CHAPTER XVII
BLOWN UP
Bob, who was cleaning some of the mud off his leggings, looked up andover at his Polish chum.
"Hey, you, come off that!" he exclaimed.
"Come off what?" asked Iggy in surprise. "I iss only sit on de ground,and unless I iss come off him--py jolly! where else could I go?" heasked.
"Oh, I didn't mean come off the earth!" exclaimed Bob, with a laugh. "Imeant stop making such gloomy predictions."
"Who is he?" asked Iggy.
"Who's who?" countered Bob.
"Dat Mr. Dixton," responded Iggy. "Does you mean Captain FrankDickerson?"
"Oh, no! No!" laughed Bob. "I mean you are not to be so gloomy-Guslike."
"Gus? Gus? Iss he a pasteboy--I mean a doughboy, too?"
"Say, if I've got to go back and explain everything I'll never get thismud off!" laughed Bob. "All I meant was don't look on the dark side ofthings. Be a little happier, and you'll make me happier. Don't think,just because Roger and Jimmy haven't showed up, that they are dead orprisoners. They may be all right."
"I have a hope so," said Iggy, but the gloomy way in which he shook hishead did not indicate that he was very sincere.
However, there was nothing that could be done about it, and Bob andIggy just had to wait. Time, however, did not hang heavily on theirhands, for there was never a moment of the day and very few moments ofthe night when there was not something to do. If it was not standingguard, doing sentry duty, digging trenches, or helping fit up dugouts,there were barbed-wire parties to become active in, listening-post dutyto go out on, and the thousand and one things that a fighting army canalways find to do.
Iggy and Bob performed their full share of all these tasks, and it wasperhaps well that they could be kept so occupied. For, in spite ofBob's seeming cheerfulness, dark forebodings as to the fate of Jimmyand Roger would come to him.
"And there's Franz, too," he told himself. "But he's been missing solong now that it's hardly possible he'll ever come back--at least,until after the war is over and prisoners are exchanged."
But Bob was to meet Franz Schnitzel sooner than he expected, and understrange circumstances.
"Well, I wonder what the next move will be," remarked Bob to a fellowsoldier one day about a week after the big advance in which Roger andJimmy had been lost sight of. Since that time there had been onlyslight engagements between patrols of the Americans and the Huns.
"Oh, there'll be more fighting," was the answer from a young soldiernamed Harry Blondell, with whom Bob had become friendly. "There's gotto be more fighting. I guess our officers are laying pipes for anotherbig scrap that'll carry us clear into Germany."
"That would be some advance!" laughed Bob. "But, at the same time, theBoches may be planning to come through our lines again."
"Well, we'll be ready for 'em," declared Harry. "I never felt better inall my life. This hard fighting and living in the mud and wet seems toagree with me."
"Glad you're fit!" declared Bob. "The Kaiser'll probably be worriedwhen he hears you're ready to take the field again against hisdivisions."
"No doubt!" chuckled Harry.
The truth of the matter was that, aside from wounds, the health of theAmerican soldiers was excellent in spite of adverse conditions due tothe climate. They could be wet to the skin day after day, and yet fewof them took colds, and many of them were delicate lads who, up to afew months before, would not have thought of going out in the rainwithout rubbers and an umbrella.
It was one evening when Bob and Iggy, together with many of theircomrades, were preparing to go on duty for their night tricks that arumor started somewhere in the trenches to the effect that a big battleimpended on the morrow.
Just who was responsible for this no one seemed to know, but soon afterthe talk circulated it was noticed that there was great activity aroundthe brigade headquarters. Messengers hurried to and fro, and severalAmerican aeroplanes were observed fluttering over the German lines.
"Well, fighting is what we're here for," said Bob to Iggy, as theystarted for the traverse where they were to be on duty about half thenight--unless an attack should come.
"Yes, it is better to have a fight and get with it through than to bewaiting all the times," said the Polish lad.
It was rather a nervous strain for many sentries that night as theystood on the firing step, gazing across No Man's Land toward thebarbed-wire entanglements of the Germans. Would the Sammies get theorder to charge across there, after a barrage had been laid down? Orwould the gray hordes leap out and try to thrust back the soldiers ofUncle Sam who were slowly but surely smashing the Hun lines? This mightbe known to the staff officers in the headquarters back of the Americanlines, or the answer might be made by the Boche generals.
So it was nervous waiting, and Bob, in common with the others, felt itas they stood on duty through the long hours of the dark night.
It was nearing three o'clock, and it would be dawn in another hour,when platoon officers began moving along the trenches, and as theypassed group after group of the Sammies the officers whispered:
"Be ready! We attack at four o'clock!"
Those who had wrist watches looked at them, the radium-illuminateddials showing the approximate time.
"An hour to wait!" mused Bob, as he answered the officer who notifiedhim. "A lot will be happening an hour from now."
And the same thought was with all of them.
"How many would be alive at this same time to-morrow night?"
Slowly the seconds and minutes ticked themselves away. Silently thesoldiers in the trenches made ready. And behind the lines preparationsto support the advance, after the way was prepared for it by shellsfrom the big guns, were going on.
Silently groups of alert men gathered behind their officers in thetraverses. The sentinels stood on the firing step, ready and waiting.Short ladders were placed here and there to facilitate the fighters ingetting out of the sunken protections.
Bob noted the illuminated minute hand of his watch creeping on towardthe XII.
"Sixty seconds more," he murmured. He glanced over toward Iggy. In thefaint dawn he could see his Polish chum standing with his rifle, readyto leap from the trench.
Then, suddenly, like a burst of thunder from a clear sky, the Americanbarrage started, and after a sufficient time had elapsed the whistlessounded.
"Over the top!"
The old, familiar, but always thrilling call. "Over the top!"
Out of the trenches leaped Bob, Iggy and their comrades. On toward theGerman lines they rushed, the half-darkness of the dawn now illuminatedwith the flashes from the big guns.
The Germans were not long in replying. They were not taken by surprise,and soon a rain of H. E. shells, as well as shrapnel, began to delugethe American positions. But through this storm of missiles the gallantlads of the 509th Infantry leaped forward. They yelled and shouted, butthey, each one, only heard his own voice, so great was the din of theguns.
"Come on! Come on!" cried Bob hoarsely.
But Iggy and his comrades needed no urging. They were rushing at theGermans like human tigers. They had heard so much and seen so much ofthe cruelty of the Huns that each time the Sammies went into battle itwas as though they were taking personal revenge on the Kaiser's troops.
Bob felt something, it was as if a great blast of air passed him. Itlifted him from the earth and hurled him back, but he managed to regainhis feet. Then came a terrible noise behind him--so far back that hewas not harmed. But that could not be said for half a score of hiscomrades. A great shell exploded in their midst, and there were morethan a score of casualties from it.
"Close call!" murmured Bob as he staggered on. He lost sight of Iggy inthe rush, but hoped the Polish lad was following closely. Then Bob hadhis hands full, for he and his immediate companions encountered someGerman machine-gun crews, and there was hard fighting before the Bocheswere killed or thrown into complete disorder.
"Forward! Forward!" was the order, and well wa
s it obeyed.
On over the German trenches went the Sammies. Now and again they wereheld up by the fierce firing of hidden weapons, and then squads wouldvolunteer to clean out these frightful nests.
Bob volunteered for this perilous work more than once, and after oneassault on a party of Huns entrenched in a ruined farmhouse Bob wasslightly wounded. But he kept on fighting, and at last the Boches cried"_Kamerad!_" That is, those did who were able.
A party started back with the prisoners--about a dozen of them--whilethe rest of Bob's companions paused a moment to rest in the farmhouse,which was pretty well battered up.
"Well, we'd better get out of here--there's work ahead for us," saidthe second lieutenant who had led the assault on the machine-gunposition. "Come along, boys!"
Just as they were leaving the house it seemed as if the very earth wasdisrupted. Bob felt himself being hurled through the air and he had avision of the building being blown apart. The next thing he realizedwas that he was falling. Then came oblivion.