CHAPTER XVIII A RAID ON THE ENEMY

As has been seen in foregoing chapters, we were now fighting beside the French in northern France, and holding a sector in the world’s great conflict.

Infantry, artillery, machine-guns, and other branches of the service were awaiting the resumption of the great German drive, by which the enemy were hoping to obtain a victorious decision and give to their brutal government supremacy in the world.

While we recognized how serious would be our failure to ward off the impending blow, we were keen and alert for action, and proud that we had been chosen to defend this half-ruined but quaintly beautiful city.

“Where do you expect the Huns will strike us next?” I asked a staff officer of our division.

“I do not know, and can only guess it will be right on this southern line in a drive towards Paris; but, meanwhile, I think that we will do a little fighting before he begins. You know that it is the policy of our general-in-chief to keep up an incessant nibbling along their lines, not only to gain information, but to break up their combinations--disrupt their plans.”

“Yes, I suppose that it is good tactics,” I replied, “to do the things the enemy don’t want you to do; and just now they seem to be willing to be let alone.”

Shortly after this conversation our regiment, with others, began rehearsing movements that looked as though we were to cross the river.

Before daylight one morning we were marched a quarter of a mile or more up the river, where light canvas pontoons were unloaded near us, with balk (string pieces) and chess (floor covering) for a pontoon bridge. An abutment of a single timber set into the ground and secured by pegs for the five claw balks, one end of which grasped the abutment and the other the gunwale of the boat nearest to the shore. Then a section of the bridge was built on the shore, launched and swung into the river and anchored. Then, still in comparative darkness, our artillery laid down a terrible barrage, under cover of which the pontoons were anchored, balks fastened to the boats by the pontooniers, and covered with chess with inconceivable rapidity, until the bridge reached the opposite shore. Then with a rush we went over.

All this had been done with such clock-like precision that but little opposition had been met: and the crossing had been planned so well and so quickly executed, that it had been a complete surprise to the enemy.

The line of barrage fire had been so accurately laid down by our artillery that the Huns were not able to escape or to receive reinforcements. Taking advantage, however, of a fair wind, they launched a gas attack. Several of our men were overcome by its poisonous fumes before they could put on their gas masks, for it was unexpected. I was first aware of it by feeling slightly sickened, but the gas gong sounded and I adjusted my mask before being, as I thought, seriously affected.

We were over the bridge, as I have said, with a rush; and then moving up the river began a fight for the possession of the northern part of the town. It was light when our brave men hurled themselves upon the enemy, driving them from buildings, hunting them from the cellars, shelters and dugouts. It was quick, sharp and decisive fighting. The men were on edge, crying out, “Eat ’em up. Gee! we’ll get ’em!” as the sharp report of rifles and the rat, tat, tat of the machine-guns were heard above the uproar of barrage fire in our rear, and exploding shells beyond us.

The Boches, being unable to retreat or get reinforcements, hid in shell holes and cellars, or surrendered. We brought back thirty officers and men--all we could lay hands on, without remaining too long on the north side of the river. Then, obeying orders, we recrossed; the bridge was dismantled and withdrawn, and the raid was over.

Several of our men had been killed, and the wounded were being sent to the hospital. As I stood watching to see if any of my old associates in the ranks were among them, Sam Jenkins rushed up to me crying out, “Have you heard the news?”

“No,” I replied stiffly. “Salute your officers before addressing them.”

For Sam in his excitement had forgotten to salute, and I was careful, as a man promoted from the ranks must be, that my former associates did not presume on our former relations.

He saluted, and cried: “They have captured Lieutenant Nickerson!”

If I had been struck by a club I could not have been more badly hit. I grew sick and staggered.

“Who told you that?” I ejaculated hoarsely. “Where is he?”

“Under guard out here,” he said; “I’ll show you.”

I hurried forward with Sam. As I caught sight of his face I said, “Wait a minute, it may be his brother.” I watched to see if he had a disabled arm. But when I saw him put that hand to his head I knew the worst. Under guard of two of our men, there he stood with apparent unconcern, in the uniform of a captain of German infantry!

“Oh, Jot!” I cried, forgetful of everything but that here stood my former friend, so dear to me, in peril and disgrace. “How could you, Jot!” I again exclaimed; all my love and sympathy recalled by his once dear face.

He smiled calmly, with an expression that I had never seen on his face before, as if in reply to my call, and with his right hand brushed away his hair clotted with blood from a wound.

I held out my hand to him, while weak hot tears ran down my face; for though I knew of his treason, one of my lifetime idols was now shattered by the sight. Still he smiled calmly and with shameful indifference, or sarcasm, without reply in words.

One singular thing here occurred. Muddy, with his bark of greeting, came leaping and fawning on me; but, without one wag of his tail in greeting for Jot!

“Even the dog,” said Sam, sadly, “has turned against him.”

My heart was heavy with pain. Jot had not offered to take my hand. Had he been hardened in shame by his treason?

A division staff officer had come up, with others, for his questioning. There was evidently about to be a drum-head court martial.

Still preserving his outward indifference, Jot was questioned.

“What is your name?”

Turning his face with an ironical glance at me, he replied: “Adolph Von Rucker.”

“What is your rank?”

“Captain of the 21st Prussian Guards,” he replied, proudly.

“Do you know this man?” said the interrogating officer to me.

“Yes,” I replied, saluting. “It is Jonathan Nickerson, late lieutenant of Co. ---- Regt., U. S. A. Reserves,” for I thought that his masquerading could not serve him for long.

“What do you reply to that?” interrogated the examining officer.

“I make no reply,” he replied firmly, “other than that it is false; a mistake probably. Lieutenant Stark has mistaken me for my brother, who is very like me. I am Captain Adolph Von Rucker, as I have before asserted.”

“How do you identify him?” asked the officer, turning to me.

“Adolph Von Rucker, whom I met, had an arm that hung loose in his sleeve,” I answered.

“Yes,” he replied, lifting his helmet with the left hand and brushing away the clotted hair with the other; “he’s right.” Then putting both hands in front of him he called attention to the arms explaining, “One arm is two inches shorter than the other because of resection.”

“Remove your coat, Captain,” said the officer.

One sleeve of his coat was slipped from his arm,--the undergarment was rolled back disclosing the scar of a wound.

“A clever piece of surgery,” explained the prisoner. “Two inches of bone sawed away and united by a silver wire. It is a little loose. But I can use it quite handily--when I choose,” he added with a side glance at me. “I am Captain Adolph Von Rucker, as I have declared.”

Then turning again to the examining officer he spoke in his ear a few words that could not be understood by others. The officer nodded as if in assent and the prisoner was led away.

My heart rose again. I was not to see Jot shot or hanged. It was not my former friend, thank God! but Adolph Von Rucker, his half-brother.

The excitement and the reaction was apparently too much for me. I was sick and prostrated. In this condition I was attended by our surgeon, who said briefly, “It’s the gas. I have been attending similar cases since the men have recrossed the river.” Then he became preoccupied in his own professional diagnosis, as though there had never been neither a Von Rucker or a Jonathan Nickerson.

I did not recover under his treatment, but grew worse and worse under the poisonous influence of German gas. This, the surgeon told me, was often the case with a new gas which the enemy were using; that sometimes its effects were but little noticed at first and afterward became fatal!

I was under the best and most tyrannical care--a slave to the scientific theories of a doctor, and my readers know how well I loved that.

I was surprised to learn, later, that Captain Von Rucker had been seen in Colonel Burbank’s office in conversation with him and the division general. “Possibly,” suggested my informant, “he was allowed to explain his former presence within our lines in citizen dress--but!”

When I was allowed to call at the ward where my friend, Chaplain John, was confined, I met with a surprise that drove all other thoughts out of my mind. Emily Grant was a Red Cross nurse there! I was now willing to be sick for an indefinite time if I could only be in that ward; but that ward was for the wounded, and I was not supposed to be so afflicted--but I was not so sure of that.

I was placed in a ward where Dr. Rich was in charge, as a specialist in gas poison. I have no doubt that he understood my case, though other things engrossed my thoughts. I gave him a clear field for thought and speculation, while _my_ thought and attention were directed to other matters. Emily visited me each day, and expressed great sympathy with my case; in fact I appeared to be, in that hospital, no longer an individual but an “interesting case.”

We talked however, about my friend, Lieutenant Nickerson, and tried so hard to account for his desertion--besides other matters--where I did so much more thinking than talking, that Chaplain John, I think, enviously, called it a case of close-communion. Even a good man tries sometimes to be too funny, as children do.

In two weeks I was pronounced cured. I can not say I was entirely pleased to be cured so quickly; for I was becoming intensely interested in scientific nursing.