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THE KHAKI BOYS
OVER THE TOP
OR
Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam
By
CAPT. GORDON BATES
Author of "The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling"
"The Khaki Boys on the Way," "The
Khaki Boys at the Front," etc.
ILLUSTRATED
1919
THE KHAKI BOYS SERIES
By CAPT. GORDON BATES
THE KHAKI BOYS AT CAMP STERLING
or Training for the Big Fight in France
THE KHAKI BOYS ON THE WAY
or Doing Their Bit on Land and Sea
THE KHAKI BOYS AT THE FRONT
or Shoulder to Shoulder in the Trenches
THE KHAKI BOYS OVER THE TOP
or Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam
THE KHAKI BOYS FIGHTING TO WIN
or Smashing the German Lines
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, New York
* * * * *
THE KHAKI BOYS OVER THE TOP
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BLOWN BACK 1
II TO THE RESCUE 11
III SENT TO THE REAR 19
IV A DOUBLE LOSS 28
V WHAT'S TO BE DONE 38
VI GOOD NEWS 44
VII UNDER FIERCE FIRE 52
VIII THE OLD MILL 61
IX TRAPPED 70
X FALLING WALLS 78
XI A STRANGE RESCUE 88
XII MUCH WONDERING 98
XIII A PERILOUS JOURNEY 105
XIV THE SENTRY 113
XV IN THE BATTLE AGAIN 122
XVI HELD UP 133
XVII A BATTLE OF THE AIR 139
XVIII CAPTURED 146
XIX THREE PRISONERS 156
XX THE CAPTAIN AGAIN 163
XXI BACK WITH FRIENDS 176
XXII FIERCE FIGHTING 185
XXIII THE LONELY HUT 192
XXIV A GLORIOUS VICTORY 199
[Illustration: [Transcriber's note: original truncated] 'INTO
THE MIDST OF THE']
THE KHAKI BOYS OVER THE TOP
CHAPTER I
BLOWN BACK
"What's that, Schnitz?"
"What's what!"
"That noise. Sounds like a party coming along the communication trench!"
The talk was in tense whispers, and the listening was now of the same tenseness. Two khaki-clad Sammies stood on the alert in the muddy ditch, dignified by the title, "trench," and tried to pierce the darkness that was like a pall of black velvet over everything.
"Hear it?" inquired he who had first spoken.
"I somedings hears, too," spoke a guttural voice, with a foreign accent. "Might not it perhaps be—"
"Cut that talk, Iggy!" sharply commanded the first speaker. "Do you want the lieutenant dropping in on us!" And Corporal Robert Dalton cautiously moved nearer his fellow non-com., Sergeant Franz Schnitzel.
"Yes, not so loud," advised Schnitzel, who, in spite of his Teutonic name, was a thorough American, speaking with no trace of German accent. "Don't forget that the Boches may have listening parties out right in front of this trench, even though they may have information that we're going to rush 'em just before dawn."
"But what is that noise?" went on Bob. "It sounds like the relief coming, and yet we can't be going to be relieved so near the zero hour. It's impossible."
"Him one big word is," sighed Iggy, trying to adjust his Polish tongue to the strange language called English. "But thinks me nothing is like him in dis war!"
"Nothing is like what?" asked Schnitzel, the talk now being reduced to whispers on the part of all three.
"Him wot you said—repossible," said the Polish lad.
"Hush!" quickly exclaimed Bob, or Dal, as he was variously called by his comrades. "There is some one coming along the trench. If it's the Boches—"
This was enough to cause all three to grip their rifles more tightly. The sound of advancing footsteps, cautious as they were, was now more audible. Then came a whispered, but sharp:
"Halt! Who goes there!"
"Our lieut's on the job!" commented Bob.
Tensely the three who stood shoulder to shoulder in the darkness of the foremost trench, waiting, listened for the answer. It came, also in a whisper, but it carried to their ears.
"Sergeant Blaise and Sergeant Barlow, ordered to report here to you, sir."
"Oh golly! It's Blazes und Ruddy!" gasped Iggy.
"Cheese it!" cautioned Dal, for the Polish lad, in his enthusiasm, had spoken above a whisper, and even slight sounds carried far on this dark, still night.
"Advance, Sergeant Blaise to be recognized," came the order from the sentry, evidently acting on advice from the lieutenant in command of this part of the American trench.
There was a period of silent waiting on the part of the three who stood so close together, and then they heard their immediate commanding officer say:
"Pass on. You'll find your friends just beyond here."
A moment later the two newcomers were grasping hands in the dark with the three waiting ones.
"The five Brothers are united again," said Roger Barlow in a low voice.
"Sooner than I expected," commented Jimmy Blaise. "Now we can go over the top together."
"Over the top, may we all go together, in the wind and the rain or in damp, foggy weather," was Bob Dalton's contribution. He sometimes "perpetrated verse," as he dubbed it—a reminder of his cub reporter days.
"But say, Jimmy, how did you manage to get here?" asked Franz.
"Walked," was Jimmy Blaise's laconic answer. "They haven't had to carry me on a stretcher—at least not lately."
"Oh, you know what I mean," said Franz. "I mean, did you ask to be transferred from your station to this trench?"
"No, and that's the funny part of it," said Roger Barlow. "You know after we wrote our letters to-night—or, rather last night, for it's past twelve now—Blazes and I went back to our station."
"Yes, and we came here to wait for the zero signal," interpolated Dal.
"Well, we hadn't been out in our trench very long before we were relieved, and told to report to Lieutenant Dobson here," resumed Jimmy. "And when we remembered that this was where you three were stationed, say, maybe we weren't glad!"
"We are of a gladness also much!" whispered the Polish lad, and there was rather a pathetic note in his voice. "It is a goodness gracious to have you here!"
"Say, you can do more things to the English language than the Boches can on an air raid," chuckled Jimmy.
"Oh, well, it is of a much hardness to speak," sighed Iggy.
"Well, there's no fault to be found with your fighting, that's sure!" declared Roger. "Put her there, old pal!" and he clasped hands with his foreign "Brother."
"How's everything here?" asked Jimmy, when the five had taken such easy positions as were available in the narrow trench.
"We're all ready for the zero hour," replied Bob. "Everybody's on their tiptoes. I wish it was over—I mean here. This waiting is worse than fighting."
"It sure is," commented Franz. "But it won't be long now."
"What time do you make it?" asked Bob.
"Must be quite some after three," said Jimmy in a low voice. "It was nearly three when we got our orders to come here."
Roger took out a tiny pocket flash lamp, and, placing one finger over the bulb so that no rays would escape, held the dim glow over his wrist-watch.
"Quarter to four," he announced.
"Fifteen minutes more," sighed Dal.
"They'll seem like fifteen years, though, Bob," commented Jimmy.
A reaction, in the shape of silence, came upon the Khaki Boys—"five Brothers" as they called themselves, for they had become that since their participation in the World War. Tensely and quietly they waited in the trench for the hands of time to move to the hour of four. This was the "zero" period, when in a wave of men and steel, or lead and high explosives, the Americans would go over the top, in an endeavor to dislodge the Germans from a strong position.
Only a few hours before, after each had written a letter home, the missives having been sent back of the lines to be posted, the five lads had solemnly shaken hands at parting. The two sergeants—James Blaise and Roger Barlow—went to a distant part of the intricate trench system, while the two corporals, Robert Dalton and Ignace Pulinski and Sergeant Franz Schnitzel were together in a ditch near the middle of the barbed wire entanglements. And now, by a strange turn of fate, they were all together again, waiting for the final word that might send then all into eternity, or cause them to live horribly misshapen.
Something of this seemed to be felt by the five Khaki Boys as they stood in the mud and darkness waiting. For it had rained and the trench was slimy on the bottom in spite of the "duck boards."
"I wonder where we'll be this time to-morrow," mused Bob in a low voice.
"Oh, cut out the 'sob sister' stuff!" said Jimmy, a bit sharply.
"Isn't it gloomy enough here without that?"
They talked in the lowest whispers, and there were the murmurs of whispers on either side of them, for their comrades up and down the trenches felt the same strain, and relieved it by talking cautiously.
"I think we'll all be together again," said Roger, trying to speak cheerfully. "Somehow I've got a feeling that we'll come out of this all right."
"Me, I hat a dream," slowly remarked Iggy. "Of my dream I now know only one cling—und dot is my face was all bloody!"
"Oh, for the love of Mike! Don't croak!" exclaimed Jimmy.
"Silence down there!" came a sharp command. Jimmy had spoken too loudly, and the listening lieutenant had heard him.
Slowly the minutes dragged. Once again Roger carefully looked at his watch.
"What time is it?" whispered Franz.
"Five minutes of."
"Great Scott! Is it only ten minutes since you looked before! It seems like a lifetime. Whew! I'm all in a sweat!"
And yet the night was cool.
It was now as silent as death in the trench, and all about it. Earlier in the night there had been distant shelling, but this had ceased some time since.
Roger, unable to stand the strain longer, was about to flash his little pocket electric torch again when suddenly the stillness of the night was broken by a loud, shrill whistle.
"The signal!" cried Jimmy.
"The zero hour at last!" shrilled Roger in his tense excitement.
"Over the top!" yelled Bob. "Over the top!"
And just as the first streaks of the gray light of dawn began to pierce the blackness, the five Brothers, and their comrades up and down the trenches, leaped from their places of waiting with savage yells, and started for the German lines.
"I am glad! I am glad!" sang Iggy. "Now I can of the fight have a piece!"
He and Franz sprang out of the trench together. Side by side they raced over the rough ground, through the gaps cut in the barbed wire. A little in advance were Jimmy, Roger and Bob.
And now the big guns began their chorus. With boom and roar, roar and boom they sang their anthem of death. The rattle of rifles came in as a response, and all this was punctured by fiendish yells.
Then, too, from the German lines, came the answering song of the big guns. Though the attack had taken them by surprise, they were not slow in responding. With all that we think of the Boches we must give them credit for being savage, if unfair, fighters. They seldom declined a challenge, at least on the front lines.
"Come on! Come on!" yelled Jimmy.
"Up and at 'em! Up and at 'em!" snapped Roger.
"Wow! This is going to be some fight!" exulted Bob.
It was fast growing light, and the disappearing darkness was further illuminated by the flashes from hundreds of guns. Lines of khaki-clad Sammies were pouring from the American trenches now, in a mad rush for the Hun positions.
"Well, we're together yet, anyhow," mused Jimmy, as, looking back, he saw Bob, the Polish lad, and Franz coming on with a rush.
"Yes, we're together—yet," added Roger. They both had been firing madly at the distant gray lines of German soldiers in front of them. They had to yell into each other's ears to be heard above the din.
Suddenly the very earth seemed to drop away from under their feet. They felt the shock of rushing air. A big, high-explosive shell had dropped near them.
"That's bad!" shouted Jimmy, as the concussion died away. He looked behind him and saw, with horror, Iggy, the Polish Brother, literally being blown back through the air. Whether this was the effect of the big shell that had exploded, or whether it was caused by a smaller one going off a moment later, Jimmy could not tell. But he saw Iggy hurtling through the air, and the face of the Polish lad was covered with blood, as he himself had said it had been in his dream.
CHAPTER II
TO THE RESCUE
"Go on! Don't stop! Slam at 'em!"
It was the sharp command of the lieutenant in immediate charge of the detachment including Jimmy Blaise and his comrades.
"Forward! Forward!" was yelled on every side.
The din continued—increased. It seemed as though there could be nothing left whole on earth again; in all that riot of noise and blood—as though everything must be rent to pieces.
"Are you all right!" cried Jimmy in the ear of Roger.
"Yes. Not scratched yet. How about—"
A loud explosion to one side cut off his words in a blast, but Jimmy knew what his chum wanted to say. When there was a momentary lull he answered:
"Iggy's gone!"
"Gone?"
"Yes. I had a glimpse of him being blown back—his face was all red—bloody."
Roger could not repress a shudder. But there was no time for any thoughts like these. He had a glimpse of Bob Dalton and Franz Schnitzel stumbling toward him and Jimmy. Then came a sharp command:
"Down! Down on your faces! Everyone! They're turning loose the machine-guns!"
The four remaining Khaki Boys fell flat, and only just in time. Over them swept a veritable hail of machine gun bullets.
"Dig in! Dig in!" commanded the lieutenant.
Frantically with their picks and shovels the Sammies began to make shallow ditches in which to lie. The upraised earth would offer some protection against the forward sweeping lead, though not very much against shrapnel which explodes in the air above and is driven downward.
And as the four Brothers were making shallow trenches they wondered, with sorrow in their hearts, if there was a chance that Iggy had been left alive.
"If we stay here long enough, I'll see if I can't get permission to go back and find out," mused Jimmy, as he frantically scraped the earth into a sort of long mound in front of his head. They were under a hot fire now. The American advance had been momentarily checked.
And while there is this period in the fighting may I not take advantage of it to make my new readers acquainted with the main characters of this story, and also tell something of the previous books in this series?
The initial volume is called "The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling," and in the pages of that you meet, for the first time, Jimmy, Roger, Bob and Iggy. To introduce them more formally I will say that Jimmy's correct name was James Sumner Blaise, and that he was the son of wealthy parents. He was about nineteen years old, and this was the average age of his comrades.
Roger Barlow was an orphan, and had been working in a munition factory when he decided to enlist. Robert Dalton had been a "cub" reporter on a newspaper, and, like Roger, was an orphan. Though Ignace was no orphan, possessing both father and mother and a number of sisters and brothers, his home life was not happy, and he was really glad to join the army.
These four lads soon became "bunkies" at Camp Sterling, where they had their training. Later they took into their friendship one Franz Schnitzel, who, though possessed of a German name, was, nevertheless, a loyal "United Stateser," as Iggy called it. Franz had a hard time, at first, convincing people of his loyalty, and once he was accused of a black crime, but later he was proved innocent.
After having been trained at the camp, and cementing their friendship in many ways, the "five Brothers" as they called themselves, were sent across. In the second book of the series, "The Khaki Boys On the Way," we find our youthful heroes sailing for France after a series of adventures, one a startling one, at Camp Marvin. This adventure had to do with the blowing up of a bridge, and Jimmy Blaise had a fight with a spy—a fight that came near being Jimmy's last.
In this second book will also be found an account of the trip of the Khaki Boys to the coast, where they boarded a transport for France. If they expected to get across safely, as many thousands did, they were disappointed, for they were attacked by a U-Boat. Many on board the transport Columbia perished, but the five Brothers were saved, and, after a time spent in a rest camp in England, they crossed the channel to France.
The third volume, called "The Khaki Boys at the Front," tells in detail some of their exciting experiences. The quintette were given leave to go from their camp to Paris, and in that beautiful city they met some other friends, the Twinkle Twins, otherwise John and Gerald Twinkleton, who had joined the aviation branch of the service. This was natural, since their cousin, Emile Voissard, was one of the most daring of the airmen, meriting the name "Flying Terror of France."
In that book, too, you may read of how Franz Schnitzel, by his knowledge of the German tongue, was able to give advance notice of a raid he overheard the Huns planning. The raid was a failure from the German standpoint, but during it some of our Khaki Boys were wounded.
Adventure followed adventure, but in one "grand" one, as a Frenchman would call it, Jimmy, on guard when Voissard's aëroplane was on the ground, temporarily disabled, stood off an attack of Germans and among others he killed Adolph von Kreitzen, known as the "tiger man." On his head the French government had set a price of five thousand francs, or about a thousand dollars, and of course Jimmy won this.
So now, in the opening of this present story, we find our five Khaki Boys still together after many strenuous happenings. They had been wounded but were now recovered and they had fought valiantly.
In the last chapter of the book immediately preceding this, if you recall, the lads had written letters home—letters which might be their last, they thought, for they had orders to take their places in the front line trenches to await the zero hour. Two of the Brothers had been separated from their chums, but all were reunited as we have seen.
Then had come the command to go over the top, and there had followed the fierce rush in the gray dawn of the morning—a rush punctuated by fire, smoke and death.
"Dig in! Dig in!" commanded the lieutenant in command of the particular squad of the 509th infantry to which our friends were attached. "This is only a temporary check. We're laying down a curtain of fire, and we'll go forward again in a moment!"
He had to yell to be heard above the din, but all near him understood what he meant. The American gunners were sending over a barrage fire—a veritable rain of bullets that would keep the Germans from advancing, and which would also cause them to abandon their machine-guns. It was the machine-gun fire that was, temporarily, holding up the advance of Jimmy and his chums.
It did not take the Sammies long, working feverishly as they did, to raise a protecting mound of earth between them and the Huns. And then, for some reason or other, the savage fire of the Germans slacked at the particular section of the line where our heroes were stationed.
"Are you all right, Rodge?" called Jimmy to the chum on his left.
"So far, yes. How about you?"
"Oh, I was nicked in one ear—just a scratch. It's hardly bleeding.
Can you see Bob?"
"Yes, he's got a swell place—in a shell hole, and Franz is with him.
See anything of Iggy?"
"No," answered Jimmy. "I'm afraid he's done for. If I get a chance, I'm going back to see. Looks as if Fritz had had enough at this sector."
"Aren't we going forward?" some one called to the lieutenant in charge. "Come on! Lead us to the Boches!"
"Have to wait for orders," was the grim answer. "We were told to halt here. Can't go on without orders!"
There were murmurs of disapproval at this, but the discipline was strict.
"Anybody badly wounded?" asked the lieutenant. "If there is, now's your chance to get some first-aid treatment. Later you can't, perhaps."
There were one or two who were suffering badly, and these took advantage of the lull in the fighting to apply bandages to their hurts.
"Poor Iggy!" mused Jimmy, and then, as the lieutenant crawled near him—for no one was standing upright—the sergeant asked:
"May I crawl back, sir, and see what happened to Corporal Pulinski?"
"Did you see anything happen to him?"
"Yes, sir. I saw him blown backward when the big shell exploded, and he seemed to be falling toward some sort of shell crater. If we're going to be held here long, I'd like to go to his rescue—to see if he's still alive."
"Very well," assented the young commanding officer. "Ill take a chance and let you." He knew of the pact of friendship existing among the five Brothers. "Take some one with you. But crawl—don't try to walk."
"I won't, sir. May Sergeant Barlow come along?"
"Yes. But come back if we get the order to advance again."
"I will, yes, sir!"
Swinging around on his stomach, and calling to Roger, telling him of the permission received, Jimmy Blaise started toward the rear to rescue, if possible, the Polish lad.
"But I'm afraid we'll find him done for," confided Jimmy to Roger. "The shell must have landed right in front of him. It made a hole as big as a house."
"Poor Iggy!" murmured Roger.
CHAPTER III
SENT TO THE REAR
Roger Barlow, who was slightly behind his comrade in their queer progress back toward the shell hole near which the Polish lad had been seen to fall, observed his fellow sergeant come to a halt.
"What's the matter—hit?" cried Roger anxiously. And this well might have been the case, since, though there was a lull in the fighting immediately in front of Company E, there were plenty of stray bullets, not to mention pieces of shrapnel and bits of high explosive shells, that might have reached the crawling lad.
"Hit? No, not yet," answered Jimmy. "I'm going to try, if it's safe, to make a little better progress than this, though. This is too slow. Poor Iggy may be dead before we get to him."
"Probably is," commented Roger.
"Oh, can the gloomy stuff!" snapped Jimmy. Afterward he admitted that his nerves were pretty well strained. In fact that was the condition of all of them. "You're almost as bad as Franz," went on Jimmy.
"Well, I don't want to be too hopeful," returned Roger. "But what are you going to do, anyhow?"
"This," answered his chum. He drew his rifle up close beside him, took off his tin hat, stuck it on the end of his bayonet, and cautiously raised it well above the ground. It received no bullets, as might have been expected.
"Come on, we can run for it!" cried Jimmy.
"What makes you think so?" asked his chum. "Didn't the lieutenant tell us to lie on our faces?"
"Yes, but that was before the fighting ceased in front of us. Fritz is having all he can attend to on either wing of our advance, and, for the time being we're not being molested. If the Huns were in any strength directly ahead of us, or to our rear as we are now, that tin helmet would look like a sieve by this time. It's safe enough to get up and run for it. And we've got to hustle if we want to save Iggy."
"All right, just as you say!" murmured Roger, as he began to rise.
It was not without a natural feeling of timidity that he cautiously
elevated himself first to his knees and then to his feet. As for
Jimmy, he had impulsively stood upright.
"Come on!" he yelled above the din of battle. "Come on!"
He started on a run over the shell-torn ground, with what remained of the barbed wire entanglements here and there.
"I'm coming!" answered Roger.
He expected any moment to receive a bullet, or to be utterly blasted from the earth by some terrible shell explosion. And Jimmy confessed, later, that he felt the same fear. But these fears did not hold back the Khaki Boys from continuing on to the rescue of their comrade—if he was in a condition to be rescued.
"Where's the place?" cried Roger to his chum, when they had covered several yards in a hasty rush toward the rear.
"Must be somewhere around here," answered Jimmy, looking about him. That part of No Man's Land where they then were, seemingly was deserted by all save the dead. If there had been any injured they had been taken well back behind the lines by stretcher bearers.
For a time Roger and Jimmy feared they might be considered deserters, coming toward the rear as they were doing, and away from the fighting, and aside from mere scratches neither of them showing any wounds. Though if they had been hurt that would have been an excuse for making a retreat.
But no one observed the two—there was no one to observe them, in fact. They were some distance from their own trenches, and immediately back of them—toward the German lines—there had been a division in the fighting, so that the battle waged on either wing, as it were.
"Look in all the shell holes!" directed Jimmy. "The shell burst right in front, or to one side of poor Iggy. He was blown into a shell hole, of that I'm pretty sure."
"There's a hole—a big one, too," said Roger. "But there's no one in it—only dead!" and he turned away, for some of those dead were comrades who, the night before, had been in the trenches with him and his chums.
But the Khaki Boys were hardened to scenes like this now. Too many times had they seen the dead and dying. There was no time to nurse one's feelings.
"Come on! Come on!" cried Jimmy feverishly. "We've got to be quick!
Iggy may bleed to death if he's hurt anything like I think he is."
"Yes, and this place may be a regular lead hail storm, soon," added Roger. "I can't see why our company was held up! Why couldn't we keep on giving the Huns what they deserve?"
"Orders are orders, my boy, we learned that long ago. And when the lieut. wouldn't let us go on, there must be some reason for it. I'm just as anxious to give Fritz his medicine as anyone. Hello, there! Did you hear that queer noise!"
"Yes. Sounded like a groan. Listen!"
The tide of battle was away from them now, and they were able, above the distant roar, to hear ordinary sounds, which had not been the case when the attack started. The sun was well up now, and the day gave promise of being a fine one—hot, too. And on such a scene the sun shone! Death and devastation brought on by human beasts!
"There it is again!" cried Roger, "It sure was a groan."
"Somebody around here is alive, at any rate," said Jimmy.
There were a number of terribly mangled bodies near them, and it was hardly believable that the groan came from any of those poor forms of what had once been living men.
"Over here!" cried Roger suddenly. "The sound came from down in that shell hole!"
He pointed to one, on the sides of which was fresh earth, showing that the explosive had recently fallen.
"There's no one down in that hole," declared Roger, taking a look.
"Yes there is!" asserted Jimmy. "See that shoe sticking out!"
He pointed to what seemed but a mound of dirt and stones in the very bottom of the shell crater. And Roger observed that the dirt did not altogether cover a leg and foot. An army shoe was sticking out.
"Come on!" cried Jimmy, and the next moment he was sliding down the side of the shell hole. Roger followed, and the two began to roll aside the larger stones that had fallen on the body. The Khaki Boys leaned their rifles against the side of the crater, and took off their gas masks, from where they lining ready for use, in order to work more freely.
"The wind isn't right for a gas attack," murmured Roger, as he temporarily deprived himself of this necessary protection.
As the boys feverishly worked to uncover the form they heard another loud groan coming from beneath the dirt.
"It doesn't seem possible anyone can be alive—like this," panted
Roger as he labored at a heavy stone.
"Don't talk—work!" snapped Jimmy. "If he's alive, whoever it is, he needs help quick."
"Wonder if it's Iggy?" went on Roger.
Jimmy's hands flew as do the legs of a dog when he is digging out a buried bone, nor was Roger behind his comrade. They labored at that part of the pile of earth and stones which covered the face and head of the unfortunate soldier.
"There—he can breathe if he's alive still!" gasped Jimmy as he straightened up after having lifted aside a board that had fallen over the face of the Sammie they were trying to rescue. And it was this board that undoubtedly saved the unfortunate from dying by suffocation.
For the piece of plank had fallen in such a way, being supported on either end by resting on two stones on either side of the man's head, that it kept the dirt and stones away from the face.
And that it was a face which they had uncovered, was not at all certain to Roger and Jimmy at first. For so covered with blood, streaks of dirt and powder stains was the countenance that it resembled nothing human.
"He's alive—whoever he is!" declared Jimmy, for the unfortunate was observed to breathe—and breathe deeply as the air came in more abundantly to the parted lips.
Roger began digging in the dirt again, working down to the man's hands. And when he had brushed aside the dirt and stones he lifted up a limp wrist. One look at the identification tag chained around it, and he cried:
"It's Iggy! We've found him all right!"
"Sure enough—it is Iggy!" cried Jimmy, as he, too, looked at the metal disk.
"Ach! Yes! Water!" faintly moaned the Polish lad. His voice was a moan, but it was his voice. He opened his eyes, looked almost uncomprehendingly at his two chums and smiled faintly.
"So, come you haf!" he murmured. "Think I did dat you would!"
His head, which he had raised, sank back limply.
"Here!" cried Jimmy, opening his canteen. "Drink this!"
Poor Iggy did, gratefully enough. Some of the water trickled over his face, and when Roger wiped it away some of the blood and dirt went with it.
"Why he isn't hurt much—not up here, anyhow!" cried Jimmy. "I thought sure his whole head was blown off the way he looked."
"Well, let's get him out of here and look at him afterward," counseled Roger, and they resumed their work until the Polish lad's body was all exposed. Then he was lifted out, and in a little while it was ascertained that he was not seriously injured—at least outwardly. His arms and legs were whole, and there was no big wound, though he was terribly scratched and bruised.
"But why stand up can not I!" asked Iggy, for Roger and Jimmy were supporting him with their arms around him down in the shell hole.
"I guess he means why can't he stand up," translated Roger, for sometimes their foreign Brother misplaced his English words considerably.
"Sure! Why can't not I stand?" went on Iggy. "My legs—they is got no business to 'em. Like paper legs they is!"
Roger and Jimmy looked apprehensively at one another. This loss of feeling and muscular power in Iggy's legs might indicate that his spine was injured—that his whole lower body was paralyzed!
"We've got to get him to the rear—to a hospital," said Roger in a low voice, as the Polish lad's head drooped weakly on his shoulder.
"Yes," assented Jimmy. "But can we carry him?"
"Got to!"
They looked about for some means of getting Iggy to the top of the shell hole. That would be the most difficult part of the rescue. Then, to their surprise, the two who had come back to seek their friend, heard a hail on the rim of the crater above them.
"What's the matter down there?" came the cry. "Do you want help!"
"You said it!" voiced Jimmy, vigorously.
"All right. Wait a minute. We'll be right down!"
It was two stretcher-bearers who had hailed, and, a little later, Ignace Pulinski was being carried to the rear. He had fainted when brought to the top of the shell hole.
CHAPTER IV
A DOUBLE LOSS
After waiting a moment on the ground at the top of the shell crater, to see their comrade being carried to a first-aid dressing station at the rear, Jimmy and Roger started back to join their two friends who were still, it was to be hoped, waiting for orders to advance.
"S'pose he's much hurt?" asked Roger, something like a dry sob choking him as he thought of poor Iggy.
"I'm afraid so—yes," answered Jimmy. "That business of his legs feeling numb is a bad sign. It's a wonder he lived as long as he did, after what happened to him."
"I'll say so!" agreed Roger. "Tough luck all right!"
"Why," went on his chum as they started back toward their former places, "it looked as if his whole face was blown in. I can't understand it"
"Well, they'll do the best they can for him back there," and Roger nodded toward the dressing stations. "Maybe we'll get a chance to go to see him after this battle."
His words were drowned in a new roar of artillery and machine-gun fire. The heavy booming and the short, sharp, rattling explosions of the smaller guns seemed very close at hand.
"Something's doing!" cried Jimmy.
"Come on!" shouted his chum, and, with their rifles and gas masks, which they had brought up out of the shell hole, they rushed forward. And as they advanced they became aware of shrill, whistling sounds in the air about them.
"Duck! Duck!" yelled Roger. "They're firing over our sector now!
We've got to crawl back!"
Jimmy realized this as well as did his chum, and, in another moment, the two were making their way back to their line as they had left it, by alternately moving on their hands and knees and again by working themselves forward on their elbows and stomach. It was the only safe way. The horizontal storm of missiles was, fortunately, about three feet above them, but that distance precluded walking upright.
"Come on, boys! Fall in! Fall in!" cried their lieutenant as Roger and
Jimmy got back "We're going to advance. You're just in time!"
"Did you find him?" asked Bob, as he leaped to his feet in readiness for a dash toward the German lines.
"Yes. In a shell hole!" yelled Jimmy, for the firing was heavy on both sides of them now, making a vicious din.
"Alive!" Franz wanted to know.
"Yes, alive, but how long he'll be that way it's hard to say," answered Roger. "He was under a pile of dirt and—"
"Come on! Come on!" cried the lieutenant. "We're going to finish the job!"
He was leading his men, not driving them on as do the Germans, and nobly the four Brothers and their fellows followed the gallant lieutenant.
On they rushed—ever onward. About them swept the leaden hail of death. Shoulder to shoulder, firing from the hip, rushed the four Khaki Boys. And even in that terrible din of battle they spared a thought for the gallant comrade who would have been with him if he could.
With wild yells the Sammies swept over the first line of German trenches. The Boches had deserted them in the face of a withering rifle and machine-gun fire.
"Come on! Come on!" yelled the lieutenant again and again. "They're laying down a perfect barrage for us! The Huns can't get through to attack us!"
This was true, to a certain extent. Supported by the big guns in the rear, the 509th Infantry was rushing onward. Before them, and ever moving forward, was a never-ending curtain of fire—a hail of lead and steel.
As this curtain advanced, caused by the continual but slow elevation of the muzzles of the big guns, the infantry followed. And this fire kept the German support from coming to save the lines that were under attack.
"Wipe 'em out! Wipe out the Hun nests!" cried the lieutenant.
"It's our turn now!" grimly shouted Roger in Jimmy's ear.
Forward swept the company to which our heroes were assigned. For a time, during which the two chums had had a chance to get Iggy from the shell hole, there had been no advance. Now it came with a vengeance.
But the Germans were not idle. If their infantry was held back from making a counter-attack, their heavy guns, and here and there, machine-guns, were not idle. And these weapons tore big holes in the ranks of the Sammies. But ever the holes were closed up—comparatively closed up, that is, for the fighting of the Americans was not in close order, such as that in which the Germans so often advanced to their deaths.
At times the four Brothers would be close to one another, converging to get out of the line of some trench or avoid a shell hole. Again they would be yards apart But they kept in "contact," as it is called.
And ever as they advanced they fired their rifles into the German lines. True they could only now and then catch a glimpse of the foe, but they made those chances tell.
"Come on now, boys—a little farther and we'll have our objective! Just a few yards more!" cried the lieutenant who was leading our heroes. "Once we're at that barn, we can rest. Only a few feet more—only a few—"
His yelling voice suddenly ceased, and Jimmy, who was nearest, saw the gallant soldier crumple up, with a bullet through his head. And as he fell his men behind him, leaped over his body with wild yells of rage.
"Come on! Come on!" screamed Jimmy, inflamed to the point of madness. He was in command at this point now, following the death of the lieutenant. "Come on! Make 'em pay for that!" He choked back his sobs, for the lieutenant was well beloved.
On they rushed, on and on. The man on Jimmy's left was killed, and the comrade on his right fell with a shattered leg.
"I'm out of it!" suddenly shouted Franz, and he tried to hop on one foot, falling, a moment later, in a shallow hole.
On the others rushed, and finally, with wild yells, they drove the Germans from their last stand. The stone barn held a machine gun nest, and many of the Sammies were killed or wounded before the crew of Huns were scattered or captured—and there were very few of this last class, so desperate was their resistance.
From somewhere came the signal to cease firing, and, a little later, a captain came along and took charge.
"Who's in command?" he asked, seeing no commissioned officer in the group which had for a nucleus Jimmy, Roger and Bob.
"I am, sir," answered the former, saluting. "The lieutenant was killed."
A twitch of the face, and a hardening of the muscles about the captain's mouth were the only signs of emotion he showed, but his heart was torn—the boys knew that. The lieutenant was his only brother.
"Hold this place at all costs!" was the grim order. "I'll send an officer to take charge shortly. But hold the place!"
"Yes, sir." and Jimmy saluted again.
Quickly they took measures to do this—to make the stone barn, once the part of a French farm homestead, a position of defense. The German machine-gun, for which there was considerable ammunition left, was turned to point at the Hun line. But the Boches had withdrawn some distance. The Sammies had gained their objective, and the battle, for the time being, was over. Now there might come a counter-attack, and for this Jimmy, temporarily in command, prepared with his chums.
"Bob," called Jimmy to the former reporter, "you and Roger go back and see if you can pick up Franz, or any other of our lads who are alive. See what they need, and, if it's possible, get first-aid to them."
This was a welcome order to these two Khaki Boys and they started back over the ground won at such terrible cost. Already, though, gallant stretcher-bearers were searching among the dead to succor the living. And then, to their unutterable delight, Roger and Bob saw Franz limping toward them, using his rifle as a crutch.
"Thought you were done for, like poor Iggy," cried Roger.
"I thought so, too," answered Schnitz. "I felt sure my foot was lopped off, but it was only bruised on the ankle by a stone that some piece of shell must have kicked up. It's only badly bruised. I don't have to go to the rear!" and he said this joyously.