Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line Part 1

Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line.

by Clarence Young.

CHAPTER I

THE SPY ALARM

"There's a German on the ground! Get him!"

The sun glistened on scores of polished bayonets, as st.u.r.dy figures, clad in olive drab, which matched in hue the brown of the earth, sprang from their trenches and rushed forward.

"Put some pep into it! Lively now! Get the Germans!"

There were dull thuds, and there was a ripping, tearing sound as the steel slashed its way through the tough cloth. Along the swaying line rushed the young soldiers, stabbing to right and left as they went.

Now their weapons were directed downward with deadly force, and they sank them into the forms on the ground with such energy that the earth beneath was torn and gashed, and the muzzles of the guns, to which the stabbing bayonets were attached, made deep impressions on the yielding forms.

"There's a German on the ground! Get him!"

Again the cry rang out, and again the rushing, charging line surged forward, and then there followed once more the thuds which told of the cold steel going through and through and----

Then from the center of one of the charging lines there came a laugh as a lad, having driven his keen weapon home with too much force, being unable to free it, raised on his gun a large sack stuffed with hay, the fodder bristling out of one of the gashes he had made.

"That's the stuff, Chunky! Go to it!" yelled his laughing comrades.

"If you can't get a German any other way, stick him on the end of your bayonet, bring him back to camp, and feed him to death!"

"Silence in the ranks!" cried the sergeant who was drilling the young soldiers of Camp Dixton in bayonet practice. For this is what it was, and not a charge on some Hun position; though from the fervor with which the boys went at it, and the fierce commands of their officers, a person hearing, and not seeing, might be inclined to believe that it was actual warfare.

And it was, as nearly as it could be approximated, for the sacks stuffed with hay or other yielding material, suspended on framework as is a football dummy or scattered over the ground, were called "Germans," by the drilling officers.

And, at the command: "There's a German on the ground! Get him!" it was the part of the prospective soldier to rush at the rec.u.mbent sack and stab it through and through with all his might, trying to put into the stroke all the force he would put into a similar one when he should attack the enemy.

"You got your man all right, Chunky!" observed a tall, bronzed lad, standing next to the stout youth who had used his bayonet with such force that he carried off one of the sacks as a trophy. "You must be feeling pretty strong today."

"Oh, let up, can't you, Jerry?" begged the badgered one. "The ground was soft under that sack, and I didn't think the steel would go through so far."

"Well, do that when you get on the firing line in France and it will be all right," commented another lad, on the opposite side of the one addressed as Chunky. "I wonder how much longer we're going to keep this up?"

"As you were!" came the sudden order, fairly barked out from an instructing sergeant, and the boys in the particular squad which included Ned, Bob and Jerry, of whom more later, resumed the positions they had been in before the order to charge bayonets had been given.

Chunky, or Bob Baker, to give his proper name, managed to get rid of the enc.u.mbering sack on his weapon, and marched back with the others.

They lined up at attention and waited for the usual instruction and correction that followed each charge, or other army practice.

"That was pretty good, boys," said the sergeant, as he glanced down the line, "but I'm sure you can do better. A few of you were a bit slow.

"Now sometimes it's all right to be slow, if you have plenty of time, but in this business of bayoneting Germans you won't have much time to spare, as you'll find when you get on the other side, which I hope will be soon."

There was a murmur to this same effect from all in the line.

"When you're using your bayonet, use it first, or the other chap may get ahead of you and--well, you know what will happen then," went on the sergeant significantly. "And when you pull your weapons out, do it this way," and, taking a gun from the hands of Jerry Hopkins, the sergeant ill.u.s.trated what he meant, using one of the filled sacks as an enemy.

"There wouldn't be much left of a German to send home after _he_ got through with him," commented Ned Slade, as the sergeant handed Jerry back the gun. "He surely has some poetry of motion--Sergeant Black has."

"That's the way I tried to do it," said Bob, to his chums, Ned and Jerry. "Only----"

"Only you must have been thinking you were going to leave your gun and bayonet sticking in the ground to mark the place, so you could find it the next time," interrupted Jerry with a laugh. For, the command "At Ease," having been given, the prospective soldiers were allowed to rest and indulge in talk. The sergeant was called to one side, while a lieutenant gave him some orders about further practice and instruction.

"Aw, cut it out!" begged Chunky. "Guess you forget the time you slept through first call, and had to do kitchen police for two days."

"Indeed I don't forget it!" laughed Jerry. "It isn't a thing you can forget so easily. But let it go at that. Only it did look funny, Chunky, and you'd have said so yourself if you had seen it--it certainly did look funny to see you rushing along with the sack on the end of your gun."

"Didn't you feel the weight of it?" asked Ned Slade.

"Oh, Chunky's getting so strong, since he has his three square meals a day, regular, that he doesn't mind a little extra weight," commented another lad who stood in line near the three chums.

The drilling sergeant turned to his men again, and once more sent them through the bayonet charge. Then came other drills of various sorts, designed to make the young soldiers st.u.r.dy and strong, to fit them for the strenuous times that loomed ahead in France--times to try men's souls and bodies. But to these times the lads looked forward eagerly, anxious for the days to come when they could go "over there."

"Whew!" whispered Bob to Jerry and Ned, between whom he stood as they marched across the parade ground. "If this keeps up much longer I'm going to be a wreck!"

"Oh, some chow will set you up all right," commented Ned.

"Oh, say that again!" sighed the stout lad. "Them words fill me with mad desire!"

"Yes, and you'll fill the guardhouse if you don't stop talking so loud in the ranks," warned a lad behind Bob. "Cut it out. The lieutenant is looking this way," he added, speaking from the corner of his mouth so the motion of his lips would not be observed.

Rapidly the young soldiers marched across the gra.s.s-grown parade ground, in orderly array, in the last of the drills that morning. The company to which Ned, Bob and Jerry belonged were drawn up near their barracks, and Captain Theodore Martin, after a glance over the two trim lines, turned the dismissing of the group over to the first lieutenant.

The breechblocks of the guns were opened, clicked shut again, and then came the welcome words:

"Comp _sissed_!"

That is what the lieutenant snapped out. But what he really meant, and what the members of it understood, was:

"Company dismissed!"

Ned, Bob and Jerry, with sighs of relief, which were echoed by their comrades, turned to stack their rifles and then prepared for "chow,"

or, in this case, the dinner mess.

As the three chums were heading in the direction of the mess hall where, every day, two hundred or more hungry lads and men were fed, they saw some members of their company turn and run in a different direction.

"h.e.l.lo! what's up?" asked Jerry Hopkins, coming to a halt.

"Matter where?" inquired Ned.

"Over that way," and Jerry pointed. "Either somebody is hurt, or there's a riot."

"Let's go!" cried Ned.