Army Boys in the French Trenches

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"Forward! March!" gurgled Billy. "Pound me on the back, you fellows, or
I'll have a fit."

"A grocer! Napoleon!" roared Frank. "Shades of Austerlitz and Waterloo!"

"And we fell for it!" yelled Tom. "Think of it, fellows! By the great
horn spoon! We fell for it!"

They got themselves under control at last, though not without many
interruptions, for again and again one of them would start to speak and
go off into a peal of laughter.

"I'm as weak as a rag," gulped Billy. "I haven't laughed like this in
all my life."

"It would make a hit in vaudeville," chuckled Bart. "Think of us sillies
stalking along and going through shadow motions for a nut like that.
We're squirrel food, all right."

"Well, after all what could we do?" defended Frank. "We're not mind
readers."

"Not even of a scrambled mind like that," interposed Billy.

"And we couldn't tell that he wasn't an officer," went on Frank, not
heeding the interruption. "His uniform seemed to be all right, although
a bit gaudy."

"That gives us a way out," said Bart. "We can say that we followed the
uniform, not the man, and let it go at that. But, oh, boy! if the
fellows of our regiment had seen us trotting along behind that lunatic,
maybe they wouldn't make our life a burden."

"We'd never have heard the last of it," agreed Tom. "But what they don't
know won't hurt them, and it's a safe bet that none of us will ever let
out a squeak."

"It's lucky there wasn't any moving picture man handy," laughed Frank.
"He'd have had a film that would put all the rest out of business. But
now let's get back to the cottage after this unfortunate hike of ours."

"Say," put in Bart, as a new thought struck him, "do you think those
keepers could have caught on?"

"I don't think they tumbled," Billy reassured them. "They were too
intent on catching Napoleon to think of anything else."

"Poor Napoleon," chuckled Frank. "I suppose he's back on St. Helena by
this time."

"Well, there's one comfort, anyway," declared Tom. "He doesn't know that
he put anything over on us. If he hasn't forgotten us altogether he
thinks we're part of the Old Guard."

"They say a philosopher is one who can grin when the laugh is on
himself," laughed Billy. "If that's so we're dandy philosophers."

All too soon that pleasant week was over, and the boys, refreshed and
rested, went away, though with many a backward glance, to the stern work
where they had already won their spurs and made their mark.

They started in on their work again with renewed zest and with quickened
energy, for a battle was impending and they were anxious to take their
part in driving back the Hun.

They saw Rabig frequently, and though they all disliked him heartily, he
was still a soldier like themselves in the service of Uncle Sam, and
they strove to disguise their feeling for the good of the common cause.

"He's a bad egg, all right," declared Tom, who stuck obstinately to his
belief that Rabig had had some part in the escape of the German
corporal, "but as long as we can't prove it, we'll have to give him a
little more rope. But sooner or later he'll come to the end of that
rope, and don't you forget it!"

Nick had come out of the court-martial that investigated the escape, not
with flying colors, but with bedraggled feathers. The cut on his head
had proved so slight as to arouse suspicion that it might have been
self-inflicted. Still the motive for this did not seem adequate, and the
upshot of the inquiry was that Rabig was confined a few days in the
guardhouse and then restored to duty. But in the private books of the
officers there was a black mark against him, and all of them would have
been better pleased not to have had him in the regiment.

"Oh, well, don't let's talk about him," Frank summed up a discussion
about the bully. "The whole subject leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I
only hope he's the only rotten apple in the barrel."

"That's just the trouble'," replied Tom. "If that rotten apple isn't
taken out of the barrel a good many more may be spoiled in less than no
time."

"Sure enough," agreed Bart. "But I guess there isn't much danger in this
case. If Nick had lots of friends that he might influence it might be
different, but you notice that the fellows leave him to flock by
himself."

"He's about as popular as the hives in summertime for a fact," commented
Tom. "He'd be a mighty sight more at home if he were in the trenches on
the other side."

"Maybe so," admitted Frank.

"What are you fellows chinning about?" broke in a familiar voice, and
they turned to see Dick Lever regarding them with a friendly grin.

"Hello, Dick," came from them all at once in a roar of welcome, for it
was the first time they had seen him since he had rescued them from
their German captors, and their feelings toward him were of the warmest
nature.

"Where have you been keeping yourself?" asked Frank. "We've been looking
for you to drop in and see us for a long time past."

"As a matter of fact, I did get down this way about a week ago," replied
Dick, as he tried to shake hands with all four at once, "but the whole
bunch of you were off on furlough."

"Sorry we missed you," said Frank. "Yes, we did get a few days off, and
it didn't do us a bit of harm. We've all come back feeling the best
ever."

"Ready to take another crack at the Huns, eh?" grinned Dick. "Some
fellows never know when they have enough."

"You needn't talk," laughed Bart. "I'll bet you've been popping away at
them every day since we saw you last."

"Oh, they've kept me pretty busy," said Dick carelessly. "The Hun flyers
are getting pretty sassy just now, and we have to keep working hard to
drive them back."

"I've noticed more of them flying over our lines than usual in the last
day or two," remarked Billy.

"Say," broke in Tom, "this is sure our lucky day. Here comes Will
Stone."

"We sure are lucky when two of the best fellows in the world drop in on
us at the same time," said Frank, as he and his mates greeted the
bronzed tank operator. "I don't know whether you two fellows know each
other, but if you don't you've both lost something."

"Oh, we're not altogether strangers," smiled Stone, as he and Dick shook
hands heartily. "Many a time I've seen his plane flying overhead, and
it's made me feel rather comfortable to know that he was on the job, and
that no Boche flyer would have a chance to drop something that would put
Jumbo out of commission."

"It would have to be some bomb that would make junk of that big car of
yours," said Dick. "I was flying pretty low the day we smashed the Boche
lines and I saw the way Jumbo snapped those wires as though they were so
many threads. That tank's a wonder and no mistake."

They were having such a good time and the time flew so rapidly that they
were startled when the bugle blew and they were compelled to go to their
respective quarters.

A few nights after his return Frank was assigned to sentry duty on an
important post on the front trenches. His beat terminated at a point
where he could see a little shack that stood on the side of a hill.

Standing as it did in the battle zone; it had become little more than a
ruin. Most of the thatched roof had been shot away, one side had gone
altogether, and the other three sides leaned crazily toward each other.

It was a little after midnight when Frank thought he saw a gleam of
light either in the cabin or close by it. It was very faint, scarcely
more than the glimmer of a firefly, and it vanished instantly.

Still, it had been there. Cautiously, avoiding every twig with the
stealth of an Indian, Frank crept toward the hut.

CHAPTER XXI

A FAMILIAR VOICE

As Frank neared the cabin he redoubled his precautions, and it was here
that his scout training stood him in good stead.

When he was within twenty feet he went down flat on the earth and wormed
his way to one of the sides that had been left standing. He placed his
ear against a board and listened intently.

But not a sound rewarded him. The deepest silence reigned.

For a moment he was tempted to believe that his eyes had played a trick
on him. But they had seldom done this and he had learned to trust them.

The light could not have come from a firefly, for it was too late in the
season for them. What then had caused it?

He worked his way around to the shattered doorway and inch by inch
lifted his head until his eyes were on a level with the floor. Quickly
they swept the room, which was so small that the faint light that came
from the stars enabled him to see that it was empty.

When he was fully assured of this, he crept into the room and with his
fingers explored every inch of the floor. The apartment was so small
that this was not much of a task, and before long his hand came in
contact with a match. It had been lighted and the softness of the
charred end told him that this had been done recently.

This then was the "firefly"!

He continued his search with renewed caution and soon found a cartridge.
He knew from the feel of it that it was of the kind used in the rifles
with which the American troops were equipped. It was still warm, as
though it had been recently in a belt close to a man's body.

But what was a man doing in that lonely spot at that hour of the night?

Was he a prowling spy from the German camp who had made a daring
incursion into the American lines?

He must solve the mystery. With every faculty at its highest pitch, he
moved out into the open.

A slight rustling in the forest near by fell on his ears. It might have
been made by some woodland creature, but to his strained senses every
sound, however slight, suggested a possible clue.

He listened intently and heard it again, but this time it was a trifle
louder than before.

He rose to his feet and with catlike tread moved in the direction of the
sound. As he drew hearer he heard it more plainly. And now his patience
was rewarded, for he distinctly heard the low tone of a human voice.

And if it was a human voice it must of necessity be an enemy voice, for
no friend of his or of Uncle Sam's could be in that place at that hour
on a legitimate errand.

A moment later he detected another voice in a different key yet pitched
hardly above a whisper. So it was a conference! A conference of whom and
about what?

He crept still farther forward.

Right before him stretched a little glade full of small trees and
undergrowth with a scarcely visible path leading downward.

To press too far between the bushes would have inevitably betrayed him.
He halted with his rifle ready for action and listened.

The conversation seemed to be an earnest one and in their earnestness
the conferees at times forgot caution, for, as one of the men raised his
voice in expostulation, Frank could note that he was talking German. But
it was not that which made him start suddenly and clutch his rifle more
tightly.

He had heard that voice before.

Where and when?

He cudgeled his brain and then it came to him.

It was Nick Rabig's voice!

That is, he thought it was. But at that distance he could not be
perfectly sure. At any rate it was time to act.

With a bound he leaped forward.

"Halt!" he cried. "Halt or I fire."

There were startled exclamations from both men, and then a prodigious
scrambling in the bushes as they tried to escape.

Bang! went Frank's rifle, and there was a scream followed by a heavy
fall.

Frank rushed forward, but caught his foot in a tangled root and fell.
His gun flew from his hand and his head came in contact with a stump.
The jagged edges cut a gash in his forehead, and for a moment he was
utterly dazed.

He strove desperately to retain his senses and in a minute or two his
brain ceased to whirl. He staggered drunkenly to his rifle and picked it
up. And at this moment there was a sound of hurrying feet, and Wilson,
the corporal of the guard, came running up, accompanied by Fred Anderson
who had been on duty near by.

"What is it, Sheldon?" asked the corporal "What were you shooting at?"

Frank tried to speak, but his tongue was thick and the words would not
come."

"He's wounded!" exclaimed Anderson, as he saw with alarm the blood
flowing freely from Frank's forehead.

They deftly bound up his head, and by this time Frank had found his
voice.

"It's nothing," he managed to say. "I fell and cut my head. It's only a
scratch. I heard two men talking German here in the bushes and I started
in to get them. They wouldn't stop when I ordered them to, and I fired,
I don't know whether I got them or not."

"We'll see," said the corporal, and led the way into the bushes while
Frank and Fred followed close on his heels.

From one side to the other the corporal flashed his light, and before
long he uttered an exclamation.

"You got one of them anyway," he said, as the light fell on the dead
body of a German whose uniform showed that he belonged to the Eighth
Bavarian Regiment, which they knew was stationed opposite them at that
part of the line.

The corporal blew his whistle and other men of his squad came running in
answer to the call. He ordered them to carry the body into camp where it
could be searched for papers. Then he turned to Frank.

"You've done well, Sheldon," he said, "and I'm sorry that you were hurt.
You're relieved from duty for the rest of your watch. I'll put another
man in your place. You'd better see the surgeons and have them wash out
that cut of yours and bind it up again. Then tumble in and go to sleep.
I hope you'll be all right in the morning."

Frank did as he was directed, and after the surgeon had dressed his
wound and pronounced it not serious made his way to his bunk. He had to
pass Rabig's bunk in reaching his own and he stopped there for a moment.

The place was dark, but he could see that the bunk was occupied, and
from the snoring that arose from it the inmate seemed to be sleeping
soundly.

Had he been mistaken?

CHAPTER XXII

THE SHADOW OF TREASON

When the soldiers jumped from their bunks the next morning at the call
of the bugle Frank's comrades saw his bandaged head and they surrounded
him at once with expressions of solicitude and alarm.

"What's the matter, old man?" asked Bart anxiously.

"Don't say you're badly hurt!" exclaimed Tom.

"You look all in," said Billy. "You're as pale as a ghost."

"I'm a long way from being a ghost yet," smiled Frank, as he drew on his
clothes. "Wait till you see me tuck away the grub at breakfast. I butted
my head against a stump last night to find out which was the harder, and
the stump won."

"Stop your kidding and tell us about it," commanded Bart.

Frank told them the main features of his encounter of the night before,
but it was only after mess when he had them by themselves that he voiced
his suspicions of Rabig.

Tom gave a long whistle.

"That fellow will queer this whole outfit yet," he blurted out. "He's a
sneak and a traitor. If he had his deserts he'd be up against the firing
squad within twenty-four hours."

"Easy there, Tom," counseled Frank, looking around him, for in his
excitement Tom had raised his voice. "Remember I'm not dead sure. I
wouldn't swear to it in a court of law."

"Here comes Nick himself," remarked Bart.

"The Old Nick," growled Tom.

"Hello, Rabig," said Frank, as the former Camport bully came along.

Rabig grunted a surly "Hello" in reply, and was passing on when Billy
hailed him.

"Sleep well, last night, Rabig?" he asked carelessly.

Rabig's face flushed and a frightened look came into his eyes.

"Sure I did," he snapped. "Why shouldn't I?"

"No reason in the world," replied Billy.

"These cool nights are fine for sleeping," remarked Tom. "A little too
cool to be out in the woods, but just right for the trench."

Rabig seemed to be trying to think up a reply, but nothing came to him
and he simply stood still and glowered at them. He appeared to be
speculating. What significance was there in these apparently careless
questions? Why should they be asked at all? How much did these cordially
hated acquaintances of his really know?

"I hear that one of the Germans was killed close to our lines last
night," said Billy, shifting the attack.

"Right inside our lines," corrected Tom. "And here's the fellow who shot
him," pointing to Frank.

"Frank has nerve," drawled Billy.

Rabig shot a glare of hate that was not lost by the onlookers, who kept
their eyes steadily on his face.

"He nearly got another one, too," observed Bart. "And the funny thing
about it was that he thought he knew the fellow's voice."

This was coming too near for Rabig to pretend that he did not know what
they were driving at. He turned upon them in desperation.

"Look here," he snarled viciously. "What do you fellows mean? If you
mean that I'm mixed up in this thing you lie. Now don't you speak to me
again or I'll make you sorry for it."

Without waiting for a reply he hurried off, and the four Camport chums
looked after him with speculation in their eyes until he was lost to
view at a turn of the trench.

"He's guilty all right," declared Tom with conviction.

"If ever guilt looked out of a man's eyes they looked out of his,"
agreed Bart.

"It seems so," admitted Frank with reluctance, "and yet he was in his
bunk when I went through last night." "How do you know it was Rabig?"
Tom retorted. "Are you such a cute detective that you can tell one man's
snore from another?"

"Who else could it have been?" asked Frank. "If it was some one else,
that some one else must have been in cahoots with Rabig and agreed to
make him seem to be in his bunk. I'd hate to think that there was more
than one traitor in the regiment.

"One's more than enough," agreed Bart.

"What do you think we ought to do about it?" asked Billy.

"I don't know," replied Frank, with a worried look on his face. "It
would be a terrible thing to accuse a man wrongfully of such a thing as
treason. Rabig would simply deny it and put it up to us to prove it.
Then, too, every one knows that there's no love lost between us and
Nick, and they might think we were too ready to believe evil of him
without real proof."

"On the other hand," replied Tom, "if we let him go on, we may wake up
some time to find that Rabig has done the regiment more harm than a
German battery could do."

"We'll simply have to keep our eyes peeled," was Billy's solution of the
problem, "and watch that fellow like hawks. But if he makes one more bad
break I don't think we ought to keep silent any longer. Let's hope that
next time, if there is any next time, we'll have the goods on him so
that there can't be any denying it."

But pleasanter thoughts diverted their attention just then, for the camp
postman came into view and the boys rose with a whoop and pounced upon
their letters. And all their spare time that morning was spent in
reading and rereading the precious missives from their friends so many
thousand miles away.

Frank was poring over a letter from his mother for the tenth time when
he heard his name spoken and looked up to see Colonel Pavet, who was
passing along in the company of another officer.

He had only a moment to spare, but that moment was given to Frank, who
had risen and greeted him with a welcome as warm as his own.

"Ah, Monsieur Sheldon, letters from home, I see," he remarked. "I hope
your mother is well."

"Very well, thank you," responded Frank. "And very grateful to you,
Colonel Pavet, for the interest you have taken in her behalf and mine."

The colonel courteously waved the thanks aside.

He replied. "But you can tell Madame Sheldon that her affairs are
progressing finely, though not as rapidly as they would if it were not
for the distracted state of France. For instance, my brother Andre has
been trying to get a furlough for a man who was formerly a butler in the
De Latour family, and whose evidence he thinks will be most important in
establishing your mother's right. It is only with the greatest
difficulty that I have been able to bring this about, but I have
succeeded at last, and the man will go to Auvergne next week to give his
testimony. Let us hope that it will be as valuable as Andre thinks."

Again Frank expressed his thanks, and after a few more words they
parted.

_"Vive la France!"_ exclaimed Frank, as he saluted.

_"Vive l'Amerique!"_ returned the colonel.

CHAPTER XXIII

A HAIL OF LEAD

"It's coming," declared Tom a few days later, as the boys were getting
ready to go to mess.

"Listen to the oracle," mocked Bart.

"What's coming? Christmas?" inquired Billy.

"The big fight," replied Tom.

"Hear the general," gibed Bart.

"I've understood that Tom was General Pershing's right bower," put in
Billy.

"They say he doesn't do a thing without him," said Bart.

"It's a pity that Tom didn't live in Napoleon's time," laughed Frank.
"He'd have been a marshal sure."

"Napoleon," repeated Billy, with a faraway look in his eyes. "Where have
I heard that name before?"

The four friends laughed as the comical scene in the little French
village rose up before them.

But with all their jesting they felt as sure as Tom that a big battle
was impending. One did not have to be an officer to know that. The rank
and file could tell it just as unerringly as their superiors.

For many days past all arms of the service had been working at top
speed. Regiments and divisions had been reorganized and brought up to
their full strength. Reserves had been brought from distant portions of
the line and were massed heavily in the rear of the positions.

Raiding parties were active on both sides, as each was eager to get
prisoners and information, and scarcely a night passed without heavy
skirmishes between patrols that in former days would have risen to the
dignity of battles.

Overhead the sky was dotted with the planes of the rival forces and the
hum of the motors of the giant birds of prey was continuous. They fought
not only in single combat but in sauacfrons, and the sight of one or
more whirling down in flames was so common that it scarcely attracted
attention.

And most ominous of all, the medical service was organizing gigantic
units close to the front, in anticipation of the harvest of blood and
wounds that was so close at hand.

Yes, a battle was coming. The grim reaper was sharpening his scythe and
the watching world was waiting for the outcome in an agony of
expectation.

The forces as far as known were evenly balanced, though it was rumored
that the Germans were drawing large reserves temporarily from the
eastern front, and color was lent to this by the fact that the Swiss
frontier had been closed for a month to conceal the movement of troops.

It was not yet certain which side would make the first move. Each army
was drawn up in a strong natural position with ranges of hills behind in
the event of having to fall back.

"I hope we get in the first blow," remarked Frank, as he discussed the
question with his chums.

"So do I," agreed Bart. "You know then where you're going to strike.
This matter of fighting behind entanglements doesn't make a hit with me
at all."

"There's more of a swing and rush to it when you attack," commented
Billy. "Do you remember how it was, fellows, in that last big scrap when
we were sprinting over No Man's Land? You're so eager to get at the Huns
that you don't have time to think of danger."

But one foggy morning not long after, the German leaders settled the
matter for the Camport strategists and struck with tremendous force at
the Allied lines.

Two hours before dawn the German guns opened up with a roar that shook
the earth. The air was full of flying shells; tear shells to blind the
eyes of the Allied gunners so that they could not see to serve their
pieces; mustard shells that bit into the lungs like a consuming fire;
chlorine gas shells, with a deadly poison, to cause such agony that even
surgeons, hardened in the exercise of their profession, turned away
their faces from the writhings of the victims. Then, following these, a
storm of leaden hail, withering, searing, blasting, before which it
seemed no living thing could stand.

Crouched low in their trenches, massed line behind line, the Allied
forces bent their heads to the storm, and waited in grim fury for the
infantry attack that they knew would surely follow.

And it was not long in coming. The fog had risen by this time, and over
the fields, rank upon rank, marching at the double quick, came masses of
gray figures that seemed as endless as the waves of the sea.

The Allied artillery tore wide gaps in the dense masses, but they closed
up instantly and continued their advance. Machine guns poured thousands
of bullets into the living target, and the gunners served their pieces
again and again until they were so hot that they burned the hand.

But true to their theory of warfare, the German leaders fed their men
into the jaws of Moloch with cynical indifference. They had counted on
paying a certain price, and they were willing to pay it.

But flesh and blood has its limitations, and before that murderous fire
the ranks at last faltered.

Then from the trenches poured the Allied hosts in a fierce counter
attack, and before their resistless charge the enemy wavered and at last
broke. The gray lines melted away, and the ground, strewn with their
dead and dying, was held by the Allied forces, which swiftly organized
for the second attack, that they knew would not be long in coming.

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