CHAPTER X

INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH

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 voluble in his praise of the "_esprit de coeur_" the young men showed.

Of course in the beginning there were some laggards, but these were promptly whipped into line by officers and comrades.

"It is maybe all right now to laugh and take the little interest," the Frenchman was fond of saying to these few who lagged behind. "But when you are in the trench, fighting hand to hand with your enemy, more accomplished than you, it will not be so great a joke. You will not laugh then!"

"He's right too," remarked Fred Anderson, one of the veteran members of the regiment who had seen service in the Philippine Islands. "There will be plenty of hand-to-hand fighting where it's cut and thrust, and the man who can handle his weapon best will come out on top."

"I suppose most of your own experience has been along that line," said Frank.

"Yes," replied Fred, as a reminiscent look came into his eyes. "Of course that dinky little war in the Philippines wasn't to be compared with this, but there was lots of savage fighting just the same. More than once I've been within an ace of losing the number of my mess."

"What's the tightest place you were ever in?" asked Bart.

"The thing I remember most was a scrap we had with the Moros," replied Fred. "That was pretty hot while it lasted.

"You see," he went on, "those fellows had been acting nasty and had given a good deal of trouble to one of our outposts. So our lieutenant was ordered to take a detachment in a launch and go up a little river that led to a settlement of theirs and give them a lesson.

"We landed at the nearest point and had about five miles of jungle to go through before we could get to their village. We did our best to make it a surprise, but in some way they got wind of our coming and lay in ambush. We were picking our way in single file when suddenly there came a rain of bullets and several of our men went down. The rest of us took to cover and the fight was on.

"The Moros you know are Mohammedans, and about as nifty fighters as you can find anywhere. Like all men of their religion, they believe that any one who dies on the battlefield goes straight to Paradise, and that gives them an absolute contempt for death. They were well armed too with Mauser rifles that they'd managed to get hold of somehow, but luckily for us they hadn't learned to handle them well and most of their shots went wild. If their shooting had been as good as their hearts were stout, they might have wiped us out, as they outnumbered us two or three to one.

"Has anybody got the makin's?" he inquired, as he stopped to roll a cigarette.

"Give them to him, somebody," said Bart exasperatedly.

"For the love of Mike don't keep him waiting!" ejaculated Frank. "I want to hear how Fred got out of it."

Fred, not a bit averse to the interest he had aroused, was tantalizingly slow in taking his time.

"Keep your hair on," he drawled, as he struck a match. "I got through all right, or I wouldn't be chinning to you now.

"Well," he resumed after a preliminary puff, "we kept picking them off whenever a head showed itself until they found that we could outplay them at that game, and then they resorted to other tactics. Throwing aside their guns and grasping their machettes--those murderous knives of theirs that will cut a man's head off with a single blow--they came charging down upon us. We didn't propose to stand on the defensive, and after a vast volley that swept a lot of them away we fixed bayonets and rushed to meet them."

The group that had by this time gathered about Fred drew a little closer.

"It was touch and go for a few minutes," continued Fred, "but our weight and discipline told, and soon we were pushing them back. Just then however I stumbled over a root and fell to the ground, striking my head and stunning myself. At that same moment the Moros were reinforced and came back with a wild rush that by sheer weight of numbers forced our line back for twenty-five feet or more.

"I was trying to get to my feet when four or five of the nearest Moros, brandishing their knives, swooped down upon me. It would have been all over with me, if one of our fellows, a big fighting Irishman named Hennessy, hadn't come plunging through the crowd swinging his rifle round his head like a flail. They went down like bullocks hit with an axe. They simply couldn't get inside the circle made by that gun and by the time he had knocked down a half dozen or more, our boys had rallied and had the beggars on the run."

"Phew, but that was a close shave!" ejaculated Frank.

"Close is right," agreed Fred. "I'd certainly have cashed in right then and there if it hadn't been for Hennessy. I told him that he had saved my life and that I owed him more than I could ever repay, but he wouldn't have it so. The joke of it was that I think he was really grateful to me for giving him a chance for such a lovely scrap. He told me that he hadn't enjoyed himself so much since the last time he had gone to the fair at Tipperary."

There was a general laugh.

"If it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't have had your chance now to get a hack at the Huns," remarked Bart.

"No," assented Fred, "and that would certainly have been hard luck. But to get back where we started from, I want to put it up to you fellows that what the Frenchman said was true. We can't take this practice too seriously. Especially bayonet practice. We've had lots of proof that the Germans don't like cold steel. They're brave enough, but the French and English put it all over them in bayonet work."

"That's right," agreed Frank, "and it's up to us to show that Uncle Sam's boys can do the same."

The hand grenade throwing was of special interest to the boys and was the one most readily mastered. This was due chiefly to the fact that it had points in common with baseball. Many of the boys were proficient in the great national game.

The firm of Moore and Thomas had maintained its own nine, and in the season before they had carried off the championship of the commercial teams in Camport. Frank had officiated in the pitcher's box and had an assortment of curves and drops together with great speed that had been the chief factors in the winning of the pennant. Bart had "dug them out of the dirt" at first base.

Billy Waldon, too, had been as quick as lightning in "winging them down" from short.

So that their throwing arms were fully developed and they took up this new and grimmer game with the skill born of long practice.

"This ought to be nuts for us when we get to the trenches," remarked Billy, as he cut loose with a grenade in practice that landed within two feet of the object aimed at.

"It sure gives us a big advantage over the Germans," assented Frank. "Of course they're drilled in throwing, but by the time they've started in with it their muscles must seem strange to it. We've been throwing a ball around ever since we were kids. It's in the blood. Our eyes and arms have learned to work together. And then, too, a thing you've learned to do from the love of it must be better done than when it's forced on you."

"Imagine a crack pitcher with a grenade in his hand and the Kaiser a hundred feet away," said Billy with a grin.

"An A1 pitcher wouldn't do a thing to him!" chuckled one of the other recruits.

"Would he put over a bean ball or a fadeaway, do you think?" asked Bart.

"It would be a strike-out, whichever one he used," declared Frank. "The Kaiser would do a fadeaway."

The bomb they used was the Mills bomb which had been adopted for general use in the British army.

"Let's hope there'll be plenty of them, whatever else we're short of," remarked Bart.

"They're handy little things to have around when the Boches come over for a friendly call," observed another lad.

"If we run short we can make some ourselves," declared Frank. "They won't be quite so nifty as these Mills bombs, but they'll do the work."

"Listen to Edison talking," chaffed Billy.

"I'm not kidding," declared Frank. "I got the tip from one of the Tommys who was wounded in the Ypres fighting and is over here on leave. Hustle around some of you chaps and get me an old tin can and I'll show you what the Tommy showed to me."

"What kind of a can?" asked Billy.

"Oh, any old kind," answered Frank. "An old soup can, tomato can, any can that Eli hasn't eaten up already."

Eli was the big goat that served as the mascot of the regiment. He had an omnivorous appetite and ate anything from cigarette butts to washrags, and if anything was missing it was customary to charge it against Eli. He was not only a billygoat but a scapegoat.

A little search however brought to light an old can that Eli had spared, and the boys looked on with interest while Frank prepared his homemade bomb.

"I'll roll up my sleeves, gentlemen, to show you that I have nothing concealed there," said Frank, in his best conjurer's style. "Now watch me carefully and I'll try to instill some scientific knowledge in those thick noddles of yours."

He took a handful of clay from the edge of the trench where they had been practising and lined the inside of the can with it.

"Now for the dirty work," joked Billy.

Frank withered him with a glance.

"Get me a lot of junk," he commanded.

"That's rather indefinite," suggested Bart. "Junk shops are not a part of this regiment's equipment. Uncle Sam's had so much on his mind that he hasn't got to them yet."

"A handful of nails or bits of iron or cartridge shells will do," returned Frank, putting a detonator and explosive in the can and tamping it down in the clay. "Anything will do that will make Fritz see stars when it hits him."

Bart volunteered a broken jack knife; one lad contributed a couple of metal buttons; others handed over nails.

Frank arranged the miscellaneous collection in as compact a mass as possible, put in more clay and then put on the tin cover, into which he first punched a hole. Through this hole the top of the fuse protruded. Then he wrapped wire around the can so that the top could not come off, and the bomb was ready.

"There," he said, as he held his handiwork up for their inspection, "when that is sent over to the enemy trenches there will be something doing. It isn't much in the beauty line but it will get there just the same."

"Great head!" said Bart admiringly.

"Not mine but the fellow's who first figured it out," said Frank. "But it's a good thing to know, and you never can tell when it may come in mighty handy."

"I hear we're going to be gassed to-morrow," remarked Bart, as they made their way to their quarters.

Billy made a wry face.

"That's one of the most hideous things the Huns have brought into this war," he said. "I can imagine Satan chuckling when he heard of the gas attack."

"I don't think he chuckled," said Frank bitterly. "More likely he was jealous to have a German think of it before he did. It isn't often that he lets anyone get ahead of him."

"He'll have to step lively to keep ahead of the Huns," said Bart. "They say there's no torture equal to that suffered by a man who has been gassed."

"And even if they don't die of it after days of agony, they might better have died," added another, "for it leaves them ruined for life."

"Surgeons get hardened in carrying on their profession," commented Frank. "They have to be or they couldn't keep their nerve. But they say that even the surgeons broke down when they stood beside the beds on which the gas victims lay gasping for breath. They had never seen such horrible anguish."

"Well, there's no use expecting Germans to carry on war like a civilized nation," declared Frank. "They've thrown all decency and humanity to the winds. They've raised the flag of the skull and crossbones and want to make all the rest of the world walk the plank. They're pirates and barbarians, and there'll be no peace or security for mankind until they're punished for their crimes."

"It's a tough job that's put up to us Allies," said Bart. "A man's job. But we'll put it through, no matter what the cost may be."

"Right you are," ejaculated Frank fervently. "It wasn't only Nathan Hale who wished that he had more than one life to give for his country. There are a million Nathan Hales among Uncle Sam's boys and millions more to come."

As Bart had predicted, their squad was lined up the next day for a practical test in gas defense. They had already had preliminary drills in adjusting the masks, which had to be slipped on in six seconds. It took a long time before this stage of excellence could be reached, for some of the men were doubly slow, slow in thought and slow in action. The quicker ones had soon acquired the habit of adjusting the masks in the required time, and Frank and Bart could do it sometimes in five seconds. But the drill went on unceasingly until all acted as one man, for a single second's delay in fending off the infernal attack might mean all the difference between life and death--and such a death!

It was not a pretty sight, for the masks were hideous and the men looked like weird monsters from another planet.

"If only our friends could see us now!" murmured Bart to Frank in an undertone.

"They'd drop dead from fright," returned the latter.

"Deep sea divers have nothing on us," chimed in a third lad.

"You're insulting the divers," said Billy. "If they went down looking like this, the sharks would throw a fit."

At last the drill worked with clock-work precision, and the perspiring lieutenant wiped his brow and gave vent to a sigh of relief as he looked along the grotesque ranks.

"I guess they're ready now," he said, turning to the sergeant. "Take them down half a dozen at a time and let them get a sniff of the gas."

"_Let_ them," murmured a lad. "What a blessed privilege. Anyone would think that he was giving us a furlough for good conduct."

"Save your breath and come along," admonished Billy. "You'll need all you've got in a little while."

The squad was marched off to a little hut that stood in a distant corner of the camp. It was a crude creation with a door and only one window. Long before they got to it the boys could detect a faint acrid odor in the atmosphere.

"Now," said the sergeant halting his men at a little distance, "you fellows break ranks and come along in single file."

The single room of the hut had been filled with the same kind of gas that the Germans were using along the western front, but in greatly diluted form.

"Take off your masks," commanded the sergeant, "and go along past that window one by one. Make quick time too. I want you to learn just what the gas smells like, so that you can detect it the minute it comes near you after you get to the trenches."

The men obeyed orders, and, as they passed, each got a whiff of the gas that was escaping through a slight opening of the window. There was a gasp, a cough, a wry face and a hurried scuttling by as each man went through the ordeal.

It is needless to say that there was no disposition to linger. Even the slowest man of the squad displayed unsuspected capacity for speed.

"Look at Fatty Bates," chuckled Billy, alluding to the most ponderous member of the company. "Talk about winged heels! Mercury has nothing on him."

"It certainly got a rise out of Fatty," grinned Bart. "It's worth a dollar to see him jump. Put a gas cloud after him and I'll bet he'd do a hundred yards in ten seconds flat."

"You'll jump too when your turn comes," prophesied Frank. "You'll think the lid has been taken off of the infernal regions."

The prophecy was verified, for though there was no danger, since the gas had been vastly diluted, yet the odor was so vile and the death it suggested was so horrible that they could not get away from it quickly enough.

"It's like passing close to a rattlesnake whose fangs have been drawn," commented Frank. "You might know that he couldn't kill you, but if he struck at you you'd jump instinctively, just because he was a rattlesnake."

"Some perfume that," remarked Billy with an expression of dire disgust.

"New-mown hay--I don't think," growled Bart, sneezing as though he would shake his head loose from his shoulders. "I got a bigger dose than the rest of you slackers," he added with an air of superior virtue.

"Martyr to duty," mocked Frank. "But we're not through yet, fellows. The worst is yet to come."

"Nothing can be worse," grumbled Fatty Bates, with profound conviction.

"Oh, yes, it can," said Billy, assuming the role of Job's comforter. "We've got to go inside that Chamber of Horrors and stay there five minutes by the clock."

"Will we come out on our feet or be carried out?" asked Fatty Bates with a worried expression.

"You'll never be carried out, Fatty," chaffed Billy. "It would take the whole regiment to do that. It'll be a crane and derrick for you sure."

"We'll put a torpedo under him and blow him through the roof," added Bart.

"Now men," said the sergeant, "put on your masks and go inside, one after the other. There's no danger if you've learned to put them on perfectly. But if there's any sloppy work, the fellow that's careless will find it out soon enough, and he'll get all that's coming to him."

"Not much nourishment in that," muttered Billy under his breath. "Suppose the mask's defective, got a hole in it or something like that."

"If it is, it's better to find it out now than when we're actually in the trenches," answered Frank. "I suppose that's the real reason for this test. Here's hoping that no shoddy contractor had put one over on the government."

They filed into the grim little room after having adjusted their masks with especial care and stood crowded closely together looking in their ghostly attire like so many spectres.

It was a grisly five minutes that seemed more like an hour to each one of them. The dead silence added to the discomfort of the occasion. Death seemed to be all around them, reaching out to them with its skeleton fingers. They were in the "valley of the shadow," and it sobered them.

It was an immense relief when the knock of the sergeant on the door summoned them forth and the test was over. And there was great satisfaction when it was learned that all the masks had held and shown that they could be relied on.

Once out in the clean, sweet air and under the blue sky that never before had seemed so beautiful, the boys tore off their masks in a hurry.

"Now I feel like a respectable member of society and not like one of the Ku Klux Klan!" exclaimed Bart, as he looked around on the flushed bronzed faces of his comrades. "My, but it's good to be out of this hideous rig. I'd like to throw it into the river," he added digging his fingers viciously into the unoffending mask.

"You'll be glad enough to have it some day before long," prophesied Frank. "Then you'll count it the best friend you have."

"Isn't it pretty nearly time for mess?" asked Fatty Bates wistfully.

"Not yet, little one," remarked Billy. "The sergeant's got something else up his sleeve, or I miss my guess."

A groan went up from Fatty, which was quickly suppressed when the sergeant looked sternly at him.

"Form in single file, men," commanded the sergeant, "and make your way through the trench. Bend over as you go, for you're supposed to be on the enemy front, and not a head must show to be a mark for snipers."

They did as they were told, and after they had reached a designated portion of the shallow trench they were halted by their leader.

"You're going to be gassed right and proper now," he said. "Some gas shells are going to be thrown over toward you and it's up to you when you see them coming to get those masks on mighty quick."

Crouching low and on the alert, the men waited until a gas shell with a hiss and a scream came hurtling in their direction and broke a hundred feet in front of the trench. A cloud of gas came rolling toward them. On went their masks in the twinkling of an eye, and the vapor passed over them harmlessly.

Several times this was repeated until the keen eye of the sergeant was satisfied with the dexterity shown by the squad. And there was a general sigh of relief when he summoned them out of the trench and announced that drill was over for the morning.

"Phew, but that was some strenuous work," remarked Frank, as holding their masks in their hands the men strolled back in groups of twos and threes toward their quarters.

"I feel as though I had been drawn through a knothole," said Fatty Bates.

The thought of Fatty being drawn through a knothole was so ludicrous that it provoked a general roar.

"I guess we all feel pretty well used up," said Bart when the merriment had subsided, "but all the same it's things like this that are going to help us lick the Huns."

And so the days passed in learning the grim lessons of war, and the shadows, lengthening into evening, brought supper, perhaps some special musical entertainment, a vaudeville show, or moving pictures, sometimes only bonfires with smoking, laughing, joking crowds about them. The boys enjoyed these latter evenings most when the funny events of the day could be passed in review and enjoyed by them all.

Then, promptly at nine the bugle called for "all lights out," and the young soldiers, early as was the hour, obeyed it willingly. The strenuous days in the open air made the narrow cots in the long barracks particularly appealing.

"Did you hear that joke Jameson was telling about the Yankee soldier?" Bart asked one night, when all the rest were either asleep or on the way.

"No," said Frank, sleepily. "What was it?"

"It seems a guard challenged him," chuckled Bart, "with the regular, 'Who goes there?' and he answered, 'Aw, you wouldn't know if I told you. I've only been here a couple o' days'."

"That's all very well here," yawned Frank. "But it wouldn't go in 'No Man's Land'!"