Chapter 23

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.