Chapter 4

BETWEEN THE LINES

The Army boys looked at each other in blank inquiry, but the corporal did not offer to enlighten them, and they were too good soldiers to ask questions when orders were given.

"What do you suppose is in the wind now?" asked Bart, as they made their way to their sleeping quarters.

"Search me," replied Frank.

"Aeroplanes," chirped Billy.

Bart made a thrust at him which Billy dodged.

"I guess we're picked for a scouting party," remarked Tom. "The captain may want to confirm some of the information he's getting from those chaps."

"Information!" snorted Bart. "More likely misinformation. Those fellows struck me as being dandy liars."

"They wouldn't be Huns if they weren't," remarked Billy. "You know Baron Munchausen came from over the Rhine, so they come rightly by their talent in that line. But what's the matter with Tony here?" he added, as they passed by one of the field kitchens in a protected nook, where one of the bakers was kneading away desperately at some dough and muttering volubly to himself.

"He seems all riled up about something, for a fact," commented Frank.

"What's the matter, Tony?" inquired Bart of the perspiring baker, an Italian who had spent some years in the United States and who was generally liked by the boys of the old Thirty-seventh because of his customary good nature and his skill in compounding their favorite dishes.

Tony looked up in despair.

"I can't maka de dough," he complained. "I worka more dan hour. It lika de sand. It getta my goat."

The boys laughed at his woe-begone face.

"Put some more water with it," suggested Billy at a venture.

Tony looked at him with such a glare of contempt that the amateur baker wilted.

"I usa de water!" he exclaimed. "Plent water! No maka de stick."

"It looks all right," remarked Frank, as he picked up some of the substance on the kneading board and let it dribble through his fingers, "but as Tony says, it's like so much sand."

"And it tastes queer," said Billy, putting a bit of it on his tongue.

"Looks as though some of the food profiteers were trying to put something over on us," observed Tom.

Just then one of the commissary men came along, evidently looking for something.

"There's a bag of trench foot powder missing," he said. "Have any of you chaps seen anything of it?"

"Not guilty," returned Bart. "Though the way my feet feel it wouldn't do them a bit of harm to have some of that powder on them right now."

A sudden light dawned upon Frank.

"Say, Tony!" he exclaimed, "let's see the bag you got that flour from."

Tony complied and brought forth from one of his receptacles a large paper bag which was two thirds full.

Frank seized it and turned it around to see what was stamped on the other side. Then he almost dropped the bag in a wild fit of hilarity.

"No wonder Tony couldn't make his dough!" he exclaimed, when he could speak. "Some chump in the supply department has handed him out a bag of foot powder when he asked for flour."

He showed the others the marking on the bag, and their merriment equaled his own, while Tony alternately glowered and grinned. He had begun to think that somebody had cast on him the "evil eye," so dreaded by his countrymen, and he was relieved to find that his plight was due to natural causes. Yet the thought of all that wasted effort stirred him to resentment.

"That's one on you, Tony, old boy!" chuckled Billy, with a poke in the ribs.

"It's lucky the dough wouldn't stick," laughed Frank. "There wouldn't have been much nourishment in that kind of bread."

"Dat guy a bonehead," asserted Tony, as he scraped his board with vigor. "A vera beeg bonehead."

The boys assented and passed on laughing.

"And now for grub!" exclaimed Billy. "Oh, boy, maybe it won't taste good!"

"I guess we've earned our breakfast, all right," said Bart.

"I can stand a whole lot of filling up," observed Tom. "Talk about exercise before breakfast to get you an appetite. We've sure had enough of it this morning."

"I never ran so fast in my life," declared Billy. "A Marathon runner would have had nothing on me."

"We must have covered the space between those trenches in about twenty seconds," agreed Bart.

"Well, as long as we weren't running in the wrong direction it was all right," grinned Tom.

"The Boches haven't seen our backs yet, and here's hoping it will be some time before they'll have that treat," said Frank with a laugh.

They ate like famished wolves and then threw themselves on their bunks to get a long sleep in preparation for the strenuous night that lay before them. And so used had they already become to roaring of cannon and whining of bullets and shrieking of shells, that, although the din was almost incessant all through that day, it bothered them not at all.

It was nearly dusk when the corporal passed along, giving them a shake that roused them from their slumbers and brought them out of their bunks in a hurry.

"Time to get up, boys," said the corporal. "Not that we're going to start out right away. But we've got quite a job before us and I want you to have plenty of time to think over your instructions and have them sink in."

They dressed quickly and after a hearty supper reported to Wilson at their company headquarters.

They found the corporal grave and preoccupied.

"As I suppose you fellows have already guessed," he began, "we're going to-night on a scouting party. We're to find out the condition of the wire in front of that third trench that the Huns still hold, and we want to get more exact information about the location of the enemy's machine guns. Anything else we find out will be welcome, but those are the main things.

"It's going to be pretty risky work," he continued. "Not but what there's always plenty of risk about a job of this kind, but to-night there's more than usual. The fierce fighting to-day has got the enemy all stirred up and he'll be on the alert. Likely enough he'll have scouting parties of his own out, and we may run across them in the dark. Then it will be a question of who is the quicker with knife or bayonet. Now you boys scatter and get your crawling suits and hoods and masks, and we'll be ready for business.

"I can see that there'll be no monotony in our young lives to-night," observed Frank to Bart, as they obeyed instructions.

"Not that you can notice," agreed Bart. "The corp has quite a little program marked out for us."

"So it seems."

"And No Man's Land is going to be a little rougher land to-night than it ever was before," predicted Tom. "That mine explosion hasn't done a thing to it."

"All the better," chimed in Billy. "There'll be better places to hide in when Fritz throws up his star shells. But let's get a hustle on or the corp will be after us."

They got into their "crawling suits," so named because they were used only on scouting duty, when it was necessary to move over the earth on their stomachs or at best on hands and knees. They were a dead black in color, and in addition to the suit itself comprised a black mask and hood. The hood was loose and shapeless, so as to avoid the sharp outline that would have been afforded if it were tight-fitting.

Dressed in this fashion and lying prone and motionless on the ground whenever a star shell threw its greenish radiance over the field, the scouts were reasonably safe from detection and sniping. They would seem, if seen at all, to be just so many more objects added to the hundreds that littered up the ground between the two armies.

Since they had been in France, the boys had had special training in scouting duty, and the one thing that had been drilled into them perhaps more than anything else was the necessity for "playing dead," as Tom expressed it. One of their exercises compelled them to lie on the ground absolutely motionless for an hour. Not even a muscle could twitch without bringing a reprimand from their keen-eyed instructor. Another part of the drill made them take half an hour merely to rise to their feet from a prostrate position, each move in the process being marked by the utmost caution. It was hard drill, but necessary, and in time the boys had gained a control over their muscles that would have done credit to an Apache Indian.

In a few minutes they were fully arrayed in their crawling suits and reported to Corporal Wilson. He looked them over carefully and noted with satisfaction that nothing that was essential to the success of their night foray was lacking.

"With a fair share of luck we'll bring home the bacon," he remarked, as he led the way from the trench.

At the start there was no special caution necessary, as would have been the case the day before. For the two trenches in front of them that had been occupied by the enemy were now in the possession of the United States troops.

All that day, since the mine explosion had given the signal for attack and storm, the Germans who had been driven from their first two lines of trenches had made desperate efforts to get them back. There had been fierce counter attacks, many times repeated, but through them all the Americans had stood like a rock and thrown the enemy back without yielding a foot of the conquered ground.

At nightfall the enemy had ceased his infantry attacks, although the big guns on both sides, like angry mastiffs, kept growling at each other.

"It's been a great day for our fellows," exulted Frank, as they picked their way through the welter of debris that bore testimony to the violence of the fighting.

"It sure has," agreed Bart.

"We've got there with both feet," remarked Tom.

"And in both trenches," chimed in Billy.

"Yes," said Frank. "I'm glad we didn't stop at the first one. The mine caught the Boches napping there and stood them on their heads. But in the second it was an out and out stand up fight, man to man, and we licked them."

"And licked them good," asserted Billy. "I guess they won't do any more sneering at the Yankees after this day's work."

They passed the place where Bart had so nearly met his death through the treacherous attack of his captive.

"Here's where you nearly went West," remarked Tom.

"Don't talk of it," objected Bart with a grimace. "It makes the chills creep over me to think of it. I could stand being knifed in a square fight, but I'd hate to get it the way that fellow meant that I should."

"One of the Frenchmen was telling me of something like that that happened at Verdun," said Frank. 'Two Frenchmen were carrying a wounded German officer on a stretcher to the hospital. The officer got out his revolver and shot the first stretcher bearer dead."

"That's gratitude for you," remarked Bart. "Something like another German in a hospital, who pretended he wanted to shake hands with the Red Cross nurse who was tending him, and then with a sudden snap broke her wrist."

"You hear it said sometimes," said Billy, "that 'the only good Indian is a dead Indian.' That's always sounded a little tough on poor Lo. But if the Huns keep on the way they are going, it won't be long before all the world will be saying that the only good German is a dead one."

"I'm beginning to say it already," replied Tom.

They passed stretcher bearers carrying away the wounded, and burial parties engaged in a business still more sad. There was plenty for them to do, for death and wounds had come to many that day, which had been the most strenuous for the United States troops since they had come to the fighting line.

That many of their regiment had fallen and still more been wounded the boys knew well, although the full toll of their losses would not be known until the next day. But the enemy had lost still more, and a large number of prisoners were in American hands. They had taken two trenches on a wide front, and that night American boys were eating their suppers in the dugouts where Germans had breakfasted in the morning. It had been a dashing attack with a successful result, and Uncle Sam had reason to be proud of his nephews.

"One more step on the road to the Rhine," exulted Frank, voicing the thought that stirred them all.

"Right you are," replied Bart "It's a long, long road, but we'll get there."

"Do you remember what old Peterson said just before we left for France?" queried Tom. "'The United States has put her hand to the plow and she won't turn back.'"

"Good old Peterson!" remarked Billy. "He was a dandy scrapper himself in the old days when he wore the blue. I'll bet he's rooting for us every day."

"Sure he is," agreed Frank. "Everybody in the old firm is."

"Reddy's rooting the hardest of them all," laughed Bart, referring to the red-headed office boy. "Do you remember how excited the little rascal got when the old Thirty-seventh went past? He almost tumbled out of the window. And how he cheered!"

"He's got the right stuff in him," said Tom. "Do you know, I shouldn't be a bit surprised to see that kid turn up here some time."

"You're dreaming," replied Bart.

"You wait and see," prophesied Tom. "When any one wants a thing hard enough he usually gets it. He'll ship as cabin boy or something of the kind and some day, when we're least expecting it, Reddy will pop up here. Watch my hunch."

"How scared the Huns would be if they knew that Reddy was coming to clean them up," mocked Tom.

"He might account for some of them at that," remarked Billy. "A bullet from Reddy's gun would go as fast and hit as hard as any other. You know what David did to Goliath."

By this time they had passed the second captured trench and were facing the enemy's trench about three hundred yards away. Their talk ceased or died down to whispers.

Before them stretched the desolate waste of No Man's Land, pitted with shell holes, blasted and seared by the pitiless storm of fire that had swept it all that day.

Once it had been fertile and beautiful. Now it was withered and hideous. It was a grim commentary on the war that had been as ruthless toward nature as it had been toward man.

"Now, boys," said the corporal in a low voice, "you know what we've got to do. Keep together as much as you can and--Drop!"

The last command came out like a shot, and was caused by a star shell that rose from the opposing trench and burst in a flood of greenish light.

Had they been standing, it would have revealed them clearly, but at their leader's word they had dropped instantly to the ground, where they lay motionless until the light died away.

Then they rose and like so many shadows moved cautiously forward, with a motion more like drifting than walking, their ears alert, their eyes strained, their hearts beating fast with excitement.