The Brighton Boys in the Argonne Forest

DON RICHARDS received some information on the morning of October 1st that caused him a sort of real joy. This word came from an orderly sergeant sent by the lieutenant-colonel o...

PUT your guns low in the niches, instead of on top of the rocks; that keeps your heads lower. See your front sights fine and shoot low, low, low! Don’t over aim! Make every shot...

THE next ten minutes were almost a non-breathing experience for twelve good men and true; they had decided that their safety lay in at least keeping most woefully quiet. A littl...

UPON his return to duty at the new Red Cross base just south of St. Mihiel, Don Richards had been sent at once to the evacuation hospital four miles farther toward the front and...

“HERE they come, men; some of them! Drifting back,” announced Lieutenant Whitcomb, with his eye at a peep-hole in the rocks. At almost the same instant Farnham called out the sa...

“Right ahead; all the time ahead!” declared Lieutenant Whitcomb. “The Heinies are putting up a good scrap, though. This is only the first round. Say, I wish we could chin awhile...

A SUDDEN quiet, after much complaining, settled upon the occupants of the transportation _camion_; Don Richards’ quick, sharp order had been heard and the driver was seen to bac...

WITH three men on watch and eight working like beavers, silently and effectively, the two partly excavated and stone-built shelters were completed in little more than two hours....

THE young Pennsylvania mountaineer, with his eyes, followed Don until the boy disappeared among the dense bushes; then Gill turned again to his grim duty--that of keeping the lo...

“LIEUTENANT, I ain’t complainin’, I ain’t kickin’ an’ I don’t want to disobey no orders, but please let me go out an’ round up them polecats on the hill, that killed my buddy. I...

TREES and rocks. Lieutenant Whitcomb had always loved the woods and the wild places, but now, with quite a different reason, a sentiment based on a more concrete purpose, he cou...

ON the platoons went, gaining the top of the low hill that crowned the valley slope and then--suddenly the terrors of real war descended with one swift stroke and bit and tore a...

The men in each of the stone shelters gazed at their comrades not in surprise, not in question, but with returning horror at the bursting of the shell; some shuddering, others p...

“TRAPPED, eh? I was afraid something like that would occur!” Lieutenant Whitcomb exclaimed. “It’s not the first time the Heinies have vacated ground and then quietly occupied it...

WHAT could the lads do but comply with this order? The German soldiers seemed jubilant; they had merely been set to guard a prisoner who, though firmly bound, had proved himself...

“Lieutenant Richards and I feel the same way,” Herbert said, “but we want to do what is the best not only for ourselves, but for our country. If we stick here, we’ll likely stay...

NO braver deed was ever done than that undertaken by seventeen men--all that remained of a platoon--and one other, a messenger from a squad in trouble. The platoon was left with...

THE three Yanks who accosted Morgan, the messenger, on his way from the surrounded platoon were out doing scout duty for the bunch of seventeen mentioned at the beginning of the...

Captain Lowden had given orders to his men to cease advancing a little before darkness set in and to hold the ground they had gained against counter-assaults, a plan carried out...

LIEUTENANT Herbert Whitcomb stood for a long half minute watching the slowly disappearing Red Cross ambulance. The car merely crept on down the long, straight road, as though th...

THAT swift ride through France in the new Red Cross ambulance was quite devoid of any startling incidents. There were the usual bits of well traveled and rutty roads and long st...

PLUCK and perseverance are American characteristics; in all the world there are none superior. Perhaps more than to anything else the physical advancements of our country have b...

VAULTING over the stone breastwork Don ducked beneath branches and reached the doorway of the first shelter, desiring to enter cautiously. Upon the instant he grasped the situat...

BUGLES called Captain Lowden’s company together on the night of the 5th for the purpose of re-forming, a practice pretty regularly followed throughout the army when engaged in c...

CONSIDERING the numbers engaged, the severity of the defense, the difficulty of dislodging a foe entrenched with nature’s aid, and the dash, energy and destructive work of the o...