Army Boys in France Part 10

"Yes," replied Fred, as a reminiscent look came into his eyes. "Of course that d.i.n.ky little war in the Philippines wasn't to be compared with this, but there was lots of savage fighting just the same. More than once I've been within an ace of losing the number of my mess."

"What's the tightest place you were ever in?" asked Bart.

"The thing I remember most was a sc.r.a.p we had with the Moros," replied Fred. "That was pretty hot while it lasted.

"You see," he went on, "those fellows had been acting nasty and had given a good deal of trouble to one of our outposts. So our lieutenant was ordered to take a detachment in a launch and go up a little river that led to a settlement of theirs and give them a lesson.

"We landed at the nearest point and had about five miles of jungle to go through before we could get to their village. We did our best to make it a surprise, but in some way they got wind of our coming and lay in ambush. We were picking our way in single file when suddenly there came a rain of bullets and several of our men went down. The rest of us took to cover and the fight was on.

"The Moros you know are Mohammedans, and about as nifty fighters as you can find anywhere. Like all men of their religion, they believe that any one who dies on the battlefield goes straight to Paradise, and that gives them an absolute contempt for death. They were well armed too with Mauser rifles that they'd managed to get hold of somehow, but luckily for us they hadn't learned to handle them well and most of their shots went wild. If their shooting had been as good as their hearts were stout, they might have wiped us out, as they outnumbered us two or three to one.

"Has anybody got the makin's?" he inquired, as he stopped to roll a cigarette.

"Give them to him, somebody," said Bart exasperatedly.

"For the love of Mike don't keep him waiting!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Frank. "I want to hear how Fred got out of it."

Fred, not a bit averse to the interest he had aroused, was tantalizingly slow in taking his time.

"Keep your hair on," he drawled, as he struck a match. "I got through all right, or I wouldn't be chinning to you now.

"Well," he resumed after a preliminary puff, "we kept picking them off whenever a head showed itself until they found that we could outplay them at that game, and then they resorted to other tactics. Throwing aside their guns and grasping their machettes--those murderous knives of theirs that will cut a man's head off with a single blow--they came charging down upon us. We didn't propose to stand on the defensive, and after a vast volley that swept a lot of them away we fixed bayonets and rushed to meet them."

The group that had by this time gathered about Fred drew a little closer.

"It was touch and go for a few minutes," continued Fred, "but our weight and discipline told, and soon we were pushing them back. Just then however I stumbled over a root and fell to the ground, striking my head and stunning myself. At that same moment the Moros were reinforced and came back with a wild rush that by sheer weight of numbers forced our line back for twenty-five feet or more.

"I was trying to get to my feet when four or five of the nearest Moros, brandishing their knives, swooped down upon me. It would have been all over with me, if one of our fellows, a big fighting Irishman named Hennessy, hadn't come plunging through the crowd swinging his rifle round his head like a flail. They went down like bullocks. .h.i.t with an axe. They simply couldn't get inside the circle made by that gun and by the time he had knocked down a half dozen or more, our boys had rallied and had the beggars on the run."

"Phew, but that was a close shave!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Frank.

"Close is right," agreed Fred. "I'd certainly have cashed in right then and there if it hadn't been for Hennessy. I told him that he had saved my life and that I owed him more than I could ever repay, but he wouldn't have it so. The joke of it was that I think he was really grateful to me for giving him a chance for such a lovely sc.r.a.p. He told me that he hadn't enjoyed himself so much since the last time he had gone to the fair at Tipperary."

There was a general laugh.

"If it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't have had your chance now to get a hack at the Huns," remarked Bart.

"No," a.s.sented Fred, "and that would certainly have been hard luck.

But to get back where we started from, I want to put it up to you fellows that what the Frenchman said was true. We can't take this practice too seriously. Especially bayonet practice. We've had lots of proof that the Germans don't like cold steel. They're brave enough, but the French and English put it all over them in bayonet work."

"That's right," agreed Frank, "and it's up to us to show that Uncle Sam's boys can do the same."

The hand grenade throwing was of special interest to the boys and was the one most readily mastered. This was due chiefly to the fact that it had points in common with baseball. Many of the boys were proficient in the great national game.

The firm of Moore and Thomas had maintained its own nine, and in the season before they had carried off the championship of the commercial teams in Camport. Frank had officiated in the pitcher's box and had an a.s.sortment of curves and drops together with great speed that had been the chief factors in the winning of the pennant. Bart had "dug them out of the dirt" at first base.

Billy Waldon, too, had been as quick as lightning in "winging them down" from short.

So that their throwing arms were fully developed and they took up this new and grimmer game with the skill born of long practice.

"This ought to be nuts for us when we get to the trenches," remarked Billy, as he cut loose with a grenade in practice that landed within two feet of the object aimed at.

"It sure gives us a big advantage over the Germans," a.s.sented Frank.

"Of course they're drilled in throwing, but by the time they've started in with it their muscles must seem strange to it. We've been throwing a ball around ever since we were kids. It's in the blood. Our eyes and arms have learned to work together. And then, too, a thing you've learned to do from the love of it must be better done than when it's forced on you."

"Imagine a crack pitcher with a grenade in his hand and the Kaiser a hundred feet away," said Billy with a grin.

"An A1 pitcher wouldn't do a thing to him!" chuckled one of the other recruits.

"Would he put over a bean ball or a fadeaway, do you think?" asked Bart.

"It would be a strike-out, whichever one he used," declared Frank.

"The Kaiser would do a fadeaway."

The bomb they used was the Mills bomb which had been adopted for general use in the British army.

"Let's hope there'll be plenty of them, whatever else we're short of,"

remarked Bart.

"They're handy little things to have around when the Boches come over for a friendly call," observed another lad.

"If we run short we can make some ourselves," declared Frank. "They won't be quite so nifty as these Mills bombs, but they'll do the work."

"Listen to Edison talking," chaffed Billy.

"I'm not kidding," declared Frank. "I got the tip from one of the Tommys who was wounded in the Ypres fighting and is over here on leave.

Hustle around some of you chaps and get me an old tin can and I'll show you what the Tommy showed to me."

"What kind of a can?" asked Billy.

"Oh, any old kind," answered Frank. "An old soup can, tomato can, any can that Eli hasn't eaten up already."

Eli was the big goat that served as the mascot of the regiment. He had an omnivorous appet.i.te and ate anything from cigarette b.u.t.ts to washrags, and if anything was missing it was customary to charge it against Eli. He was not only a billygoat but a scapegoat.

A little search however brought to light an old can that Eli had spared, and the boys looked on with interest while Frank prepared his homemade bomb.

"I'll roll up my sleeves, gentlemen, to show you that I have nothing concealed there," said Frank, in his best conjurer's style. "Now watch me carefully and I'll try to instill some scientific knowledge in those thick noddles of yours."

He took a handful of clay from the edge of the trench where they had been practising and lined the inside of the can with it.

"Now for the dirty work," joked Billy.

Frank withered him with a glance.

"Get me a lot of junk," he commanded.

"That's rather indefinite," suggested Bart. "Junk shops are not a part of this regiment's equipment. Uncle Sam's had so much on his mind that he hasn't got to them yet."

"A handful of nails or bits of iron or cartridge sh.e.l.ls will do,"