CHAPTER XXIX
DESPERATE WORK
Chester, having crept a hundred yards, hugged down into another holeand waited. The Germans who had been about now approached the glowingheap of the biplane. What they found seemed to satisfy them. At leastthey raised no alarm. The shells from the far-off trench guns, whichhad been breaking in the fields both to right and to left, begansearching about here now and scattered them. Chester moved forwardtoward the lines. And, as he moved, the shells which had been burstingin that direction, ceased.
The feel of the far-off hand of Captain O'Neill and of hissuperiors--the men who had planned this desperate venture--thrilled throughhim. Until five minutes to 10 o'clock he would be cared for, CaptainO'Neill had promised. The French artillery, opening a path through itsfire, would throw its shield around him. Simultaneously, it would beopening another path to Hal, advancing off to the right. Where all theGermans, who held that ground, burrowed below in dugouts or crept andran through the deep defiles of communication trenches, Hal and hecould go at will over the ground and so far as the shells from theFrench batteries were concerned, be perfectly safe.
Chester stole on through the blackness. Shells were breaking a hundredyards before him, behind him, off to both sides, but no shell camecloser. Now, if he remembered rightly, the shells would cease in thesquare ahead and to the left; he moved that way--and they stopped.Over the ground which he had crossed, shells were bursting again now.When he halted once more, the frightful hurricane of high explosivesswept before him, on both sides and behind--but not close to him. Sofor many minutes he advanced.
It was strange, when used to dodging shells behind his own lines andwhen accustomed to twist and turn and dive and tumble in the air toavoid the burst of anti-aircraft shrapnel, to feel shells falling likea bulwark about him. That was what they were. For the present, atleast, the shells gained for him and gave to him the sole use of thesurface of the earth there behind the German lines.
Troops were all about, of course; but all were hiding. They could notimagine anyone purposely advancing through the open there; they couldnot imagine anyone surviving if he tried it. They noticed,undoubtedly, that the fall of the French shells intermitted for amoment in this direction and that; but when any of them went out theshells burst upon them again and annihilated detachments. The ceaseand the start again of the French fire seemed merely capricious, totempt them out to destruction. Not having the pattern of the pass bywhich the two boys advanced, they could not suspect any pattern aboutit.
And now Chester no longer could trust his own memory of that pattern.He went to the bottom of a deep shell crater, and, lying upon hisstomach, he took a scrap of map from under his shirt and spread itbelow him. He took a tiny electric torch from his pocket and illuminedthe sheet dimly. A series of squares, into which that sector wasdivided, marked his path for the front--each square of the seriesnumbered in ink and designated by a time, such as 32, 24, 19, 16, 10and so, forth. They told the moment before 10 o'clock, at which, uponthe square marked, the French fire would cease, not to start againuntil the fire ceased, at the next lowest minute, upon the nextsquare. Down to five minutes to 10 o'clock they showed the safe path,after that friend and foe alike on this side of the German lines mustshift for themselves.
Chester's mind caught the pattern of the next numbered square; herepeated to himself the time intervals. He climbed up out of the shellhole and swiftly passed the next square as the shells began fallingbehind him. Had Hal, off there to the right four squares away, now, asgood luck as he? Or, was the French fire opening a path for no onethere now?
By the ceasing of the shells on this square it was 24 minutes to 10o'clock--the hour when the French forces would stream over the top.And for ten minutes, upon the square, the French fire would cease.That was because it was upon this square that Hal and Chester--ifboth survived to reach it--would meet. It was under the ground inthis numbered ten minutes to 10 o'clock--that the French were hidden,of whom Jean Brosseau had told. And as Brosseau had expected andhoped, Chester and Hal--or whichever of them survived to thissquare--were ordered to employ those people.
Chester crept forward, searching for the ruins of the house to mark thespot. There was a communication-trench some yards away to the left ofit, he remembered. He could hear them working upon it now, calling toeach other as the shells had given them a few minutes respite. Hecrept by them and came upon stones--the square stones of the walls ofa house demolished and scattered. Only one house had been at thatpoint, and, crawling carefully, he dropped into the pit of the cellar.There, in that cellar, Hal and he were to meet, if Hal yet lived.
Hal was not there; he had not been there. The heap of old charredbeams and rubbish, which covered the opening of the tunnel to theFrench hiding in the old cellar deeper and beyond, was undisturbed; heheard no sound except that of the shells and the scraping and voices ofthe Germans at work thirty yards away.
Chester flattened down upon the rubbish of the cellar; he raised ablack beam a little and thrust himself under. Feeling ahead, he foundmore rubbish, which he cleared; and then, beyond, his hand foundemptiness and the smell of earth--and the odor of people and thecloseness of foul air. But there was no sound ahead.
He crawled his length and then spoke quietly in French:
"I come for the redeeming of France," words which he had been orderedto use upon his arrival.
He got no reply from the silence ahead; so he said again:
"I am not Jean Brosseau; he sent me. I come to ask your aid."
"Aid?" a voice repeated; "aid?"
Chester lighted his little torch again, and men's faces showed beforehim.
"Quick!" one of the men said. "Get away. It's a trap!"
"The Germans have taken us," said a second voice. "We--"
His voice stopped and choked. It was stilled forever, Chester knew.He could not see--he had extinguished his light.
A revolver was fired in his face, but the bullet went over him. Hepressed to one side of the tunnel as he pushed back, and the nextbullet went into the sand where he had been. He was back under thebeams; and the Germans, choking, fired no more.
Someone pulled at his leg. Someone jerked him out and pulled himup--it was Hal.
"The people in there were taken," said Chester quietly. "They--"
"You've still got your grenades," said Hal. "I've got mine. We can doit alone, with luck!"
The Germans, working on the tunnel off to the left, yelled at eachother to jump for cover, for the French shells were coming again. Theyburst all about--except now, just ahead, where Hal and Chester wererunning. Two minutes they had to run and crawl and run again acrossthe square, three minutes for the next one. Then, again, they parted.Two squares to the left, two minutes for one, three for the next--Halwas to go; two squares to the right--for three minutes and two theFrench fire was to be remitted--Chester must travel. There were twoother small squares to be spared for five minutes to provide for helpwhich might have been gained from the refugees' dugout.
Those squares were being spared now, anyway.
But the minutes of respite for all were finishing fast.
It was five minutes to 10 o'clock and Chester, running bent over,stumbled and fell; the frightful concussion of great high explosiveshells, bursting close to him, shook and battered him. He hugged downinto a hole, and from about his neck, he drew a flat bag, which held agas mask; he adjusted it quickly. Shells were striking about him,which did not break; but from the butts of these fumes were floating.The Germans, showing in the light of the star-shells, had becomesnouted creatures in their gas helmets.
They appeared only for an instant, as, jumping up from one trench,where the shells were falling, they rushed to another deep defile.Half a score, who had shown themselves in one group, vanished; andChester was buffeted again by the shock of high explosives.
Gas and still more gas followed high explosives again.
Chester, creeping now, got, even through his
mask, smarting, searingtwinges of the gas. He was among bodies and wounded men. Their masks,when, they fell, had become torn or broken. The gas had got them.
Five minutes to 10 o'clock had passed.
CHAPTER XXX
THE ATTACK
It was three minutes to the attack or less, and the hurricane fire ofthe French artillery swept cyclonic over the German lines.
A thousand yards away, more or less, as the ground gave advantage, theFrench front-line trenches were filled with men awaiting the hour of10--two minutes off now--to go over the top.
The German batteries, behind, knew that the time was near; but justwhen it would be, in two minutes, or in ten or in an hour-they did notknow. When the fire of the French guns lifted, they did not knowwhether it would be to let the poilus assault, or whether it would beonly to trick the German infantry and machine-gun men out of theirtunnels and dugouts to meet the frightful fall of the French hurricanefire again.
But the German guns doubled their response now when the French trebledtheirs.
One minute to 10 o'clock!
Chester, lying in a shell hole with, his bag, of grenades open beforehim, felt a shock on his back. A bit of shell or shrapnel had struckhim, but he moved his arms and, except for the stinking pain, he wasall right. He choked--and instantly held his breath. A bit ofmetal, flying from somewhere, had pierced his gas mask. The tear wasright before his mouth. He thrust the fabric into his mouth and bitit, holding it tight between his lips. That patched the hole; therewas no other. He breathed again without choking.
Ten o'clock!
From over the German front-line trenches, a half mile or more forward,the storm of the French artillery fire had lifted--lifted to add tothe cyclone of shells sweeping the reserve lines. The Germanstar-shells, rising and floating and glaring constellations, spreadtheir garish light over the front, and showed the French chargingforward in the open.
They rushed onward, few falling, almost unopposed. For the Germans inthe front-line trenches--those who had not been withdrawn under thathurricane of shells-were dead or crouched down, stunned, and instupor.
The French took the advanced trenches, the second supporting, and cameon.
Now, from the "pill-boxes"--the few scattered points for machine-gunsupport which the artillery had not found--resistance came. TheFrench, though fewer, came on.
Before Chester, lying with his bag of grenades open at the edge of ashell crater, the ground suddenly opened and, a great causeway gapeddown into the earth. Where solid ground had seemed to be, men wererushing forth--German infantrymen with rifles and bayonets fixed tothe counter-attack.
Off to the right twenty yards another such gap yawned in the ground.And Chester, rising, hurled a missile from the bag he had carried.
It burst among the emerging men; he hurled another. A leap of blueflame, which flared high and blinding, followed its detonation. Hehurled at the other causeway, first halting by a bomb the out rush ofmen; and thus he marked the mouth of this second causeway the nextinstant by a sheet of blue game.
Off to the side, 200 yards, blue flames shot up and glared. Hal wasalive, that meant--at least, he had been alive a moment ago, callingshells upon himself from the French batteries, as well as attack fromthe Germans coming from the ground.
For the shells already were arriving; one burst just beside the greatcauseway and blocked it.
The shell annihilated the men rushing at Chester. He rolled over, deafand unseeing. Shells were coming true and straight. An aeroplaneappeared overhead so close down that Chester could see it plainly inthe light of the star-shells when his sight came back. Aeroplanes wereguiding the guns and dropping aerial torpedoes.
One landed in the mouth of that other causeway and blew it out ofshape, and this was the last thing which, for a long time, Chesterremembered.
When Chester opened his eyes, he lay on a bed with the whitest ofsheets. For a moment he could remember nothing, then the details ofthe great battle carve back to him.
His first thought, naturally, was of Hal. He sat up in bed. There, inanother bed in the center of what Chester now recognized as a hospitaltent, lay Hal, his head swathed in bandages.
"He's safe, anyhow," said Chester to himself.
The lad passed a hand across his head, and ascertained that his headalso was wrapped tightly, and that there were more bandages around hisbody.
"Wonder what's the matter with me?" he muttered. "I don't rememberbeing hit, and here I am all wrapped up like a baby doll. I must be inpretty bad shape."
Nevertheless, now that his mind had been eased regarding Hal's safety,Chester soon closed his eyes, again and slept.
It was late the following day that the lad was aroused by the sound ofvoices at his bedside. One voice he recognized as Hal's, the othercame to him later. It was the voice of Stubbs.
Chester opened his eyes, and gazed at the little war correspondent.The latter spoke first.
"The sleeper awakes," he said to Hal. "See, Chester thinks it's timeto get up, and I'm not a bit sure he isn't right. He's been in bed forfour days now. That's longer than I ever slept."
"I'm not so weak I can't get out of here and pull, your nose," declaredChester, sitting up.
Anthony Stubbs grinned.
"I feel pretty safe right here," he said.
"What's the matter with me, anyway?" demanded Chester. "Hello there,Hal. What's the trouble with you? You seem to be pretty well bungedup."
"Guess neither of us is going to die," said Hal with a smile. "Thedoctor tells me that we both have holes in our heads, and that we havea few pieces of shell in our legs and bodies. He says we are about theluckiest pair he ever saw."
"How long does he figure we must stay in bed;"' Chester wanted toknow.
"He said something about thirty days," said Stubbs, with another grin.
"Then he's barking up the wrong tree," Chester declared. "I don't feelexactly lovely, but I know I'm not going to stay here a month. Anybroken bones, Hal?"
"No; and neither have you, according to the doctor. He said that weshould be able to get about in a week or two."
"Well, that's a little better," Chester grumbled. "What do you mean bytelling me a month, Stubbs?"
"I didn't say he said a month," Stubbs protested. "I said the doctorsaid something about thirty days, and so he did. He said that most menwould have to lie in bed thirty days with your wounds, but that he feltyou would be able to leave the hospital sooner because of a pair ofremarkably fine constitutions."
"I think you were trying to have a little fun with me, Stubbs," Chesterdeclared.
"You know I wouldn't joke with a sick boy," said Stubbs.
"No, I don't know it, either, Stubbs; and when I get out of here, Ishall make it a point to get even with you."
"To get even?" Stubbs exploded. "You listen to me. You're even and along ways ahead right now. In fact, you're so far ahead that Icouldn't get even with you in a life time. However, when you get well,I'm going to have a try."
"You'd better not fool with me, Stubbs," said Chester. "I'm liable toget out of here right now and have a little bout with you."
"Well," said Stubbs, "I can lick you now."
Chester grinned.
"Guess you're right," he said. "Maybe I had better postpone it. Bythe way, did the attack succeed?"
"Did it?" exclaimed Stubbs enthusiastically. "I rather think it did.The French have advanced from four to five miles into the enemy'slines; and I overheard a man say if it had not been for your work inbottling up the enemy underground the French would have been surprisedand hurled back."
"Well, I'm glad we helped," said Hal simply.
"And I'll be glad when we can help some more," declared Chester. "Itwon't be long before we are up and doing again."
"I should think you had had enough," said Stubbs.
"We haven't, though," said Hal. "Now, run away, Mr. Stubbs, and comeback later. I want to take a little snooze."
&nbs
p; "Same here," said Chester.
Both made themselves as comfortable as possible under thecircumstances. And while they are taking a much-needed rest, we willbid them a brief adieu, only to meet them later on in a succeedingvolume, entitled: "THE BOY ALLIES WITH PERSHING IN FRANCE; OR, OVER THETOP WITH UNCLE SAM'S WARRIORS."
THE END
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