The Khaki Boys over the Top Part 9

"Just like Jimmy Blazes," declared Roger to Bob, afterward.

It was three or four days after this that Iggy was able to leave the hospital, and take his place with his chums.

"The five Brothers are together again!" cried Jimmy, when the reunion took place. "Now let the Huns tremble!"

"By golly yes!" declared the Polish lad. "I fight can now like three soldiers, so much did they give me eats in the h.o.a.rspottle. A fine place she is--tha h.o.a.rspottle.

"But the longer we can keep out of such places as hospitals the better," remarked Jimmy. "Now then, Iggy, what is it you want most?"

"Well, Blazes, if you excuse me--but you did say you would the reward moany crack among us. No, it was not crack; he was a word--"

"Split!" suggested Bob.

"Yas. Him it was. You say you split him--that moany, Jimmy, and if I could to my mothar send what you say you give me--maybe she of need have for him now."

Jimmy looked queerly at his chums. Truth to tell he had scarcely any cash at present, and to give Iggy his share of the five thousand francs--about two hundred dollars--was out of the question.

Bob took the financial bull by the horns.

"Look here, Iggy," he said. "Jimmy has played hard luck. He had that money but--"

"Doan't tell me he is loss!" cried Iggy. "Oh, doan't tell me he is loss! I so much think of that two hundred dollars--mine fader or mine mothar never so much have at once see in all their lives. Two hundred dollar--Oh if he is loss--"

"It's only lost for a while--temporarily," said Jimmy. "I wasn't going to tell you, but Bob spilled the beans, I left the cash with Sergeant Maxwell to keep for me, and the sergeant is missing with the dough.

But as soon as I get my money from home you'll get your share--the two hundred bucks, Iggy, and so will the others."

"Nonsense! Forget it!" cried Roger. "Do you think--"

But he had a chance for no more, for at that moment came the signal that the Huns had launched a gas attack. Instantly the five Brothers, and all up and down the line the other Americans, donned their gas masks. This was but the preliminary to what turned out to be some of the fiercest fighting of that particular series of battles. The Germans followed up the gas attack with a fierce deluge of sh.e.l.ls and shrapnel, and half an hour later our heroes were under heavy fire.

"It's an attack in force!" cried a lieutenant as he hurried along the trench where the Khaki Boys were stationed. "And the word is, stand where you are! Don't give back an inch!"

His words were drowned in the roar of big guns.

CHAPTER VIII

THE OLD MILL

Silently the five Brothers, again united and ready to fight to the death, gazed at one another as they lined up in the trench. That is they were silent as regards conversation, for they could not talk with their gas masks on, and the warning given by the lieutenant--the warning and the admonition to stand fast--had been the last words he uttered before he, too, donned the protecting device. And no sooner had the five Brothers and those about them begun to breathe through the chemicals that destroyed the terrible chlorine, than over it came rolling in a deadly, yellowish cloud.

And yet it was far from silent in that hideous storm, for the very ground shook and trembled with the intensity of the gun-fire--the gun-fire not only of the Germans but the Allies as well.

It was an attack in force, and the fire was of the fiercest. Protected somewhat by the trench, in which they were, nevertheless the members of the company to which our heroes belonged sustained several casualties.

At one place a high explosive sh.e.l.l struck on the very edge of the trench, caving it in, and burying beneath tons of earth and stone the unfortunate Sammies stationed there. And the worst of it was that no adequate revenge could be taken just then--at least no revenge that was visible to the enraged comrades of the killed and wounded.

For the orders were to stay in the trenches and repel the attack at first. Later the counter-attack on the part of the Americans would take place, and then it might be that the Huns would be made to pay dearly for their work.

Jimmy looked through the grotesque goggles of his gas mask at his chums. If appearances went for anything they were on the alert and ready to jump over the top at the signal and fight to the death. But the word was delayed, for what, doubtless, were good military reasons.

There was little that could be accomplished in firing one's rifle over the top of the trench. This was all right in the case of sniping, but for a general attack the work had to be done by the artillery, big and little. Later would come the rush in the open, or the standing fast to repel the attack of the gray hordes. And then the rifle fire of the infantry would tell.

It was hard waiting--to be stuck down in what was, literally, a "mud hole," and stay there while, over one's head, shrilled and screamed the big sh.e.l.ls, that must create untold havoc, damage and death in the rear.

Fortunately, however, as was learned later, the Germans did not have the range accurately. They wasted much of their fire on unoccupied ground in the immediate rear of the American position, and it was only an occasional sh.e.l.l that landed near the trenches. So the position of our heroes was not as bad as at first they imagined.

But it seemed bad enough, and the firing from the Hun positions was intense, and as long as Jimmy, Bob and the others did not know that the Boches did not have them under accurate fire, they suffered nearly as much mentally, as though the knowledge had been positive.

For an hour or two the terrific artillery duel kept up, the Germans hoping to blast away all trenches, barbed wire entanglements and sweep away any opposing forces so that the ground wrested away might be gained back. And during this time the forces of the defenders of liberty were, in the main, inactive. There was little to be gained in rushing the enemy just yet. That time would come later.

And so under a deluge of high explosives, of shrapnel, of trench bombs and the deadly gas the five Khaki Boys and their comrades in arms suffered--physically and mentally. For a gas mask is both physical and mental torture. It is safe, and that is about the best that can be said for it. Merely to sit quietly with one on is a torture, and to work or fight in one is about the limit of human endurance.

Still the orders were to keep them on, and they were kept. But more than once Roger, Franz or Iggy would look around as though for a sight of some one in authority who would tell them to remove the hideous head-pieces.

But the Huns still kept sending over the poisonous gas from sh.e.l.ls and from the big cylinders of it they had brought up to the front lines.

And the wind was in their favor, blowing straight toward the American lines, so that the deadly yellow fumes came over in rolling clouds.

And then, somehow, word came back to the officers in charge of the big American guns that their sh.e.l.ls were having an effect on the Hun artillery. Piece after piece of the Boche batteries were silenced, and at last the Sammies began to obtain mastery of the artillery situation.

And then it was that a barrage could be laid down, and an advance attack made. But it had to be made under somewhat adverse conditions, for gas masks must be worn. And to leap from the trench, and stumble over No Man's Land, under heavy fire, and discharge one's own rifle, all the while wearing one of the canvas and rubber contraptions, was not real fighting--at least so Jimmy said afterward.

But such it had to be, and at the signal the five Brothers leaped up with their comrades and went over the top again--over the top of the trenches that had either been dug when the new position was taken and held, or over the top of some of the trenches wrested previously from the Germans.

There was no shouting and yelling, such as often and ordinarily preceded an attack over the top. One can not shout in a gas mask. But there was shouting in the hearts of the Sammies as they rushed forward to do their share in destroying the beast from the earth.

Upward and onward they rushed and then they were in the midst of the battle. And yet not exactly in the midst, for the actual conflict was rather of longer distance than that. Hand-to-hand fighting had not yet occurred. But they advanced, firing as they rushed on, not in close formation, for that offered too good a target, but separated. They would fire, rush on, drop to earth, rise again, fire and rush on. And so it went.

And then, after an hour or two, there came a sudden shift in the wind. It was presaged by a calm, so that the deadly chlorine gas rose straight up instead of being blown over the American lines. And then, with a suddenness that must have been disconcerting to the Huns, the gas was blown back in their very faces.

Without doubt such fiends as devised that form of fighting were, in a way, prepared for this, and had their gas masks ready. There were times, in the early stages of the gas war, when often whole companies of Germans would be wiped out by a sudden change in the wind, when gas was being sent over. But the Boches learned from experience.

However, whether or not the return of their own gas worked any havoc among the Germans it did one good thing; it enabled Jimmy and his chums, as well as their comrades, to remove their own oppressive head-coverings, after a certain time had elapsed.

Once they took them off, they sniffed cautiously of the air. There was none of the choking taint of the chlorine--a gas which seems to dissolve the lung tissues--the air was sweet and pure--that is, comparatively so, though it was odorous with powder fumes. But these were a perfume compared to chlorine.

"Oh, this is better!" cried Jimmy, as he breathed deep and filled his lungs naturally, for though there is everything to be said in favor of the gas mask when an attack is on, one can not breathe naturally in it.

"I should say so!" agreed Bob.

"Well, where do we go from here?" chanted Roger.

Their particular fighting contingent had been halted in a grain field.

All about them, that is up and down such a line as had been formed, the fighting was going on.

And on either side of them, and in front and behind, there was the rumble and roar and thunder of heavy guns. In the ranks of the comrades of the five Brothers there were b.l.o.o.d.y gaps. They had won their way thus far at no small sacrifice of life and limb. But, so far, our friends had escaped scatheless, though they all bore wounds, as you know.