lieu- tenant Storm. " I'll bet he really does sport an eye-glass now. Do you remember how we used to tease him about the report that he was seen wearing a monocle one summer down at Atlantic City? " " Yes," smiled Van reminiscently, " but he was always there with the goods when the pinch came, no matter what he went into, the good old Duke ! " But seriously, Ralph, let's get busy. I think that we had better first of all report to United States Army Headquarters here in London, before we try to make any arrangements for crossing over. What do you think? " 119 FIGHTING WITH THE U, S. ARMr " Good idea! " assented Storm, rising, " and we had better stop in at some tailor shop on our way to H. Q. and see about having our new uniforms made." " Oh, yes," agreed Van, " I had not thought of that at all." 120 CHAPTER VIII THE ANSWER **Fear not that ye have died for naught, The torch ye threw to us is caught, Ten million hands will hold it high, And Freedom* s light shall never die. We've learned the lesson that ye taught In Flanders' Fields." — America's Answer. The two friends left London for Paris by way of the Waterloo Station, touching briefly " en route " at Southampton, loitering for the greater part of one day in the quaint, splendid and stately town of Le Havre in France, and having an en- forced wait of a few hours in the ancient and inter- esting city of Rouen. The journey teemed with interesting sights and incidents, a vivid remembrance of which Ralph and Van carried with them throughout all their after life. And not the least interesting part of the jour- ney was the wonderful port of Southampton, in which the two young American soldiers found them- selves waiting for the cross-channel passenger boat just two days after their conversation last above described at Claridge's Hotel in London. / 121 FIGHTING TFITH THE U. S. ARMT They were not crossing on a regular troop trans- port, for it must be remembered that they were no longer in the service of King George, and had not yet been officially enrolled in the American Ex- peditionary Force. The port of Southampton had long been one of the sea-gates of old England; during the course of the Great War it had become most emphatically a sea-gate of the world. Two opposing streams of humanity flowed con- stantly through it; by night and day two moving lines that seemed as they must never terminate, one coming, one going. The one coming bore the scars of war, and was decorated with that wliite badge of honor, the bandage. The second fared forth to fill the gaps that the incomers had reluc- tantly left behind them. Nearly all of them wore " the smile that doesn't come off — ever." It was early the following morning, not yet quite eight o'clock, when the two friends landed in the great French port of entry, Le Havre, the South- ampton of France; but much more beautiful than that English city. There also the two streams, going and coming, converged and passed each other. It is just one hundred and twenty-five miles from Paris. Their first move on landing was to ascertain at what time the next passenger train left for the 122 THE ANSWER French capital. To their regret, for they were very eager to press on, they found that owing to military exigencies there was but one regular pas- senger train leaving Le Havre daily for Paris, and that this one was scheduled for half -past three o'clock in the afternoon. To pass the time away Ralph and Van resolved to stroll about the famous old seaport leisurely, and just " rubber," as the boys at their old school used to say. Shortly before noon at a corner of the Boulevard de Strasbourg, a really superb thoroughfare, re- markable for its generous width, they had paused to listen to a " soap-box " orator, a Belgian, who was eloquently expatiating on the wrongs his native land had suffered at the hands of the Hun. They imderstood but little of what he was saying; but they could readily perceive that his audience was in warm sympathy with him. The crowd, as Storm expressed it, was a regular movie show of bronzed American, British soldiers and sailors, French " poilus," picturesque police- men, and quaintly attired civilians. All at once a sudden burst of music — ^brass band music — burst upon their unbelieving ears; unbe- lieving, for the air was none other than the old familiar, " Hail, hail, the gang's all here! " The gigantic Van Home at once began to plough 123 FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ^RMT his way through the crowd — and on this occasion not with his wonted gentleness and consideration toward others lacking in his great strength and bulk — in that direction from which the inspiriting music came. With a little inarticulate cry of joyful surprise Lieutenant Storm made haste to follow in the wake of his huge friend. Hardly had they reached the outskirts of the crowd when a regiment of real Amer- ican soldiers headed by their regimental band and with " Old Glory " flying proudly in front, marched briskly into view. Brown, alert, erect, intelli- gent, and dangerously fit, with more than the hint of a swagger to their broad shoulders, the regiment approached with a swing, and passed. It was a sight to thrill any American on foreign soil. The Belgian orator lost his audience. Along both sides of the wide street the people turned and followed those braves from the sister republic over the seas, for they knew that this particular regiment 124 A Feknch " POILU " The word means "hairy one." THE ANSWER was on its way to entrain for the front. Ralph and Van, as enthusiastic as any American schoolboy when a free show is on, joined the moving throng that escorted the regiment. At the railway depot the waiting train of empty passenger coaches was drawn up on four parallel tracks. The troop train was thus divided into four sections; each section waited, all ready to move off when loaded with its human freight, on one of the parallel side-tracks. Each battalion of the regiment, and the H. Q. staff, had been previously allotted to its respective section of the train. To a civilian the systematic dispatch with which the battalions broke away from each other, filed out onto the open spaces between the tracks, each beside its own section, and then entrained in one steady unhesitating stream till the very last man with all his impedimenta was aboard, would have seemed marvelous indeed. Yet the whole pro- ceeding occupied the space of but a few minutes. It was a simple but excellent example of the value of consistent and rigid training and discipline. Van Home and Storm looked on with glistening eyes, their hearts away up in their throats. And oh, how they wished that they, too, might right there and then have gone along with those other fellows from home. The coach-windows were already open, and very 125 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT soon each framed a group of two or three whole- some, sun-tanned American faces, full of eagerness, full of curiosity, full of expectation in regard to the near future, and above all full of the fresh clean lives they had been living in the open-air camps of their own dear old U. S. A. The engine attached to the first section had al- ready given two or three laboriously protesting preliminary puffs. Its driving wheels had gripped the slippery rails, and the first two or three coaches had already felt the reluctant, shuddering jolt of the first intention to start, when another train pulled softly and silently into the great military depot of Le Havre, and stopped noiselessly and without a jar on the next track. It was but one of the many Red Cross trains that arrived there many times daily. From its open windows looked and leaned the " sitting-up " and " walking " cases. Most dramatic was the situation. The robust soldiers from the New World — " going in " — were face to face with the broken heroes of the Old World — " coming out." But a foot or so of space separated them. So close were they that they might have clasped hands; but for a space in a silence that was tense they merely gazed deeply into each other's eyes. Deep had met deep. Our two profoundly impressed young American 126 THE ANSWER officers, looking on with almost bated breaths, could plainly see in the faces of their own raw troops the most intense interest and the deepest admiration and respect — almost amounting to awe — for those comrades in arms of theirs who had already proved themselves, and had not been found wanthig. And in the eyes too of those fresh young faces from overseas, Ralph and Van saw also a strange dumb kind of promise that they too in their turn would carry on where those war-worn veterans had been forced to leave off. For a space no man spoke. Silently the vet- erans gazed appraisingly into the faces opposite their own as the American troop train gradually got under way and began to glide past them. Then all at once a thin voice, from one whose face was stuck together with adhesive plaster, and whose bandaged left arm rested in a sling, broke the emotion-fraught hush with the old familiar cry: " Are we down-hearted? " The tension snapped. A roar arose from both trains that would have done your heart good to hear. It brought smiles to the lips of Lieutenant Van Home and Storm; but it brought unshed tears to their eyes too. "No, no, no-o-o!" the American soldier lads roared back the answer ; and there was magic music 127 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT in the prolonged rise and fall of sound that rolled and rolled and died away in wave after wave till the train at rest and the moving one were separated by more than a hundred yards. Even then the music of it died away reluctantly and slowly. " Wasn't that wonderful. Van? " breathed Storm with a sigh of relief. " Simply great! I wouldn't have missed it for the world," responded his huge companion fer- vently. Then the two boys relapsed into silence again as the other sections of the American train in their turn picked up the cheering as each section one after another was afforded a view of the Red Cross train, and belatedly learned the reason for the pre- ceding successive outbursts. It took the two friends all of fifteen hours to cover the one hundred and twenty-five miles by railway from Le Havre to the French capital. When they did eventually arrive in Paris they were met at the great Gare * St. Lazaire by Ralph's father, who gave the boys a warm welcome and at once bundled them off to his hotel. There Lieu- tenant-Colonel Storm informed the two young soldiers that they were both to be detailed for duty as soon as they reported at the United States Army Headquarters, and that so far as he then knew, *Gare: French for railway station. 128 THE ANSWER they were destined for the same training camp as instructors. " You, Ralph," the Lieutenant-Colonel said to his son, " I believe, have been temporarily attached as a bombing instructor. "And you, Rodman," he went on more posi- tively, addressing his son's gigantic chum, " I am glad to be able to inform you, have been placed in charge of the instructional classes for * Gas Officers ' at the same camp. " Of course you have both been permanently appointed as lieutenants to the same regiment, now down on the Lorraine sector; but I believe that these temporary appointments have been based upon inquiries officially made as to your respective special qualifications." " That suits me," interjected his son. " How does it strike you. Van? " " I'm satisfied," rejoined Van Home gravely. " You see, I qualified as a * Gas Officer ' at one of the new schools of instruction in England while I was a ' walking-out ' case at the convalescent hos- pital. I found it very interesting." " I have no doubt of it, you dear old thing," laughed Storm, who was just bubbling over with happiness at the good news they had received. " You know. Father, Van would much rather save life than destroy it, even for a German, I do 129 FIGHTING TFITH THE U. S. ARMY believe. And it's the * Gas Officer's ' main business to make us all safe from the gas, you know." " The feeling is a commendable one, Ralph," re- joined his father gravely, " and I hope that you, too, share it, my son. " But I have not much time to spend with you two boys to-day, I regret to say, for I have several important appointments which will occupy all of this morning." Then glancing inquiringly at them, for they were both still wearing their Canadian uniforms, he asked: " What have you done about getting your new American uniforms? " " We have ordered complete outfits in London," replied his son. " They ought to be here by the day after to-morrow. " I was able to get a coat to fit myself, all ready- made; but they had nothing in stock large enough for Van, and we both want to report for duty at the same time." " That being the case," returned his father, " it will be as well to await the arrival of your uniforms before reporting. I am sorry, boys, that I cannot be with you to-day. Perhaps I shall have more leisure to-morrow." They then told the Lieutenant-Colonel about Dick Fletcher, their old friend, " The Duke," and 130 THE ANSWER how they had learned that he was then attached as an instructor to the Aviation Camp, located but a few miles beyond the outer fortifications of Paris. " You will need a pass to visit the Camp," vol- unteered Lieutenant-Colonel Storm, " and if yon will accompany me to the H. Q. of the C. E. F. where I am presently going, I will procure one for you." Before they left the hotel Ralph had also made his father acquainted with the contents of their re- cent letters from Doctor Wilde concerning the run- away, " Wiggler." The Lieutenant- Colonel prom- ised to keep his eyes open, too, for the youngster, and to pass the word along throughout the Fores- try Corps, to be on the lookout for the lad. "And I have no doubt that you boys will meet many of your other old schoolmates over here by this time, for reinforcements are now arriving from the United States in a steady stream," observed the elder Storm. " Yes, I think that we shall. Father," responded his son. " Already we know of another class- mate who is in the U. S. Artillery. You remember Shorty Lawson, don't you, Father? I introduced him to you that last time you were down at the old school." " I can't say that I do, Ralph," smiled his father. 131 FIGHTING IVITH THE U. S. ARMT " You introduced me to so many of the boys then, you laiow. But I shall be very glad indeed to meet any of them again." 132 CHAPTER IX BAPTISTE '*A year ago the captain was instructor in a college, The sergeant was a plumber, and the corporal a clerk; The privates had no glimmering of military knowledge, For they'd never run across it in their ordinary work," Having secured the necessary passes, Van and Ralph, via La Rue d'Allemagne, motored out to the Aviation Camp situated some few miles beyond the outer fortifications of the city. For Paris, be it known, is entirely surrounded by three sepa- rate girdles of fortifications ; the inside belt was con- structed between 1840 and 1844; the outer one is the last word in defensive military engineering. Lieutenant- Colonel Storm had also procured for them a letter of introduction to the Captain Adju- tant of the Flying School, a precaution which smoothed the way for them. Lieutenant Fletcher, they were informed, although they were not yet sure that this was the Dick Fletcher of their acquaint- ance, had but an hour or so before their arrival taken his class up for their morning's schooling. The " Duke," if it were really he, was then acting 133 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT as chief instructor to the finishing class consisting of those embryo aviators who, having successfully navigated all the perils — and they were many and unforeseen — of the lower grades, had at length ar- rived at that period of their course where they re- ceived finishing instructions in manoeuvring and flying in formations. Their informant could not tell the two young officers exactly when the young American in- structor would return with his " escadrille." It might be before noon, and perhaps not till later in the day. That was a matter that rested solely with him. If everything went favorably with them, and the enemy's " avions de chasse " were not too much in evidence, for observation practice the esca- drille might even fly as far as their own front lines. Would they care to wait? The above information had been politely af- forded by the adjutant in person, to whom their letter of introduction was addressed, and he it was, too, who had gracefully asked them the last ques- tion. Van and Ralph decided to wait till midday at least, and expressed a desire to see something of the process of training that prospective bird-men had to undergo. The adjutant thereupon dispatched an orderly to find the Officer of the Day. This young officer 134 BAPTISTE was formally presented to the two friends, and the object of their visit to the Aviation Camp made known to him. In graceful English he welcomed them cordially, and at once offered to show them about. "Ah, yes," he volunteered, as they were leaving Camp Headquarters, " Lieutenant Fletcher left more than an hour ago, and when the Hawk flies no one may be sure when he will return. I know the Hawk very well," he continued. " He is a very good friend of mine." At the aviation officer's first use of the word " Hawk," the two American boys had passed it over without comment, but when he used it the second time in connection with one whom they believed to be their old schoolmate, the " Duke," they glanced in inquiring surprise, first at him, and then at each other. Storm ventured the query, " Is that the name by which Dick Fletcher is known here? " " The Hawk? Yes, all the Air Force know him by that name. Didn't you know that was his fly- ing title? " " No," replied Storm; " at school we used to call him ' The Duke.' " " Mais oui," laughed the French aviation officer, " I know the reason for that, I think. Notre ami, Fletcher, is so very, very particular, n'est-ce pas? " ^135 FIGHTING WITR THE U. 5. ARMT " Yes, that was it," answered Van. " But why is he now called * The Hawk '? " " C'est bien simple," rejoined the flight lieu- tenant. " Your friend and mine was one of the first of us flyers who ever took prisoners and personally conducted them back into our lines. " It was during one of the recent big shows. The Hawk was flying low over the battle-field, letting the Germans have * what for ' from his M. G.,' when he saw a full platoon of the enemy headed for their own rear. " The Hawk attacked them alone. After a few shots only he suddenly and unexpectedly ran out of ammunition. " But that didn't bother the Hawk much," went on the young aviator smilingly. " He just dropped down lower still and began shooting off his signal rockets at them. This was so unusual — it's not laid down in the rule books, you know — it scared and confused the Germans so that they threw up their hands, and turning began to flee at full speed toward our lines. "All the way back until they were taken into cus- tody by some of our men the Hawk circled above them like the bird of prey itself that he's named after, every now and then letting them have a * Machine gun. 136 BAPTISTE rocket to keep them moving at the double, and to keep their hands up." " The dear old thing! " chuckled Storm. " That sounds just like the old Duke. Don't you think so, Van?" Van smiled assent, but said nothing, for his at- tention was just then all taken up by the strange panorama that was gradually unfolding itself as they leisurely surmounted the crest of a gentle elevation. A smoothly undulating stretch of country, bald of all obstacles save those placed there by the hand of man for his present purposes, about two miles long by more than a mile across, was the field of practice upon which more than a hundred embryo bird-men were then disporting themselves, as if playing with some strange gigantic toys in a man- ner most curious and most grotesque. The three officers paused for a moment on the crest of the low eminence to take in the general aspect of what seemed at first glance, to the two lieutenants of infantry at least, but one vast play- ground given over to the untrammeled antics of hundreds of raving maniacs, each one of whom seemed intent on some stunt more fantastic than the one his neighbor was attempting. It was wonder- fully interesting, and at first view strangely funny. Later, Van and Storm knew that the great prac- 137 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT tice field was definitely divided into four sections running parallel with each other. The students also, they later perceived, were divided into classes. Their guide, the Orderly Officer of the Day, told them that each class had its own apportioned sec- tion of the practice ground. It was the varied and widely differing perform- ances of the several classes all going on at once, combined with the untoward vagaries of individual performers, that lent to the whole such an in- describable and bewildering " tout ensemble.*' The "penguin " — or training plane, usually made by shortening the wings of an ordinary scouting plane so that it has not much lifting power. It therefore makes short flying hops, like the awkward bird for which it is named. Nearest them was a group of stunted planes that scudded and skipped along the smooth sward like a flock of crazy chickens, all meaning to go in the same direction, but zigzagging hither and thither as if without any settled purpose. They ran right toward each other, missed colliding by miracles, and scooted away from each other, onlv to turn 138 BAPTISTE again as if with a sudden and desperate resolve to run each other down for sure; they seemed simply frantic, so erratic were they. " That certainly looks like some sport," laughed Ralph. "Yes," smiled the young "ace" who accompanied them. " But it's hard work, too. We call those short-winged planes * rollers ' or * penguins,' be- cause they do not leave the ground." " This is the * a^ b, c ' class, eh? " queried Ralph. " Yes, you might call them that," replied the aviator officer. " On those machines the students are merely learning to steer straight with their feet. It is very difficult at first. That is the first stage of their work in real live planes that can move at all. Up till now they have been practicing inside with sta- tionary machines only." "A little further over there they all seem to be just flopping up and down off the ground? " ob- served Van in an inquiring tone, at the same time pointing with his stick to the group he wished to indicate. " That's just what they are doing," replied their mentor. " That's what we call ' pan-caking.' The ma- chines those fellows are using can rise only five or six feet off the ground. The trick they are learning 139 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr is to light flat on both wheels without striking their tails or wings against the ground." "And a pretty good name for it, too," volun- teered Storm. " They look to me for all the world like great giants throwing themselves flat upon their stom- achs on the ground, with their arms spread out as far as they can get them. Every time I see one of them about to flop I expect to hear it grunt." " Those you see farther on over there, rising quite a little way up into the air, about fifty feet or so," smiled their aviator companion, " and then im- mediately starting to come down again head first at a pretty sharp angle, are practicing ' piquing.* That's the third stage of our education. " To make good landings is one of the most difficult things we have to learn," he continued. " Piquing is the ordinary method of landing. When you judge you are near enough to the ground, you pull back your ' control ' so as to throw up the tail-elevator; then you run along for a little way and land gradually. It's some stunt when the ground is rough." " I can quite agree with you," observed Van sententiously. " I fear that I shouldn't be of much use in the Flying Corps." " The fourth class," pursued their courteous 140 BJPTISTE young mentor, "is * La Classe de Perfectionne- ment.' Your friend, Lieutenant Fletcher " " The Hawk? " interposed Storm with a grin. " Yes," smiled the other, and went on, " He has the fourth class out on reconnaissance practice to- day; otherwise you would be able to see them try- ing out some very interesting and more or less dangerous stunts here. Theirs is the most inter- esting work of all to watch." " What kind of stunts do they try? " queried Storm. " Such things as looping the loop and that sort of thing, I suppose? " " Yes, that, and sliding on their wings or their tails, going into corkscrews — and getting out of them again, which is far harder and more im- portant," the young " ace " added dryly. " This afternoon," he volunteered, " the whole school will have machine-gun practice ; some on the ground and some in the air." The trio then moved down from the little hill on which they had been standing, and went in turn as closely as was safe to each group or class in order to get a more intimate view of their individual per- formances. So interested and amused were they for some time as to be quite oblivious of its passing, and it was midday before they realized it. Lieutenant Fletcher, or "The Hawk," as his colleagues of the Air Force called him, had not yet 141 FIGHTING WITH THE U, S. ARMY returned with his " escadrille," and our two young friends were reluctantly compelled to begin their return journey to Paris without having had the pleasure of meeting their old schoolmate. All France at that time was but one tremendous tragedy made up of millions of minor heart-breaks. Many were the pathetic groups resting by the way- side, or plodding along painfully and patiently afoot, that the two friends passed that day, as in their hired motor-car they sped along La Rue d'Allemagne, one of the great cobblestoned arteries leading direct to the heart of Paris from a northeasterly direction, on their return journey from the aviation camp. Coming from the city they passed soldiers only; the civilian travelers were all going the other Avuy — " Nach Paris," as was at one time the German war- cry. Storm called his friend's attention to the manner in which the stocky " poilus," even when without their great heavy packs on their backs, walked from force of long habit with feet apart and stiff-legged from hip to heel. They all had that gait. Months and months of heavily burdened marching along roads that were such in name only, through com- munication trenches with slimy beveled bottoms, and over shell-pocked fields, had given that labored attitude to them. 142 BAPTISTE " Yes, I have noticed it," replied Van, " but, though their bodies are war-worn and weary, their indomitable gay spirit always remains. It shines from their eyes, and smiles from their lips always. " But I was paying more attention to those poor refugees whom we see constantly passing," he con- tinued. " We have room for two more in this car, and I am sure the chauffeur will not object if we offer to pay the extra fare." " Great minds think alike. Van. I was just thinking something similar. But all the groups we have passed so far seemed to be * en famille,' as the French themselves say, and composed of too many for us to take the whole group on. " But look! " he added, seizing his friend's arm and pointing directly ahead along the straight, poplar-bordered stretch of road. " There is a lonely pair for whom we have lots of room ! " The taxi was rapidly overhauling a strangely assorted pair, plodding along by the roadside; a man and a little girl — a tiny tot who could not have seen more than five previous summers. When Ralph first drew the attention of his friend to them, the man was carrying the little one on his back, pick-a-back fashion; but even as they looked he lowered her carefully to the cobblestones. Even her inconsiderable weight was proving too much for her companion. 143 FIGHTING fFITH THE U. S, ARMT It was not altogether the difference in age and size that at first glance made the couple seem so ill-assorted; it was their dress more than anything else. The man's attire was as variegated as Joseph's coat of many colors. His head was covered with the battered cap of a Canadian infantryman. His back and shoulders were draped with the long, washed-out-blue coat of a French poilu, and his legs were clad in the striped trousers of a German prisoner of war. On his left foot he wore the heavy hobnailed ankle shoe of the British " foot- slogger," and on his right the cast-off top-boot of a Prussian Officer of the Guard. The dress and bonnet of the little girl, whom the derelict was leading by the hand, were of a mode and material such as were worn only by the chil- dren of the wealthier classes, as they existed before the war broke out. Her garments, although they must have seen considerable recent rough usage, were still comparatively clean, and her little bonnet was made of real lace of Valenciennes. She clung with desperate solicitude to a poupee, or baby doll, that had evidently been dressed for her by loving hands not a great while before. The man walked weakly, leaning heavily on a stout stick that might have been a bit of trench wattling. Before they had quite caught up with 144 HE STRAIGHTENED UP WITH A SNAP BAPTISTE the pair the two friends in their hired car deemed the man's debility to be that of old age. But when the car abruptly halted beside the waifs and Van Home sprang from it to the road, he at once per- ceived that the man was still comparatively young. His unkempt hair and beard were jet black and luxuriant. He was nothing but skin and bone, as if his body had long been starved. At the sudden stoppage of the taxi beside them the two forlorn wayfarers also arrested their steps. They had been paying no heed to its approach, for there was a constant stream of wheeled vehicles passing up one side of the Rue d'Allemagne and down the other, and when that almost seven feet of young American brawn and bone suddenly alighted on the slippery cobblestones before them, the man merely raised his eyes — listlessly at first. Slowly his gaze traversed the figure of the big American youth till his eyes rested on the latter's smiling countenance. For one brief instant he stared full into Van Home's eyes. Then, letting his staff fall to the ground and at the same time releasing the hand of his little com- panion, he straightened up with a snap. He tottered forward three steps till both of his trem- bling outstretched hands rested upon Van Home's broad breast, and still gazing into the latter's eyes, with evident unbelief in his own powers of vision 145 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT plainly depicted in his own eyes, he cried hoarsely, half-doubtingly: " Dieu soit beni! C'est impossible! " A pause, and then he cried again, and this time with trembling joy, "Mais oui, c'est vrai! C'est mon sergeant, mon brave Yankee!" Van's first thought when that human scarecrow made toward him was that the man was but an- other of those unfortunates — of whom there were then so many in France, alas — who had been driven insane by suffering and privation and the loss of all they held dear in this world. But at the first sound of the poor fellow's voice the young lieutenant recognized him, and grasping him firmly by both arms to steady him, for he seemed about to fall down, he trembled so. Van Home in his turn cried aloud in sheer unbelieving amazement: " Baptiste, Baptiste Trudeau, as sure as I'm alive!" Then he called, " Ralph, Ralph, look who's here! It's Baptiste — Baptiste Trudeau, our old cor- poral!" But Storm was already out of the taxi, crying as he came over to them : " Great Caesar's ghost ! Old Baptiste, alive and kicking, or I'm a living sinner! " And he grasped one of the stranger's hands and 146 BAPTISTE began to shake it almost too vigorously for one in the latter's weakened condition. It was in truth their old corporal and comrade- in-arms, Baptiste Trudeau, the French Canadian, the same who had enlisted along with Rodman Van Home on that far-off memorable night in Toronto, when the latter had first and suddenly made up his mind to don the khaki, and who had been made a prisoner by the Germans in that same fierce engage- ment in which Van Home and Storm had both been wounded. By this time the tears of joy were streaming down poor Baptiste's cheeks, and to keep from cry- ing out loud he had begun to laugh hysterically. Then their attention was attracted to the corporal's little companion, who, finding herself temporarily forgotten and neglected, began to whimper plain- tively. At once Baptiste turned toward her, saying in a tone of great self-reproach, "Ah, ma pauvre petite, je " But even as he turned about, from sheer weak- ness he fell forward on the rounded cobblestones. Van waited for no more. Baptiste had been a German prisoner, and his pitiful condition told its own tale. In his mighty arms Van gathered him up off the road as if he weighed no more than a baby, and saying to Storm, " Bring the little one, 147 FIGHTING fFITH THE C7. S. ARMT Ralph!" he hustled the former corporal of Ca- nadians into the taxi. On the seat beside Baptiste Storm placed the still whimpering child, who never ceased to cling tightly to her dolly, and then he himself momited to the seat alongside of the driver. Baptiste was not very long in comforting the little one, and then he had leisure to reply to the volley of questions that were shot at him as the car sped once more on its way toward Paris. The French Canadian's account of his captivity in the infamous German prison camp at Witten- berg was so full of harrowing details that it made his hearers' very blood run cold. Even the peace-loving Van Home found him- self clenching his huge fists till they hurt, when Baptiste drew their attention to the half-healed scars upon his throat and right breast, while he told of the manner in which those scars had been made by the teeth of savage, half-bred wolf-hounds that had been set upon himself and some others of his fellow prisoners for no other reason than that they had failed to obey immediately a signal to go in- doors that they did not understand. Three rifle shots were fired, but they had not been previously instructed what these shots were to mean. The taxi was once more speeding through the streets of Paris before Baptiste reached the part of 148 B^PTISTE his narrative that concerned the little girl by his side. It was a very simple incident; just one of the pitifully dramatic things of which hundreds were happening every day and hour along the sad roads of that desolated section of France then being evacuated by the enemy after years of a merciless occupation — merely another tale of a poor little waif, lost and homeless, being picked up by a pass- ing refugee, himself in straits almost as dire as her own. It had been two days before, Baptiste told the two young officers. He was picking his way along with his staff, weary and weak, with bowed head and averted eyes, over the rut-furrowed and shell-pitted trail of what had once been a smooth straight road symmetrically bordered with graceful Lombardy poplars, of which there still stood but a shell- shattered skeleton every here and there, when his attention was aroused and arrested by the touching plaintive wail of a little child, who in her own pretty French, in which were mingled many terms of childish endearment, and in tear-choked accents was beseeching some one to, " Please, please wake up, my dearie! " The child was fruitlessly endeavoring to arouse an old woman — who would never wake again. She had evidently been the child's companion, and had sat down to rest by the wayside in the small shelter 149 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT of an overturned and shattered Army Transport wagon that had been wrecked by a high explosive shell. Her gray head had fallen forward on one of her poor old arms that rested against the hub of a broken wheel. On investigation, Baptiste found that the old woman was indeed resting — sleeping her last long sleep. She had died of want and exposure, Bap- tiste thought, although beside her was a small basket containing a bottle with some milk in it, and some broken pieces of black bread. She had been feeding the little one and starving herself, he thought. In the basket along with the bread and the bottle of milk there was also a sealed letter addressed to some one — evidently a lady — in Paris. The simple and good-hearted French Canadian was taking the little one to the address on the envelope; that was all. As he was concluding, Baptiste took the letter from the pocket of his coat, and handed it to Lieu- tenant Van Home. After reading the address on the envelope the latter passed it on to Storm, who had all the time been leaning over the back of his seat in front with the chauffeur, and listening at- tentively to Baptiste's story. Ralph at once suggested that both Baptiste and the little girl be taken to his father's hotel before 150 BAPTISTE any other definite steps were made to find the per- son to whom the letter was addressed. Baptiste had been much troubled about how best to proceed in the matter, and was more than pleased to agree to the young lieutenant's proposal. Lieutenant-Colonel Storm, with his usual prompt and businesslike method of doing things, had soon disposed of both Baptiste and his little traveling companion. The former was forthwith bundled off to bed in the hotel, and placed under the care of an army doctor, there to remain till further orders. By means of the telephone the Lieutenant- Colonel was soon in touch with the Comptesse de Lotbiniere to whom the sealed epistle was ad- dressed. That titled lady lost no time in claiming both the letter and the tiny waif, who proved to be her niece, the only child of her sister. The letter contained just one more of those sad and sordid tales of a once happy French country home ravaged and laid waste by the ruthless enemy. But so far as this present story is concerned the incident ended when the countess departed from Lieutenant-Colonel Storm's suite with the little one whose guardian angel had directed the tottering steps of the all but worn-out French Canadian to- ward La Rue d'Allemagne that day. 151 CHAPTER X THE GAS INSTRUCTOR ''Since at 'somewhere* in France they were landed, In many a billet they*ve been, Exceedingly strange, to be candid, Are some of the things they have seen." On the following day, their new uniforms having arrived safely from London, the two young lieu- tenants duly reported for duty at the Headquarters of the American Expeditionary Force in Paris. There they found a surprise, at first not altogether to their liking, awaiting them. From the information Lieutenant-Colonel Storm had been enabled to give them upon their arrival in the French capital they had been led to believe that they were to be appointed to the same regiment, and that although they were both to be temporarily detailed to one of the wonderful American training camps as instructors, they would eventually find themselves together again on the firing-line, or in the front-line trenches. But it is always the unexpected that happens, and this is especially true of army life. The for- 152 THE GAS INSTRUCTOR tunes of war must vary with every fleeting minute; and " brass-Jiats " ' must change their plans and shift their men about to suit the urgent demands of the unforeseen. The information that Ralph Storm's father had received, and in turn had imparted to the boys, in regard to the disposition that was about to be made of them had no doubt been correct ; but by the time they reported for duty, short though the interval had been, other plans had been cut and dried for them. In brief. Lieutenant Storm was ordered to report at once to his regiment, then in reserve billets of the Toul sector of the Lorraine front. Lieutenant Van Home, on the other hand, owing to the recent special training that he had received, was, in accord- ance with the original intention of Headquarters concerning him, detailed as " Gas Instructor " at the great camp that was not far from the city of Harfleur. He too was ordered to take over his new duties with the least possible delay. The two returned to the hotel to say good-bye to Lieutenant-Colonel Storm, and to pack up their kits. Their respective destinations lay in quite opposite directions from Paris, and both intended leaving * Brass-hat: The private soldier's name for a high officer, whose cap shows much gold braid. FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT by the first available trains. Van Home found that a train for Harfleur was leaving within the hour, and Storm, whose own train did not leave till later in the day, pitched in and helped him to pack. Each of them, although they mutually regretted having to separate again so soon, was well pleased with his new appointment. Ralph on his part was eager to get back to the excitement of the front line, where to him every- thing partook more or less of the nature of a glori- fied football game with its storm and stress, and the thrill that was never altogether absent there at any time. Van Home, on the other hand, never looked for- ward to the actual fighting without experiencing that cold, nervous, shivering sensation that had once even made him afraid of himself — afraid lest he should, when the pinch came, actually feel afraid and yield to that fear in spite of himself. To be sure, he had long since proved himself to himself, and was no longer possessed of that former nameless dread; yet he could always understand and sympathize with that Scottish Highlander who, when on the point of leaving for France once again after a brief week-end furlough in " Blighty," on being asked if he were going back to the trenches once more, and if he were glad to go, made reply in his broad burring accent: 154 THE GAS INSTRUCTOR "Aye, ahm a-goin' back. Ahm a-goin' back a-richt; but ahm nae just a-bur-r-rstin' tae go! " And it was the answer of a real hero — a man who could not be frightened from his duty. And so it was always with the big lad, Lieutenant Rodman Van Home. Before the latter bade good-bye to his friends in Paris, however, he had the satisfaction of loiowing that his old friend Baptiste was going to be cared for. When they were all driving back to Paris in the taxi, Van Home and Storm had informed the French Canadian that after that memorable raid in which they had all taken part he had been re- ported among the casualties, first as missing, and then later as dead; and that he had been in conse- quence officially " struck off the strength " of his old battalion in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. This information had set him thinking, and that morning Baptiste, feeling really like a giant re- freshed, after a good night's sleep in a real bed, some clean and new clothes, and his first good well- cooked breakfast in many a long day, had quietly made his way also to the Headquarters of the Amer- ican Expeditionary Force, and had enlisted as a private soldier under the Stars and Stripes. After hearing his story, and learning of his former connection with the two well-known young American officers who had so recently been serving 155 FIGHTING ff^lTH THE U. S. ^RMT with the Canadians, they placed Baptiste upon the strength of the same regiment to which Storm and Van Home had themselves been appointed, and that afternoon he was to accompany Lieutenant Storm when the latter set out to join the regiment do^vn on the Lorraine front. That afternoon on reporting at the gi*eat Amer- ican training camp near Harfieur Van Home found that he indeed had his work cut out for him. It was with some slight misgivings that he at first took hold. Van was always a little dubious about himself till he got warmed up to his work and forgot him- self altogether. Yet without at all at such times intending to do so, or even being aware that he was about to do anything of the sort, Big Van, as the boys at Dale Academy used to say, more often than not " started something," and when he did he " pushed it along." His interview with the Camp Commandant shortty after he reported there for duty was brief and to the point. The Commandant informed him that a number of American officers and N. C. O.'s were even then taking courses in gas offense and protection methods at several of the schools of in- struction in England, and that pending their arrival back in France Van Home's services would be most welcome and appreciated. 156 . THE GAS INSTRUCTOR He wished to have particular stress, the Com- mandant said, laid upon the latest protective devices and the methods of using them. Van Home's in- struction would give those of his officers who could not for obvious reasons be absent from their com- mands an immediate chance to learn those things, and to put them into practice with their various units. " But, all details I leave to you, sir," he went on. "All I ask is that you do your best to impart just what you yourself have been taught. The junior officers and the N. C. O.'s will be divided up into squads. One or more of these squads will be sent to you each working hour of the day after the nine a. m. parade daily. " You can arrange your schedule accordingly. When any member of a squad has completed his course of instruction to your satisfaction you will have him report to my adjutant, and we shall set them at once to teaching new men." " Very good, sir," said the young instructor. " Do not be surprised," continued the Com- mandant, smiling, " if some of us senior officers drop in on your classes occasionally. We all need this, and I shall advise all to take advantage of the time you are with us here. When can you begin? " " When you please, sir. That is to say, with the theoretical part of the work," replied Van Home 157 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT modestly. " But some appliances and apparatus will be necessary as we go on." " Very good," concluded the Commandant. " Then you can begin to-morrow. Order what you need in the meantime from the Q. M. stores. I shall leave instructions that you are to be supplied at once with all that you may require." " Very good, sir. Thank you, sir," said Van Home, saluting and turning away, followed by the appraising and admiring eyes of the Com- mandant — an old West Pointer, who knew a soldier when he saw one. The duty then thrust upon Lieutenant Rodman Van Home, V. C, late of the Canadians and now of the American Expeditionary Force, was in good truth an onerous one. The development, or rather evolution, that had taken place in the use of poisonous gas as a weapon of offense and defense, since that remote day at the second battle of Ypres, when wholly unprotected against it the Canadians of the British forces, and the Turcos of the French Army had had their lungs burned out, had been one of the most remarkable features of the countless marvels that the great World War had wrought. As from time to time new methods of using and projecting the gas were invented, fresh ways of fighting it had to be found, and they were. And 158 THE GAS INSTRUCTOR as the nature of the gas used changed — for several kinds quite different in their effects upon the human body had come to be used — again the defense against it had to be altered or improved. At that precise period of the war when Van re- ceived his appointment as a " Gas Instructor " to the A. E. F. the Allied armies had even found it necessary to appoint one special officer to at least every battalion. This officer's sole duty was to see that his own particular unit was alwaj^s in a state of thorough preparedness against the insidious and dread weapon. He was generally a lieutenant who had been fitted for his responsible post by a special course of instruction. When Van left the Headquarters of the Camp Commandant he went direct to his own tent, and sat down to make out a regular schedule for his classes. Roughly he divided his course up into three parts. In the first part he proposed to lecture on the vari- ous kinds of gas and their effects ; one hour of this to each fresh squad, he thought, ought to be suf- ficient. Then he would proceed to the ways of de- tecting the gas and the methods of warning troops of its threatened approach. The third part, and by far the greater and most important part of the course, he resolved to devote to the methods of pro- tection adopted, with plenty of practical work 159 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT thrown in as soon as he could secure the necessary appliances therefor. He made out a list of the things he should be likely to require, and proceeded with it to the Q. M. stores. The Q. M. had on hand plenty of masks of the latest design accepted by the U. S. Army, and Van Home requisitioned thirty of these. The Q. M. S.' j)romised to have a special marquee pitched for him in some convenient location before nine o'clock next morning, and fully supplied with long camp mess-tables with their accompanying benches, enough to accommodate about from thirty to forty men at a time. He also promised, although it was something that would have to be specially made by the pioneers in the meantime, to have an easel blackboard, all ready for the young in- structor's use by that time. But when Van Home asked for a dozen trench fans, the Q. M. S. opened his eyes wider and as- sumed a look of puzzled surprise. In an injured tone, as if he resented this young officer's springing something entirely new on him, an old soldier, he protested: " Trench fans, sir? Why, I never heard of such things, sir! What might they be like? " " I'll show you," replied the lieutenant, with a disarming smile. * Quartermaster Sergeant. i6o THE GAS INSTRUCTOR " They certainly are something quite new to all of us. But you can easily make them for me, I know. Just let me have a bit of paper and a pencil, and I'll show you." Our young instructor then made a rough sketch of a trench fan, explaining the simple details of its construction to the Q. M. S. as he proceeded. The latter promised to have them ready for him in the morning also; but the next article on Van Home's list he was not so ready to undertake. When the big lieutenant was making out his list he had included among the items " one gas chamber for demonstration purposes," and had attached a rough pencil plan of the same, with specifications as to size and material. The chamber had to be con- structed partly underground, and was to have an outlet at each end, so that one might enter at one end and pass out through the other without having to turn back, once within it. The Q. M. S. had no doubt about the ability of his pioneers to construct it; but suggested that it would be as well if the lieutenant himself super- vised its construction. This was agreed upon, and Van Home forthwith set apart a portion of the next morning early for that purpose. The Q. M. S. promised to indent on the Ordnance Department for the necessary chemicals and apparatus for pro- ducing the chlorine gas. i6i CHAPTER XI THE CLASS *'TMs is their JiigJiest guerdon. Never to shrink from the task; But, if life or death he the burden. To share it is all they ask/' Rod Van Horne was nothing if not thorough in all that he undertook. In his classes at Dale Academy dogged perseverance and persistence had more than once placed him ahead of those who were much quicker to learn than he. The night before he began his work of instruc- tion at the American Training Camp he sat up, poring over the notes he had taken on " gas " pro- tection at one of the training schools in England, till the nightly bugles softly blew that weird and lonesome call, " lights-out," " lights-oout," that always makes the rookie's heart sit heavy in his bosom when he hears it for the first time as a soldier. As a sort of a lecture he planned to afford all that information regarding the different kinds of gas that has already been briefly dwelt upon in the preceding chapter. At first he thought of writing out something, memorizing what he had written, 162 THE CLASS and then delivering it in set form to each succeed- ing class or squad in turn as they appeared before him for instruction throughout the day. But he had never been able to make much of a fist of it as a speaker in the debating society at Dale ; generally getting stuck before he got started, no matter how well he had previously memorized his speech. So on this occasion he wisely concluded to content himself with reading over his notes care- fully and slowly, and to let the morrow take care of itself. Betimes next morning he saw to it that a working party under the command of a pioneer sergeant was set to work on the construction of the " gas-cham- ber," and he himself supervised their labors till nine o'clock, the hour set for his first class. The day was fine, and the front of the marquee that had been pitched over night and furnished ready for him had been thrown wide open for air and s,unshine, as is the custom with all tents in all camps when the weather permits. As Van drew near it he could hear much merry laughter and talk from within. His first class of junior officers — first and second lieutenants — was already assembled there. As their new instructor paused at the tent entrance, and took in what was going on inside, he could not help smiling broadly in sympathy with them. 163 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT The whole class was gathered about a table on which the Q. M. S. had left a pile of gas-masks. The junior officers were examining them and trying them on, just as any other group of mere schoolboj^s would have done, during the teacher's absence, and were having much fun over their awkward en- deavors to adjust the uncomfortable contrivances, and at the grotesquely ugly appearance that each presented when he had finally succeeded in cover- ing his face with it. Van Home's immense stature and broad shoul- ders darkened the entrance to the tent, wide open though it was ; and one of the merry group of young officers looked up. Now the fame of their gigantic young instructor had already gone abroad in the camp, and more than the junior officers then as- sembled in the marquee were curious to have a look at the young giant from the good old U. S. A. who had achieved the Victoria Cross, that decoration so highly prized by the British soldier, from the low- est to the highest ranks. It is safe to say that the junior officer who first caught sight of him, standing with his back to the light in the front of the marquee, had never before set his eyes on a human figure of such generous and at the same time symmetrical proportions. At once he recognized Lieutenant Van Home for what he really was, and in a " boiler-maker's whis- 164 THE CLASS per " that could be heard by every one — Van Home himself included — he cried: " Cheese it, fellows! Here's the instructor!" At the same time the speaker dropped the mask he had just removed from his face, and " ducked " for a seat on the nearest bench. Then again the twenty-nine others behaved them- selves just like a bunch of grown-up schoolboys. Some made a mad dash for the benches, and hastily seated themselves at the tables, and tried to look virtuous. Some of them stood their ground and looked stupid. One, who had succeeded in push- ing his face into a mask that was too small for him, tugged frantically, and unavailingly in his hurry, to remove it. All tried to look suddenly serious and dignified, as became commissioned officers, and succeeded but indifferently well in doing so. Two or three ventured a hearty " Good-morning, sir!" Van Home's responsive and hearty " Good- morning, fellows ! " accompanied as it was by that rare smile of his that ever won all hearts when it did make its appearance, set them at their ease again almost immediately. They perceived at once that this new instructor of theirs was a " regular fel- low." Answering smiles broke out over all their faces, and they replied in chorus, all of them: 165 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " Good-morning, sir! " Thus was the ice broken, and Van at once felt that, for his part, he would have no trouble in getting along if they were all anything like the sam- ple then before him; his heart went out to them right away. And in fact it would have been the fault of any instructor himself who failed to get along with those magnificent young fellows as a whole; they were of the pick of the brawn and brain of young America. Then each one quietly found a seat for himself on the long benches that ran along one side of each of the tables, and thus left them when seated facing the instructor's table, with the newly painted black- board behind it not yet dry, and so not yet ready for use. Van found this out by getting a black smudge upon his finger when he tested it. When he turned to do this they sized up his great back admiringly, and then glanced significantly and furtively at each other, which glances said as plainly as so many words : " Some officer, eh, what! " But as it turned out Van Home had not much use for the blackboard that day. At first he was at a loss how to begin; not that he was at all em- barrassed or confused when he looked into the thirty pairs of eager expectant young eyes that looked i66 THE CLASS steadily bacK into his own. They were of his own kind. And, as usual with Big Van, he did the right thing at the right time; he was just his natural self. " This is a new game to me, fellows," he started off. " I mean this instructing business. "And I never was much good at talking single- handed, anyway, so I guess you'll have to help me out — by asldng questions, or something. Not that I'll be able to answer everything you ask; but I'll answer all I can. But don't all speak at once," he added with a smile. Then the young instructor paused as if waiting for some one of them to start the ball rolling; but none of them ventured a question immediately. The fact of the matter was that all of them had so many questions to ask that none of them knew which to ask first. The sound of his own voice, however, seemed to have stimulated Van Home's flow of thought, and at length he went on quite naturally and conver- sationally, as if he were merely taking part in a friendly " chin " with some of his friends. And that indeed was just how he really felt. " Last night when I was studying over this busi- ness I thought that I would just begin this morn- ing by telling you something about the gas, what its effects are, and all that sort of thing. ' 167 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " Maybe some of you already know all this. If so, all the better. Then you'll be able to help me along if I get stuck. " I'll tell you why you should know all about the gas, how it's made, and what it is, and so on. It's just so that you fellows can tell it again to your platoons when you in your turn are instructing them. " Maybe you wonder what good it can do the men to know what the gas is composed of, and how it is made. Well, in the first place, it has been found out in both the British and the French armies that the very bad effect the gas had on the morale of the rank and file generally was mainly due to the surprise and mystery surrounding it. It was some- thing they didn't know and didn't understand; there was that dread uncanniness about it that always accompanies whatever is mysterious and intan- gible. " Later when the men were shown how it was made, and that there was nothing mysterious at all about it, and how it could be rendered absolutely harmless they then always remained absolutely cool, instead of going off in a panic as they did at first. "And when your men keep cool, you can smash up the enemy infantry when they try to follow up the gas cloud or barrage, whichever it may be, be- i68 THE CLASS fore they get any nearer than your own barbed wire. " But right there is where you have to go slow again, and dwell uiDon the terrible effects of the gas unless the men are unceasingly vigilant and on guard against it. You can't impress that too strongly upon your platoons, fellows. The French when they have their masks in position say that they are wearing them at the ' alerte/ and that's a mighty good word. Try to drive it into your men so that it will stick, that they must always be on the * alerte ' against the crawling, deadly stuff. " That's why we have to keep telling the men over and over again about the danger of it ; to keep them keyed up, lest they forget for but one minute just at the wrong time. You see, if green troops don't happen to get a severe dose of it the first time, unless the continued danger is reimpressed on them, they have a natural tendency to underrate the effects of the gas, and to be careless about their masks and dugout flaps; and then the next time they get it so good and plenty that those who sur- vive can never forget." Every young officer in the class was hanging upon the gigantic instructor's words, as he warmed up to his work, and every now and then slammed one huge brown fist with a resounding thwack into the palm of his other hand. 169 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT "And you can take it from me, fellows," he con- tinued, " that when a man is gassed nowadays — that is, provided he has had proper instruction — m ninety-five cases out of a hundred it is his own fault. "And if he has not been properly instructed and drilled, why then it's our fault, and his death lies at our doors. Think of that ! " I'm telling you all this beforehand to try to impress upon you the importance of thoroughly in- structing your men, and not only instructing them, but drilling them as well. You should give your men a regular gas attack drill every day till it be- comes just as easy and natural a thing for them to keep their masks in good shape and ready at hand always, and to be able to slip them on easily and quickly, as it is for them to keep their rifles cleaned and oiled and to carry them at the high port in a charge over No Man's Land. At every gas-drill you should personally inspect some or all of their gas-masks, and make it a serious crime to find one out of order. "And constant drill is the only thing that will do this, just as it is the only way to secure high ef- ficiency in anything, in the army or out of it." Van Home had by this time quite forgotten him- self, and in his own homely style was talking away quite fluently, if not eloquently. 170 THE CLASS With his first words he had captured their atten- tion, and what was better he held it throughout the hour. This was very encouraging to the young lecturer, as the introduction was the dryest and least interesting part of the course of insti*uction he had mapped out for his classes. He detailed the composition, effects, and modes of projecting the gas, in that first lesson, making it interesting by quoting concrete instances and ex- amples. The hour passed very quickly for both Van Home and his audience. No questions were asked. So interested did they all seem to be in the speaker's words that they appeared content merely to listen. The sole interruptions to his discourse were made by the young lecturer himself, when he occasionally paused and advised them to make a note in their books of some particular point. Toward the close of his talk to this first batch of his pupils he told them that he would talk to them about the different means of guarding against and of overcoming the gas attacks, and promised them that after that their work would be more interesting, as it would then consist mostly of prac- tical work. Finally He said, glancing at his watch : " We have just three minutes more before the next class comes on. I wish to thank you for the 171 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT patient attention you have given me, fellows. Has any one any question to ask? " Whereat a bright youth, who with evident diffi- culty had been repressing his exuberant spirits all through the class, inquired with a grin: " What about the rats we hear so much about, sir? Does the gas effect them too? " A burst of laughter greeted the question, but subsided at once as Van replied smilingly: " Yes, after a heavy gas attack dead rats, big gray fellows almost as big as a cat, and all sizes of rats down to the smallest size, lie about the trenches and dugouts everywhere. One never realizes what swarms of them there must have been alive there till he sees their bodies lying all about after the gas. We have masks for our horses, our mules, and our Red Cross dogs; but the Q. M. doesn't supply any for Mr. Rat, you know." "And how about the ' cooties,' sir? " queried the same young irrepressible who had already spoken. " Our intimate little friend, the cootie, seems to be the only living thing, so far, that thrives upon * gas.' He seems, if possible, to be more lively after a good dose of it than before. But perhaps we may yet find some better way of dealing with him, too, than by simply picking him off a shirt and crack- ing him between thumb-nails." 172 THE CLASS The class one and all filed out of the marquee laughing heartily. Five separate batches of junior officers appeared before Van Home that day, so he felt that he had his opening talk " down pretty fine " before it ended. He had succeeded as well in making him- self solid with more than one hundred and fifty of his fellow lieutenants of the A. E. F., and not a few of the senior officers, some of whom introduced themselves to the young instructor, and congratu- lated him on the high honor he had won while with the Canadians. The following day the apparatus which he had requisitioned from the Q. M. stores was ready and he began to take up the more interesting and prac- tical work with his classes. Before proceeding to the actual " mask drill," however, he dwelt at some length on the ways and means of detecting the approach and presence of the gas, and some of the devices used for spreading the alarm. "And here again I want to point out to you fellows," he said, " another reason why you should have your gas drills regularly and often. " False alarms, due to panic, or perhaps to nerv- ousness, have a very bad effect on the morale of your men. 173 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr " By them men are disturbed who should be taking their rest. "And if they happen too often the alarm becomes like that old cry of ' Wolf, wolf! ' Too often re- peated, no attention is paid to it. Men will wake up, and turn over, and go to sleep again, without ever bothering to put on their masks. Many thou- sands have lost their lives just that way. " Besides, regular gas drill has a steadying effect on everybody. Sentinels who have had it are not so likely to start a false alarm, that every time, remem- ber, will extend as far back, and beyond the reserve trenches, as those who have not had such constant practice. " Drill 'em, drill 'em, I repeat. You can't give your platoons too much of it. They will not like it, I know, and will grouse their dear old heads off; but the only thing you can do in that case is to try and make them realize that it is all for their own good. " But, just to get down to brass tacks again, fellows, I want to tell you some of the commonest ways of knowing when it is most necessary to be on your guard when No Man's Land is not very wide across, and how to send out and spread the alarm. " Not that accidents will not happen, mind you; no matter how careful you may be. When the 174 THE CLASS enemy trench is close to you, and you have men out in listening j)osts or saps, it's sometimes simply impossible to get a warning to them in time." Van paused a moment, as if to get his second wind, and one of his pupil officers asked: " What do you do in that case, sir? " " Nothing," replied Van Home gravely. " I once saw a sergeant and four pioneers come out of a covered sap, and walk right into a heavy gas cloud. The sergeant and two of the men died; they of course had known nothing of what was going on aboveground. But, as the French say, ' C'est la guerre.' " Van paused, and glanced thoughtfully down at the heap of gas-masks on the table before him, as if they had just awakened some painful recollec- tion. Then he resumed in a low tone: " Once when I was with the Canadians my pla- toon got it thick in the support trenches — second line, you know. I was a platoon sergeant then, and we had no * gas ' officers in those days. " The platoon lost nine men out of forty-eight. It was at night, and the men not on duty were sleeping in the dugouts. Seven of the nine were in the dugouts, and afterward we found their masks still under their greatcoats, which they had been using folded for pillows. They could not get at their masks in time to get them on in the dark- 175 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT ness. The two sentinels killed did not have their gas-masks on their persons neither. " After that I always insisted on the men of my platoon wearing their masks always attached by the straps — no matter what they were doing while in the trenches, sleeping or waking. " I know that this is a standing order now; but you'll have to watch your men closely, boys, to see that it's carried out." " May I ask a question, sir? " broke in one of the junior officers. " Certainly, that's what I'm here for," smiled Van. " Is the gas officer responsible for the condi- tion of the men's masks, or are we responsible for our own platoons, sir? Who inspects the masks?" "A very sensible question, and I'm glad you asked it," replied Van Home. " There is a chain of responsibility. The buck private is expected to care for his mask as well as he does for his rifle, and you all know what that means. The corporals are responsible for their squads to the sergeants; the sergeants are re- sponsible to you lieutenants who command pla- toons, and you must answer to the captain, who in his turn is responsible for his whole company to the officer commanding the battalion, and so on. 176 THE CLASS All are responsible and must answer for the life of every soldier. " The gas officer will carry on independently of you all, and check you all up. As the M. O.' is supreme in his sphere, so is the gas officer in his." " Thank you, sir," replied the young officer who had sought enlightenment. " But to get back to our subject, alarms," smiled Big Van, nodding pleasantly to the last speaker. " Of course you must bear in mind that I am referring now to gas clouds when the opposing trenches are close together. As for the shell, they arrive first, and we know of their presence only when we have smelled or felt them. "And right here let me caution you, lest I should forget it later ; never allow your men for any reason whatever to remove their masks once they have been ordered to put them on, until they are just as specif- ically ordered to take them off again. Get that into your mask drills, too. " One of the Boche tricks is to follow up the first gas wave by another just about the time we are beginning to think all clear; it may be two hours after the first one. And usually this second one is followed up closely by their bombers; so always look out for it, fellows, whether it comes or not. * Medical officer. 177 FIGHTING tVITH THE U. S. ARMT " To begin with, of course, if there is no wind, or if the wind is blowing from us toward the enemy, there is little danger of any new gas cloud, so it is up to you to keep tabs on the wind always. " To do that is easy enough in the daytime; but not so easy at night. You can have made some very small windmills, just such as we used to make at school for amusement," smiled the young instructor, "and stick them up on the parapet of your bit of trench, or even a piece of woolen yarn from your sock, tied to the branch of a twig and stuck up there will do, so long as you can see it. " The speed of the wind ought also to be taken into consideration." Lieutenant Van Home ceased speaking again, and smiling broadly, queried: " By the way, how many of you know what Beaufort's Scale is? " Hands up, please? " 178 An American Gas-Mask The "doughboys" learned to adjust it in seven seconds. THE CLASS Four of the young officers raised their hands, but not very high and rather hesitatingly. " All right! " said Van Home. " Well, it will be worth your while making a note of it, fellows. " It's a rule-of -thumb for gauging the wind that has long been in use among sailors. It was many years ago compiled by an English admiral named ' Beaufort.' " Better take this down in your note-books and memorize it; I'll just giYe you the part that applies on land especially," he added. " How shall we head the note, sir? " asked one of the class. " Just, * Beaufort's Scale,' B-e-a-u-f-o-r-t," re- plied his instructor, and then he slowly dictated: '*Wind speed, (nil) — Smoke goes straight up. Wind speed, 2 mi. per hour — Smoke slants. Wind speed, 5 mi. per hour — Wind felt on face. ' Wind speed, 10 mi. per hour — Loose bits of paper and leaves move about. Wind speed, 15 mi. per hour — Bushes sway. Wind speed, 20 mi. per hour — Tree-tops sway. Wind speed, 30 mi. per hour — Wind whistles through tree-tops. " That's all, and it's worth knowing," he con- cluded. 179 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY " But that can't be of much use at night, sir? " protested one of his pupils inquiringly. " No, that's true," replied Van Home. " To detect the gas at night you must depend chiefly upon your nose. But you can get a line on the direction of the wind by taking an occasional squint at your wind-vane, if you happen to have an electric torch handy; but that is always risky. " Snipers or machine gimners across the way will quickly mark down the spot where the flash appears more than once. A better way is to moisten one side of your face, and then turn your head slowly about. Even when you cannot notice the wind at all on the dry side, you can feel it on the wet cheek. "At night it is all the more necessary to give the alarm promptly. "Any of you who have ever tried on a mask," the speaker pursued with a dry smile at the recollection of their occupation when he had first entered the marquee, " can readily understand that it is alto- gether impossible to shout or whistle a warning with one on, or to blow a bugle. Yet it would never do for the sentinel to wait till after he had given the alarm before putting on his own mask. "And so we have always had to use some out- side means of making a different loud noise — the 1 80 THE CLASS louder the better — that would be recognized by all who heard it as the dread gas alarm. " Bells and gongs and auto horns have been tried. The motor horns are good; but we never could get enough of them, some way or other. The best of the gongs, because the handiest and most plentiful, is an empty shell case hung by a cord from a stick laid across the angle of a traverse where it joins the fire-bay." A member of the class held up his hand, signify- ing his wish to ask a question, and Van Home nodded. " Which is the better of them, sir, the gong or the horn? " " The shell-gong, I should say," replied his in- structor. " But even that can only be used for a local warning. At an alarm of gas, you know, everybody has to turn out, and if the alarm is only good locally sentinels must awaken men and of- ficers in dugouts and billets, and if there are any inhabited villages or farms just back of the lines messengers must be dispatched to them. "And although we still make an emergency use of the shell-gong, at present as soon as possible after they have been organized our trenches are equipped with a mechanical alarm that can be heard above the clatter of machine-gun fire, or even the din of bursting shell. i8i FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " It is called the * Strombos Horn/ These are installed in the fire-trenches, one for every four hundred or five hundred yards, and at longer and longer intervals apart down through the com- munication trenches and clear out to brigade and divisional headquarters. " By means of them an alarm started in the fire- trench can be passed along and clear out back of the lines almost as quickly as sound itself can travel. The noise they make is " On the table in front of the speaker, along with the other appliances he had requisitioned from the Q. M. was an iron compressed-air cylinder having at one end a stop-cock surmounted by an odd-look- ing funnel-shaped contrivance. As Van Home was about to make the remark just above quoted he bent abruptly over the cylin- der and gave a twist to the stop-cock. The re- sultant, ear-splitting and prolonged shriek brought every member of the class to his feet with a jump. The sudden piercing noise was almost deafening. Most of the class involuntarily clapped their hands to their ears. An instant they stood thus. Their instructor then turned off the excruciating screech as abruptly as he had turned it on. The whole class sat Aown like one man as suddenly as they had arisen. They had moved up and down like marionettes upon a string. , 182 THE CLASS Van smilingly finished his interrupted sentence: " The noise they make is — that," he said. The class began to laugh, and in their laughter were joined by a fresh group of young officers who had appeared at the front of the marquee, just as Van Home turned on the Strombos Horn. To the latter's surprise he saw that the next class had arrived. He glanced at his wrist watch. " Time for the next class, fellows. Sorry we did not get down to the practical work this morn- ing; but to-morrow will be another day. Good- morning! " The one class filed out through the rear of the marquee while another filed in from the front and took their places. .183 CHAPTER XII THE FRONT ^'This is the song of the gun — The muttering, stuttering gun. The maddening, gladdening gun — That chuckles with evil glee At the last, long drive of the Hun," Later on that same day that Rodman Van Home left Paris for the training camp, Ralph Storm, accompanied by Baptiste Trudeau, took his departure also from the French capital, bound for Toxil, then the hub of active American operations down in the Lorraine sector of the Western Front. Early the following morning they arrived in that ancient fortress surrounded by her grass-concealed ramparts of steel. Toul is one of the oldest, and is the strongest but one of all the fortified cities of that part of Lorraine which the Prussians had left to France after the Franco-Prussian War of nearly a half century ago. Both Lieutenant Storm and Baptiste were eager to get on, and they met with no untoward delay there. After a good breakfast for both at the 184 THE FRONT Hotel de la Comedie, Ralph reported at divisional headquarters and there had no difficulty in procur- ing motor transport clear through to the Post of Command of his own regiment. He was there informed also that it would not be necessary for him to stop at Brigade Headquarters, then at the considerable town of Domevre. The main wagon-road leading directly north from Toul — an old Roman road dating back to the days of the Caesars — was as congested with four distinct streams of traffic as was every highway leading to and from a divisional headquarters in France. Two streams of heavy wheeled traffic — lorries, motors, guns, and mule teams without end — in the centre; one coming, one going; and one of foot-sloggers on the outer edge of each side of the road. All this was an old story to Ralph Storm, who had already participated in two campaigns, and it interested him but little more than it did his com- panion, Baptiste, who was already fast asleep on his seat in front with the khaki-clad driver. His predominant feeling was merely impatience at the snail's pace at which they were forced to proceed; none could move faster than the slowest of the plodding mule-teams and heavy, lumbering guns ahead. About three miles north of Toul, however, the 185 FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ARMT main wagon-road forked, and they turned off into that branch which led in a northwesterly direction. There the going for a space was better. About fifteen miles further on they turned to the right again at a crossroad, and the enforced slowness of their progress again from there on, and the in- creasing roughness of what had once been one of the smoothest metalled ' roads of France suddenly awakened Ralph to the realization that they were already in that part of the sector that had been bloodily fought over but three years before, when the brave French under General Castelnau had succeeded in driving the invader back to the line which he at present held. The villages through which they were then pass- ing — or rather, what had once been the tiny hamlets dotting the road, sometimes not more than a mile apart — had been ground down into bricks and brick-dust for the most part. The trees along the roadside had been shattered half-way up their trunks, or had their tops broken and lopped off; they somehow reminded one of the stumps of old brooms. The road itself, although it had been made passable again by the French engineers, and had been later worked over by our own engineers, was 1 tt Metalled" is a term applied to stone roads capable of bearing the heaviest kind of traffic. I86 THE FRONT still very rough and uneven where the big shell had fallen thick, and in many places the craters made by " coal-boxes," too wide and deep to be easily and quickly filled in, had been rudely bridged over. The stretch of land on either side of the road was derelict and desert. Although no shell were fall- ing there just then, they might at any time. And so no effort had been made since to cultivate the land, whose gently undulating surface was a mass of long coarse grass and weeds, the green of it re- lieved every here and there by yellow mustard and blue corn-flower, or the blood-red poppy. In spots where the suffering soil had been churned up be- yond endurance even the poppy had been killed, and the land lay bare and naked. Although the traffic there was not nearly so great as on the main roads there was something or some one coming or going all the time, and for the most part they were Americans. Lieutenant Storm eyed them curiously and with much interest. On the whole his experienced verdict on the way they were carrying on was one of approval. All at once they found themselves passing two companies of blue-steel helmeted poilus going in the same direction as themselves, but on another road a little distance to the right, and parallel to the one on which they were. Ralph surmised that these must be some of the few French soldiers who 187 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S, ARMT were still left to leaven the raw Yankee boys, as the latter gradually took over on their own a broader and broader frontage there. Suddenly apparently out of nowhere a mounted American artillery officer clattered across the road just ahead of them. Not two hundred yards from the road he reined up and slipped from the saddle all in the one and same movement. He blew a sharp attention-attracting blast on his whistle, and barked out a series of commands that reminded one of the signals shouted by a football captain. These were followed in another minute by the sharp query: " Piece number five, ready? " Over on the road in the motor car they could hear his words quite plainly. The Famous Fbench "75 " Stop ! " said Ralph to the chauffeur. The reply to the artillery officer's query came quickly from piece number five: i88 THE FRONT "Ready, sir!" And the same answer followed in quick succes- sion from the other four pieces of the battery of field artillery. Squatting flat in the long grass and wild flowers of the neglected meadow was this battery of " Char- lottes," as the French soldiers affectionately call their redoubtable 75's, loaned to our artillerymen till such time as our own guns arrived from over- seas. Only the slender noses of those famous little field guns, pointing skyward at an angle of forty- three and a half degrees,* showed above the sur- rounding grass and weeds and wild flowers. So cunningly camouflaged were they with mottled gTeen and yellow paint, blending so well with their immediate neighborhood, that Lieutenant Storm might well have driven past them without ever knowing that they were there, had not the galloping officer attracted his attention. " Fire! " barked the lieutenant of artillery. The response was marvelous. A faint puff of white fume scarcely discernible from each slender nose; a clear, terrible bark from each iron throat that merged into one savage yelp; 'A gun of any size has its farthest trajectory when pointed at an angle of 43.5 degrees. If pointed either higher or lower, the shell fall at a shorter distance. 189 FIGHTING WITH THE U, 5. ARMr the slender noses disappeared, to reappear again instantly, as if by magic! Four times was this action repeated almost as quickly as a sniper could empty the magazine of his rifle. Then all was still. Twenty-five 75 m. m. shell (2.9 inches), each weighing fifteen pounds and loaded with three hun- dred shrapnel bullets, had sought and found their German billets nearly five miles away. In less than half a minute it was all over and the guns were silent again. From one of those French 75's a crack crew can fire twenty roimds a minute, which means a spray of 6,000 shrapnel bullets in just sixty seconds. It is no wonder that the graceful " Charlotte " is considered by the Allies to be the Empress of the Battle-field. She is a typical little French lady, dainty, lithe, superb, and she gets her own way everywhere — always . "Good work, sir!" grunted the chauffeur to Lieutenant Storm. " Fine! " acquiesced Ralph. " Drive on! " Just a short distance further on was located the regimental Post of Command. Ralph Storm would not have known that he had reached his destination, had he not been so informed by the Army Service chauffeur, who made frequent trips 190 THE FRONT out of Toul daily, carrying staff officers bent on tours of inspection from divisional and brigade headquarters to the various regimental P. C/s of that sector. This information the chauffeur volunteered to Ralph as they were crossing a trestlework of tim- ber with the bark still on. To Storm's experienced eye it was quite clear that the great gap in the old Roman road-bed, till then solid and undisturbed since Csesar's time, had been made by a mine. Even as the soldier chauffeur was speaking an attentive ear might have discerned the faint sound of rifle-fire, and the subdued purr of a machine gun. Lieutenant Storm's eyes gleamed exultantly and he muttered half aloud: "Just as I thought they would! Our fellows will not give Fritz a chance to forget that they are on the job, now that they are here! " From the other side of the bridge the straight road ran on right through another of those little towns of French Lorraine that once had names. There never was, and never will be, a more com- plete illustration of the German invader's mania for destruction than was there presented. To a civilian's eye it might have appeared that the little place had been heavily shelled. Ralph knew at once, however, that such had not been the case. As a matter of fact not a single shell had ever 191 FIGHTING fFITH THE U. S. ARMY fallen there; yet to left and right of the single straight street every structure had been burned and pulled to pieces literally till not a single wall stood Aetillery Attack on Earthwoeks (1) Showing the action on bursting of Time Shells, fitted with a time fuse set so as to detonate the shell a certain number of seconds after it has been fired from the gun or howitzer. Time shells may be of the H. E. type ; but more generally are of the shrapnel variety. The width of the area and [ground struck by the bullets of an effective shrapnel is about 25 yards. The length of the forward spread of the bullets of shrapnel burst at effective range is about 200 yards, A — Entrenched ground with trenches facing left. B — Shrapnel Shell with time fuse, fired from a gun, and having \ slope. C — Common H. E. Shell with time fuse, fired from gun, and having \ slope. D— Shrapnel Shell with time fuse, fired from a howitzer, and having f slope. where it had been. The wreck was complete. When fire had done all that it could, great wire cables had been threaded through the windows of the walls that still stood. Teams of horses had then been hitched to the ends of the cables, and the 192 THE FRONT horses cruelly flogged till they pulled the steel cables through what remained of the walls between, and brought the whole tumbling down into the street. The Hun thought to level it so that it could afford no shelter to the pursuing poilu. He little thought then that the crushed heaps of brick and mortar would one day afford the very best kind of overhead shelter to the American doughboys who now burrowed beneath them. The car stopped, and the soldier chauffeur pointed to a heap of mixed broken brick, mortar, and charred beams, distinguished from the other similar heaps along both sides of the road only by its size. It was larger than any of the other heaps, and in fact represented what was left of the town's once most imposing residence. About three feet of one brick wall running at right angles to the road was all of the structure that remained intact. " That's it, sir," said the chauffeur laconically. " You get in through a hole under that bit of brick wall there." They all got out of the car and piled the few articles of Ralph's kit and Baptiste's pack by the roadside. When this was done, the chauffeur, after receiving a substantial tip, or " pour-boire," as the French say, turned his machine about, and with a 193 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT parting wave of his hand started on his way back to Toul. Followed by Baptiste, Ralph picked his way over the skirts of the rubbish heap and around in front Artillery Attack on Earthworks (2) Showing the action on bursting, of Percussion Type Shells, or shells that burst only when they strike some objective. A — Entrenched ground with trenches facing left. B — H. E. (High Explosive) Shell fired from a gun and striking with \ slope. C — H. E. Shell fired from howitzer, and striking with \ slope. D — H. E. Shell fired from howitzer, and striking with ^ slope. of the bit of wall beneath which the chauffeur had said he should find a hole. An armed sentry sprang to attention and saluted the young officer at the entrance to a ditched in- cline that led steeply down to a low square open- ing broken through the thick cellar wall of stone. A pair of heavy gray army blankets were draped 194 THE FRONT above the orifice, and were just then propped apart by two or three long poles in order to admit some light and air to the Post of Command. Ralph knew that the blankets were there to close the hole against gas in case of emergency. Just as they were about to descend the short steep incline a soldier emerged from the hole and began to ascend it. He wore his grass-green trench helmet and carried his gas-mask at the " alerte." He saluted Lieutenant Storm as he passed; then hesitated an instant and, half-turning, looked back at the young officer and his companion curiously and with a somewhat startled expression. And again he looked back with a faint grin on his face as he proceeded to mount a motor-cycle that had been leaning against the bit of brick wall. Ralph merely recognized in him a messenger, as he glanced casually at the young soldier in returning his sa- lute. Stooping low the pair entered the headquarters of their regiment for the first time. They found themselves in a square room, low, heavily beamed, and reinforced on all sides with concrete. The first thing that either of them noticed was the fragrant smell of hot coffee that seemed to fill the place. _In spite of the fact that it was broad day outside two oil lamps gleamed redly on three strong faces that looked up from a roughly C9,r- 195 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT pentered table that stood in the centre of the room when the figures of Storm and his companion dark- ened the entrance. The table was littered with papers and some charts. Off to one side and near the wall was an- other, smaller table, at which sat a fourth officer, a lieutenant, listening at the receiver of a field tele- phone, and making some notes on a pad of paper as he listened. The ceiling was too low for Storm to stand quite erect; yet he clicked his heels together and managed a salute, though not a very smart nor graceful one. Baptiste stood at attention behind him. " Lieutenant Storm and Private Trudeau, sir, reporting for duty! " said Ralph, deferentially ad- dressing the central officer of the trio, whom he recognized as a lieutenant-colonel by his rank badges, and at once correctly surmised to be Colonel Richards, the officer in command of his regiment. " Oh, yes," returned that senior officer, rising and extending his hand across the table to Ralph. " How are you, Storm? We were expecting you." The two other officers moved around the table to where Ralph was standing, and each in turn men- tioned his name as they, too, extended their hands in greeting and welcome to a comrade. One of 196 THE FRONT them was Captain Sparks, adjutant of the regi- ment, and the other Captain John Goring, then in command of "A" Company, the one to which Storm's platoon belonged. The last mentioned officer gave Ralph an espe- cially warm hand-clasp, saying: " Glad to have you with us. Storm. We have been keeping a platoon open for you for more than two weeks. " You have come just at the right time,- too," he added smilingly and meaningly, " as you will very soon find out for yourself." " Let us step outside where we can see one an- other better," said the colonel. " I think we have cleaned up everything inside here for the present. Have we not. Captain Sparks? " " Yes, sir. Everything that needs your immedi- ate attention, sir." " Where is the other one — the big fellow — ^whom we were expecting along with you? I believe he is a friend of yours? " queried Colonel Richards as they emerged into the sunshine again. " Lieutenant Van Home, sir? " asked Storm. " I believe that was his name, was it not, Sparks?" " Yes, sir," replied the adjutant. " When we were notified of his appointment to the regiment it was mentioned that he possessed special qualifica- 197 FIGHTING WITH THE U, S, ARMT tions as a gas officer; and you had him slated for that position with the regiment, sir." " I remember," rejoined Colonel Richards, and again addressing Ralph, he queried: " Have you any information concerning him? Why he has not also reported to me? " " Yes, sir. Yesterday he was unexpectedly or- dered to report for duty at the Training Camp near Harfleur, to carry on there as a gas instructor till further orders." " That's not a fair deal for us," observed the colonel, and his thin lips tightened deci- sively. " Take the matter up with Paris Headquarters at once. Captain Sparks ! " he continued. " Insist strongly on Lieutenant Van Home's being allowed to report to his own regiment without delay. Dwell upon the fact that we are here in the front line, right up against the enemy trenches — in some places within actual bomb throwing distance of them — and that we are forced to make shift with an acting gas officer who has had no special training for the post. Make it strong. Sparks ! " While the C. O. was speaking he had been silently but unobtrusively giving Ralph the " once over." The latter was aware of this, of course, and felt somewhat embarrassed under his superior's swift mental inventory. 198 THE FRONT " Who is this man with you? " the colonel then abruptly inquired, glancing at Baptiste, who had silently followed the four officers from the dugout, and was again standing stiffly at " attention " hard by. Ralph rendered the C. O. a brief account of the French Canadian's past service and experience as a soldier, and of his recent enlistment under the Stars and Stripes. Before Ralph had quite finished his narration the C. O. threw a kindly, though fleeting, smile to Bap- tiste, and uttered the simple command, " Rest! " Baptiste saluted, and was only too glad to as- sume an easier position than that of " attention." " Put Private Trudeau in 'A' Company, Captain Sparks," said Colonel Richards when Storm had concluded, " and I dare say, Captain Goring, that you can find room for him in Lieutenant Storm's platoon. He will probably prefer it that way." Ralph and the French Canadian exchanged a quick glance and a little smile. Baptiste was pleased at the prospect of being in Storm's platoon ; and the latter already knew the French Canadian to be a brave man and a first class soldier. Later Captain Goring instructed his sergeant-major to detail Private Trudeau as Storm's " striker," or sol- dier servant. The C. O., with a wave of his riding-crop, sig- 199 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT naled to an orderly who had been leading a magnificent bay charger up and down the road near by, and as he prepared to mount said to Ralph: " Captain Goring will look after you, I am sure, Lieutenant Storm, and see that you are properly bestowed as to quarters, and assigned to work. Good-morning, gentlemen ! " The adjutant turned back into the P. C. dug- out. Captain Goring made arrangements with a sergeant to have Ralph's and Baptiste's kits con- veyed to their billets. Baptiste would have had to carry his own pack had not Lieutenant Storm called the captain's attention to his still weakened con- dition, due to the privation and suffering he had undergone while a prisoner of war among the Germans. " We'll pass your billet on the way to Company H. Q.," said Captain Goring to Ralph. " I'll point it out to you." Then to Storm's surprise they began to walk down the road in the very direction from which he had come in the car but a short while before. He had expected to go in quite the other direction, up nearer the trenches. " Just two days ago," the captain began, as they fell into step side by side, " we came out of the fire- trench after our second spell at it there. We are 200 THE FRONT now in billets at a little place back there that Fritz seems to have overlooked, or for some inexplicable reason saw fit to leave intact. Perhaps, as it is a little out of the way, it was deemed too insignificant to divert their shell fire toward it." " Rather close to the front line for rest billets, is it not, sir? " queried Storm. "A little more than five miles," rejoined Captain Goring. "And we can scarcely call them rest billets. In- deed I think the men would be more likely to call them work billets." " In most cases ' work billets ' would certainly be the more suitable name for it; what with daily drills, extra fatigues, work parties, and carrying parties," acquiesced Ralph with a reminiscent smile. "And in our present case most certainly so," agreed the captain. " This time we were pulled out of the trenches two days before our trick was up. The men at once suspected that there was something special do- ing, and now that they are certain of it they are taking hold of the work as if it were a game, bless their hearts." Lieutenant Storm cast a quick glance of sur- prised interrogation at the speaker; but there was no need to voice his curiosity. Captain Goring went on: 20I FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " You see, it's just like this: there happens to be a big dent in our front line just about the middle of the section that our regiment is responsible for. It was left so by the French when we relieved them. Fritz has pushed out a nasty salient right opposite it; and the whole arrangement has been a thorn in the C. O.'s flesh ever since we * took over.' " But I can explain that better to you when we get to the Company P. C, where I have a good map of ours and the enemy's front-line trenches, show- ing their relative positions to each other. " The long and short of it is," continued Cap- tain Goring, " that the C. O. has at last obtained permission to straighten up our front — he's a West Pointer, you know, and they listen to him at Divi- sional H. Q. " Before we can straighten up our own line, how- ever, we must smash in that salient. The C. O. has done *A'^ Company the honor to choose us as the ' Sturm truppen,' as the Germans say, to do the smashing. And it is our part, as star performers in the show, that we are now rehearsing back here." "Great Csesar, you don't say so!" ejaculated Storm, his eyes sparkling with eager enthusiasm. " That is certainly fine, and I surely am glad that I got here in time for it! " I only wish Van were here for it, too," he added. 202 THE FRONT "You mean your friend, I suppose? The one who was sent down to the training camp, instead of coming with you? Is he another fire-eater, also? " laughed Captain Goring ehaffingly, although at the same time he was highly pleased at his new platoon commander's evident enthusiasm at the imminent prospect of a brush with the enemy. " No, he's not exactly what you would call a fire-eater," replied Ralph, flushing a little at his captain's raillery. "At least he thinks he's not; but he is simply great when he does get into a scrap, just the same. You ought to see him, sir. He's a regular giant." And then Ralph launched into a glowing account of his chum's prowess. Captain Goring not only listened attentively, but showed his sincere interest as well by asking several pertinent questions regarding Rodman Van Home. Still conversing thus they turned off to the right on a narrow crossroad over which there had evi- dently been but scant vehicular traffic for some time. 2C3 CHAPTER XIII THE SALIENT *' They've mud on their hands and their faces, They've mud in their ears and their hair, They've mud on their coats and their braces. And everything else that they wear, **No matter what joy may he fall them, No matter how gay be their path, When homeward the President calls them The first thing they'll ask is a bath," Three-quarters of a mile along the neglected local crossroad Captain Goring and Lieutenant Storm found themselves descending the single street of the little communal French village in which Company "A" was then billeted. To an American eye, like every other farm vil- lage of France, at first sight it presented a de- cidedly uninteresting and almost ugly aspect. It nestled in a somewhat deeper depression than was common in that generally rolling champagne, and was quite hidden from the traveler on the main road. There were no sidewalks. Blank brick walls built right out to the road edge shut off the view 204 THE SALIENT abruptly on either side. Other brick walls ran back in straight lines from the front walls, dividing off and surrounding on three sides each separate barn- yard, for the " back-yard " always seemed to be in front, or nearest the public highway. In the centre of this plot of ground, exposed to view through the double gates that broke the dull red monotony of the front walls at regular intervals, one could always see the inevitable and highly prized manure pile. Stables, j)ig styes, poultry sheds, and other outhouses surrounded the odor- iferous centre heap on three sides, and leaned against the inside surfaces of the brick walls. If the back of the yard was at the front, to even things up the front of the house was at the back. There were admirably laid out and kept vegetable and fruit gardens there, and beautiful hedges began where the ugly separating walls left off, and con- tinued to mark the boundaries between the narrow farms. Beyond the gardens and another fine hedge were the meadows and fields of grain. One was typical of all. As they were passing one of those inhospitable pairs of gates Captain Goring said to Ralph: " That is your billet, in there! " The latter noted at once with some satisfaction that the American Military Police had already been 205 FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ^RMT busy there, as always, about billets. The usual monumental heap had completely disapjDeared from the foreground. He made as if to halt in front of the gates indicated; but the captain said: " Never mind it just now, Storm ! No use going in there till your kit comes. I want you to come over to the Company P. C. with me at present. You can wash up over there before noon * chow.' " Then with a kindly afterthought he added, " But Private Trudeau might as well go in and rest there till your stuff arrives." Baptiste saluted gratefully, and turned in at the gate. The Company Post of Command was located in another thoroughly policed chaumiere. When they had entered it the captain, after sum- moning an orderly, said: " Make yourself at home for a few minutes, Storm! I have a few routine orders to dispatch. I am going to send for Lieutenant Barrows, too. He has command of number one platoon, and you and he will have to cooperate to some extent in the little show we are going to put on some time next week. " Ever heard of ' Chuck ' Barrows? " he asked. " Not * Chuck ' Barrows of Princeton, last year's great half-back? " queried Storm doubtingly. " The same," chuckled the captain. " Seems 206 THE SALIENT funny, doesn't it? More than once I played against him myself, and we always had it in for each other in those days." It gradually dawned upon Ralph that this genial and unpretentious senior officer of his was none other than the famous " Goring of Yale," and last year's renowned All- American left tackle. Ralph became strangely silent and subdued for a space after this overpowering realization came to him. The mere prep-school boy had all at once found out that he had been cheekily talking-up to a Varsity champion. The captain, however, did not allow him to re- tain this feeling of inferiority for long. Of course he was wholly unaware of his young lieutenant's entertaining such a feeling at all. Captain Goring had not quite finished the clerical work upon which he was then engaged along with his Company Q. M. S. when a quick, firm tread resounded on the stone step of the chaumiere, and thence across the neatly tiled floor. Ralph at once recognized the lean brown face of the newcomer as that of one of the heroes of his recent schoolboy dreams. He had often seen it in the sporting columns of the newspapers, and had in the olden time followed Chuck's gridiron career with more than lively interest. Lieutenant Barrows crossed the room, halted 207 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT three paces from the captain's table, clicked his heels together, and saluted smartly. Ralph, who was himself tall and well built, thought, as he silently sized up the newcomer, that he had never in all his life perhaps seen but one man of finer physique than Charles Barrows, and that other one was his friend, Rodman Van Home, of course. Captain Goring looked up, returned the salute, and said: "'Lo, Chuck!" Then indicating Ralph, who had risen to his feet, he went on : "Shake hands with Lieutenant Storm, Chuck! I was just telling him that you were in command of number one platoon, and that as he will have number four, you know, you and he will have to pull off some team work together. " I'll be through here in a minute or two. In the meantime you two can be getting better ac- quainted." The captain again fixed his attention on the work before him, and then Ralph got one of the surprises of his young life. While he was still wondering whether he ought to offer his hand first, or wait upon the other's initiative, Lieutenant Barrows, on, hearing the captain pronounce Ralph's name, had quickly turned toward the latter with an expression 208 THE SALIENT of evident pleasure and plain admiration in his keen eyes. He took a step forward, extended his right hand rather diffidently toward Ralph and in a tone of marked respect, such as one employs only when addressing a recognized superior, began: " I am proud to know you, sir. We were all glad when we learned that you and Lieutenant Van Home had been appointed to our regiment. You will find us very green, sir; but good learners, I hope." "And I can assure you that I, too, am right glad to be with you, sir," responded Ralph, leaping to grasp the other's hand, and at the same time ex- periencing a warm glow of pleasure at finding him- self thus accepted on terms of more than equality by these two erstwhile heroes in his eyes. " Greener than ' Paddy ' green ! " contributed Captain Goring, who had caught Lieutenant Bar- rows' last remark, and without looking up from the papers before him added, " But, as Chuck says, not too proud to learn. Storm ! " Ralph and Lieutenant Barrows were soon en- grossed in conversation, and the former had al- ready been well initiated into the whys and where- fores of the projected raid, ere the captain, having at last dismissed his Q. M. S., interrupted them. " If you two gentlemen will now draw up your 209 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. jiRMY chairs, one on each side of me, we'll get together on some of the details of this forthcoming little affair that's going to liven things up a bit for us and our friend, Fritz, next week. " But first, perhaps, it will be just as well if we run over the general situation again for the benefit of Lieutenant Storm," the captain proceeded, ad- dressing himself to Lieutenant Barrows, and at the same time spreading and smoothing out a neatly executed field sketch on the table before him. " This," he went on, " is a fairly accurate diagram of our fire-trench, and also of the enemy's bit of front line right opposite. Support and reserve trenches, and all the rest of the system are not shown here, because not necessary for our immedi- ate purposes. " From this chart we are now constructing what you might call a full size skeleton model for re- hearsal purposes — the whole company are working on it right now — but this afternoon you will be able to see for yourself what we are doing in that respect.'*' " From 'A' to ' E ' is our section of the front line," pursued the captain, pointing with his pen- handle to each particular point on the chart as he mentioned it. " Note this almost semicircular reentrant almost in the middle of it. It was primarily due to a low, 210 THE SALIENT soft piece of ground there that is always water soaked. The French after pushing ahead as far as they could on either side of it evidently joined up the break in the line by ditching around it, and that in spite of the fact that there is solid ground com- 'c Diagram showing section of Fire-Trench held by Colonel Richards' regi- ment, with the bend in the line which they straightened out, and the salient in the German Fire-Trench opposite which they wiped out. A, B, C, D, E~AlIied line— front trench. B, C, D — Bow or " re-entrant " into allied line. Machine guns at M. F, G, H, I, J — German line. G, H, I — The salient. Machine guns at M. R, R — Road, crossing both lines. paratively from ' B ' to * D ' just beyond the hollow, and nearly in line with the straight stretches of trench on each side of it." " I don't see why they didn't join them up straight across from ' B ' to ' D ' in the first place," observed Lieutenant Barrows. " We must remember that the French originally 211 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT constructed this line under constant heavy shell fire and in the face of strong counter-attacks," rejoined Captain Goring. " They probably considered the piece of marshy (ground an added protection for the trench built around it ; but whatever their reason was, there the dent in the line still remains." " What is the distance across it, sir? " asked Ralph. " Erom * B ' to ' D ' is something more than three hmidred yards, and the bend is about one hundred and fifty yards deep. " Now, our main objective is to straighten out the line by running a new trench almost directly across on the fairly solid groimd from ' B ' to * D.' " " That faint line, I suppose, represents the posi- tion of the proposed new piece of trench," observed Ralph; " but what are the dots just above it for? " " They show the position for our new wire entanglements," replied Captain Goring, and went on: " The enemy at some time or other evidently pushed out a sap from a point midway between * G ' and * I ' on their line to the point * H ' on the dia- gram. The head of this sap they then succeeded in joining up with the points * G ' and ' I,' thus creating a nasty salient right opposite the depres- sion in our line. 212 THE SALIENT "And what is worse/' pursued the captain, " at * H ' they have now established a strongly con- creted machine-gun emplacement that commands our parapets both ways with an oblique fire. You get me? " " Yes, sir," replied Storm. "And I can plainly Rifle Geenade—Often Called " The Pippin " The above is one of the simplest and most effective type of rifle grenade used by the Allies. On exploding it has an effective and deadly radius of about 13 yards. A — Percussion-cap Striker that sets off detonator, " B." B — Special detonator that explodes H. E. charge, ''€." — Explosive Ammonal Charge which bursts grenade into small pieces. D — Cast-iron Body, serrated. E — Steel rod, 15 inches long, and of almost the same di- ameter as bore of rifle from which it is fired. see that our second objective must be to wipe out that same salient." " Exactly," rejoined Captain Goring. " Other- wise it would be of little avail to straighten out the 213 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT line. We simply must smash that machine-gmi nest. They have another one at * 1/ and wrecking that will also be a detail of the raid." " Do those parallel lines intersecting both lines of trenches and marked ' R/ ' R ' represent the road? " queried Ralph. ** Yes, but it is of no more use to either side than No Man's Land. The enemy artillery and snipers have every yard of it spotted clear back to our re- serve trenches. They pay their compliments to it every once in a while at any old time, and always vary the range. " Our guns, you may be sure, are returning the favors in kind, and a little over for good measure. We have a particularly lively and efficient little battery commander back there near the road — at least that's where he was earlier this morning; but he keeps shifting his guns about up and down the line just to keep Fritz guessing." " I believe I saw him at work this morning when I first came up along the road," said Ralph with a smile at the pleasing recollection. "At first I could scarcely believe that it was a battery of our own guns. They worked like real French gunners themselves." "And that's certainly handing them a bouquet, all right," smiled Captain Goring. " But, now for the plan of operation, and more 214 THE SALIENT particularly that part of it for which you and Chuck must be responsible," he continued. " Just one minute, sir," interposed Ralph. " Tell me, about what is the distance between the trenches, please? " " To the right of ' The Devil's Saucer '—that's what the boys call the soft spot there, you know, and at that they have merely translated the name the French had for it before, ' La soucoupe du diable ' — No Man's Land narrows down to within one hundred and fifty yards, and gradually widens out to about two hundred yards on our extreme left. " But to-morrow I intend sending you up into the front line to look things over for yourself. Storm. And you and Barrows will have to do one or two night patrols in order to thoroughly recon- noitre their wire before the show comes off. ' " It has just occurred to me. Chuck," resumed their Company Commander after a second's thoughtful pause, " that perhaps it would be a good idea for you to have Storm with you when you go over to look over your bit of it. He's had experi- ence in that sort of thing and might find an open- ing in the wire where you'd pass over it. What do you think? " "Delighted!" replied Lieutenant Barrows with hearty approval of his captain's suggestion. 215 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT "And I'd like to go with you when you take your own patrol out also," he added, turning to Lieu-^^ tenant Storm. "All right," acquiesced Ralph with equal hearti- ness, " we'll patrol both sections together." " You can get together then over those details, and settle them for yourselves," said Captain Gor- ing, glancing down at his wrist watch. " It's getting on toward noon ' chow ' and I want to give Storm here some idea of the * Old Man's ' scheme as a whole, before mess call blows, as I shall be very busy all this afternoon. " First of all," he said, again turning to the chart before him on the table, * B ' Company, you must know, are now in the fire-trench. ' C ' Com- pany will take over from them in due course on Monday, and will still be there when the show comes off. The day and hour I cannot tell you as yet. " But it will be their part to dig the new ditch from ' D ' to *A,' and to put out the new wire in front of it. They will continue to hold the front line, too, after the operation has been completed, and to be ready in the event of a counter-attack. But we don't need to bother about that; that's their lookout. " It will be up to us of Company *A' to make it possible for * C to carry out that work; or, in other 216 THE SALIENT words, we are to be the storm troops of the occa- sion, to raid the whole section of enemy trench from * F ' to * J,' and finally to capture and blow up the machine-gun emplacement at * H.' Do you follow me?" " Yes, sir! " they answered together. " You, Chuck, with number one platoon, will have that part of the enemy trench from ' F ' to * G ' to look after. And, Storm, you must take care in a similar manner of the section * I ' to ' J ' with number four platoon. " How you are going to get through the enemy wire is up to you yourselves, and of course is a de- tail that cannot be decided upon as yet; but get through and into the trenches you must. " Once there you. Chuck, will throw up a * block' * at * F,' and you. Storm, will do the same at ' J.' "At ' G ' and * I ' also you will block the enemy's main trench back of the salient. After that you must bomb your respective ways along the salient from ' I ' to ' H,' and from * G ' to * H,' meeting and joining forces at the apex of the salient, * H.' You both get me, eh? " " Yes, sir," replied Ralph. " It's very simple," grinned Chuck Barrows. 'Block: Technical term for sand-bag obstruction across a Section of trench. 217 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " It sounds so," smiled Captain Goring enigmatically. "And what will numbers two and three platoons be doing all the time that we are enjoying ourselves in Fritz's trenches, sir? " queried Lieutenant Bar- rows. " They will quietly take post in No Man's Land between our proposed new piece of trench and the salient opposite. When you two go over the top number three platoon will file out from * B ' and number two from * D.' They will meet and form a silent line in front of where our new wire is to be placed, as shown by the string of dots here. " Their duty will be to cover the workers in case of a counter-attack, and also to cover your with- drawal after you have completed your task. Theirs I consider the most trying job of all." " So do I," agreed Lieutenant Barrows. " I should never fancy that quiet waiting business out there in No Man's Land." " Now you both have the general scheme," said Captain Goring. " The details of our several parts in it we will rehearse during the next few days in so far as we can. " We are not constructing any practice trenches, as we should likely do if we were farther back of the 218 THE SALIENT front line," he added, again turning toward Lieu- tenant Storm. " We must be careful to avoid attracting the at- tention of hostile air observers, so we are merely staking out the outlines of our own and the enemy front-line trenches. In this way every man may at least know exactly the positions he is to take up, and have some idea of the relative distances. " To-day, as I have already told you. Storm, we are staking out those positions. We have a detail also at work making portable barb-wire obstruc- tions of the * saw-buck ' or * cylinder ' variety, which it will be our duty also to carry up as far as the reserve trenches as soon as we have them con- structed. "And as we will not particularly need you, Storm, until we have everything ready for a full- dress rehearsal I think you had better go up the front line this afternoon and prowl around there. " I have no doubt that after you have sized up the actual situation there you will be able to make some suggestions of value to us." Ralph cast a furtive glance of inquiry across at Lieutenant Barrows. But the captain, intercepting it, shook his head smilingly. " No," he said, " there's no need for ChucK to go up with you. He has already been there, and be- 219 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT sides there is plenty of work for him to do right here to-day. " I'll arrange with the adjutant to have a ' runner ' meet you up at the Regimental P. C, who will show you the way up front. You will please meet him there not later than 2 p. m.^ Lieutenant Storm," said the captain, rising. "And now we'll just have time to wash up before * chow,' " he concluded. 220 CHAPTER XIV THE WIGGLER *' * Untrained Americans,* they jeered; But where the red flame lights the sky The rolling thunder down our lines Must he the sum of our reply, ** * Untrained Americans' will find No counter taunt from us, except The bark of rifles down the field- — The bloody sods our guns have swept." At two o'clock sharp that same afternoon Lieu- tenant Storm, accoutred in full fighting kit — since no man can foretell what may happen in a front- line trench — consisting of belt, revolver and its " ammo," compass, field-glasses, two water-bottles, helmet, gas-mask, iron rations, and rubber ground sheet, reported at the Regimental P. C. a mile or so further up the line. Not far from the dugout entrance to the cellar in which the Post of Command was located, scuf- fling in rough horse-play or gossiping with much noisy laughter, was a group of very young and very active soldiers whom Ralph recognized by their light accoutrements white with dust, and the fact that they were thus apparently idling unmolested 221 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT in the near vicinity of Headquarters, to be of those wonderful picked fellows who, when an action starts and other soldiers seek the shelter of their dugouts, merely tighten up their belts another hole, hitch their mask-bags up to the " ready," pull down their " tin hats " a little further forward over their eyes, and start out with messages that cannot be held back even though the bearer must twice pass right through the barrage of death, once going, and again returning with the answer. He knew them to be " runners," those nerves of the army, without whom whole divisions would dis- joint and clash, without whom disciplined battalions would disintegrate into senseless mobs. In a class all by themselves, like scouts and snipers, they are picked for their agility, activity, quick intelligence, and sheer intrepidity. When all other means of communication — wireless, field telephones, rockets and other signals — fail, the " runner " still must, and does, deliver the goods. Sometimes he is mounted, then again he rides a motor-cycle, but more often, closer up the line, he must depend solely upon his own two sinewy legs. The loss of one " runner " at a critical moment of an advance has meant on more than one occasion the useless sacrifice of a thousand lives. They must therefore always be "hand-picked"; and so, al- though ever noticeable for the playful exuberance 222 THE WIGGLER of their youthful high spirits when off duty, they nevertheless form a " corps elite." Captain Goring had evidently already been in communication with the adjutant, for the latter immediately upon Ralph's appearance within the dugout, after punctiliously returning the latter's salute of course, turned to the R. S. M., who hap- pened to be present at the time, with the terse command : " Detail a runner at once to show Lieutenant Storm up the line, Sergeant-Major Brooks ! " " Very good, sir! " replied the R. S. M., spring- ing smartly to attention, saluting, and facing about in three distinct movements, yet all in one and the same instant of time. " Drop in on your way back. Storm! " called the adjutant as Ralph, too, saluted and turned away. The Regimental Sergeant-Major was a little in advance of Lieutenant Storm, and the latter did not distinctly catch the name that he called aloud imme- diately on emerging from the ruined cellar. Ralph was followed closely enough upon the sergeant- major's heels, however, to observe one of two youngsters, who at the moment were performing a sort of bear-dance to the jig-time music produced with no mean skill by a third on a mouth-organ, hastily disengage himself from his partner's em- brace and jump to attention. 223 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT " You will take this officer up the line now, and bring him back again when he is ready! " ordered R. S. M. Brooks with the shadow of a smile flicker- ing about his keen gray eyes, although his firmly chiseled lips relaxed not at all. "All right, sir! " chirped the boy in a clear treble, and somewhat startled tone. " Thank you, Sergeant-Major! " said Lieutenant Storm, returning the senior N. C. O.'s parting salute. And as Ralph again turned his eyes in the direc- tion of the young soldier who was to be his guide he could not help remarking that the boy had al- ready pulled his grass-green steel helmet so far down over his nose that his eyes were quite hidden from view. That peculiar fashion of wearing his head-gear excited no undue surprise at the moment, how- ever, to one of Ralph's veteran experience. He well knew that a soldier up front quickly acquired the habit of wearing his tin hat that way. And any one who has ever done sentinel duty on a fire- step, or who for any other reason has had frequent occasion to squint over the lip of a parapet, knows how that habit is formed. The lad saluted snappily, and inquired: " Shall I go in advance, sir? " " Yes," smiled Ralph ; " lead on! " 224 THE WIGGLER The boy had ah-eady turned, and without further parley he started for the road. From the first the going was rough, no two cobblestones seeming to have the same level. Just beyond the limits of the ruined village it was like crossing a dry brook on stepping-stones, to make their way along it. The necessity of constantly picking their steps precluded any continuity of conversation. Yet Ralph was eager for the information which he knew his youthful guide must be the possessor of in his capacity as a " runner," who went everywhere and saw a bit of everything that was going on. During the first half mile, as they plugged along over the abominable pave, he asked many questions, to which the young soldier made answers tersely, even confining himself to monosyllables when the proper answer permitted; always deferentially as befitted a private soldier when replying to the queries of an officer; yet without ever turning his face toward his inquisitor. Once Lieutenant Storm paused to look upward, then backward, and then forward again. His guide halted too on hearing the footsteps behind him cease to slip and slither over the uneven cobbles. Yet even then the boy persisted in looking to his front. When he glanced overhead, Ralph saw naught but the blue sky above him. Behind him he ob- 225 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S, ARMT served, showing high above the horizon, several cap- tive American balloons in a row, strange small shapes like half -curled maggots suspended away up in the air. Ahead, far ahead, were three air craft, moving about and about in small circles like tiny birds. " I suppose those are our planes ahead of us? " queried Ralph as he started forward again. " Yes, sir," answered the guide, stepping out at the same time, and always maintaining his respect- ful distance in advance. The road became worse and worse. Several times they had to skirt huge wide holes scooped out by " Jack Johnsons," and some deeper, narrower ones, also dug there by " Little Willies." They passed some sorrowful little graves, too, in rows, each with its pathetic little white cross of wood roughly fashioned by a comrade's hand. Then they left the road altogether, and began to make their way over and through the but half- healed scars of the desolated fields. Far off to their left front they could hear the muffled boom of heavy guns, and in the middle distance now and then off in the same direction a sudden haystack-like block of black smoke showed them where a stray German " H. E." had found a useless billet. For a half-mile or more the young officer and his still more youthful guide trudged on after leaving 226 THE WIGGLER the road — that is to say, a half-mile as the crow flies, but more than double that distance if the ups and downs and the deviations from a straight course caused by the innumerable shell-holes and mine craters had been taken into consideration. Even Lieutenant Storm wondered how the runner was able to find his way with such assurance, for the latter plodded steadily on without hesitation and seemingly without any bearings whatever. Then, when the horizon in all directions had begun to look alike to Ralph, the boy commenced to descend the sloping side of an old " crater," greater in diameter than any they had yet come across. Its bowl-shaped sides were grass and weed over- grown; for more than two years Nature had been vainly trying to cover over the scars of old Mother Earth there. On the far side of the great bowl a newer wound had been man-made, and Ralph recognized it at once as the entrance to a communication trench, and knew that they were getting well up to the " line." The bottom of the bowl was filled with slimy, stagnant water, and from his past experience the young officer could form some idea as to what the trench bottom itself would be like, even before he actually entered it. He had had the foresight, however, to don his high water-proofed trench boots before setting out from his billet. Runners 227 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT despised such heavy impedifnenta to rapid locomo- tion; they were wont to consider the ordinary ankle- boots and spiral woolen puttees good enough at all times. The pair skirted the slushy green bottom of the crater and turned into the fresh cutting in its side. Down a steep slope they ran with slipping steps for about ten yards, propping themselves up with their hands against the mud sides of the narrow cutting, as they slithered down it to the level muddy bottom of the communication trench proper. Even Ralph's head was then a good two feet under cover from view. It was nothing more than a neat crack in the earth, with a sharp corner every few zigzagging yards. The mud became deeper and thinner the farther they went. Here and there was a hidden length of duck-board, to be sure; but that only made the going worse. Now, a length of duck-board is made by laying a pair of six or eight foot lengths of scantling side by side about eighteen inches apart, and then nail- ing across them ladder-wise narrow strips of board with an interval of two or three inches between strips. These gratings make the finest of trench flooring provided they are laid end to end consecutively without any gaps between the successive lengths, 228 THE WIGGLER and especially so if they rest on trestles driven deep down into the mud bottom of the trench. But, for good and sufficient reasons, unhappily they are never found thus in communication trenches that have been in use for any length of A CSlvss-sectiou of a trench, showing : A — Parapet built up with sand -bags. D — Solid earth. B — Parados built up with sand -bags. E — Fire-step, C — Loose earth. H — Duck-boards. time. Firewood is a scarce and highly prized com- modity up in the " line," and for a brief space the duck-walks of the zigzag communicating trenches afford the nearest source of supply. To tamper with them is strictly against orders, of course; but the nights are very dark back there in those narrow ditches. Then, too, the sergeant likes to have his own coffee hot, and is not over-apt to ask awkward questions as to how it was heated. And so it was that, going up, Ralph and his guide found those doubly useful contrivances be- 229 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT neath their feet only occasionally. Even then so deeply down were they hidden beneath the slushy ooze that they made their presence known only when one or the other of the boys suddenly tripped over them, and precariously saved himself from an inglorious mud bath by clutching wildly for sup- port at the clammy clay walls that rose squarely up on either side. There is always mud in the up-going trenches. So narrow are they and so deep that the sun never has a chance to shine directly down into them long enough to dry them up from rain-fall to rain-fall, and no pumps are ever used back there, as they constantly are in the " line " trenches. The sides and tops are always caving or falling in, for usually the one is not wattled nor the other sand-bagged, as in the fire-trenches. Doughboys ploughing their way up and down day and night make the mash mashier. Whizz- bangs and H. E.'s, descending from on high, churn up and mix the dough till it becomes porridge. The result is the mud that the trench poet sang about at the beginning of chapter thirteen. For more than a quarter of an hour the two had been silently and arduously ploughing through that muck. Already they had branched off from the original ditch into another one of the same ilk. Ralph, as eveiy one does when for the first time 230 THE WIGGLER making the acquaintance of a new trench system^ had completely lost all sense of direction. There was apparently nothing to guide one there. Beneath and on all sides there was naught but mud. Above there was only the narrow streak of blue sky. No wonder Ralph admired the unhesitating assurance with which the runner turned aside from the crack they had first been following, just as if he had merely been turning about a street corner and knew exactly where he was going. All at once the latter stepped upon the end of a totally submerged duck-board, the middle of which must have been resting teter-like on some rock or hidden hump of solid soil. The end he stepped upon went down with a sudden squash, and the other end quite as unexpectedly came up with a sudden splash that showered the mud backward over both of them. Lieutenant Storm was at the moment following close upon the heels of his young guide. The runner's feet slipped from under him on the greasy boards. He threw up his arms, floundered crazily about for a second, and then in a final desperate effort to save himself from falling flat, threw his arms wildly about Ralph's waist, ejaculating in- voluntarily as he did so: ** Hold 'em, Dale! Hold 'em, Dale! " The words were uttered under the youngster's 231 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S, ARMT breath ; yet Storm heard them distinctly ; and hear- ing, could scarcely believe his own ears. Many a time and often in the past — the past that now seemed so long ago — ^he had heard those self- same words. It was the old school yell that the rooters of Dale Academy were wont to chant from the bleachers when the Dale goal seemed in peril. It was the last desperate resort call to the gridiron warriors of his old school to put forth their mighti- est efforts. It had also become a byword among the juniors, addressed to themselves by themselves sotto-voce, when any one of them wished to en- courage himself to " hang-on," no matter what the immediate occasion for redoubled effort might be. No wonder Ralph Storm was astonished to hear it once again away down in that reeking ditch in the historic land of Jeanne d'Arc. He seized the youngster by the shoulders, jerked him to his feet, and still holding him by one shoulder, with his free hand he tilted back the boy's " tin hat " so that he could have a good square look at his face. From the lean, boyish, mud-spattered counte- nance a pair of little twinkling gray eyes smiled quizzically, half-doubtingly up into Storm's, and the runner's lips parted slightly in a queer little smile. " Matson ! Wiggler, you young scamp ! " ejacu- lated Ralph wonderingly. 232 THE WIGGLER "Yes, Storm! " I mean, ' sir,' " he corrected himself, immedi- ately remembering the other's superior rank as a commissioned officer, and making a funny effort to salute while Ralph still held him by the shoulder with one hand, and was tilting back his steel helmet with the other. But Storm intercepted Wiggler's hand even as the latter raised it in the act of saluting, and crush- ing it warmly in his own strong grasp, demanded: "Why didn't you let me know? Why didn't you speak to me, eh? " And then remembering the letters that he and Lieutenant Van Home had received from the principal of Dale Academy but a few days before, and the references made therein to this same precocious youth, he went on with a smile of com- plete understanding: " But I guess I know why, without your telling me. You were afraid I'd squeal on you, you young scamp." " I didn't put it exactly that way. Storm — I mean, * sir.' " " Never mind the * sir,' Wiggler; that is to say when we are alone, of course," interrupted Lieu- tenant Storm. " Yes, sir — I mean, * Storm,' " replied Wiggler, this time correcting himself with a grin. 233 FIGHTING WITH THE U, S. ARMT " But, honest, I have always been afraid that my brothers would find out where I am, and take me out of the army. And this is the life after all, isn't it. Storm? " But you'll not let them know where I am, like a good fellow, will you not, Storm? " " Why, you're all right, kid. You needn't worry," answered Ralph, and standing right there in the middle of the communication trench and sinking deeper and deeper into the ooze as they stood, he gladdened Wiggler's heart by informing him of the contents of Doctor Wilde's letter, and by telling him that his older brothers would not interfere with his remaining in the army, if he would only write to them and keep them informed as to his whereabouts from time to time. "And you must, Wiggler, and right away, as soon as you can! And that's an order! You get me, eh? " concluded the lieutenant. " You bet I will, Storm; and only too glad to! " replied the lad. " I often wanted to write home, especially when I saw the other fellows getting letters, and when it fell my turn to fetch up the mail myself. We runners have to do that sometimes, you know. I seemed to be the only one who never got a letter from home, and you bet it made me feel pretty lonesome and homesick sometimes." 234 THE WIGGLER " That's all right then," said Ralph, affection- ately patting the boy's shoulder while he straight- ened up the " tin hat " on his head. " I'll write to the good old ' Doc ' too, and to some of the fellows at the old school. lYou can just bet your identification tag on that, sir," asserted Wiggler enthusiastically. Storm could not help smiling in sympathy with the lad's evident great pleasure, and then Wiggler queried: " Where's Big Van? You know I have to hang about the P. C. a good deal, and I overheard the *Adj ' say that he was coming with you. I was scared half to death when I first heard that you two were to join our outfit; but I was mighty glad, too. Storm." " Van will join us before long, I hope," answered Storm. " He was sent down to one of the training camps as an instructor for a while. But the C. O. has written to H. Q. asking that he be sent on here right away. " But if we stand here much longer we'll be up to our knees, so we'd better be getting on, Wiggler. You can come down to my billet whenever you are off duty, and we'll have a good old * chew ' to- gether. " How much farther have we to go before reach- 235 FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ^RMT iug the Company P. C. up the line? " he demanded as he pulled one foot up out of the mud with a suck- ing, squshy noise, preparatory to stepping out. " We will be up to the support trench in about ten minutes more now," replied Wiggler, care- fully feeling with one foot for the end of the treach- erous duck-board over which he had just stumbled. " The Company P. C. is just around the corner as you leave this ditch we are in now," he added cheerfully as he again began to splash his way along the muddy bottom. 236 CHAPTER XV THE LISTENING POST ''WeVe hack again to trenches and to Huns, To snipers, mortars, mines, and hand grenades, To working half the night with picks and spades; From dawn to dusk they hang those heastly guns; We're hack again.'* The runner's "ten minutes further to go" turned out to be nearer twenty ere they at length reached the support trench. And when they did reach it, it seemed at first glance to be as lonesome as a grave untenanted; but this state of affairs surprised neither Lieutenant Storm nor his guide. They well knew that the soldiers resting there would be for the most part sleeping in their dugouts before again taking their turn in the fire-trench. Wiggler, leading, turned to the right after leav- ing the communication trench and rounded a massively squared traverse. Opposite a square hole in the wall of the parados, framed in roughly hewn timbers, from the top one of which hung a curtain of heavy cloth matting, then pinned in a fold to one side by a rusty bayonet — a German weapon at that, Ralph noted — driven through it 237 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT and into one of the supporting side joists, the runner halted, saluted smartly, and pointing to the hole, volunteered the information: "There it is, sir!" "Good! Wait here, Wiggler!" ordered Lieu- tenant Storm briefly, and forthwith dived do^vn three low, flat steps into the Company P. C. ; other- wise the captain's dugout. In pushing the matting further to one side Ralph noticed that it was quite dry. It should have been wet to have been of any avail as a protection against gas, the sole reason for its being there at all. Storm mentally agreed with the remark that Colonel Richards had made to the adjutant in his hearing that morning regarding the regiment's urgent need of the services of an experienced " gas- officer," one of whose duties would be to see that all such protective curtains were kept always in a moist condition. The ceiling of the dugout was heavily rough- beamed, and so low that Ralph had to stoop both head and shoulders uncomfortably and to keep them so. On the left hand side as you entered was a small table, and built up against the opposite side were two narrow board bunks, one above the other. There was just enough room for a man to pass between the side of the table and the sides of the bunks. 238 THE LISTENING POST Captain Forbes of " B " Company was sitting at one end of the table, and facing the entrance so that the light might fall on the papers before him. The combination receiver and transmitter of a field telephone lay on the table at his elbow. On the lower bunk, outstretched upon his back, a lieutenant fully dressed lay peacefully sleeping; one hand and one foot dangled over the side of the narrow pallet. A great gray rat that had been sitting up on its haunches and sniffling curiously with wiggling nose at the dangling boot scurried under the bed at Storm's disturbing entry; but it impudently crept out again almost immediately to resume its interested inspection of the sleeper's foot. At Ralph's entrance Captain Forbes looked up from his work quietly and without the least indica- tion of surprise in his glance, for he never knew who or what might drop in upon him at any time. In a low tone, out of deference to the sleeper, Ralph briefly introduced himself and explahied his mission there. Captain Forbes came around the table and grasped his hand, saying in equally low accents: " I am glad to meet you," and then with an ex- planatory glance toward the resting officer on the bunk: " Let us step outside. Moran there was out on 239 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr patrol last night, and goes on duty again to-night at * stand-to.' " Outside the captain returned Wiggler's salute with a smile of recognition. It was evidently not the first time that he had seen the youngster, and for some reason the latter flushed and cast down his eyes under that officer's humorous glance in his direction. The captain and Ralph conversed animatedly for some few minutes. The former was eager to hear news of the outside world at first hand; and Ralph was equally eager for information regarding the enemy's latest doings in that sector. Captain Forbes was able to inform him that, judging from the reports of last night's patrol, and still later re- ports from flight observers, the enemy opposite them was just then contemplating no new offensive operations, nor expecting any. No undue activity had been observed among them. " Lieutenant O'Brien is just now in command of the platoon on duty in that part of our trench that will be of particular interest to you, from what you have just told me, Storm," said Captain Forbes finally. " You will find him either in his dugout or up the line. I will join you up there presently, after I have finished the work I was doing when you came along just now." 240 THE LISTENING POST Then glancing again at Wiggier he said, " I see you have Runner Matson with you. He knows the way." Of Wiggier himself he demanded, " You know where Lieutenant O'Brien's dugout is. Mat- son? " " Yes, sir," replied Wiggier solemnly; " it's num- ber three, Hogan's Alley." " I thought he would know," said Captain Forbes to Ralph with a dry smile, and he added enigmatic- ally: "And I have no doubt that he will be able to give you some original information concerning No Man's Land too, if you ask him." Whereat Wiggier again flushed guiltily and cast his eyes downward, as if suddenly finding some- thing of great interest in his muddy boots that he had never seen there before. When the captain had left them and they were once more proceeding along the support trench to- ward the narrow cutting, known as " Hogan's Alley," which connected that part of the support trench with the fire-trench, Ralph demanded of his young guide: " "What did Captain Forbes mean by that last remark of his about No Man's Land, Wiggier? " " Well, you see, sir " the boy began, a mis- chievous glint in his little gray eyes, as he threw a 241 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S, ARMT backward glance over his shoulder at his inter- rogator. But Ralph interrupted him, shaking his head f rowningly in disapproval, and once more Wiggler hastily corrected himself. " ' Storm,' I mean," and then went on with his story. " The other night I happened to be up the line when a patrol was crawling out over the top, and I just tagged on after them. I didn't mean to dp anything wrong, you know. I never once thought I was really going against orders, for I'd never been actually told not to go, you know. ** Besides, you know. Storm, we runners never would get a chance to see for ourselves what * patrol ' was like unless we took a chance like that sometimes. Others of the fellows had done it, and so I simply couldn't resist, and I went." " Now, Wiggler, that's mere sophistry on your part," interrupted Lieutenant Storm sternly, as befitted an officer under such circumstances. " You knew very well that you had no business there. Even if you were not actually disobeying orders, you were certainly guilty of an act that was not * conducive to good order and military dis- cipline.' "And that's just the trouble with too many of our fellows. They don't seem to realize the abso- 242 THE LISTENING POST lute necessity in the army of instantaneous, un- questioning and automatic obedience in all things, the little as well as the great ; obedience to the spirit as well as to the letter of orders." Ralph was quoting verbatim from one of his own former sergeant-instructors ; but Wiggler of course didn't know that. At the lieutenant's first admonishing words he had turned his head quickly " eyes-front " again, and relapsed into stony silence ; but had Storm been able to view his face he would not have observed much evidence of repentance there. " I sincerely hope that I shall never have to speak to you again in this way, Wiggler," gravely Ralph concluded his homily. " Yes, sir," replied Wiggler, feeling that some answer was due ; he knew not exactly what. They proceeded a few steps in silence, which Ralph eventually broke by demanding: " How did Captain Forbes happen to find out about it? " " Why, that was just my usual luck again, you know," resumed Wiggler. " I always did get caught, somehow or other; it was always just the same way at the old school too. Other fellows could pull off stunts and nothing ever happened to them; but maybe you remember, Storm, how I always was getting a lecture from 243 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT some one or other of the masters, for what seemed nothing at all sometimes." Then it was Ralph's turn to grin surreptitiously behind the youngster's back, as the latter went on: " Out about the middle of No Man's Land we ran into — or rather crept into, for we were all wriggling along flat on our stomachs — ^a Boche patrol. Then you can just bet your identification tag there was some mix-up out there in the dark for a few minutes. My eye! But it was great while it lasted. Then the enemy turned loose his * type- writers ' right into the whole bunch of us — their own men as well as us. " Our lieutenant shouted for us to fall back, every man for himself, and you bet I was about the first to reach the home plate again. I didn't pick a spot to light on when I left the parapet in a flying leap, and it was just my luck to jump right on top of the captain, who was coming up the line on the double time to see what the row was all about." " What did he say to you? " asked Ralph. " Nothing much just then; but he had me up be- fore him next day, and gave me a lecture just about the same as you have just done." The two of them had before this turned into Hogan's Alley, and had already passed two holes- in-the-wall. Wiggler halted before the third, 244 THE LISTENING POST saluted, and said, pointing with his left hand at the same time: " That's where Lieutenant O'Brien hangs out, sir!" Ralph poked his head into the hole; his nostrils were greeted with that peculiarly penetrating odor of deep damp earth, so gruesomely suggestive. That was all; there was nobody at home. The Cross section of a trench, showing dugout with deep entrance nnder the parados. A — Loose earth. F — Entrance to dugout* B — Sand- bags. G — Dugout. C— Solid earth. H— Duck-boards. D— Fire step. platoon commander's domicile was little more than a dog-house; in it there was barely room for one bunk, all there was there in the way of furniture. They moved on up the narrow communicating ditch, and in another minute turned into the fire- trench itself. And what a trench ! This was no yawning rift in the ground, wider 245 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT at the top than at the bottom, and gaping with open jaws to welcome any stray shell or grenades that might happen to come its way. On the contrary its walls were clean cut squarely and vertically down, for the most part reinforced with withes closely wattled in and out between stout posts driven deep into the trench floor close against the wall, just as are countless other miles of French trenches; but where even this cunning osier work had proved insufficient the skilled hand of the American engineer was in evidence, and the weak- ened sppts had been doubly shored with heavy planking. The sand-bags that lined the parapet lip were new and plumply filled. The fire-step was shapely, and the duck-boards were dry and clean; the trench must have been well drained. It was indeed a fighting trench to satisfy the eye of any connoisseur in such matters, and Lieutenant Storm, who had seen many a mile of fire-trench in other parts of France, was delighted with it. How the men must have worked, he thought — and digging is dull, dour work and much less fun than fighting — to get it into such fine shape! It was an almost perfect first line of defense. Comparatively quiet it was there also; and yet there was life and action of a kind all about too. Ralph felt a glow of just pride and confidence steal 246 THE LISTENING POST over him as he paused in his stride, the better to ob- serve in detail his immediate surroundings; it was the first time that he had ever been in a real Amer- ican fire-trench. The day was fine, and in the first " bay " that he and Wiggler turned into, in a corner near one of the massive traverses — the wary trench veteran al- ways likes a corner, for in case of a shell or bomb happening to drop into the bay he may have time to duck round the traverse and place a wall of solid earth between himself and the deadly missile ere it explodes — one small group of the men were having afternoon tea, if you please. Some were blowing on the hot brew in their pannikins, while others ate a savory mess of stew from another part of their mess tins. All of them were heartily enjoying their " al fresco " repast. Over in the other angle of the bay another off- duty group were reading and animatedly discuss- ing the ball news in a three-weeks-old New York daily paper. Still another little knot were laugh- ing over the comic section of the same jour- nal. Though "off duty" for the moment, in the sense that they Had not been detailed as sentinels or to some special work-party, these idle groups were fully accoutred from head to heel, gas-masks at the alert, and rifles ready to their hands. 247 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT On the fire-step about the centre of the bay a sentinel with his rifle resting on the parapet and set for instantaneous action was at his post of duty. At his feet his relief lay outstretched on the fire- step, basking comfortably upon his back in the agreeable sunshine. When Ralph and Wiggler first entered the trench the soldier on sentinel duty was busily rec- onnoitering the landscape in front of him through a box periscope, and in order to bring his face closer to the aperture through which the lower mirror showed, had pushed his steel helmet well back upon his head. So engrossed was he in his task that he failed to note the newcomers' approach, and did not look round even when they paused below and behind him. Even from a side view of his countenance Ralph could see that his eyes were earnest and steady and that the expression of his face was one of alert and resolute fearlessness; and yet he was but a mere boy with all a boy's natural impulsive- ness. Just at that moment he saw, or thought that he saw, something of more than usual interest reflected in the mirror, and evidently not quite satisfied with the clarity of view to be obtained therein, the young sentinel straightened up from the stooping attitude he had been holding, and raising himself on his 248 THE LISTENING POST tiptoes took a squint over the top of the parapet itself. Ralph, as in duty bound, placed his hand gently on the boy's shoulder, and commanded him in a low tone; Trench Pkeiscope Showing interior of the box, arrangement of mirrors, and top and bottom openings over mirrors. AA — Openings. BB — Mirrors. Dotted line with arrows shows line of direction of the reflection. A pair of field-glasses properly focussed, and used at the lower aperture to view the picture reflected on the mirror inside, will magnify the scene reflected upon it, and render details of the picture much more distinct. ** Pull your helmet down in front, my lad! '* " Yes, sir," replied the youthful soldier cheer- fully, looking around to see who the strange officer was, and complying with the order at once. " I thought I saw something moving out there 249 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT just now; but I guess I was mistaken," he volun- teered, and immediately resumed his position of observation at the periscope. " Let me have a look," demanded Ralph. The sentinel moved to one side, Ralph mounted the fire-step and proceeded to glue his eyes to the lower aperture of the periscope. Wiggler moved over to the group who were laughing over the comic supplement. Gazing intently for a space into the depths of the mirror on which was reflected a very small part of that lifeless terrain between the opposing trenches — that ugly, decaying, and abhorred strip of degrada- tion, death and stagnation that wound its snaky course through Belgium and France for hundreds of miles from the shores of the North Sea to the rugged barriers of Switzerland — Ralph slowly re- volved the periscope from side to side and back again. From forty to fifty paces in depth out from the parapet extended our own barbed wire with its twisted tangle of bent and upright wooden stakes and iron standards. It had to be sufficiently deep to prevent a hostile patrol from creeping up near enough in the blackness of the night to hurl a shower of bombs into the trench, and thirty yards is about the limit for accurate bomb throwing. Beyond the wire for a space nothing living, mov- 250 THE LISTENING POST ing, was visible, nothing audible; naught but a wilderness of bare earth pitted with conical holes from three to eight feet deep, the edges of which in places broke into each other, so thick were they. Here and there between the shell-holes was an old log, a battered stump, or a dead body whose fester- ing rags fluttered sickly in the small breeze then blowing. And beyond that stretch of arid desolation was depicted on the mirror the hazy threads of the Ger- man entanglements, and still further on the dull gray line of his parapets. It all seemed quite dead and harmless; yet Ralph knew he had but to raise his head above the parapet to bring a bullet dipping with a soft almost noiseless " flick " into the sand- bags in front of him, or into the loose earth of the parados behind him. He turned away from the periscope, and address- ing the sentinel whom he had displaced, inquired: " Where shall I find your platoon commander? " " Lieutenant O'Brien is down there, that way, sir," he replied, pointing in the direction he wished to indicate with his finger, and added: " He has a work-party down there filling up sand- bags, so as to have them ready to fix up a piece of the parapet that was smashed in by a * whizz-bang ' last night." It was not till they had almost reached the right 251 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT flank of the section of trench occupied by their regi- ment that they at last found Lieutenant O'Brien busily directing the efforts of his work-party. In every bay, as they made their way along, Ralph had paused, however, to scrutinize that portion of No Man's Land and the enemy's trenches immedi- ately opposite. The sentinel on duty in each bay was furnished with a periscope, and the various groups and individuals of each bay as they passed along were more or less similarly occupied as those already described in the first bay they had entered. Lieutenant Storm was not at all satisfied with his periscopic observations, and so expressed himself when he met Lieutenant O'Brien. Through a loophole between the sand-bags of the parapet the latter then pointed out to Ralph the entrance to a zigzag passage through their own wire, for use by night patrols. For further use Ralph made a care- ful note of the bearings of this passage. Lieutenant O'Brien also informed him that up near the road, at the other end of the section then occupied by his platoon — that is to say, not far from " D " on Captain Goring's sketch, already mentioned — they had constructed a sap, leading from the trench and passing under their barbed wire out into No Man's Land. At the end of the sap there was a carefully camouflaged " listening post " that was constantly occupied. 252 THE LISTENING POST He suggested that Lieutenant Storm could get a closer and better view, and with the naked eye, of the enemy defenses from that point — ^particularly of the " bulge " that it was proposed to destroy, and offered to conduct Ralph to it himself. They at once began to retrace their steps along the fire-trench, Wiggler trailing along after the two young officers. Saps are of different kinds and intended for dif- ferent purposes. There is the open kind — a mere ditch leading out from the trenches. If it happens to be one of the enemy's it can sometimes be seen eating its way slowly day by day out into No Man's Land; but this species, the commonest because the easiest to construct, is generally worked forward under cover of night. Then there is the covered or tunneled kind, which is much more difficult and slower of construction; but is also the more valuable because of its se- crecy. Saps are used as " jumping-off " places for raids and patrols. Snipers make use of them to ap- proach nearer the enemy's trenches. They make the best kind of listening posts. Others are con- structed for the sole purpose of planting mines at the sap-heads. Sometimes they approach so near the opposing trench that bombs may be conveni- ently hurled from them into these defenses. Then 253 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT again some are dug or excavated solely for the purpose of establishing convenient observation posts. Whatever their nature they are always a menace. The sax3 in question had been constructed by the ^ ^ The Sap A A — Road crossing both Allied and German lines, BB — Fire trench — the front line. CC — Support or second line trench. DD — Commanication trench. E — Sap— or trench leading to listening post. F — The listening post. American engineers with great labor to serve both as an observation post by day and as a jumping-off place for our patrols by night. The zigzagging tunnel out to the listening post was so low that one had to crawl on hands and knees along it. 254 THE LISTENING POST Ralph, creeping after Lieutenant O'Brien, on reaching the listening post, a circular chamber at the end of the sap, so confined that it barely per- mitted the two lieutenants to crowd in alongside of the two soldiers already on duty there. A narrow slit cut laterally through the turf al- lowed the observer a wide view of No Man's Land to the right, and to the left a section of the road and the " bulge " in the German trench on the other side of it. A trap-door of boards that the en- gineers had cunningly camouflaged with a covering of sods and stones cemented thereon, blocked the entire exit with the exception of the narrow slit above mentioned. This skilfully constructed door could be raised and lowered at will from the inside ; but was never opened except at night. The fact that the enemy's eyes, always glaring across No Man's Land, had not discovered the sap, which had then been in use for several weeks, spoke volumes for the cunning skill of the American engineers. For what seemed a long time to Lieutenant O'Brien in his cramped quarters, and still longer to the disappointed Wiggler who had been com- pelled to remain back in the fire-trench, Ralph patiently surveyed inch by inch the terrain there exposed to his eager view, while he strove to photo- graph on his mind all its more salient details. Near where the " bulge " began just across the 255 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT forbidden road he could plainly see a work-party of German soldiers repairing a great breach in their parapet. Although they were under cover from direct fire in front, they were quite exposed to an oblique fire from the sentinels in the listening post. Lieutenant Storm glanced from the enemy sol- diers, so plainly in view, to the rifles of the sentinels in the post, and then inquiringly at Lieutenant O'Brien. The latter shook his head with a dry smile. The two American doughboys were also smiling broadly, for they too had noted and cor- rectly interpreted Ralph's glance of questioning surprise. No other reply was necessary. Ralph realized at once that it was considered of far more impor- tance to maintain the secrecy of the listening post than to shoot two or three of the enemy, and that the men had orders under no circumstances to risk giving away the location of their hiding place for the pleasure of a pot-shot, no matter how great the temptation to do so might be. That they could have resisted the itching they must have felt to draw a bead on such a fine target promised well for the discipline of the regiment. After leaving that interesting spot Storm sur- veyed the remainder of the front line occupied by his regiment, making as many observations of the 256 THE LISTENING POST conformation of the ground between the opposing lines as possible, and it was already becoming dusk ere he and Wiggler started to make their return trip through the communication trenches. 257 CHAPTER XVI THE PATROL *'And men with vigil in their eyes And a f ever-light that never dies — Men from the city, hamlet, town. Once white faces turned to hrown — Stand to the watch of the parapet And watch with rifles, bayonets set,'* — Sergeant J. W. Streets {Killed in action.) Guided again by Wiggler, and this time accom- panied by Chuck Barrows, Ralph paid another visit to the fire-trench the following night. He knew that locating oneself in the trenches after nightfall was quite another matter from making one's way about there in daylight, and had wisely made up his mind to familiarize himself with the surroundings under both conditions. The idea that possessed all three of them as they floundered up through the communication trench and past the support trench was the utter lone- someness of it all. Night had long fallen ere they started, and everything for the moment was un- cannily, appallingly quiet, for they knew that all about them, in their near vicinity, were hidden away 258 THE PATROL hundreds and hundreds of men, continually waiting by their arms, ready for instant call. Yet they saw not one of them till they had at last turned into the fire-trench itself, and there came upon the first sentry grayly vigilant at his post, with his " relief " sitting silently at his feet on the dimly outlined fire-step. Reassuring the sentinel with a word, they mounted the step on either side of him, Wiggler as well as the two young officers, to peer out over the parapet between the gaps of the sand-bags into No Man's Land. "Anything doing? " queried Lieutenant Bar- rows of the sentry in a low whisper as he stepped up beside him. " No, sir. All quiet! " answered the latter in an equally guarded tone. Both knew and remembered that they were not much more than one hundred and fifty yards re- moved from the German front-line trench, and for all they knew to the contrary might be within fifty yards of an enemy advanced listening post. All was solid blackness out there at first, and they could not even discern the faintest outline of their own barbed wire, thick and tangled mass though it was. But the German, in spite of the stolidity with which before the war we were wont to attribute him, 259 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT was always as nervous as a flea when he knew that it was the " Yanks " who held the ditch in front of him, and his nervous curiosity was insatiable. He suspected that they were always up to something — and he was not far wrong at that. Even as the three young soldiers vainly endeav- ored to pierce with their eyes the opaque wall of darkness in front of them two or three flares shot up from the trenches directly opposite, and sailed in a graceful parabola of beautiful silver-green light over the intervening desert space. Then as if the enemy had suddenly become excited over something they suspected and feared was going on out there, or farther back in the American trenches, they began to send up rockets enough, and to fire off powder enough to put an old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration quite in the shade. Soaring rockets and innumerable flares with their silver-green and glaring white lights all at once iluminated No Man's Land with startling vivid- ness. Ralph and his companions on the fire-step could see each other's features distinctly. Details of the trench interior, the strange shapes of the barb-wire stakes outside, and the pitted terrain in front of them, all sprang into view with the abrupt- ness of screen pictures. An instant thus of dazzling light, and then that wonderful silence that had hitherto reigned was 260 THE PATROL shattered by the savage chatter of machine guns. The " ssh " of bullets overhead and their soft " flick, flick " into the sand-bags in front caused the five eager watchers — the " relief " had also mounted the fire-step to view the beautiful pyro- technic display — in that particular fire-bay to duck their heads with one consent below the shelter of the parapet lip. The lights died out as suddenly as they had come. Like the abrupt closing of a book darkness fell over all and shut out the view again. It was just a nervous flutter on the part of Fritz, and was over within a minute. But he might have another fit of the " jumps " in yet another minute. He always had " the wind-up " when he knew our fellows were there, and no matter how quiet a line trench at night might be for the moment, it was always the treach- erous quiet of nerve tension stretched almost to the breaking point. Several such outbursts on the part of the enemy Ralph Storm and " Chuck " Barrows witnessed that night, as piloted by the young " runner," they made their stumbling way up and down the dark- some trench, pausing in each separate fire-bay to peer over its parapet and question the sentry on duty there as they went along. In spite of the fact that both Storm and Barrows were due to go out on reconnaissance patrol the following night, 261 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr they remained up there in the fire-trench till just before " stand-to " at dawn. That afternoon while Ralph Storm was super- intending the construction of some of the portable barb-wire obstructions that were to be carried up the line in readiness for the raid upon the bulge, Captain Goring brought him the welcome news that Rod Van Home had been relieved of his duties at the training camp, and had been ordered to re- port forthwith to his own regiment. "A paragraph to that effect appeared in yester- day's Daily Orders from General Headquarters, a copy of which arrived at our P. C, to-day," added the captain. " So I suppose that we may expect your friend, Lieutenant Van Home, to join us at any time now." " I wish he would arrive in time to go out with me on that patrol to-night," said Lieutenant Storm. " I hardlj'^ think that he would find the time for that, even if he were here," rejoined Captain Gor- ing. " I understand that the adjutant has plenty of work cut out for him as ' gas officer ' as soon as he arrives." So saying the captain continued on his tour of inspection, evidently quite satisfied with the man- ner in which his newest lieutenant was carrying on with the job he then had in hand. And in truth Ralph, with his coat off and his 262 THE PATROL shirt-sleeves rolled, was laboring manfully. The men were new to the work and needed constant supervision and instruction. The " saw-buck " ob- stacles, or " knife-rests," as the British Tommy had been used to call them, had of necessity to be of certain specified dimensions in order that they might be carried up through the narrow and crooked com- munication trenches, and they had also to be strongly put together in order to serve the pur- pose for which they were intended. The **Saw-Buck This particular species of barb-wire obstacle was mostly used for emergency or stop-gap occasions. The framework of each section was made of small tree-trunks about ten feet long and four feet square, covered with a jumble of long, sharp barbed wire, most difficult and unpleasant to handle. The method of using them sounds simple enough. The " saw-buck " was carried along the trench to the part that required " wiring." Then it was 263 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT hoisted over the top of the parapet and pushed out a little way. That was all. But in actual practice the task was a difficult one and far from desirable. A trench at the best of times is usually not more than three feet wide, and is broken in length every few yards by the rough corners of a traverse around which the awkward, prickly things had to be lugged. The parapet was never any too high, and any unusual movement in the trench was sure to attract the attention of the enemy's trench mortars and rifle grenades. Then, too, the narrow trench always had its own regular complement of men, rifles, mortars, and sand-bag piles already there, so that to pass along the heavy " obstacle " with its loose waving strands and stray ends of barb- wire that caught into every one and everything on the way was no light task, as we have already observed. And yet that was the safest method of wiring a trench. The easier and more common way, although the more dangerous, was to creep out into No Man's Land on some very dark night and drive into the ground rows of stout wooden stakes with muffled wooden mallets, every muffled thud of which sounded like an ominous knell of death to the novice, putting him into a very bath of perspira- tion even on a cold night, setting his " goose-flesh " all aquiver, and causing every hair of his head to 264 THE PATROL stand on end with the sound of each dull thump. Whenever they were available iron screw standards were worked into the ground corkscrew fashion, and were used instead of the wooden stakes. About the stakes or standards the wire had then to be wound in and out, and fastened in a tangled jumble. The barbs seemed to clutch at your limbs and clothes like living things that were just trying to show how troublesome and nasty they could be. Added to that, at every star-shell you had to stand as still as a statue or fall on your face in the tangled jumble of wood and wire, praying and hoping that Fritz would not detect the wiring party and open up on you with his " typewriters." And if by any chance he did detect or even sus- pect the presence of a wiring party out there you had to give it up for that night, and as likely as not, as the poilu used to say, experienced " Un mauvais quart d'heure " before you got back to the shelter of your own blessed trench again. After one experience on a wiring detail no sol- dier ever hankered for a second, for of all things unpleasant there was none that surpassed it. On his way up the line that night with his little patrol, Ralph halted for a moment at the Regi- mental P. C. to ascertain if Lieutenant Van Home had as yet reported there. He had not as yet done so, although he was that night expected to report, 265 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT and so the little party of four continued on their way. The reconnaissance patrol, as chosen by Ralph, was to consist of four only. Lieutenant Barrows, Sergeant Hayes of Ralph's platoon, Baptiste Trudeau, the French Canadian who was an old deer stalker and just the man for such an occasion, and Ralph himself. The French Canadian had been sent up the line earlier in the day in order to familiarize himself with the lay of the land, and would be waiting to join them up there. The three then on their way up were again guided by young " Wiggler " Matson, the runner, at Ralph's special request. When giving Baptiste his instructions that after- noon Lieutenant Storm had told him to take par- ticular note of the ground immediately in front of and beyond his own wire at about where the zigzag alley had purposely been left for a passage through it. Ralph had determined to use that more diffi- cult means of getting on the other side of his own barbed wire, rather than the easier way out into No Man's Land by means of the sap. The easier and quicker way would be used during the coming raid, and he feared risking the attraction of the enemy's attention to it prematurely. The purpose of the patrol being solely to obtain information, Ralph would have preferred making it 266 THE PATROL accompanied by the French Canadian alone. But for the reasons already mentioned Lieutenant Bar- rows' presence was deemed necessary on this occa- sion, and as Sergeant Hayes was to have charge of a special section of his platoon during the raid it was most advisable that he too should become familiar with the appearance of the enemy's wire and trenches under the obscurity of night, a very different matter from merely viewing them across the space between by daylight. As a matter of fact the American patrols con- sisted generally of not more than two or three to- gether. And more often than not, both with our forces and the British, that fascinating and perilous duty was performed by a single scout. Under no circumstances were they to court an encounter with a hostile patrol that was as likely as not to be prowl- ing around on its stomach out there in the inky darkness at the same time. The sole duty of a scout on patrol was to find out without being found out, to get as close to the enemy wire as possible, to lay his ear to the harassed soil every now and then and listen with bated breath for the " pick-pick " and " scrape-scrape " of a possible sapping party bent perhaps on preparing a mine, or to crawl along the enemy's wire to ascer- tain if he had repairing parties out, or was making preparations for a raid in force on our trenches. 267 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT Another reason why our scouts had to avoid en- countering an enemy patrol, to see without being seen, to hear without being heard, was because the Hun always patrolled in strong parties spread out like a wedge with its apex pointing toward our trenches. The only proper thing for our patrol to The Mills Bomb (Exterior) This fearful little lemon-shaped bomb has been fonnd especially efl&oient in clearing out the enemy's dugouts. In exactly four seconds after one of these apparently harmless little lumps of cast iron rolled down into an ordinary size dugout there would usually be nothing left alive inside. do when he suspected an enemy in front of him was to back up crab fashion lest he should become en- trapped among the crawling members of a wing of the wedge. 268 THE PATROL Ralph had forbidden the mdividuals of his party to carry firearms of any kind. He himself was armed, as were the others, with but a heavy trench club and a short trench dagger. As a usual thing a patrol carried two or three Mills bombs in his pockets; but Ralph had forbidden even these, so bent was he on carrying out the reconnaissance with the utmost secrecy. Fortunately the night was pitch dark. They reported to Captain Forbes in his dugout, and he accompanied them up to the fire-trench. Word was passed along from bay to bay to the sentinels on duty there that a patrol was about to go out, and under no circumstances to fire into the inky blackness of No Man's Land till word was again passed down the trenches that the patrol was " in." Baptiste they found sitting on the fire-step at the spot which Ralph had designated, patiently waiting with that inbred stoicism natural to his half -Indian blood. Each had been assigned his place in numerical order, Baptiste leading, Ralph next, then Lieu- tenant Barrows, and lastly Sergeant Hayes. All had been carefully instructed by Ralph in the role ■that each was expected to play. Wiggler, much to his chagrin, for he had all along been hoping that Storm would allow him to go over the top with the party, was sternly ordered to remain at the post on 269 FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ^RMT the fire-step vacated by the French Canadian, till the return of the patrol. Captain Forbes had already informed Lieutenant Storm that, save for the usual sporadic outbursts of rifle and machine gun fire, the night up till then Thb Mills Bomb (Section) A — Cast-iron body, serrated so as to break into separate small pieces on exploding. B — Striker lever, holding np striker till safety pin is pulled. C — Safety pin that retains lever in place. D — Striker with spiral spring that explodes " E." E — Cap that ignites bent time fuse, *' F." F— Time fuse that in four seconds explodes detonator, *' H." H— Fulminate of Mercury Detonator that explodes Ammonal charge, "I." I— Explosive Ammonal that bursts the bomb. had been a very quiet one, and it was still so. time was then a little past midnight. 270 The THE PATROL "All ready, Baptiste? " demanded Ralph in a low tone as they drew near the latter. " Oui, monsieur, tout correct! " replied Baptiste in a whisper, springing to his feet and saluting as he recognized his lieutenant's voice. " Then carry on! " commanded Ralph tersely. Without further parley the Canadian faced about, sprang to the fire-step, vaulted thence nimbly onto the top of the parapet, and at once began to descend its gentle slope with as little apparent con- cern as if he were merely strolling out of his own little cabin door in far-off Canada. One after an- other the others followed him with as little pause as might be. Almost as soon as they went over the top they were swallowed up in the blackness, and like four silent ghosts disappeared from the straining eyes of Captain Forbes and Wiggler, left behind in the trench. Cautiously, but with as little hesitation as if he had really been able to see for more than a yard ahead of him, Baptiste led the way straight out to the wire. At his low " s-s-s " the other three dropped flat on their faces as he had already done. The passage through the wire was low and narrow. Once Ralph made as if to raise himself on his hands and knees, but the sharp barbed strands that spanned the alley warned him that the only way to get through was prone upon the ground at 271 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. JRMT full length. The ground was rough; the entangle- ment was about twenty feet in depth; but owing to the twistings and turnings of the devious passage they were obliged to worm their difficult way along for more than thirty yards ere they at length emerged from it one by one into the Stygian gloom and appalling silence of No Man's Land. Just beyond the entanglement they arose to their feet again, and paused for a brief space, listening with all their ears and unavailingly striving to pierce^the darkness in front of them with their eyes. Baptiste took from his pocket a stout cord previ- ously prepared with a loop at each end, and two other loops between the ends and at about twenty feet apart. He passed the first loop to Sergeant Hayes, and as he quickly unwound the ball of cord passed the other loops in succession to Lieutenant Barrows and Ralph. Each in turn slipped his loop over his left hand and about his left wrist, leaving the slack of the cord to fall to the ground between them. While the French Canadian was thus engaged Sergeant Hayes produced a roll of narrow white tape, and attached one end of it to the foot of a stake at the place where they had emerged from the wire. Their manner of progress thenceforth till they 272 THE PATROL had again returned to the spot where they then stood was to be smiply as follows, provided always of course that nothing unforeseen marred Ralph's plans. When Baptiste, in the lead, had advanced his twenty feet Ralph would then feel the pull of the cord at his wrist, as would also Baptiste at the same time. The latter would thereupon at once halt and wait until Ralph had joined him, ere going on again. When Ralph had reached Baptiste Lieu- tenant Barrows would in his turn feel the tug at his wrist and would at once advance to join Ralph, who should remain perfectly still till " Chuck " came up with him, by which time Sergeant Hayes would also have received his signal to move out to where Lieutenant Barrows would then be waiting for him. The process would be repeated over and over again as they proceeded. At no time, unless it were deemed advisable for some reason, would more than two of them be together at once, and then for but a moment only. As Sergeant Hayes moved he was to unwind the roll of white tape, one end of which he had an- chored near the entrance to their wire. Each of the little party had moved forward once and Lieutenant Barrows had silently stolen up alongside of Ralph for the second time, when a 273 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT glaring star-shell suddenly soared up from the op- posite trenches and fell not far from them. It was followed, or rather accompanied, by several rifle shots. The hearts of the patrol in their mouths, they all stood perfectly motionless in their tracks. Each felt himself the target for the enemy's fire. Another star-shell shot up; but this time it had been fired in quite another direction; they knew then that they had not yet been seen. And yet at the very first rifle shot Lieutenant Barrows had involuntarily given utterance to a low, startled " Oh," almost under his breath. "What's the matter? Clicked it?" queried Ralph in an anxious whisper, reaching out a hand in the darkness to feel the other's arm. " No, I'm all right ! " Lieutenant Barrows hastily reassured him in a whisper that Ralph thought was a bit shaky, and wondered thereat. It was not till next day that he learned that a bullet, striking the iron head of Chuck's short trench club, had knocked it from his grasp and had momentarily paralyzed his right arm clear to the elbow. Even as Lieutenant Barrows replied to Ralph's query the latter felt the insistent tug upon his left wrist again, and once more started forward. This time he found Baptiste waiting prone upon the ground. As they were then approaching the middle of the " billard," as the poilu has nicknamed 274 THE PATROL No Man's Land, Baptiste advised that further progress should be made on hands and knees, and to this effect each was cautioned as he drew up alongside the scout ahead of him. Thus crawling they reached the enemy's wire without further mis- hap, and lay quiet there for a few minutes, breath- lessly listening again. To a stake of the German wire Sergeant Hayes then attached the narrow tape that stretched clear across No Man's Land, and would furnish a sure guiding line for the patrol's return journey. He took from his pockets a second roll, the loose end of which he fastened to the same stake. The first tape was to serve as a guide, this second one as a measure of the distance they should crawl along the Hun wire from the point at which they had first struck it. Their progress along the enemy's obstacle was even slower and made with still greater caution than they had employed in crossing the " billard." They felt along the wire for an opening as their slow way they snaked from stake to stake. More than once Baptiste thought he had found it; but always on crawling into the vacant space he met with an impasse of tangled barbs and found that he had been once more mistaken. For what seemed an interminable time, with many a breathless pause to hearken, they had 275 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY wormed their way along the uneven fringe of the entanglement, and then there came a halt longer than any they had yet made. At all times, even in the broad light of day, the view from the lip of a parapet across No Man's Land is a deceptive one. The watcher's glance being horizontal with the surface of the terrain in front fails to take in the depths of the shell-holes and furrows, and quite omits folds in the ground that prove to be of no inconsiderable magnitude when one comes to traverse them. The bottoms of some of those folds are quite out of sight and range from the parapet, and make what in military parlance is called " dead ground." Baptiste's progress along the wire was brought to an abrupt pause by a puzzling cleft in one of those bot- toms. Crawling slowly along he had unexpectedly thrust one of his outstretched hands over the clean- cut edge of a ditch. Reaching a little further down its side he felt water, the depth of which he could not plumb with his arm; nor could he reach across the cleft to the other side. So pitch dark was it he could not even see his own outstretched hand. The water extended under the wire entanglement as far as he could reach, and farther. Slowly it dawned upon the French Canadian that he had come upon an abandoned sap into which the 276 THE PATROL moisture of the low-lying bottom had seeped until it filled the ditch almost to the top. It was not the first one of its kind that he had become acquainted with. More than three precious minutes had he spent blindly exploring the sap with his hands be- fore the truth dawned upon him. | He gathered up the slack of the cord and pulled upon it gently. In another moment Ralph had silently wriggled up alongside of him. Baptiste felt for the lieutenant's hand and quietly guided it to the edge of the sap. When Ralph felt his hand touch the water he demanded in a very cautious whisper: "What is it?" " One ole sap full up wiz water," breathed Bap- tiste in his ear. " I go see where she go, sir! " So saying the hardy fellow slipped over the edge and down into the icy cold water that arose almost to his chin. Without a sound in an instant he had disappeared from Ralph's sight and touch. The latter signaled for the other two members of the patrol to approach, and as each came up beside him, he signified that they were to rest quiet there. For some minutes that seemed an age, especially to Chuck and the sergeant, who had not the faintest inkling of what was really taking place, they lay there again as quiet and motionless as sand-bags. An almost imperceptible rippling of the water un- 277 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY der their very noses at length announced the daring explorer's safe return. Baptiste clambered out of the water-logged sap and whispered to Lieutenant Storm: " She go right thru — jus' de same lak dis on de oder side ; for get in an' out dat's good for sure ! " Ralph Storm was quick to see that the object of his patrol had been accomplished, and most suc- cessfully, too. No better passage through the enemy's wire could he wish than that abandoned and apparently forgotten sap. The enemy would never look for their coming by that way. " Let us go back ! " he whispered in the ear of the wondering Lieutenant Barrows. And then to Sergeant Hayes, " Tie a knot in your tape right here, Sergeant, and gather it up as you come along." Slowly they made their return journey just as they had come, following the tape more by feel than sight. In exactly forty minutes from the time they had gone over the top, like four shadows they dropped into their own fire-trench again. Wiggler, who had all the time been faithfully and anxiously watching there for their return, at once scurried off to announce the welcome fact to Cap- tain Forbes, and the word, " patrol in," was quickly passed along the trench from bay to bay. 278 CHAPTER XVII THE COLONEL AGREES "TJie gunners will clean them at dawning. And slumber beside tJiem all day, But the guns chant a chorus at sunset. And then you should hear what they say," When the patrol got back to the village behind the lines again it was nearly three o'clock in the morning. So as not to awaken Second Lieutenant Logan of his platoon, who shared the billet with him, nor disturb its rightful French owners, who slept in the loft above that was reached by a stationary ladder, Ralph Storm softly pushed open the kitchen door of the chaumiere, and noiselessly glided over the threshold. Gently closing the door behind him he flashed on his electric torch that he might avoid any misplaced chair or other obstacle that should per- chance be between him and his bed over against the wall of the kitchen to his left. Casually, without any definite reason for so do- ing, he turned the tiny spot-light on the sleeper whose regular deep breathing could be heard from the opposite side of the kitchen. One glance, and 279 FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ^RMT with a sudden start of surprise he shut off the narrow shaft of light more quickly than he had turned it on. The slender beam had revealed, not the countenance as he had expected of Lieutenant Logan, but that of his friend. Big Van. Ralph understood the situation at once. Lieu- tenant Van Home had arrived at regimental head- quarters too late to be assigned to a regular billet of his own and Lieutenant Logan, knowing that Van and he were old friends, had offered to give up his bed for the night to the newcomer, and had betaken himself off to share some one else's quarters. To say that Ralph was delighted to have Rod Van Home back with hun again would be to ex- press it mildly indeed. And yet, with a soldier's consideration for the rest of a sleeping comrade whom an unexpected step or voice might awaken while the explosion of a bomb at close quarters would not disturb his slumbers, Ralph redoubled his efforts to avoid making the least sound what- ever. With a happy smile on his lips, and his glance always turned toward the sleeper, whom he could not see at all across the absolute darkness of the room, as quietly as any mouse he drew off his boots and coat, and stretched himself out on his own bed. But what a good old talk they would have in the morning! Still smiling contentedly, Ralph was sound asleep in half a minute. 280 THE COLONEL AGREES He slept late that morning, for no bugles blew reveille in the tiny village where the officers of his company alone were billeted. Realizing at once on awaking that he had overslept, with a start he sat up in his bed and glanced across the room at the couch opposite. He gave vent to a sudden ex- clamation of vexation; the couch was empty. Then observing that a morsel of paper was pinned to the back of his coat, which had been thoughtfully picked from the floor where he had dropped it and carefully draped over a chair, he sprang from the bed half-dressed as he already was and reached for the paper. The expression of annoyance vanished from his countenance and gave place to a broad smile of pleasure as he perused the brief note penciled in Big Vari's old familiar schoolboy scrawl, " Good-morning, son! " it read. " Have to re- port up at the P. C. right after morning chow, and so will not disturb your beauty sleep, old dear. See you later to-day. And don't forget to wash your face and ears before you go out this morning. Van." Ralph picked up his soldier's mirror of bright steel that lay on the table near. His smile became a grin from ear to ear when he looked into it. From forehead to chin his face was streaked and splotched with mud, the result of lying again and again with 281 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT his face close pressed to the damp soil and dewy grass of No Man's Land. The grin became a smile again and his eyes took on a tender light in their deep blue depths as he realized that Van had shown the same careful consideration for him, that he himself had evidenced for the former but a few hours earlier. Not till his platoon had knocked off work at mid- day, when the usual two hours allotted to the sol- dier for dinner and rest came, did Lieutenant Storm again find time to think of looking up his old chum. Then without delay he began to make his way by a short cut across the fields up to the regi- mental post of command where there was scheduled for that afternoon a meeting of all the officers of the regiment, to discuss the proposed raid and to report the progress of all preparations there- for. Drawing near the cellar dugout in which the P. C. was located he perceived Wiggler seated on an empty hand-grenade box not far from the dug- out entrance and gazing intently toward it, as if patiently and momentarily awaiting for some one to emerge therefrom. " The youngster must know that Van is inside," mused Storm. " I wonder if they have met yet." And he smiled reminiscently as he recalled how at their old school Big Van had sometimes been 282 THE COLONEL AGREES called " The King of the Kids," because of his big brotherly care for the little fellows there. In his eagerness to meet Big Van, Ralph was about to pass the young runner with but a friendly greeting in passing. But a second thought, that was itself due to the presence of their mutual friend. Rod Van Home, in the neighborhood caused him to halt in front of Wiggler, as the latter sprang to attention and saluted. The night previous as they were making their way back along the communication trench the boy in the course of their conversation had just ob- served with some eagerness in reply to a remark of Ralph's concerning the old days at Dale Acad- emy, that there was still another one of their former schoolmates located down in that sector of the Lor- raine Front, when a stray whizz-bang, exploding with startling suddenness in their near vicinity, had caused him to break off in the middle of a word with the usual warning cry "Flat!" At which exclamation every man jack of the little patrol had flung himself on his face in the slimy ooze of the trench floor. Their conversation a few minutes later had not been resumed at the same point where it had been interrupted, and for the time being Ralph had quite forgotten the matter. But he knew that Big Van would be more than 283 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr interested to learn of another one of the old Dale boys being in the neighborhood. So after return- ing Wiggier's smart salute, and bidding him a friendly good-morning as well, Ralph at once queried : " You were just going to tell me about another one of the fellows from the old school who was out here too, Matson, when that shell last night knocked that subject out of our two heads altogether. Who was it? " "Did you know that Big Van was here?" re- turned Wiggler eagerly and irrelevantly, and quite ignoring Lieutenant Storm's question. " Yes," smiled Ralph. " Have you seen him yet?" " Well I should say," answered Wiggler. "And, say, Storm, doesn't he look just fine ! " It's the first time I have ever seen him as a soldier, you know," he went on, " and I do believe he's taller than ever; he's straighter than ever, any- how. And I am quite certain that he's stronger than ever, too." "What makes you think so?" laughed Storm, amused and pleased at the boy's enthusiastic praise of his best friend. " Has he been giving you a free exhibition of his great strength already? " " I should say he has," rejoined Wiggler, 284 THE COLONEL AGREES " though he didn't mean it that way. And he had all the men around laughing at me, too. " He recognized me right away, even before I spoke to him," the lad ran on. " I didn't know he had arrived yet, you know. I was just coming out of the P. C. as he swung around that piece of broken wall over there, and I was so flabbergasted that I didn't even try to salute him; I just halted right there in my tracks and stared up at him with my mouth open for a second. "And then recollecting myself I saluted as Van turned his eyes squarely on me. He was just about to return my salute, too — just the same as he would that of any other soldier. But when he saw who I really was, do you know. Storm, he just grabbed me by both arms in those big fists of his, and lifted me squarely up in front of him till my face was right level with his — for just a jiffy, Storm, I was scared most to death lest he was going to kiss me right before the men there like the poilus do to each other. But he didn't; he just said, as he held me up there in front of him, as if I were no heavier than a baby, * Well, well, if it ain't little Wiggler Mat- son!' And then he gave me a kind of a little shake — to see if I were real or not, I guess. " The men standing around began to laugh, and then Van, smiling that funny little smile of his, set me down on my feet again." 285 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY Ralph laughed heartily at the youngster's whun- sical description of the incident; it was so like Big Van. Then Wiggler concluded proudly, " He told me to stick around till he came out again. He expects to go up the line as soon as he gets through in there, and he is going to ask that I be detailed to show him the way. And, say. Storm, when he left me the fellows all gathered around to ask me who my big officer friend was. You don't know how glad I am. Storm, that you two fellows happened to get into our regiment ! " " Thanks, it's very nice of you to say that, Wiggler, I am sure; but you haven't answered my first question yet. I asked who is the other fellow from the old school, now down here? " " Oh, yes, I beg your pardon. Storm. It's I^awson — Shorty Lawson, you know. He's in charge of the field battery back there, that covers our battalion and the other one on our " "What's that you say? Shorty Lawson ! Why, it must have been him I saw working those guns by the roadside on my way up here the other day! " exclaimed Ralph. " Yes, and he's some artillery officer, too, believe me! " rejoined Wiggler. " Why, they say that he can put a shell from one of those seventy-fives of his back there on any 286 THE COLONEL AGREES square yard he wishes to, four miles away," pur- sued the enthusiastic runner. " Have you met him yet? I mean, have you spoken to him? " demanded Storm. " No, you know I didn't want any one from the old school to know that I was here. That is to say, not until you told me that my brothers didn't in- tend to take me out of the army if they found me. " But you can just bet I'll speak to him the next time I get a chance. Why, on two different occa- sions I was about to be sent back with a message to him; but I always managed to wiggle out of it some way or other." And Wiggler grinned at the recollection. " We'll all be glad to see old Shorty again," said Ralph. " But I must be going inside now. I'll see you again when I come out, Wiggler, for it's just pos- sible that I'll be going up the line with Van this afternoon also." So saying he turned away and entered the head- quarters dugout. Inside he and Van had oppor- tunity for a brief greeting and a warm hand-clasp only. Serious discussion was afoot there* All the officers were not yet present ; but each of them who had already arrived at the rendezvous had been able, each in his turn, to report his appointed share 287 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT in the preparations for the raid as quite complete, and ready for " zero " hour. As Lieutenant Storm entered the Post of Com- mand Colonel Richards was observing: " It may have seemed a little strange to some of you gentlemen that we should be about to under- take an operation, that for us at least is of no in- considerable proportions, without some artillery preparation or at least cooperation." The meaning side glances which one or two of his officers cast at each other showed the C. O. that he was not far astray in this surmise. " But the fact of the matter is, gentlemen," he went on, " that D. H. Q.' is loath to have us take the offensive as yet in any but very minor opera- tions ; and I make no doubt they have very excellent reasons for employing these Fabian tactics in most instances." Colonel Richards cleared his throat, and with a dry and meaning smile that conveyed an additional shade of meaning to his otherwise conversational tones : " Knowing as I do their attitude in this respect, I feared that if I asked for the cooperation of the heavy artillery — and shrapnel from the field guns, as you all well know, is little better than so many hailstones against the enemy's barb-wire — D. H. Q*, * Divisional Headquarters. 288 THE COLONEL AGREES not being on the spot, might exaggerate the diffi- culty and magnitude of the operation, and refuse altogether to allow us to put on our little show. " In fact," he went on, " I left them with the im- pression that the raid is to be merely — and that after all is its main objective — a diversion in order to permit of our straightening out and shortening up our front. " Nevertheless it is my intention to ask personally for a certain amount of active cooperation from the battery commander in our immediate rear. To what extent the latter may be willing to assist us will rest pretty much with himself. " I shall get in touch with him this afternoon. He is allotted a daily ration of shell, to distribute as he deems most advisable over the section of the enemy line for which he is responsible. If I can induce him from now on to concentrate his fire more or less upon the enemy's obstacles immedi- ately in front of their salient and machine-gun positions it will doubtless have the effect of putting their wind up a bit, and lead them to think that we are trying to tear a path through their wire in order to make a frontal attack on the salient itself. "And then," pursued Colonel Richards, his eyes beginning to glow with the light of battle, " if we can in addition prevail on the battery commander to deliver a three-minute box barrage upon the salient 289 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT from all five of his guns after our men are deployed in the positions assigned to them, and immediately before the signal to rush the hostile trench is given, it may be the means of reducing our casualties con- siderably, as well as diverting the enemy's attention from the real points of assault. " What do you think, gentlemen? " the colonel concluded. From his listeners there came a general murmur of approbation. "Are any of you gentlemen acquainted with the officer in command of the battery? Lawson, I think his name is? " demanded Colonel Richards. Ralph pricked up his ears on hearing this ques- tion, and to the surprise of Big Van, beside whom he was standing, pinched the latter's arm forcibly. Van was not then aware that the artillery officer under discussion was none other than their old school friend, " Shorty." As no other officer made as if to reply to the colonel's query, Ralph answered in a diffident and respectful tone: " I have reason to believe, sir, that the artillery officer you have just mentioned is a former school- mate of my own and Lieutenant Van Home's here. I learned that such was the case but a few minutes before I came in here." " Good ! " exclaimed Colonel Richards, his fine 290 THE COLONEL AGREES stern face cracking into a pleasant smile again. " I hope you were formerly on good terms with him, gentlemen? " " On the very best of terms, sir," responded Storm. "And he was a particularly intimate friend of Lieutenant Van Home's." " This is indeed fortunate, and I think you will agree with me, gentlemen," addressing his officers generally once more, " that it is up to Lieutenants Van Home and Storm to turn the trick for us." Then again turning to Ralph and Van he de- manded, " May we depend upon you two for this? " " I think so, sir," replied Ralph. " Shorty Lawson had better not refuse us," said Big Van impulsively, and innocently forgetting for the moment the august presence in which he stood, and at once blushing furiously for what he consid- ered " un faux pas." That his boyish remark was not considered a false step on his part, however, the rest of the officers, the colonel included, showed by their amused and approving smiles. " Very good ! Excellent, I should say," rejoined the colonel, regarding the abashed Lieutenant Van Home with an amused and friendly twinkle in his keen eyes. " We'll depend on you two young gentlemen, then. You had better interview your friend Law- 291 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT son this afternoon, both of you. Report results to me this evening." The full complement of regimental officers hav- ing arrived during the course of the discussion, and all necessary preparations having been reported as completed, it was decided that the raid should take place the following night. " Zero," or the exact minute for the assault to begin, would be determined by the C. O. later, after receiving the report of his two emissaries to the battery commander in their rear, and would then be communicated to the Company O. C.'s. Before leaving the P. C. dugout Big Van did not forget to inform the adjutant that the latter's favorite runner, young Matson, was also a former schoolmate of his and Ralph's, and to ask that Wiggler should be detailed to conduct them back to the battery position behind the lines. The adjutant readily granted Van's request, say- ing laughingly: " If the remainder of the boys of Dale Academy are anything like the specimens with which we are already acquainted, I can only hope that you two boys may find more of your old friends down here in Lorraine." 292 CHAPTER XVIII THE RAID **Ee stands on fhe fire-step in the darkness, Haunted with the intense Hush that had fallen around him, and the starkness. The emptiness, the suspense. ''This night — in one hour, at the time marked 'Zero,' He with the rest across That pitted desolation, as coward or hero. Must charge for gain or loss.'* — Any Soldier. Ralph Stoem and Rod Van Home, guided by the untirable Wiggler, less than an hour later that afternoon found Lieutenant Lawson, in command of the battery of French seventy-fives — those field- guns without peer for close barrage work or open country fighting, seated beneath the overhangmg shelter of the camouflaged canvas cover of one of his "pets." As they drew near. Shorty, with a merry grin on his keen young face, was reading a letter which he held in his right hand. In his left hand he held what the boys at first sight took to be a pair of new woolen gloves. So absorbed was he in his letter that he took no note of their approach. 293 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT But when the trio halted in front of his shelter he looked up inquiringly. An instant only Shorty gazed mutely up at the three boys who stood silently smiling down upon him. Then abruptly dropping the articles which he had been holding in his hands, with a loud wild shout of astonished recognition the youthful battery commander sprang to his feet and rushed at Big Van, who was the nearest to him. A sergeant poked his head curiously about the corner of the shelter, and Shorty, bethinking himself, endeavored to resume his wonted dignity of bearing when in the presence of his men. His greeting to those three old friends of his nevertheless was all that they could wish for. One after another he shook each of them heartily by the hand, calling them joyously by their old school nicknames. Then all four began to laugh and talk at the same time, each asking questions which none took the trouble to answer. The sergeant who had poked his head around the corner of the shelter allowed it to remain there, and smiled broadly in un- comprehending sympathy with their joy. Van, who in the meantime with his customary thoughtfulness had picked up the articles which Shorty had dropped upon the ground — the woolen things proving, to the big fellow's quiet amuse- ment, to be a pair of warm and dainty bed-socks — 294 THE RAID was the first to remember the errand on which they had come. With a faint smile, as he held out the letter and bed-socks, Big Van began: " But, Shorty, in our joy at meeting you we three are quite forgetting that we are here on business as well as pleasure." " That so? " queried the battery commander with a surprised elevation of his eyebrows. And then glancing down at the articles he had just taken from Van's extended hand he again began to chuckle merrily, saying: " I say, fellows, lamp the foot-warmers ! I've just received a box from one of my maiden aunts in little old Ogdensburg, N. Y. I was just read- ing her letter, bless her dear old heart, when you fellows came up. Among other good things she sent me these " — indicating the bed-socks in his hand — " and a pair of pink silk pajamas, and in her letter she enjoins me most pathetically to be sure to wear the foot-warmers every night without fail — ha, ha, ha! — me that hasn't had my blessed breeches off for more than a week. That's what I was giggling over when you fellows arrived." Then all at once becoming pretematurally seri- ous again, he resumed, " But you were saying some- thing about business. Van. What did you mean? " The two young officers then told of the errand 295 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT upon which Colonel Richards had dispatched them. They entered enthusiastically into all the details of the projected raid. Shorty listened attentively, saying but little till they had finished, and then merely and emphatically: " You just bet I'll help, fellows, and all I can, too. I have always held over a surplus of shell from day to day, hoping that just some such an extraordinary occasion as this should arise for them. They are heartily at the service of your C. O. and all the rest I can spare, likewise. " I'll go right up the line this very afternoon. We've already got that salient spotted on our range card, and I give them a gentle hint to keep their heads down thereabouts two or three times every day. But that's about all it amounts to, as my shell are too light to produce much effect on the solid concrete of that machine-gun emplacement. " However, I'll get an accurate line on their wire in front of it this afternoon as well. Don't you worry! I'll get Fritz's wind up for you all right, if that's all you want. " Let's go over to my dugout for a few minutes," he rattled on. "As soon as I have put Dicky Jones — my second in command — wise, I'll go back with you to see your colonel." Two hours later the four friends — for Wiggler had been allowed to accompany the three young 296 THE RAID officers, although Shorty knew the way up just as well as he did — were ensconced in the listening jDost out in No Man's Land at the head of the under- ground sap that has already been described. The two lookouts who were usually there had been displaced. In its cramped space, in addition to the quartet of old school friends, were two skilled mechanics from the Signal Corps busily rigging up a field telephone that had already been connected with the ComiDany P. C. in the support trenches, whence the line led direct to the Regimental P. C. back in the ruined French village, and from there to the battery two miles or more still further in the rear. There Second Lieutenant " Dicky " Jones already listened patiently for the prearranged signals from his commanduig officer. In twenty minutes from the time the little party had reached the dugout of Captain Forbes in the support trenches, and had reported to him what was afoot, one of the signalers handed over the combined transmitter and receiver to Shorty with the low-voiced remark: "All ready, sir! Connection complete! " Shorty rang up Dicky nearly four miles away, and still with his eyes glued to the narrow aperture that looked out over the hillard, across the forbidden road and toward the hostile machine-gim emplace- ment that was a thorn in the side of doughty Colonel 297 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S, ARMY Richards, spoke into the transmitter in a guarded tone: " Fire number one gun when you are ready! '^ In four seconds exactly they heard the increas- ing crescendo shriek of a shell passing overhead, and almost immediately thereafter its sharp explod- ing " slam." At the same instant the breathless observers saw a funnel-shaped cloud of smoke and dust burst from the ground some yards directly back of the salient. " Line of direction O. K.; elevation a bit high! " murmured Shorty half to himself, and then to the telephone, " Seventy-five long! " The next shell fell squarely into the enemy wire directly in front of the salient. " Fifty short! " said Shorty to the telephone, and in answer — it seemed to the enthralled watchers almost as soon as the young artillery officer spoke — the third shrapnel shell exploded with a sharp " bang " and a puff of soft white smoke right over the machine-gun emplacement. "All O. K.," whispered Shorty again to the tele- phone; " cease fire! " Then addressing the others he said quietly, " That's all for now. I'll give them a good dose shortly after dark to-night. Dicky has the range of both the emplacement and the wire in front." As the others were preparing to leave the listen- 298 THE RAID ing post. Big Van, who was still gazing intently from the lookout, plucked Ralph by the sleeve. " How are you going to get back your casualties, Ralph? " he queried earnestly. " You cannot drag the wounded back through that water-filled sap that you told me about, coming up." Ralph's face fell, and he flushed painfully; but he was manly enough to answer: " Thank you, Van! I hadn't thought of that." And he too resumed his post at the lookout again, as also did Lieutenant Lawson. The latter fixed his gaze thoughtfully on the spot where the second shell had fallen, and after a mo- ment observed slowly: " I can tear that wire up pretty well; but though loosened it will still be a tangled mass close to the ground. I would suggest that a special party be organized to cut a clearance through while you fel- lows are rushing the trench and salient. The wire will be pretty well loosened up when I get through with it, and the rest should not be difficult." " The very thing! " rejoined Ralph with a sigh of relief. " We'll suggest it to the C. O. on our way back. That way will do, too, for both platoons to make a quick get-away when the job's done." Back in the fire-trench they waited at the en- trance to the sap for the signalers to follow them 299 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT with the telephone, the wire of which they were coil- ing up as they crept back. Shorty wished to give them some further instructions about the tele- phone. Wiggler climbed upon the fire-step for a parting glance through a periscope that leaned idly against the parapet near by. One glance into the mirror and he cried aloud excitedly, " Look, look, fellows! A fight in the air! There's a dozen of the yellow dogs at only one of our fellows ! " All three of his hearers, regardless o^ the danger they invited from the enemy's snipers, le£.;ied upon the " banquette " * and began to peer boldly over the sand-bags. No bullets came their way, however. The enemy was just then no doubt as interested as they in the thrilling spectacle presented high in the air above them. A daring " solo " patrol, flying low over the enemy's trenches and back areas, had suddenly been attacked from the heavy clouds high above him by several German planes, and the lone pilot was mak- ing a plucky running fight of it back to the shelter of his own anti-aircraft guns concealed in the Amer- ican trenches. Even before the attention of the boys had been drawn to him he had already brought down two of the Boches. But he was hard pressed. His observer had been * Banquette: French for fire-step. 300 HE S TRYING FOR A LANDING THE RAID wounded to death early in the fight, and he him- self had a bullet in his thigh. As the whirling fight drew swiftly nearer the boys on the fire-step, exposing themselves regard- lessly, were soon able to make out that the Boche squadron consisted of six Pfalz scouts and one German triplane. In the midst of the whirling and darting manoeuvres they saw the triplane sud- denly take fire. Its wings dropped off and it fell toward the ground, turning over and over end for end as it fell. Then one wing of the lone patrol's machine also burst into flame. The battered and blazing plane began to drop and drop, but it always came on nearer and nearer the American lines. Like the cowards that they were the Hun flyers gave up the chase, when they thought themselves getting within range of the Yankee guns. " He's trying for a landing somewhere along the road," said Lieutenant Lawson under his breath. While still high above and over the enemy trenches a bullet punctured his upper tank, and driven from his seat by the flames, the plucky pilot sprang clear of the fuselage and out to the wing that was as yet untouched by the fire, and clinging to it with both hands, endeavored to steer his ma- chine by swinging and swaying his body, and hand- over-handing his weight out and back along the one 301 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr remaining wing, as the balance of the crazily rock- ing plane demanded. The Hun rifles began to crack, and their machine guns began to sputter. When a little more than half-way across No Man's Land, and when still some twenty feet above the roadway the brave pilot abruptly relaxed his hold and fell like a plummet of lead. The blazing plane, wobbling crazily from side to side, still kept on. It hit the road and rebounded with a giant leap that carried it well back of the American fii'e-trench; struck the road again and again rebounded; swerved from the straight high- way and landed nose down and tail in the air fairly in the support trench, with its dead observer still strapped to his seat. When the quartet of boys saw the pilot fall to the road, the action of each was instantaneous. Van and Ralph, followed by Wiggler, vaulted from the fire-step to the parapet, and began a mad race diagonally across the billard to the spot where the lone pilot had fallen upon the road which the ma- chine guns of the Boche salient were already sweep- ing. Shorty at tHe same time seized the field telephone from the signaler who had carried it from the sap, and who had also mounted the fire-step to view the duel in the air. 302 THE RAID A quick, short command the young artillery- officer called over the 'phone. Dicky Jones was still at his post four miles away. In less than half a minute shrapnel from the redoubtable seventy-fives began to burst in front, behind, above and all around the machine-gun posi- tion on the salient that commanded the road. At the same time the American sharp-shooters in the trenches on both sides of the road opened up a mad fusillade of rapid fire upon the enemy's parapet. The Boche heads went down, and the Boche machine guns ceased their chatter more abruptly than they had begun it. Shorty, with the 'phone still in his hand, had eyes only for his three friends. He saw them scamper through the hail of lead from shell hole to shell hole, down one side and up another, and again down into another hole and up again — Wiggler leading, for he was the fleetest of foot — till they reached the road and kneeled, all three of them together, about the motionless figure lying there. And the Yankee rifles never ceased to crack, and the shells never ceased to rain upon the machine- gun positions. No Boche dared lift his head nor leave his funk-hole under that sustained and terrible hail of death. The Hun fire was completely blanketed. • 303 FIGHTING WITH THE U, S. ARMT Over the 'phone Shorty's command had been, " Battery rapid fire ! Centre on the bracket ! Let 'em all go ! " And Dicky Jones four miles away would never stop them till further ordered. In less than five minutes it was all over and done. Shorty, still grasping the telephone transmitter in his left hand, in his eagerness the better to view the proceedings of his three friends out there on the road with the fallen bird-man, had climbed to the top of the sand-bags of the parapet and stood boldly erect there. From this point of vantage he saw Big Van stoop and easily lift the inert figure that sprawled upon the road, place it lightly over his right shoulder, face downward — Shorty could not help noting how the head and arms of the man fell limply against Van's broad back and rested there helplessly — and at almost his usual top speed begin to run along the road toward the spot where their own fire- trench intersected it. Side by side, as if trying to shield with their own smaller bodies the gigantic form of their burdened comrade, Ralph and Wiggler raced behind him. So fiercely intense was the blanket fire from the battery of seventy-fives and the rijfles in the trenches that not a single shot from the enemy was fired upon the retiring figures of the three brave boys. 304 THE RAID Shorty watched them till they disappeared safely over the parapet. Then, and not till then, he too leaped down into the trench. Into the trans- mitter he called the curt command, " Cease fire! " He then tossed the instrument to one of the sig- nalers, who caught it deftly, and began to run along the trench in the direction of the road as fast as he could leg it. He came upon Ralph and Van kneeling beside a recumbent figure on the duck-boards, and swiftly and efficiently rendering " first aid." A corporal was roughly ordering back the men who had begun to crowd into the fire-bay from both ends. Wiggler, regardless of danger to himself, was already making his way by a short cut overland to the "Aid Post " and the M. O. in the support trench. One glance at the upturned face showing pale and drawn from the thickness of its aviator's hood of leather, and Shorty unconsciously ejaculated in a low unbelieving tone, glancing the meanwhile at Ralph, who had just looked up at his coming: " Great heavens, it's the Duke! " " Yes," replied Storm in a low choked voice, " it's our old friend, Dick Fletcher. And what a meet- mg! As if he had really heard his name uttered in those old familiar tones, and had been momentarily called back to life thereby, the stricken boy slowly 305 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT opened his eyes and looked up into the three faces once so well loiown in the long, long ago, and then so solicitously bending over him. He smiled faintly, and asked in a faltering whisper, " Where — where did you fellows all come from? " His eyes closed sleepily then, and he did not open them again. It was a sad little procession that followed the stretcher-bearers down the communication trench late that afternoon to the " Dressing Station " lo- cated in just such another cellar dugout of the ruined village as that of the Regimental Post of Command. There they were compelled to leave the Duke for the time to the tender care and capable ministra- tions of the medical officer and his assistants of the Army Medical Corps. And it was perhaps just as well for Ralph, Van, and Wiggler that just then all three of them had plenty of work to do in con- nection with the raid to be made on the following night. It taxed their immediate attention, and kept their young minds from dwelling upon the precarious condition of their old-time friend, for the M. O. had as yet given them no word of en- couragement. Ralph had to go out again on patrol with Lieu- tenant Barrows that night to reconnoitre the part of the enemy's wire and trench which was to be 306 THE RAID cared for by the latter's platoon on the following night. They were unable to locate the entrance to any passage through the Boche obstacle there, and were forced to the conclusion that it would be neces- sary to send out a special wire-cutting party to make a lane through it an hour or so before the time for the main party to debouch from the trenches into the " billard." All the following day the projected raid was re- hearsed to the last detail of the part that each indi- vidual man and officer was to play. The two raid- ing parties were to consist of the platoons com- manded by Chuck Barrows and Ralph respectively. For the occasion each platoon was to be divided up into five sections. In Ralph's platoon Baptiste Trudeau, the French Canadian, was to have charge of one of these sections, the one that was to run along the top of the parapet toward the salient, hurling their deadly little Mills grenades into the trench as they went. It was preeminently the post of danger. Another section, following this, was to carry slabs of gun-cotton with which to blow up the ma- chine-gun position and its guns, which would more than likely be chained to the solid cement. Still another section was made up of bombers and bayonet men who were to work in both directions along their section of the assaulted trench, and who 307 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT were to carry on in conjunction with the fourth Hand Grenade Contact or Percussion Type, commonly known as the Mushroom- Head Striker Grenade. A — Three cloth streamers to balance grenade while passing through the air, and to cause it to strike on the mushroom shaped head. B — Wooden throwing handle with corrugated grip to keep it from slipping through the hand. C — Explosive Ammonal, that explodes the grenade. D — Detonator charged with fulminate of mercury, which sets off "C." E — Cartridge that explodes detonator, " D." F — Safety pin with wire-ring handle for pulling it out. H — Mushroom-head Striker that explodes "E," when grenade falls. I — Cast-iron Body, serrated so as to break into small pieces on exploding. Author's Note. — One pound only of Explosive Ammonal would be quite sufficient to entirely destroy the White House at Washington. section of " moppers," whose duty it would be to 308 THE RAID look after the Boche dugouts and to erect " blocks " at designated points. The fifth section of each of the storming platoons was to be for general utility work, and to them would fall the grisly duty of carrying back the dead and wounded, for it was always a point of honor with the United States soldiers to bring back their dead as well as their wounded. Each man had his own appointed task, and that afternoon when they finally knocked off work for a last bit — and the very last bit it would be for some of them — of rest and sleep before going up the line after nightfall, every man knew his work as an actor knows his role in a play. Zero hour was fixed for two o'clock in the morn- ing; long before that, however, every man was at his appointed post in the assembly trenches; wait- ing, waiting, just silently waiting in the damp dark- ness there. No commands would be given when the time came to move up to the short scaling ladders, and thence over the top. There would be a quiet movement of those in front following the voiceless leadership of their officers, and those in the rear would begin to move up when they felt the move- ment of those in front of them. To the left of the forbidden road a narrow lane through the Boche wire had already been cut by a small party detailed from Lieutenant Barrows*' 309 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMr platoon for that purpose. On both sides of the road lone scouts had been silently patrolling No Man's Land for more than an hour, and these had laid lines of white tape from the points where the two platoons were to leave their own wire to the places from whence they should begin to worm their waj^ stealthil}^ through the enemy's obstacles. Since before midnight there had been a heavy fog. Under its protective cover the wire-cutters and the creeping patrols had been enabled to accomplish their several tasks effectively and undiscovered. Lieutenant Storm was too busy to think of any- thing but the duties of the moment. Young Mat- son was too elated to think of anything but the role that had been assigned to him. He was to go over the top on the heels of " Chuck " Barrows, to re- main with that doughty warrior till the latter's command had made their way through the enemy wire, and had been finally disposed at short inter- vals apaii; prone upon the wet ground along the reverse slope of the hostile parapet. At a signal from Chuck he was thereupon to make his way across the road separating the two platoons, creeping over the perilous open stretch of it between Hun parapet and wire as best he might till he reached the left flank of Storm's platoon on the other side of the road. When he had delivered his message to the effect 310 THE RAID that the storming party on the left of the road was in position and ready — which message would then be passed on from man to man till it reached Ralph in the centre of his platoon — he was then to make his way across the dark " billard " to the head of the underground sap in front of the American wire. There he would find Shorty Lawson waiting. His message to the latter would be simply, "All ready, sir!" After that there would be nothing to do but wait for zero hour. Wiggler was dancmg happy; there was no hap- pier lad in France that night. To make assurance doubly sure two other runners at intervals of several minutes apart would follow after Wiggler, over the same route, with the same messages. This precaution was always taken lest one or the other of the runners should meet with a mishap ere his message of life and death could be delivered. To the last detail the arrangements made and practiced were carried out without a hitch. All watches had been synchronized with each otlier. When Wiggler, who that night certainly proved his right and title to the nickname that his old school fellows had long ago bestowed upon him, flat upon his stomach wriggled his way up to the sap-head the 311 FIGHTING WITH THE U. 5. ^RMT time was exactly 1.49 a. m. and there was still nine- teen minutes to go. Lieutenant Van Home, who as " gas officer " was in duty bound to remain in his own trenches, had stolen forward to the sap-head where Shorty kept his lonely vigil. When Wiggler crept in with his message, "All ready," the two young officers heaved a sigh of infinite relief. Silently they com- pared their luminous watches, and waited again. And, oh how long that interminable nineteen minutes did seem! Every minute had the leaden heels of an hour to the three boys lying out there in the sap-head, the trap-door of which had been opened wide when Ralph's platoon went out through it, and would be left so for their return when the job was done. The first gun was to be the signal for the assault. The fog was lifting. Could one but have seen the faces of the men lying out there in the darkness, flattened against the reverse slope of the enemy's parapet, he would have seen the light of a wild exhilaration shining from countenances fixed with the stern determina- tion of men who were about to kill. To a man they felt of their bayonets again and again to make as- surance doubly sure that the bayonet-bolt was firmly locked over its bayonet-stud beneath the rifle-barrel up near the muzzle. Their breaths 312 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT came quicker and shorter as the moments passed; their throats became very dry. Every man listened with all his ears for that first shrieking shell that was to be their signal. Would it never come? Wiggler had remained with Van and Shorty in the sap-head. The two other runners who were covering Wiggler crept in presently. Then a fourth runner came from the covering force that lay on their stomachs, extended at intervals along No Man's Land midway between the salient and the line along which the new stretch of trench was to run. There would be no more messengers ar- riving at the sap-head. Ralph and Shorty compared watches again, and thereafter kept the luminous dials in full view on their bare outstretched left wrists. There were but two minutes to go. Shorty held the telephone receiver in his left hand; but no spoken word into it would be neces- sary; the mere pressure of his thumb upon the call button would be sufficient signal for Dicky Jones back there with his battery. To Van Shorty breathed the question, " Now? " "Yes," whispered Van in strained accents, his eyes fixed upon the fascinating dial of his watch. Shorty firmly pressed the call-button of the re- ceiver. Four miles away Dicky Jones got the signal for which he had been patiently waiting. 313 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT Upon receiving that signal his orders were to open up with all he had, and " to let 'eai all go for four minutes." Colonel Richards had asked for a three-minute drum-fire only. Shorty was giving him an extra minute. One minute doesn't sound much; but it meant a lot when you come to consider that one of those seventy-fives sprayed some six thousand shrapnel bullets upon a given spot in just sixty seconds, to say nothing of the even more deadly fragments of the steel shell casings themselves. At the end of the four minutes the barrage laid down upon the Boche machine-gun position would be lifted, so that the Americans might not be " strafed " by their own guns, a thing that in the earlier days of the war happened all too often among the Allied troops. Four minutes had been considered long enough for Barrows' and Storm's platoons to clean up and " block " the German fire- trench on either side of the salient, in preparation for the final assault upon it. Four minutes was plenty. The first shrieking messenger of death had not reached its billet ere the Americans with one inarticulate yell fell like an avalanche of fighting wildcats over the top of the parapet upon the heads and backs of the completely surprised enemy. No words can really describe what followed. At 314 THE RAID first there was a sporadic rattle from the Boche rifles and machine guns, followed by a sudden meteor-like shower of gleaming star-shells. And then utter pandemonium broke loose in the short stretch of the Boche fire-trench on each side of the salient. The German had no time to lift up his hands and cry "kamerad." Those who were not at once bayoneted or knocked on the head with trench- clubs fled to the false shelter of their funk-holes, down into which the moppers rolled their terrible little hand-grenades that in exactly four seconds would explode and plaster everything inside against the sides and roof. The noise was at once deafening. Rifles flashed; bombs exploded; the report of the guns, the ex- plosion of the shell, the whistle and scream of them while still in the air, the yells and cries of the men, all combined to create one cataclysmic uproar. The inferno of Dante was a joke compared with it. Commands and signals would have been useless, and they were not needed; right there it was that the careful and laborious rehearsal of each man's role showed its value. Every man loiew his part, and manfully strove to perform it. At the first jump-off Ralph Storm had leaped recklessly from the lip of the parapet down into the yawning blackness below. He lighted on his feet, 315 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT but struck up against a man who swung at him with the butt of a rifle. Ralph discharged his automatic pointblank into the face of the dimly outlined figure, and heard the man cough and his rifle clatter upon the duck-boards of the trench floor. He leaped upwards and was scrambling out on top of the parados, along which he meant to run down to the point at which the first " block " was to be thrown up on their right flank, when some one seized him by the foot and attempted to pull him down into the trench again. He kicked violently backwards, and his iron-shod heel met something — a face, he thought — with a sickening crunch. Scrambling to his feet he raced along the parados. At the appointed place he found Sergeant Hayes, with half his section holding and covering the at- tacked right flank, while the other half-section tore down sand-bags and swiftly piled them into a " block " across the narrow trench. Not being needed there, Ralph turned and, risk- ing at every step a fall that might have broken his neck, raced back in the direction of the salient. Shorty's battery had not yet silenced the Hun machine guns. From the emplacement of heavily reinforced concrete a powerful search-light was suddenly flashed along the parapet and full upon the advance section led by Baptiste, who were mak- ing their way cautiously along the parapet. 316 THE RAID For an instant in the bright glare of the narrow shaft of light Ralph saw them making their way ghostlike along the top from traverse to traverse, hurling their bombs into the trench as they went. Then he saw the brave French Canadian, clearly silhouetted in the bright beam, suddenly throw his rifle with its gleaming fixed bayonet high into the air, and himself plunge soundlessly, headlong down into the deep darkness of the trench. Ralph leaped the gaping ditch and with the ringing yell, " Follow me! " placed himself at the head of the section, A direct hit got the light, and at almost the same instant the machine guns ceased their murderous chatter. The merciless rain of shrapnel from the seventy-fives had finally killed or driven the Hun gunners from the salient. Then the four minutes were up — they had seemed but four seconds — and Dicky Jones silenced his pets as suddenly as he had cut them loose. That made but little difference to the mighty uproar, however, for before that time the Hun batteries had opened, not only with their trench mortars and field guns close up, but also with their " heavies " miles further back of their lines. Most of their metal, however, was falling about the American fire-trench, and quite failed to disturb in the least the parties who were busily putting out the new wire obstacles already prepared, and 317 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY digging the new piece of trench immediately behind it. That work had also started with the first shell from Shorty's battery. With the lifting of the box barrage upon and about the salient, Storm led his men with a growl, that was meant for a cheer, over the top of the emplacement. Chuck Barrows with his j)latoon from the other side of it was no whit behind Ralph. In a trice they traversed the enemy's own machine guns so as to fire rakingly along the German com- munication trench leading out to the salient. The demolition squad quickly placed their slabs of gun- cotton in position with detonators and wires affixed. Back in the sap-head the excited watchers glimpsed between the fitful flashes of light what they could of the action going on directly in front of them and but a few yards distant, and tried to pierce the darkness between flashes with their straining eyes. Once Wiggler made a move as if to leave the security of the sap-head; but Big Van's hand fell heavily upon his shoulder, crushed him flat, and forced him to lay there till all was over. The explosive having finally been placed in posi- tion, the salient was quickly evacuated after a part- ing burst from the machine guns and a last shower of hand-grenades, Ralph and Chuck themselves be- ing the last to leave it. Two sappers from the demolition squad had al- 318 THE RAID ready laid the detonating wire out to a deep shell- hole well past the middle of the "billard"; there they awaited the signal to press the lever of their exploding electric battery. Following along the wire the two young officers tumbled into the shell- hole, and Ralph, as he rolled over into it, called aloud the one word: "Fire!" The resultant terrific explosion overwhelmed the mad riot of sound that preceded and accompanied it. For an instant all about was luridly lighted by the tremendous flash ; then all was darker again by contrast even than before. For perhaps a minute even the Hun artillery was silent, and the stillness that is simply appalling at such times beat pain- fully against tortured ear-drums. The raid had been successful beyond all expecta- tion; each objective had been gained; but the cost of it all was by no means light, as Ralph Storm and Chuck Barrows realized to their great grief when a little later they took the tally of their platoons. Some hours later Van and Wiggler, who had been aiding with the wounded, found Storm sitting on the side of his cot at his billet in the little French village. His bowed head rested between his two hands, and he did not look up when they entered. Wiggler stood silently by the table in the middle 319 FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMT of the room; but Van went over to Ralph, and placing a hand gently on his shoulder said: " Come, come, Ralph, this will not do ! You must not brood over your losses; it is the fortune of war! It may be our turn to-morrow! Better take off some of your clothes, old man, and try to have a bit of a sleep ! " Ralph silently began to do as his friend bade him. He presently inquired in a low tone: " Have you heard anything new about the Duke, Van? Will he recover, or have you not had a chance to ask the doctor again to-night? " " Yes," answered his friend with assumed cheer- fulness, " the M. O. thinks that the old Duke will pull through all right. He says that he is suffering mostly from loss of blood and shock; but thinks that the Duke has the constitution and vitality necessary for a quick recovery. So, you see, we have that to be thankful for anyway." " Yes, that's surely good news," replied Ralph, " but what Sherman said about war is true, Van. I am more than ever convinced of that after to-night." The Stories in this Series are : JOINING THE COLORS FIGHTING WITH THE U. S. ARMY IN THE TRENCHES (in press) 320 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW E > AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $t.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. DEC as 1941 DEC la »« J Attn n A AUb c^ *i''A LD 21-100m-7,'40 (69368) YB 32217 mSSOTI THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY