Army Boys in the French Trenches

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This had its compensations, however, for although they had captured
prisoners before, they had never been present at their examination, and
they were curious to see the turn the questioning would take.

Captain Baker, of the old Thirty-seventh, was detailed to do the
examining, and because time was precious and it was most important to
learn just what enemy units were opposed to the American forces, he got
to work at once, an interpreter standing at his side while a
stenographer made note of the replies.

The captain signaled to one of the most intelligent looking of the
prisoners, and the latter stepped out, clicked his heels together
smartly and saluted.

"What is your name?" asked the captain.

"Rudolph Schmidt."

"Your regiment?"

"The Seventy-ninth Bavarian."

"Who is your colonel?"

"Von Armin."

"Who commands your division?"

"General Hofer."

"Who is your corps commander?"

"Prince Lichtenstein."

"How many men have you lost in the last few days' fighting?"

Obstinate silence.

The captain repeated the question.

"I do not know," the prisoner answered evasively.

"Well, were your losses heavy or light?" pursued the captain patiently.

"I cannot tell."

The captain switched to another line.

"Do you know who have captured you?" he asked.

"The English," was the prompt answer.

"No," replied the captain. "We are Americans."

The prisoner permitted himself an incredulous smile.

"Can't you see these are American uniforms?" asked the captain, with a
sweep of his arm.

"Yes," was the reply. "But our captain tells us that the English wear
that uniform to make us think that the Americans have arrived in
France."

A grin went around the circle of listeners.

"You blawsted, bloody Britisher," chuckled Bart, giving Frank a poke in
the ribs.

"Where's my bally monocle, old top?" whispered Frank, while Billy and
Tom grew red in the face from trying to control their merriment.

The captain himself had all he could do to maintain his gravity.

"Do you believe your captain when he tells you that?" he inquired.

"I must believe him," answered the prisoner simply.

"There's discipline for you," muttered Billy.

"Such childlike faith," murmured Tom.

"But even if the Americans are not already here," persisted the captain,
"don't you believe they are coming?"

"They may try to come," answered the captive doubtfully; "but if they
do, they will never get here."

"Why not."

"Our U-boats will stop them."

"That settles it," whispered Bart. "We think we're here, but we're only
kidding ourselves. We _can't_ be here. Heinie says so and, of course, he
knows."

"What a come-on he'd be for the confidence men," gurgled Billy. "They'd
sell him the Brooklyn Bridge before he'd been on shore for an hour."

Questioned as to food supplies, the German admitted that their rations,
although fairly good, were not so abundant as at the beginning of the
war. Then with characteristic arrogance he added:

"But we will have plenty to eat and drink too when we get to Paris."

"I suppose your captain tells you that too," remarked the inquisitor.

"Yes," was the reply.

"That eternal captain again," murmured Bart.

"He must be a wonder," chuckled Tom.

"You've been rather a long time on the road to Paris, haven't you?"
asked the captain, with a tinge of sarcasm. "Seems to me I've heard
something about a banquet that was to celebrate the Crown Prince's entry
into Paris a month after the war was started."

A discomfited look stole over the prisoner's face.

"That was Von Kluck's fault," he said sullenly.

"Seems to me the French army had something to do with it too," whispered
Frank to Bart. "What does your captain tell you your armies are fighting
for?" continued the questioner.

"To give Germany her place in the sun," answered the prisoner without
hesitation.

"That seems to be a stock phrase of the Huns," whispered Billy. "I'll
bet it's part of the lesson taught in every German school."

A few more questions followed, but failed to elicit any information of
special importance, and the prisoner was dismissed, to have his place
taken by some of his comrades.

But what they told the boys never knew, for just then Corporal Wilson,
who had been in close conference with his lieutenant, beckoned to them
and they filed silently out of the quarters.

"Back to the firing line for us," remarked Frank.

"About time too," replied Bart, as he shouldered his rifle. "We've been
missing all the fun."

But the first words of the corporal showed them that they were mistaken.

"You lads are out of it for the rest of the day," he remarked. "Go back
to your old trench now, get some grub and tumble into your bunks."

They looked at each other in surprise, for the sun had not much more
than risen.

"You heard what I said," reiterated the corporal. "Get all the sleep you
can to-day, for you won't do any sleeping to-night!"

CHAPTER IV

BETWEEN THE LINES

The Army boys looked at each other in blank inquiry, but the corporal
did not offer to enlighten them, and they were too good soldiers to ask
questions when orders were given.

"What do you suppose is in the wind now?" asked Bart, as they made their
way to their sleeping quarters.

"Search me," replied Frank.

"Aeroplanes," chirped Billy.

Bart made a thrust at him which Billy dodged.

"I guess we're picked for a scouting party," remarked Tom. "The captain
may want to confirm some of the information he's getting from those
chaps."

"Information!" snorted Bart. "More likely misinformation. Those fellows
struck me as being dandy liars."

"They wouldn't be Huns if they weren't," remarked Billy. "You know Baron
Munchausen came from over the Rhine, so they come rightly by their
talent in that line. But what's the matter with Tony here?" he added, as
they passed by one of the field kitchens in a protected nook, where one
of the bakers was kneading away desperately at some dough and muttering
volubly to himself.

"He seems all riled up about something, for a fact," commented Frank.

"What's the matter, Tony?" inquired Bart of the perspiring baker, an
Italian who had spent some years in the United States and who was
generally liked by the boys of the old Thirty-seventh because of his
customary good nature and his skill in compounding their favorite
dishes.

Tony looked up in despair.

"I can't maka de dough," he complained. "I worka more dan hour. It lika
de sand. It getta my goat."

The boys laughed at his woe-begone face.

"Put some more water with it," suggested Billy at a venture.

Tony looked at him with such a glare of contempt that the amateur baker
wilted.

"I usa de water!" he exclaimed. "Plent water! No maka de stick."

"It looks all right," remarked Frank, as he picked up some of the
substance on the kneading board and let it dribble through his fingers,
"but as Tony says, it's like so much sand."

"And it tastes queer," said Billy, putting a bit of it on his tongue.

"Looks as though some of the food profiteers were trying to put
something over on us," observed Tom.

Just then one of the commissary men came along, evidently looking for
something.

"There's a bag of trench foot powder missing," he said. "Have any of you
chaps seen anything of it?"

"Not guilty," returned Bart. "Though the way my feet feel it wouldn't do
them a bit of harm to have some of that powder on them right now."

A sudden light dawned upon Frank.

"Say, Tony!" he exclaimed, "let's see the bag you got that flour from."

Tony complied and brought forth from one of his receptacles a large
paper bag which was two thirds full.

Frank seized it and turned it around to see what was stamped on the
other side. Then he almost dropped the bag in a wild fit of hilarity.

"No wonder Tony couldn't make his dough!" he exclaimed, when he could
speak. "Some chump in the supply department has handed him out a bag of
foot powder when he asked for flour."

He showed the others the marking on the bag, and their merriment equaled
his own, while Tony alternately glowered and grinned. He had begun to
think that somebody had cast on him the "evil eye," so dreaded by his
countrymen, and he was relieved to find that his plight was due to
natural causes. Yet the thought of all that wasted effort stirred him to
resentment.

"That's one on you, Tony, old boy!" chuckled Billy, with a poke in the
ribs.

"It's lucky the dough wouldn't stick," laughed Frank. "There wouldn't
have been much nourishment in that kind of bread."

"Dat guy a bonehead," asserted Tony, as he scraped his board with vigor.
"A vera beeg bonehead."

The boys assented and passed on laughing.

"And now for grub!" exclaimed Billy. "Oh, boy, maybe it won't taste
good!"

"I guess we've earned our breakfast, all right," said Bart.

"I can stand a whole lot of filling up," observed Tom. "Talk about
exercise before breakfast to get you an appetite. We've sure had enough
of it this morning."

"I never ran so fast in my life," declared Billy. "A Marathon runner
would have had nothing on me."

"We must have covered the space between those trenches in about twenty
seconds," agreed Bart.

"Well, as long as we weren't running in the wrong direction it was all
right," grinned Tom.

"The Boches haven't seen our backs yet, and here's hoping it will be
some time before they'll have that treat," said Frank with a laugh.

They ate like famished wolves and then threw themselves on their bunks
to get a long sleep in preparation for the strenuous night that lay
before them. And so used had they already become to roaring of cannon
and whining of bullets and shrieking of shells, that, although the din
was almost incessant all through that day, it bothered them not at all.

It was nearly dusk when the corporal passed along, giving them a shake
that roused them from their slumbers and brought them out of their bunks
in a hurry.

"Time to get up, boys," said the corporal. "Not that we're going to
start out right away. But we've got quite a job before us and I want you
to have plenty of time to think over your instructions and have them
sink in."

They dressed quickly and after a hearty supper reported to Wilson at
their company headquarters.

They found the corporal grave and preoccupied.

"As I suppose you fellows have already guessed," he began, "we're going
to-night on a scouting party. We're to find out the condition of the
wire in front of that third trench that the Huns still hold, and we want
to get more exact information about the location of the enemy's machine
guns. Anything else we find out will be welcome, but those are the main
things.

"It's going to be pretty risky work," he continued. "Not but what
there's always plenty of risk about a job of this kind, but to-night
there's more than usual. The fierce fighting to-day has got the enemy
all stirred up and he'll be on the alert. Likely enough he'll have
scouting parties of his own out, and we may run across them in the dark.
Then it will be a question of who is the quicker with knife or bayonet.
Now you boys scatter and get your crawling suits and hoods and masks,
and we'll be ready for business.

"I can see that there'll be no monotony in our young lives to-night,"
observed Frank to Bart, as they obeyed instructions.

"Not that you can notice," agreed Bart. "The corp has quite a little
program marked out for us."

"So it seems."

"And No Man's Land is going to be a little rougher land to-night than it
ever was before," predicted Tom. "That mine explosion hasn't done a
thing to it."

"All the better," chimed in Billy. "There'll be better places to hide in
when Fritz throws up his star shells. But let's get a hustle on or the
corp will be after us."

They got into their "crawling suits," so named because they were used
only on scouting duty, when it was necessary to move over the earth on
their stomachs or at best on hands and knees. They were a dead black in
color, and in addition to the suit itself comprised a black mask and
hood. The hood was loose and shapeless, so as to avoid the sharp outline
that would have been afforded if it were tight-fitting.

Dressed in this fashion and lying prone and motionless on the ground
whenever a star shell threw its greenish radiance over the field, the
scouts were reasonably safe from detection and sniping. They would seem,
if seen at all, to be just so many more objects added to the hundreds
that littered up the ground between the two armies.

Since they had been in France, the boys had had special training in
scouting duty, and the one thing that had been drilled into them perhaps
more than anything else was the necessity for "playing dead," as Tom
expressed it. One of their exercises compelled them to lie on the ground
absolutely motionless for an hour. Not even a muscle could twitch
without bringing a reprimand from their keen-eyed instructor. Another
part of the drill made them take half an hour merely to rise to their
feet from a prostrate position, each move in the process being marked by
the utmost caution. It was hard drill, but necessary, and in time the
boys had gained a control over their muscles that would have done credit
to an Apache Indian.

In a few minutes they were fully arrayed in their crawling suits and
reported to Corporal Wilson. He looked them over carefully and noted
with satisfaction that nothing that was essential to the success of
their night foray was lacking.

"With a fair share of luck we'll bring home the bacon," he remarked, as
he led the way from the trench.

At the start there was no special caution necessary, as would have been
the case the day before. For the two trenches in front of them that had
been occupied by the enemy were now in the possession of the United
States troops.

All that day, since the mine explosion had given the signal for attack
and storm, the Germans who had been driven from their first two lines of
trenches had made desperate efforts to get them back. There had been
fierce counter attacks, many times repeated, but through them all the
Americans had stood like a rock and thrown the enemy back without
yielding a foot of the conquered ground.

At nightfall the enemy had ceased his infantry attacks, although the big
guns on both sides, like angry mastiffs, kept growling at each other.

"It's been a great day for our fellows," exulted Frank, as they picked
their way through the welter of debris that bore testimony to the
violence of the fighting.

"It sure has," agreed Bart.

"We've got there with both feet," remarked Tom.

"And in both trenches," chimed in Billy.

"Yes," said Frank. "I'm glad we didn't stop at the first one. The mine
caught the Boches napping there and stood them on their heads. But in
the second it was an out and out stand up fight, man to man, and we
licked them."

"And licked them good," asserted Billy. "I guess they won't do any more
sneering at the Yankees after this day's work."

They passed the place where Bart had so nearly met his death through the
treacherous attack of his captive.

"Here's where you nearly went West," remarked Tom.

"Don't talk of it," objected Bart with a grimace. "It makes the chills
creep over me to think of it. I could stand being knifed in a square
fight, but I'd hate to get it the way that fellow meant that I should."

"One of the Frenchmen was telling me of something like that that
happened at Verdun," said Frank. 'Two Frenchmen were carrying a wounded
German officer on a stretcher to the hospital. The officer got out his
revolver and shot the first stretcher bearer dead."

"That's gratitude for you," remarked Bart. "Something like another
German in a hospital, who pretended he wanted to shake hands with the
Red Cross nurse who was tending him, and then with a sudden snap broke
her wrist."

"You hear it said sometimes," said Billy, "that 'the only good Indian is
a dead Indian.' That's always sounded a little tough on poor Lo. But if
the Huns keep on the way they are going, it won't be long before all the
world will be saying that the only good German is a dead one."

"I'm beginning to say it already," replied Tom.

They passed stretcher bearers carrying away the wounded, and burial
parties engaged in a business still more sad. There was plenty for them
to do, for death and wounds had come to many that day, which had been
the most strenuous for the United States troops since they had come to
the fighting line.

That many of their regiment had fallen and still more been wounded the
boys knew well, although the full toll of their losses would not be
known until the next day. But the enemy had lost still more, and a large
number of prisoners were in American hands. They had taken two trenches
on a wide front, and that night American boys were eating their suppers
in the dugouts where Germans had breakfasted in the morning. It had been
a dashing attack with a successful result, and Uncle Sam had reason to
be proud of his nephews.

"One more step on the road to the Rhine," exulted Frank, voicing the
thought that stirred them all.

"Right you are," replied Bart "It's a long, long road, but we'll get
there."

"Do you remember what old Peterson said just before we left for France?"
queried Tom. "'The United States has put her hand to the plow and she
won't turn back.'"

"Good old Peterson!" remarked Billy. "He was a dandy scrapper himself in
the old days when he wore the blue. I'll bet he's rooting for us every
day."

"Sure he is," agreed Frank. "Everybody in the old firm is."

"Reddy's rooting the hardest of them all," laughed Bart, referring to
the red-headed office boy. "Do you remember how excited the little
rascal got when the old Thirty-seventh went past? He almost tumbled out
of the window. And how he cheered!"

"He's got the right stuff in him," said Tom. "Do you know, I shouldn't
be a bit surprised to see that kid turn up here some time."

"You're dreaming," replied Bart.

"You wait and see," prophesied Tom. "When any one wants a thing hard
enough he usually gets it. He'll ship as cabin boy or something of the
kind and some day, when we're least expecting it, Reddy will pop up
here. Watch my hunch."

"How scared the Huns would be if they knew that Reddy was coming to
clean them up," mocked Tom.

"He might account for some of them at that," remarked Billy. "A bullet
from Reddy's gun would go as fast and hit as hard as any other. You know
what David did to Goliath."

By this time they had passed the second captured trench and were facing
the enemy's trench about three hundred yards away. Their talk ceased or
died down to whispers.

Before them stretched the desolate waste of No Man's Land, pitted with
shell holes, blasted and seared by the pitiless storm of fire that had
swept it all that day.

Once it had been fertile and beautiful. Now it was withered and hideous.
It was a grim commentary on the war that had been as ruthless toward
nature as it had been toward man.

"Now, boys," said the corporal in a low voice, "you know what we've got
to do. Keep together as much as you can and--Drop!"

The last command came out like a shot, and was caused by a star shell
that rose from the opposing trench and burst in a flood of greenish
light.

Had they been standing, it would have revealed them clearly, but at
their leader's word they had dropped instantly to the ground, where they
lay motionless until the light died away.

Then they rose and like so many shadows moved cautiously forward, with a
motion more like drifting than walking, their ears alert, their eyes
strained, their hearts beating fast with excitement.

CHAPTER V

THE BARBAROUS HUNS

The night was as black as pitch, which, while an advantage in one way,
was a disadvantage in another. For though it lessened their chance of
detection, it also made it more difficult to get the lay of the land and
keep their sense of direction.

But here again their training came into play, for they had been
specially drilled to be blindfolded and remain in that condition for
hours at a time. In that way they had developed their sense of feeling
just as a blind man does and had acquired an almost uncanny ability to
avoid obstacles and steer a course without the aid of their eyes.

"Gee!" whispered Bart to Frank, as the two comrades moved along side by
side, "I never saw a night so dark."

"Yes," replied his comrade, "it's as black as velvet. You could almost
cut it with a knife."

"Lucky if that's the only cutting we'll have to do before the night is
over," murmured Tom.

Soon they reached a little patch of woodland that stood almost halfway
between the lines. Only a few gaunt trees had been left standing, mere
skeletons of what they had been, every branch and twig swept away by
shells and bullets and even the bark stripped off, leaving the trunks in
ghastly nakedness.

But they still afforded shelter from bursting shrapnel or a sniper's
bullet, and the boys stood behind them for a few moments while they
listened intently for any sound that might betray the presence of an
enemy patrol, prowling about on an errand similar to their own.

But nothing suspicious developed, and, reassured, they again, at a
signal from their leader, moved forward. But new they were no longer on
their feet. They were too close to the German line for that.

Down on hands and knees they wormed their way along inch by inch,
reaching out their hand cautiously for each fresh grip on the uneven
ground. Sometimes their hands encountered emptiness and they were warned
that they were on the edge of a shell hole. At other times they drew
back in instinctive repulsion, as they felt the rigid outlines of a dead
body. But whatever detours they had to make, they managed by touch or
whisper to keep together, and although their progress was slow it was
still progress, and they knew that they were steadily nearing the German
lines.

Suddenly Frank's extended hand came in contact with a sharp object that
he recognized on the instant. It was the barb on a broken strand of
wire.

They had reached the entanglement protecting a segment of the German
trench.

Frank had been a trifle in advance of his comrades, and he softly
signaled his discovery to the others. In an instant they had stiffened
out and lay as rigid as statues.

For five minutes not one of them stirred, while they listened for the
tread of the sentry who might be stationed behind the wires.

Some distance off they could hear the sound of voices in guttural tones,
the occasional click of a bayonet as it was slipped into place, the low
rumble of what might have been field pieces being moved into position.

Now too their eyes came into play, for ahead of them the darkness was
threaded with a faint ray of light that rose above the trench, and while
it did little more than make darkness visible, it was still sufficient
to form a background against which they could have detected the figure
of a sentinel.

But they drew no false assurance from that fact, for the enemy's patrol
might be lying on the ground, as silent as themselves and as watchful,
ready to fire in the direction of the slightest sound.

It was a nerve-trying situation, but life or death might depend on their
self-control, and they stood the test successfully, although poor Tom
had an almost irrepressible desire to sneeze, in conquering which he
almost broke a blood vessel.

Convinced at last that it was safe to move, they commenced to crawl
along the outside of the wire, trying by the sense of touch to find out
what havoc had been made in it by the American artillery fire and where
it would be easiest to break through.

They had drawn on rubber gloves, for they knew that the Germans
sometimes charged the wires with electricity, and a touch with the bare
hand would mean instant death.

But that day the fighting had been so fierce and the enemy had been kept
so busy in resisting the American onslaught that no such precaution had
been taken. And this better than anything else told the boys how badly
the enemy had been shaken.

At several places they found gaps that had been made by the Yankee guns,
and these they widened by the use of the wire cutters that they carried
in their belts.

At each such breach the boys tied small pieces of white rag, so that on
the next day these fluttering bits of white could be seen through field
glasses by the American officers, and the full force of guns and men
could be brought to bear against these weakened portions of the line.

They worked rapidly and silently, timing their cutting with the roar of
the guns that still kept up the artillery duel, so that the click of the
nippers would be drowned in the heavier sound.

Little by little in the course of the work, the members of the patrol
had drawn apart, depending upon their ability to rejoin each other by
following the line of the wire.

Frank found himself working on a specially tangled bit of wire that was
made still more difficult of handling because it was intertwisted with
the stalks of a thick hedge. He had just nipped a piece of wire in two,
when his quick ear detected a sound on the other side of the hedge.

Instantly he stiffened. Every muscle became as taut as tempered steel.
He scarcely seemed to breathe while his unwinking eyes tried to bore
through the mass of tangled brush and wire to see what was on the other
side.

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