CHAPTER IV

RECOGNITION

Naturally, after what had happened and bearing in mind the strange sight Roger and Jimmy had witnessed, there was but one thought in the minds of at least four of the Khaki Boys--Iggy was temporarily out of it. And this thought was that some disaster had overtaken the American forces above ground while much was happening to them below ground, in the dugout and tunnel. Perhaps the Germans had made a counter-attack, retaken the trenches from which they had been driven, and were now about to swarm down into the dugout, where the Khaki Boys were, to capture them.

"Don't give up!" cried Jimmy fiercely. "Stand 'em off as long as you can, and then----"

Once more he was interrupted by a voice coming from the passage leading from the dugout.

"Lively now!" was the command. "There's a bare chance we may get 'em out this way, but we've got to hurry!"

"You won't get us out alive!" said Bob fiercely, and he looked around the dugout for some way of escape. There were only two entrances--or exits--whichever one might choose to call them--the one by which the boys had emerged from the tunnel, and the other by which they hoped to leave. But this last was now blocked by an approaching party.

"Stand together, boys!" said Sergeant Jimmy in a low voice.

"Shall I douse the glim?" asked Franz.

He was about to blow out the candle when into the dugout came hurrying a squad of khaki-clad soldiers, and it needed but a glance from the Khaki Boys to show them that they were their own comrades of the 509th Infantry. Lieutenant Morrison was in charge--an officer of whom the five Brothers were very fond.

"Here they are!" cried the lieutenant. "How in the world did you boys escape? We saw the place where the big German shell struck, and we didn't think there'd be more than half of you left alive after the dugout caved in, as it must have done. Yet here you all are."

"One's missing, sir," said a corporal.

"There were five and----"

"Here I iss!" exclaimed Iggy. "Part of me is alife, anyhow!"

There was a laugh at this--a laugh that told of overstrained nerves being mercifully relieved.

"Is he badly hurt?" asked Lieutenant Morrison, as he looked at the Polish lad, his friendly guard moving away from in front of him.

"Something fell on one foot when the dugout gave way under pressure from the Hun shell," explained Roger. "I hope it isn't bad."

"Well, we'll get him to a dressing station as soon as possible," went on the young officer. "There's been a merry ruction up above, as I suppose you boys have guessed. As soon as I got things a bit straightened out, some one told me about a party being on leave down in the old German dugout, and I at once organized a rescue squad. How did you manage to escape?"

Jimmy and his chums related their experience, and, in turn, Jimmy asked:

"Have the Huns put one over on us?"

"They tried to," was the grim answer. "But I think we gave them back a little better than they sent. We've got the upper hand now, but how long we can keep it is another question. There's going to be a big fight soon."

"Good!" cried Franz, his eyes brightening. "The more the fights, and the bigger they are, the sooner the Boches will quit."

"Let us hope so!" ejaculated the lieutenant fervently. Then, as he caught sight of the revolvers in the hands of the four non-commissioned officers, he asked, with a show of surprise: "What's the game? Did you have to shoot any Huns to get out of the dugout after it collapsed?"

"Why, no, sir," answered Jimmy. "The Germans didn't break in--it was only the big shell they sent over. But you must have met them if you came along the tunnel just now."

"Met who?" Lieutenant Morrison queried.

Jimmy explained, Roger putting in a word now and then. The officer shook his head.

"We met no one," he remarked. "It's queer, too, for there doesn't seem to be any side passage from this tunnel, though there may be some we don't know about. We didn't stop to look, as a matter of fact. As soon as I heard there were some of our boys in the smashed dugout I began to plan a rescue. Some one remembered this unused tunnel and dugout, just as you remembered it, Sergeant Blaise, and this was the only way we could get in to save you. But we met no one on our way."

"That's queer," declared Jimmy.

"It is," agreed Lieutenant Morrison. "This matter must be reported to headquarters. But now let's get out of here. No telling when this place may come down about our ears."

Iggy was feeling a little better, having had the weight off his injured foot for a while, and soon they were progressing along the tunnel toward the exit. This tunnel was wider, and on the way along it the four Khaki Boys, as well as the members of the relief party, looked for side openings or shafts.

"Here's one!" exclaimed the lieutenant. "Corporal White, you take a man and go along it and see if you can find any trace of the four mentioned by Sergeant Blaise. Be on the alert. Even two of the men being in American uniforms would not guarantee anything. But this is probably how they eluded us," he said to Jimmy, nodding to indicate the passage.

A little later the party emerged from the tunnel that led into the dugout, and they were welcomed by their comrades, many of whom had thought that Jimmy and his chums had been killed, or at least badly wounded when the big German shell smashed in the top of the shelter.

Iggy was taken to a dressing station, and later it was learned that he was not as badly hurt as was at first feared. He would be back in line again within a few days, it was said.

The exploration of the side passage leading off from the tunnel amounted to little. Corporal White said he saw no trace of the four men, but he reported that there was a maze of passages leading from the one he examined, and it was possible for the four to have hidden in these, or to have made their escape along one of the dark, winding tubes of earth.

"Well, this makes the mystery all the more puzzling," said Jimmy, when he and his chums talked it over. "I certainly would like to know who those fellows were--especially the ones in uniform."

And there was a deeper mystery about it than he even dreamed of.

But little the worse from their nerve-racking experience in the collapsed dugout, Jimmy and his chums finished their period of leave and once more took their places with their comrades, ready to fight or do anything else required of them. Iggy was given a detail as orderly to a major, which made his duties light. But he was anxious to get on the firing line again.

It was early one morning--quite a zero hour, in fact, though none was set--when suddenly there began a furious firing from the German lines, removed only a short distance at this particular part of the front where the Khaki Boys were stationed.

If the German gunners hoped to take the Americans by surprise, and by a sudden and unexpected barrage pave the way for an attack, they must have been sorely disappointed. For almost at the very instant that the German pieces began their grim music there was response from Uncle Sam, and in greater volume.

But it was not to be altogether an artillery duel. The word was passed up and down the line to get ready to repel an attack in force, and Jimmy, Roger, Bob, and Franz tumbled out of their blankets, their eyes heavy with sleep, ready for the fight.

It was not long in coming, for no sooner did they have their equipment on, from gas masks at the alert position to their canteens and mess kits, than they were ordered over the top.

"Forward! Forward!" was the cry.

The American fire, at first a mere reply to the challenge of the Boche artillery, was soon changed into a protecting barrage for the thousands of doughboys who scrambled out of their trenches, and in less time than would seem possible a fierce battle was raging.

Jimmy had one glimpse of Bob, Roger, and Franz being directed off to the right, while his party was ordered to the left. So, for the time, Jimmy lost sight of his chums.

The battle was fierce and hot. In spite of the American barrage, the Germans broke through at one point, and there was hand-to-hand fighting, grim and terrible while it lasted.

Jimmy Blaise was in the thick of this. He had one vision of a big burly German charging him, his mouth wide open in a yell, and his bayonet dripping red. Then Jimmy's rifle spoke, and the German was no longer in front of the Khaki Boy, who leaped over his body to keep beside his comrades.

Sergeant Jimmy saw another Hun taking aim at Lieutenant Morrison, who was engaged with a German officer. There was no time to warn the lieutenant, and Jimmy did the next best thing. His bayonet put the Hun out of the battle for all time, and the lieutenant, who had just defeated his opponent, turned with a look that meant much to Jimmy. There was no time for words.

Guns and shells were crashing on all sides. The Germans had brought up some machine guns, and these were doing fearful execution among the Americans until the nests were located and the crews working the automatic death-dealers killed.

Sergeant Blaise led in one of these raids, and he and his comrades had swept triumphantly over the place, leaving only dead Germans to tell the tale, when Jimmy suddenly felt a great blow on his head. Instantly all became black around him, and he fell.

For one fearful moment the thought flashed through his mind that he was killed--that this was the end of it all. And then, as he landed with a thud on the ground, his senses seemed to come back to him.

His face was wet, and something seemed to cover his eyes. He put his hand to his face as he lay on the ground, a horrible fear coming to him that his eyes had been blown out.

To his great relief he found that his vision came back to him when he rubbed his hand over his eyes. And as he looked at his hand he found that it was not covered with blood, as he had feared, but with mud. A shell had exploded in a mud hole directly in front of Jimmy, and had deluged him with the mucky stuff, completely covering his face and eyes.

"But I'm hit, though," he mused, as he felt his head, and this time there was blood on his hand. But it did not seem to be an alarming amount. In fact, after the first shock, Jimmy felt as though he could get up and go on fighting. But an officer, leaping over him, sensed the situation and cried:

"Lie down where you are! Some one will come for you presently. We've got 'em on the run, but they may sweep this place with machine guns again. Lie still where you are!"

Jimmy had sense enough to obey, and presently he became aware of the fact that the firing in his immediate neighborhood was growing less. In a few minutes it seemed to die away altogether, and it was not long after that before two men came along with a stretcher.

"Here's a live one!" the leader cried, as he caught sight of Jimmy, who cautiously raised his head.

"Hurt much?" the second stretcher bearer asked.

"Don't know," was Jimmy's laconic answer. "Wait until I stand up and see."

But as soon as he tried to get on his feet he felt so weak and dizzy that he would have fallen had not one of the men caught him.

"I guess it's a first-aid station for yours, old man," was the grim comment. And Jimmy shut his eyes.

When he opened them again it was to find himself lying on a sort of table, with a doctor bending over him.

"How do you feel?" asked the surgeon.

"Oh, sort of--sort of----" remarked Jimmy weakly.

"You'll do," was the reply. "Got a nasty knock on the head, but your skull isn't damaged--just a scalp wound. We'll wash you up a bit and send you back. Here, orderly, some water and bandages."

Jimmy closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. The mere touching of the wound on his head, to wash and bandage it, was most painful, but he did not utter a sound. Then he seemed to doze off, and when again full consciousness came to him it was to open his eyes in a temporary hospital. He was lying on a cot under a screen of bushes--a camouflaged place, to prevent, if possible, the Huns from dropping bombs from airships on this oasis of mercy.

And it was while lying on the cot, feeling more comfortable now that his head was bandaged, that Jimmy saw a squad of soldiers from the signal corps passing along the road. They had been ordered to the front to establish better communications, now that the German raid had been repulsed and the Boches were being forced to retreat.

As Jimmy looked at two men in the signal squad carrying a black box, which he recognized as one containing part of a wireless outfit, Jimmy felt a queer sensation.

"Why, I know those two fellows!" he told himself, as his eyes followed the marching twain carrying the black box. "I know them, though this is only the second time I've seen them, as far as I can tell. The other time was in the dugout. Those are the two army fellows who were talking to the two civilians. And now to find them in the signal corps! What does it mean?"