Chapter 8

JUST IN TIME

"Those fellows are old campaigners," commented Bart. "You can tell that by the tactics they're using. It's the old system they tried at the Marne and in the Argonne, making a rush for a few yards, throwing themselves flat, and then repeating the process until they got near enough to rush us."

"A pretty good system, too," commented Tom, "but it didn't win then and it isn't going to win now. Just watch me wing one or two of these Huns and put a crimp into their tactics."

His chance came even while he was speaking, for one of the Germans thrust his rifle out from behind a tree and fired. At the same instant, Tom's rifle cracked, and the bullet ploughed its way through the man's right shoulder. He fell with a groan and rolled out from behind his shelter on to the snow. He was an easy mark as he lay there, but Tom refrained from firing again. The man was out of the fight and as good as dead as far as any further offensive was concerned. Besides, it was no part of the American idea of war to kill a wounded foe, although it was a matter of record that it had frequently been done by the Germans.

"Good shooting, old man," commented Frank. "You haven't got out of the way of potting them."

"One less to cause us trouble," remarked Billy. "Gee, if I didn't have these prisoners to watch! I'm getting cross-eyed, trying to keep one eye on them and the other on these fellows that are trying to rush us."

"Keep both eyes on the prisoners," directed Frank, "especially on that red-beard person. He's bad medicine. We'll handle these fellows. Ah, you will, will you?"

The last exclamation was prompted by one of the Germans who tried at that moment to glide from a small tree behind which he was sheltered to a larger one that seemed to promise better protection. He moved swiftly, but Frank's bullet was swifter, and the man went down with a bullet in his thigh.

"Talk about sniping," grinned Bart. "Those fellows will wake up after a while to the fact that they've tackled a hornet's nest. Even a thick German head can take in an idea sometimes."

"Especially if it's pushed in by a bullet," added Tom.

Just then a volley came from the besiegers, and a rain of bullets buried themselves in the trees behind which the boys were crouching.

Bart gave a sharp exclamation.

"Are you hurt, Bart?" asked Frank anxiously.

"Not much, I guess," replied Bart, putting his hand to his shoulder where the cloth had been torn away. "Just ridged the flesh. It doesn't amount to anything."

There was a little blood issuing from the shoulder, but Frank was relieved on examination to find that the bullet had just grazed the flesh, breaking the skin but doing no serious damage. He put a little ointment and lint on it and held the bandage firm with a bit of adhesive plaster, though Bart declared that it was not worth bothering about.

"Here they come!" cried Tom.

The besiegers had gathered themselves for a rush, and now they came in a body toward the trees, firing as they ran.

The rifles of the Army Boys spoke, and two of their assailants went down. The rest faltered for a moment, and in that moment another of their number fell.

This seemed to dash the spirit of the attackers. They had evidently counted upon the retreat of the defenders when they saw three times their number bearing down upon them. They faltered, then broke and ran, not this time to the nearest shelters, but straight back to the place from which they had first started. The accurate shooting had given them a wholesome respect for their opponents, and their only thought was to get out of the range of those deadly rifles.

The boys might have shot more of them as they ran, but that was not in Frank's plan. All he wanted was to get them out of his path so that he could get his prisoners to camp, and he wanted to do it with as little bloodshed as possible.

"Guess they've got enough of our game," remarked Tom, as he reloaded his rifle.

"Shouldn't wonder," replied Bart. "We called their bluff. They thought we'd have a case of nerves when we saw them come rushing towards us. But we've seen those fellows' backs too often to be afraid of their faces."

The Germans continued their retreat until they had gotten to a reasonably safe distance, and then they gathered together and seemed to be consulting as to their next move.

Frank watched them keenly. Suddenly he saw a commotion in their ranks, and looking in the direction to which their faces had turned, he saw a body of men larger than the first coming over the snow.

"Another bunch of disbanded soldiers," he muttered anxiously, as he saw that the newcomers were Germans and had now quickened their steps in answer to the shouts and gestures of their first assailants. "Now we're up against it for fair."

"We didn't figure on tackling the whole German army," growled Tom.

"Our ammunition is getting low, too," remarked Bart, ruefully, as he looked at his cartridge belt. "We'll have to make every shot tell from now on."

"If the bullets give out, we'll light into them with our bayonets and gun butts," gritted Frank between his teeth. "We've started to get these prisoners to camp, and we'll get them there or die trying."

"I know what the Germans would do if they were in our place," remarked Tom. "They'd stand the prisoners in front of them, so that the other fellows would have to kill their own comrades before they could get at them."

"I know they would," agreed Frank. "They did that in Belgium even with women and little children. But we're human beings, and we don't do that sort of thing."

By this time the two bodies of men had joined, and Frank estimated that altogether they numbered more than forty.

"Ten to one," he remarked when he had finished counting, "and most of those new arrivals have guns."

"We're in for another rush," said Bart, "and this time they won't cave in as easily as they did before. The Germans are plucky enough when they fight in numbers."

The Army Boys looked carefully to their rifles and loosened their knives in their sheaths. Then by a common impulse they shook hands all around. Nothing was said, but each knew what was in the hearts of the others. They felt that they were in for a fight to the death, and with the heavy odds against them it looked as though none of them would come out alive.

But the expected rush did not come.

"Can't be that they've given it up, do you think?" asked Tom, after five minutes had passed.

"Nothing like that," replied Frank. "They're holding a big pow-wow about something."

As he spoke, a figure detached itself from the crowd and came towards them, waving a white handkerchief attached to a stick.

"The white flag!" exclaimed Frank. "They're going to invite us to surrender."

"You know what Whittlesey told them in the Argonne when they tried the same thing on the lost battalion," remarked Bart.

"We'll tell them the same thing, only a little more politely," Frank assured him with a grin.

The man approached until he was about fifty feet distant, and then stood there, waving the flag and by gestures inviting the defenders to come out and meet him.

"You're elected, Frank," laughed Billy. "Go out and let Heinie spiel his little spiel."

Frank laid aside his rifle and stepped from behind his tree. He walked directly toward the messenger, who lowered the makeshift flag and stood waiting.

"What is it that you want?" Frank asked in German, when he had come within speaking distance.

"We want you to surrender," replied the man in excellent English.

"And if we don't?" continued Frank, in his native tongue.

"Then you'll be committing suicide," answered the other promptly.

"I'm not so sure of that," replied Frank. "I suppose you'd have said that before you made your last rush. But as you see, we're not dead yet."

"That was different," replied the messenger. "You can see now that we have double the number we had before and more than double the guns. You can't possibly hold out against us."

"Maybe not," replied Frank, "but at any rate we're going to try. If you want us, you'll have to come and take us, and even then you'll only get our dead bodies, for we won't be taken alive."

He spoke with a decision that seemed to disconcert the man who stood for a moment irresolute.

"Is that your last word?" he asked.

"I have only one word," replied Frank. "You heard me. Go back and tell your comrades to come on as soon as they like. They'll find us ready for them. But I warn you now as I warned you before that our Government will get you--every last one of you. You may kill us, but you'll swing for it."

He turned to go back to his friends, but the messenger still stood there.

"Well," said Frank, turning around, "why don't you go? Got anything more to say?"

"Only this," returned the messenger. "My comrades will not insist on your surrender. But we must have the prisoners. If you give them up, you may go where you will."

"So you had that little joker in reserve, did you?" asked Frank grimly. "Well, my answer is just the same. We've got those prisoners, and we're going to keep them. We started to take them into camp, and we're going to take them there. If you get them at all, you'll get them after we're dead."

There was no mistaking the determination in his tones, and there was a look of unwilling admiration in the eyes of the messenger as he turned to depart.

"You are foolish," he said, "but you have had your chance. You and your companions are doomed."

"That may be," replied Frank, "but if we are, we'll take a lot of you along with us."

They separated and returned to their respective camps.

"Get ready now, boys, for the fight of your lives," Frank admonished his comrades, after he had told them of what had passed between him and the flag bearer.

"Let them come," said Bart. "We're good for a lot of them if our bullets hold out."

"And when they're gone, we've got our bayonets," put in Tom.

"And our knives may do some damage," added Billy, as his hand rested on the haft of his.

With every faculty alert and their eyes fixed upon their enemies, the Army Boys waited for the expected rush.

"What are they waiting for?" muttered Tom peevishly. "Are they getting cold feet? Or are they waiting for another gang of hoboes to join them before they care to tackle us?"

"It isn't that," Frank answered. "They may be planning new tactics. Their others didn't work very well."

"I believe they're going away," cried Billy, as he saw the crowd dispersing.

"Guess again," returned Frank. "They're doing what I've been afraid all along they'd try to do. They're spreading out so as to surround us on all sides. They didn't have men enough to do that at first, but they've got them now."

A few minutes more and they saw that Frank was right. The men were describing a wide circle, with the evident intention of attacking the Army Boys from all sides at once.

"That means that they'll drive us out into the open," said Frank. "We can't be on both sides of a tree at once. Half of them at least can take pot shots at us without our having any shelter."

"It's good dope from their point of view," remarked Tom. "We'd better start in to discourage it right away. They think they're out of range, but I'm going to try to prove to them that they're mistaken."

His eye ran along his rifle barrel, and after taking unusually careful aim he fired. One of the Germans threw up his hands and fell.

"A long shot, but I got him," remarked Tom with satisfaction.

"Some shot," said Bart approvingly.

The immediate result was a widening of the circle as the others tried to get back further out of range. But the circle kept forming just the same, and in a quarter of an hour it was completed.

Then it began contracting, the foe taking advantage of every hill and every tree to get nearer. Occasionally they would send over some scattering shots, but in the main they held their fire until they should get into closer quarters.

The Army Boys in the meantime had been working feverishly. The trees were no longer to be relied on, with enemies at the back as well as at the front. So they dug furiously into the snow, until they had heaped it high enough all around them to form a circular trench.

When they had finished, the top of the trench was on a level with their eyes, so that their bodies were sheltered. But they had to lift their heads above it as often as they sighted and fired their rifles, and they risked getting a bullet every time they did it.

By now the enemy was creeping closer, and there was a constant zipping of bullets around and over their heads. The boys themselves were forced to husband their fire, because of their scarcity of ammunition, and they wasted no bullets in merely returning the enemy's fire. They watched their opportunities, and wherever an arm or a head showed itself, it became a target for their rifles. Sometimes they missed, but oftener they found their mark, and they knew that they had put at least five of their enemies out of the fighting. But the odds were still enormous, and with every moment the Germans were drawing closer. Soon they would be near enough for a concerted rush from all sides at once.

"It's coming soon now, fellows," Frank warned his comrades, "and when it comes we want to jump out to meet it. We don't want to be caught in this trench like rats in a trap. When I give the word, let them have all you've got in your guns, and then we'll lay into them with our knives and bayonets."

Several minutes passed and the enemy's fire died down. Soon it ceased entirely and an ominous silence replaced the singing of the bullets.

"Have they run out of ammunition, do you think?" Bart asked of Frank.

"No such luck," was the answer. "They're getting ready for a rush. On your toes now, and listen for the word."

One, two, three minutes passed. And then came the rush.

But it was not the rush that the boys had looked for!

Out from the trees with a wild cheer came tearing a squad of the old Thirty-seventh, with Wilson at their head, and fell like an avalanche on the foe!

The Germans were taken completely by surprise. In their concentration on their expected prey they had failed to note the foe approaching from the rear. There were a few scattered shots, and then the Germans scattered and ran like so many hares in all directions.