CHAPTER X

DISQUIETING RUMORS

"Well," remarked Jimmy, as he finished the cleaning of his revolver and started toward the door of the dugout, "if those voices weren't in English I'd say the Germans had put one over on us and were raiding the trench for pie."

"Sounds something like that," admitted Bob. "What's it all about, anyhow?"

"Let's take a look," suggested Roger.

"And should it be dat some pies iss out there, maybe we could of take more as a look," put in Iggy. "Maybe a bite we could of took."

"You said something that time, Iggy!" laughed Bob.

The four Brothers stepped out into the trench. It was not one of the front line trenches, and was not in very great danger from a German bombardment.

What the Khaki Boys saw was a much perplexed company cook, a tall, lanky Western lad, trying to stand off the good-natured verbal attacks of a crowd of hungry doughboys who had just been relieved from a rather long tour in the front trenches.

"We want pie! We want pie!" they solemnly chanted, as though it were a dirge.

"An' by Gregory Josephus I tell you it's agin the regerlations!" declared Hiram Miller, the cook. "How'm I goin' to give you fellows pie, when I ain't got so much as a prune, now, to make it of? An' no flour--no nothin', in fact! You an' your pie! If you git canned Willie you ought to be thankful. Canned Willie an' beans is all the grub I've got."

At this mention of canned corned beef, generally dubbed "Willie," or "Bill," there was a groan from the lads who had just come off duty.

"Beans!" cried one. "I'm ashamed to look a bean in the eye."

"Beans don't have eyes--you're thinking of potatoes!" was a retort.

"Well, give us potatoes then, but not beans, O Cookie!"

"Make it a beef stew with plenty of gravy!" shouted a burly chap.

"Pie! Pie! We want pie!" came the grim chorus again.

"Say, you fellers'll drive me crazy!" stormed the cook, shaking his fists in the air. "There ain't no such animile as pie, gol ding it!"

"Give us pudding then!" someone suggested.

"Oh say! By Hezekiah Slifkins!" cried the cook. "If you fellers want puddin' make it yourselves! I'm through!"

Bob had a sudden inspiration. As he saw the tired, careworn faces of the lads who had just come in from a nerve-racking tour of duty, exposed to death and danger--faces which, in the ordinary course of events, were too young to have such strained looks, Bob wished he could do something to help relieve them. And, from his own experience, he knew that food would do this.

"And there is food--and food," he told himself.

The daily mess of the trench was not very elaborate--in the nature of things it could not be. And one of the great cravings of the fighters was for sweets. That is why there was such a lot of chocolate used.

"Pie! Pie! We want pie!" came the doleful chant again.

"By Theophilus Porkenheimer!" shouted the cook, "if I hear that there word agin, I'll----"

"Say," said Bob, sliding up to him, "have you any bread or crackers?"

"Yes, I've got lots of that, son. Fresh supply jest come in."

"Got any molasses and condensed milk?"

"Yep. But say, that ain't pie, nor yet puddin'."

"Maybe we can turn it into something like it," went on Bob, "if we've got any prunes in this dump----"

"Prunes! By Hezekiah Albatross!" cried the cook, "there ain't a prune nigher'n ten mile!"

"Yes there is!" asserted one of the doughboys. "The supply company in the next trench has a lot of 'em, but they're short of condensed milk. If we could make a trade----"

"Go try it!" cried Bob. "If--well, we'll make some prune slump."

"Who's 'we,' an' what's 'prune slump'?" asked the cook. "Dunno's I ever hearn tell of it."

"By 'we' I mean Jimmy, Roger, Iggy and I can make prune slump," went on Bob. "I suppose you'd call it plum duff in the navy. But you take some prunes, stew 'em, make a sort of batter of crumbled-up bread or crackers, slap in some molasses and condensed milk, and bake it in a pan. We used to have it at Camp Sterling. 'Member, Jimmy?"

"I should say so! Go to it, kiddo!"

"Here are the prunes!" cried a lad, coming back with a big bag full. "They were crazy to trade 'em for condensed milk. Trot out your cans, Cookie."

"All right. By Chesapeake Bay, maybe there'll somethin' come of this after all! Prune slump! I'll try to make it, boys, but I ain't guaranteein' nothin'. 'Twon't be pie, but mebby it'll take on a flavor of puddin'! I'll make it."

"Bully for you, Dalton, old scout, for thinking of it," said one of the lads who had demanded pie. "We're crazy for something like that. It'll be like a little bit of home."

"Or Ireland!" suggested a quiet looking lad.

Then someone started to sing a popular song. They all joined in, and the cook, with a look of relief on his face, hastened back to the rude shelter that served for a kitchen and began to prepare the prune slump.

It was a great success, and the name of Bob Dalton was long remembered among his associates who partook of the concoction, for it was just that, being, as one lad remarked, about as unknown a mixture as a beef stew. But it was good. They all voted that.

It was dark when Jimmy, Roger, Bob and Iggy went on duty up to one of the front trenches. They were on a sector where activity might break out at any moment, and there was need for great alertness.

Jimmy and Roger, assigned to one platoon, were to take turns doing sentry duty in one traverse, while Iggy and Bob were sent to another near by.

Jimmy took his place on the fire step, and there he would stand until relieved, never taking his eyes from that grim stretch of dark earth in front of him, called "No Man's Land." On the other side of it were the German trenches, and from them, at any moment, might issue the Boche fighters in a raid.

Roger crouched as comfortably as he could at Jimmy's feet, ready to transmit to the platoon officer any information which Jimmy might whisper to him, loud talking being forbidden.

The night, however, seemed destined to be quiet. Up and down, to Jimmy's right and left, stretched the narrow strip of No Man's Land. Directly in front of the American trenches was barbed wire, fantastically tangled on posts leaning every which way. In front of the German trenches was more wire, similarly twisted. This wire was to stop a sudden rush in either direction.

In the silence and darkness of the night the Khaki Boys kept watch and ward to guard against surprise. Doubtless, the same watch was kept on the German side.

Soon after going on duty Jimmy felt a fine drizzle of rain in his face. The fact was unpleasantly borne to the knowledge of the others, and there was whispered grumbling. But it had to be endured, and it was fortunate that the lads had on their trench coats.

"Pleasant--not!" said Roger in a low voice, as he sprawled in the mud at Jimmy's feet.

"Oh, it might be worse. I'm wondering what poor Schnitz is doing now." Jimmy never took his eyes off No Man's Land.

"That's so," went on Roger. "I wish we knew. Oh!" he suddenly exclaimed.

"What's the matter? See something?" asked Jimmy quickly, but not turning his head to observe the shadowy form of his chum.

"No. But I felt something! Rat as big as a fox terrier. Ugh! he nipped me on the shoe. Dirty brute!"

"Part of the gay and festive life we live," murmured Jimmy. "Well, it can't last forever, that's one consolation."

Then he became silent--he and Roger. They waited in the trench for something to happen. And it did happen, but not in their immediate neighborhood.

For suddenly, about half a mile down the trench to Jimmy's left, there was a brilliant burst of fire, and a moment later the sound of sharp firing from the German trenches was borne to the ears of the Khaki Boys.

Instantly the traverses on both sides, and far up and down the line, were in tense activity. The waiting Sammies sprang to the firing step alongside of Roger and Jimmy, and, doubtless, in the German trenches the same scenes were taking place. The din was terrific, even though, so early in the conflict, the artillery had not yet come into play.

But presently the big guns began to boom, and then it became evident that the attack of the Germans, for such it turned out to be, was against a sector some distance removed from where the Khaki Boys were on duty. They, with their companions, were held in reserve. They remained to guard the trench. After the exchange of a few shots with their unseen Hun adversaries, quiet once more settled down over that part of the lines. But a sharp engagement was going on to the left, and the next morning it was learned that the Boches had captured a number of Americans, having surprised them. It was not all clear gain, however, for several of the Huns were killed.

And when Jimmy and his chums went off duty they heard disquieting rumors to the effect that the Germans must have had information about the weakness of the line that they attacked. For it was weak, and that was the reason the raid was so successfully made.

"How did the Germans know it?" asked Roger.

"Someone on our side gave the information," said Jimmy. "At least, that's what I heard."

"You mean traitors?" gasped Bob.

"It amounts to that--yes," was Jimmy's reply.