Army Boys in France; or, From Training Camp to Trenches

As time went on the boys became quite expert in bayonet practice. A French officer who had seen some of the bloodiest fighting on the Somme was their instructor, and he was volu...

They dashed through "rest billets"--the towns behind the lines where the exhausted soldiers, who had served their term in the trenches, were sent back for a few days or weeks of...

There was a gratified exclamation from Colonel Pavet, and a new light came into his eyes. The magic name of France had abolished for the moment all distinctions of rank. The off...

It might have been expected that a sleepless night would have followed the raid. But the young Americans were far too healthy and their nerves were already becoming too well ste...

Events moved on swiftly for the next few days. History was being made at a more rapid rate than ever before. War was in the air and everybody felt it.

For some time after the train had started the spirits of the men were subdued. All were thinking of the dear ones they had left behind and might never see again. They were think...

There was a sigh of disappointment from the onlookers who had been keyed up in delighted anticipation, and Rabig, though his eyes had fallen before the glint in Frank's, resumed...

It was a misty, muddy night upon which the reconnoitering party, including Frank, Bart, Billy and Tom, was sent out under Corporal Wilson, with orders to get as close as possibl...

Frank gave a start of surprise as he saw who his opponent was to be, and Bart, who was acting as Frank's second, leaned over him with a word of warning.

They left their positions with Moore and Thomas the next day, with the hearty good wishes of the firm and the assurance that their places would be ready for them as soon as they...

"Oh, I don't know," responded Bart Raymond, Frank's special chum. "It's looked like war ever since the _Lusitania_ was sunk, but we haven't got our fighting clothes on yet. The...

Through all this confusion, Bart, who had been on his way back to the office when attracted by the hubbub, pushed and elbowed his way through to the first line of observers.

But the querulous look and tone vanished when he had heard the story of Oliver's rescue, and as he turned to his books again the old veteran of many battlefields muttered to him...

"I don't mind as long as I know you're coming," replied his mother. "It is the other nights I shall dread, the nights when I shall not hear your footsteps on the porch, and I'm...

The shipping of the men had been carried through so smoothly and swiftly, and everything had moved with such clockwork precision, that before the sun fairly rose the giant steam...

Frank did not answer to this. Now they had arrived in France his mind had drifted back to his mother and what she had said about the property she had inherited. Would they ever...

"You've got to hand it to that fellow, though," said Billy. "He had his nerve right with him to try to cop out a transport right under the nose of a convoy."

"That's it, Mother," cried Frank, his whole soul responding to the kindling spirit in her eyes. "For America and France, the two greatest republics in the world. It won't be the...

The captain shouted a command, and up they scrambled like hounds freed from the leash. But just as their leader reached the top he fell headlong, stricken by a bullet.

Just this side of one of the lines of trenches the regiment halted at the word of the commander. Then it stood at attention and presented arms while from out the trenches came a...

"Hardly as bad as that," laughed Frank. "If it were, I bet you'd be out of that cot more quickly than you're doing it now. But it sure is coming down."

At the end of three days Rabig's term expired and he was sent back again to his place in the ranks, somewhat subdued in manner though really unchastened in spirit.

The young volunteers looked about for the unwilling conscript and soon caught sight of him, standing moodily apart from the others and with a scowl upon his face as black as a t...

Fred Anderson was trying to struggle to his feet and in an instant willing arms supported him. His face was pale, blood was flowing from a gash in his forehead and his right leg...

Like great birds the battle planes wheeled and swooped, now diving, now climbing, each jockeying so as to get the weather gauge of its opponent and bring its machine guns into a...