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Title: The Khaki Boys at the Front; or, Shoulder to Shoulder in the Trenches

Author: Josephine Chase

Release date: April 6, 2015 [eBook #48653]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Sankar viswanathan, David Edwards, and the
        Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
        (This file was produced from images generously made
        available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KHAKI BOYS AT THE FRONT; OR, SHOULDER TO SHOULDER IN THE TRENCHES ***




Produced by Sankar viswanathan, David Edwards, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive)







     [Illustration: SAMMY MACHINE GUNS AND RIFLES MOWED THEM DOWN.
              _The Khaki Boys at the Front._ _Page 127_]




                            THE KHAKI BOYS
                             AT THE FRONT
                                  OR
                _Shoulder to Shoulder in the Trenches_


                                  By

                          CAPT. GORDON BATES

              Author of "The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling"
                   "The Khaki Boys on the Way," etc.



                             _ILLUSTRATED_



                               NEW YORK

                        CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY




                          COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY
                        CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

       *       *       *       *       *

                      THE KHAKI BOYS AT THE FRONT




CONTENTS


          CHAPTER                      PAGE

     I A JOYFUL REUNION                 1

    II MEETING COUSIN EMILE            10

   III TRAILED                         20

    IV AN UNSEEN FOE                   27

     V A WILD GOOSE CHASE              32

    VI THE UNFORESEEN                  38

   VII "AT HOME"                       45

  VIII A BOCHE TESTIMONIAL             51

    IX ON THE MARCH                    59

     X THE LAST LAP                    68

    XI IN THE FIRE TRENCH              75

   XII GETTING USED TO IT              85

  XIII UNDER FIRE                      94

   XIV DETAILED TO SCOUTING DUTY      104

    XV OUT IN NO MAN'S LAND           114

   XVI FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED        122

   XVII MISSING: A BROTHER            128

  XVIII "IT'S A GREAT LIFE"           139

    XIX OUT OF THE AIR                144

     XX THE RETURN OF COUSIN EMILE    155

    XXI UP ABOVE THE CLOUDS           167

   XXII THE UNSPEAKABLE CRIME         178

  XXIII LOYAL UNTO DEATH              188

   XXIV WAITING FOR ZERO HOUR         197

       *       *       *       *       *




THE KHAKI BOYS AT THE FRONT




CHAPTER I

A JOYFUL REUNION


"I suppose we might as well be hiking along," announced Roger Barlow
regretfully, as he consulted his watch. "We've lots of time yet, but
we'd better be early than late back to camp. We are strangers in a
strange land and we've quite a long way to go."

"I'm satisfied to go. I came up here to see Paris and I've seen it.
That is, a scrap of it. I guess it would take a long while to get
really wise to it. I sure would like to use up a little time poking
around _la belle_ Paree. My, but this hash house is a dead place,
though! Nobody alive here but us."

Bob Dalton glanced disapprovingly about the unassuming little café
in which he and his four Brothers had elected to dine. Its hushed
atmosphere oppressed him.

"Oh, Paris is altogether different from what it used to be," informed
Sergeant Jimmy Blaise. "It's lost a lot of pep since this war began.
Can you wonder?"

"It's lost more than pep," cut in Franz Schnitzel. "It's lost a whole
lot of its best citizens. Almost every woman one sees is dressed in
black. That tells its own story."

"So think I no many Franche solder more," sighed Ignace Pulinski. "Mos'
is died."

"Oh, there are probably a dozen or two left," was Bob's cheering
reassurance. "I guess they need the Khaki Boys over here all right
enough, though."

"I wish we'd get orders to move on," grumbled Jimmy. "I'm dying to take
a ride in one of those 'Eight Horses' affairs--not."

"We've been in training here longer than I expected." This from Roger.
"I guess we needed it. When the war began, before the U. S. got into
it, they used to rush the Tommies to the front pretty fast. They got
about ten days' or two weeks' training and that was all."

"The war game's been systematized a lot since then," commented Bob. "We
have fared better than those fellows did. They had to put up with most
any old thing. So far we've led a peaceful, happy life over here."

Several weeks had passed since those of the Khaki Boys who had come
safely through the disastrous sinking of the _Columbia_ had been landed
"somewhere in France."

Readers who have followed the fortunes of the quintet of Khaki Boys,
known among themselves as the five Brothers, will at once remember them
as old friends. What happened to these young soldiers during the period
in which they were in training at an American cantonment has already
been set down in "THE KHAKI BOYS AT CAMP STERLING."

It was while on the way to Camp Sterling that Jimmy Blaise, Roger
Barlow, Bob Dalton and Ignace Pulinski met and instantly became
friendly. From being merely friendly they soon grew to be bunkies,
loyal to one another through thick and thin.

Later they took into their little circle a young German-American, Franz
Schnitzel, who had had the misfortune to be entirely misunderstood by
his comrades. Suspected of being in sympathy with Germany, Schnitzel
was accused of poisoning a number of men in his own barracks.

Due to the untiring efforts of the four Brothers, his innocence was
proven, and his good name restored. Afterward Schnitzel himself was
responsible for bringing the real poisoner, a German spy, Johann
Freidrich, to justice.

Their fortunes firmly linked to Schnitzel's by trouble, he had become
a real brother to the four Khaki Boys, who decided that thereafter they
would call themselves the five Brothers.

After an exhaustive course of training at Camp Sterling, the five
Brothers had been sent with a large detachment of their comrades to
Camp Marvin, a southern cantonment. While at this camp they met with at
least one exciting adventure, which was the forerunner of a series of
amazing events.

In "THE KHAKI BOYS ON THE WAY" will be found the details of
that adventure, which had to do with an attempt made by an unknown man
to blow up a bridge near the camp. Readers of this story will recall
Jimmy Blaise's fight with the miscreant under the bridge, and his
narrow escape from death.

This narrative also contains a full account of the Khaki Boys' journey
to the seacoast, where they boarded a transport for France, and of the
hazardous voyage over, which ended in the torpedoing, by a U-boat, of
their transport the _Columbia_.

Though many of their comrades perished at sea, the five Brothers were
spared. Briefly separated by the catastrophe, they were re-united in
Ireland. From there they had gone on to a rest camp in England, from
which, re-uniformed and re-equipped, they had at last set sail across
the channel for France.

Landed in France, they had gone directly to a training camp, there to
receive the final necessary instruction which would fully prepare them
for the strenuous life of the trenches.

Since arriving in the French town where a concentration camp had been
established, they had been kept constantly busy learning new things
about trench warfare.

At Camp Sterling and Camp Marvin they had undergone considerable
instruction along this line. Compared to the experience they were daily
gaining, their past training seemed a trifle rudimentary to the Khaki
Boys.

Under the competent direction of French officers who had seen service
at the front, the Khaki Boys were rapidly acquiring fresh knowledge
concerning bomb-throwing, reconnoitering, listening posts, methods in
attack and defense, wiring parties, mass formation, and the proper
procedure for poison gas attacks.

They had learned to construct and repair barbed wire entanglements.
They had now become familiar with the intricate inner construction of
the trenches. They knew how best to shelter themselves when in these
trenches. They had learned trench cooking and sanitation, and were now
beginning to feel that they were really ready to live at the front.

Their camp being situated in a village not many miles from Paris, the
five Brothers had been most eager to spend a few hours in the beautiful
city. Although they had seen much to interest them since coming to
France, their minds were set on seeing Paris.

For one reason or another, however, they had put off the trip until
Roger had declared that if they didn't "make a break" at seeing Paris
soon, they were not likely to see it until the end of the war, if ever.

The upshot of the matter was a concerted request for passes on the
part of the five Sammies. Mid-afternoon of a cold, though gloriously
sunshiny day, saw them invading the city they had so earnestly wished
to visit. Strangers in a strange land, they had, nevertheless, hugely
enjoyed poking about the French metropolis, constantly drawing
comparisons between it and their own "big town" in America.

Long familiar with the French language, it fell to Jimmy to do most of
the talking. For once Bob did not take the lead in this respect. Both
he and Roger were able to carry on a halting conversation in French and
that was about all. Schnitzel knew even less of it than they, while
Ignace had added but little to the "six word by Franche," of which he
had earlier admitted as being his entire French vocabulary.

Content to follow their own bent, the five bunkies had asked few
questions of the friendly passersby, who invariably beamed on them
in passing. The Sammies were at any time a very welcome sight to the
French people, but the five Brothers were an especially striking
example of stalwart young American manhood, and attracted an amount of
attention of which they were quite unaware.

Toward six o'clock steadily growing hunger had prompted them to drop
into one of the many excellent restaurants of which Paris boasts.
Having ordered a most delectable dinner, they had taken their time
about eating it. In consequence, it was now after seven o'clock and, as
Roger had reminded, "time for us to be hiking along."

"There's always a calm before a storm, you know."

It was Jimmy who spoke. The remark followed Bob's assertion regarding
the peacefulness of the life they had been leading since their arrival
in France.

"Yes, it's the last lull before we get into the real thing," nodded
Roger. "We'll soon be getting up in the morning and turning in at night
to the music of the big guns."

"I hope it'll be Allied artillery that'll make the most of that music,"
put in Schnitzel.

"Yes, and _I_ hope a Fritzie trench gets it in the neck with every
blamed tune our fellows hammer out," was Bob's vengeful rejoinder.
"What I've heard since I came over here about the way those Boche
brutes have treated the Belgians makes me hot under the collar."

"They say the Fritzies have it in for us Sammies," shrugged Roger.
"They're crazy to take us prisoners. They want to make an example of
us. Think they'll scare the U. S. into putting up a big yell for peace.
Wonder what they'll do if they do manage to grab any of our men?"

"Hard to tell. Crucify some poor fellow, maybe." Bob's dark brows drew
sharply together. "That's one of their pleasant little methods of
getting even." Bob's tones quivered with loathing. "If it ever came to
that with me, I'd die game. I'd never let 'em think they'd got my goat."

"Oh, can the croak!" exclaimed Jimmy impatiently. "We came out to enjoy
ourselves. What's the use in dragging up the horror stuff?"

"So think I," agreed Ignace, who had been listening round-eyed to Bob's
dire surmising. "We ver' smart, so then we don' be it that prisonar. I
no like."

"You _don't_? I'm surprised," bantered Bob. "I thought you were just
aching to be run in by a Boche patrol."

"Now you mak' the fon to me," snickered Ignace. "Only you wait. Som'
day I mak' the fon to you."

"Go as far as you like," challenged Bob, grinning benevolently at his
Polish Brother.

"Come on," urged Jimmy. "Let's settle with the _garcon_, and beat it.
Where did he go to, anyhow? He was standing right over there a minute
ago."

Five pairs of eyes immediately busied themselves in an effort to locate
the waiter.

"He's in the kitchen, I guess. Don't see him. He'll show up in a
minute."

Leaning back in his chair, Roger continued idly to survey the few
diners scattered about the café. His eyes rested amusedly upon a
pair of elderly Frenchmen, who appeared to be conducting a vigorous
argument. Their wagging heads, shrugging shoulders, and the almost
continual play of their hands entertained him immensely.

"Look at those two old grandpas over there near the door," he said to
Bob, who was seated beside him. "I'll bet you most anything they're
arguing about the war. They're not a bit huffy with each other; just
dead in earnest."

Bob's gaze obediently traveled toward the two ancients. It interrupted
itself on the way, however, to take stock of three men who were just
entering the café.

"For the love of Mike!"

His shrewd, black eyes widening with amazement, Bob leaped to his feet.

"_Look_ who's here!" he exclaimed so loudly that his voice reached the
entering trio. "Oh, you Twinkle Twins!"




CHAPTER II

MEETING COUSIN EMILE


"Where, where?"

Seated with his back to the door, Bob's gleeful announcement brought
Jimmy also to his feet. By this time Bob had deserted his bunkies and
was making straight for two young men in the uniform of the U. S.
Aviation Corps, who were advancing to meet him.

"Well, well, _well_! If it isn't old Bob and Blazes!"

The blue-eyed, broadly-smiling youth who uttered this jubilant
recognition, now had Bob's hand in a firm grip, and was shaking it
vigorously. Standing beside him, his brother, an exact counterpart of
himself, was engaged in greeting Jimmy with equal cordiality.

"Let me in on this," commanded a laughing voice, as Roger joined the
delighted quartet. "I believe I've seen the famous Twinkle Twins before
to-day."

"You'd better believe it," retorted Jack Twinkleton. "How are you,
Rodge? You're looking all to the mustard."

"Put her there! How's the good old scout?"

Jerry Twinkleton now claimed Roger's attention.

"Oh, we're simply fine. You can't lose us. It isn't being done, don't
you know, with this gang."

Roger's face glowed with friendliness as he greeted the illustrious
twins. They were truly a welcome sight.

"How long have you been over, and where do you go from here?" were
Jimmy's quick questions. "We've been keeping an eye out and an ear open
ever since we landed in France. Thought we'd see you or, maybe, hear
news of you."

"You're the great little scribes, you are," declared Bob. "We haven't
had a line from you since just before we left Sterling."

"When was that?" promptly asked Jack.

"Oh, early in February. You fellows wrote that you were expecting most
any day to go across."

"Well, we went; right after that," grinned Jack. "We've written you
gazabos three letters since then, and never got even a post card in
return. We've abused you to each other for fair. Slackers; that's our
pet name for you."

"Yes, that's it," immediately chimed in Jerry, always his twin
brother's faithful repeater.

"We never got 'em." Bob shook a disgusted head. "We didn't get half of
our mail at Camp Marvin. I suppose it's chasing us around yet. We'll
get it some day if we live long enough."

"We wrote you fellows a couple of letters, too," informed Jimmy,
frowning.

"Then we've got something coming to us, too," was Jack's cheerful
retort. "Now let's flop and have a chewing-bee. Come on over to our
table. We've a fine surprise for you. We want you to meet----"

"Cousin Emile," supplied Bob. "I spotted him right away. We have a
couple of fellows with us. They belong to the gang. One of 'em is Iggy.
You remember? We told you about him. The other is a new pal of ours.
We're the five Brothers now. Oh, maybe we haven't a bag of beans to
spill!"

"Get your two Buddies and bring 'em over to that table," directed Jack,
pointing to an alcove table, larger than the others. "I'll steer Emile
to it, by the time you round up your strays."

With this he and his brother turned and bolted for their table, at
which the famous aviator had already seated himself. An amused smile
touched his firm mouth, as he watched his lively cousins and their
friends.

"Now listen to the howl Iggins'll put up," laughed Jimmy, as the three
Brothers returned to their table. "This time he can't fade away and
disappear, the way he did when the Twinkle Twins came to see us at
Sterling."

"I can no go," was the prompt refusal Jimmy met with.

Half rising from his chair, Ignace showed signs of making a quick
retreat from the café.

"I can no go," mimicked Jimmy. "You're going, you old clam, if I have
to lead you along by the ear."

Noting signs of refusal on the German-American's face, he next warned:
"Don't you get panicky, either, Schnitz!"

"If you two mules go to balking, we'll turn you out to shift for
yourselves," threatened Bob. "Cousin Emile won't eat you. He's careful
about what he eats."

Bob's last flippant assertion caused Ignace to snicker. It also brought
a faint smile to Schnitzel's somber face.

"All right. I'll be good," he assented, and obligingly got to his feet.

"If Iggy doesn't want to be a good fellow, just let him sit here all by
his lonesome while we have a good time," suggested Roger slyly. "We'll
tell the Twinkles and Cousin Emile that he's very particular about whom
he meets."

Roger winked at Bob, as he made this innocent suggestion.

"No!" Ignace fairly bounced from his chair.

"You say so, you ver' mean! I go by you. So is it."

"Oh, just as you please," teased Roger.

"I please!"

With the expression of a martyr on the way to execution, Ignace
followed in the wake of his bunkies, as they toured the length of the
room to the alcove.

Already there, and seated on either side of their illustrious cousin,
the Twinkle Twins rose to do the honors.

Each one of the five Brothers experienced a thrill of excitement, as,
in turn, he shook hands with the great aviator. They saw a rather tall,
thin-faced man of perhaps thirty, with bright, dark eyes, and very
black hair. They admired his strong chin and close-lipped, pleasant
mouth. Neither could they fail to note his litheness of movement, as he
rose from his chair when the Khaki Boys were introduced to him by his
cousin Jack.

"Have you been long in France?" he questioned courteously, as the party
took seats at the round table.

"Only a few weeks, sir." Jimmy became spokesman. "We are in training at
R----. We hope to go to the front soon."

"You are eager for a taste of the fighting, I suppose." The aviator
smiled. "That seems to be the prevailing spirit among the American
soldiers. We of France admire it."

"France has set us an example, sir, that we glory in following. The
whole world knows what France has done in this war."

Jimmy's face lighted into glowing enthusiasm.

"I thank you, in the name of my country."

The aviator's hand lightly touched his forehead in salute.

Instantly seven hands went up in prompt return of the salute.

"Now let's drop the form and ceremony act," proposed Jack Twinkleton.
"I'll salute you, Emile, when I have to, but I'll be blamed if I will
when I can get out of it. I've a great deal of respect for you up in
the air, and some when we're down on the ground. Don't forget that,
will you?"

"I will endeavor to remember." The Frenchman showed white teeth in an
indulgent smile. "It will be, perhaps, a trifle difficult," he slyly
added.

"Ha, ha! Emile's onto you, Jack!" rejoiced Jerry.

"You're my twin," flashed back his brother, with the wide, jovial grin
that so characterized the Twinkle Twins.

"I'm sorry, but it can't be helped," retaliated Jack, duplicating
Jerry's grin. "Now let's side-track these playful little compliments
and get down to business. I'm crazy to know what you fellows have been
doing since you left Sterling. You tell your tale and then we'll tell
ours. Wait a minute till I shoo this waiter away. We don't want to
order yet. We want to talk."

"We were down south at Marvin for a while, then one day we started out
on a hike with a big detachment of Sammies, and we never went back any
more," began Bob, when Jack had temporarily banished the waiter from
their vicinity. "First thing we knew we were piling into a train and
after we rode awhile in that we got tired of it, and switched off to a
transport for a change. It was the _Columbia_, and I guess----"

"The _Columbia_!" exclaimed three voices in unison.

"Yes, I guess we _do_ know what happened to the _Columbia_," emphasized
Jack. "And you fellows were in that mix-up and came out O. K.! Well,
what do you think of that?"

"How'd you get away from her, and what happened to you?" was Jerry's
excited question.

"Three of us were taken off her by a destroyer. Bob got into a
lifeboat, and another destroyer picked up that crew. I was the only one
who got wet. I had a swim in the nice cold water, and a trawler took me
in when I got tired," ended Jimmy whimsically.

"That's the way he tells it," sniffed Bob. "Now let Bobby speak his
piece."

Whereupon Bob launched forth into a vivid account of Jimmy's adventures
on that terrible night, to which the Twinkle Twins and Cousin Emile
listened with ever-deepening interest.

Quite naturally Bob was obliged to go further back than the torpedoing
of the Columbia in order to explain the events that had led up to the
murderous attack made upon Jimmy by the German wireless operator.
Inevitably, too, he made a hero of his bunkie, regardless of the
warning signals that the irate Blazes flashed at him from two resentful
gray eyes.

"Some little hero!" was Jack's verdict, his deep blue eyes resting
admiringly on Jimmy, who was looking embarrassed and a trifle sulky.

"Oh, I'm not so much," he muttered.

"Always he say!" broke in a solemn voice.

Temporarily bereft of speech in the presence of the Twinkle Twins and
their distinguished relative, Iggy rallied to the cause of his beloved
Brother.

"So is it Jimmy think," continued Ignace stolidly, now bound to be
heard. "He have the much do, ver' good, ver' brave."

"I agree with you." The aviator bent a kindly glance on Ignace that
caused him suddenly to realize that this wonderful "fly man" had "the
kind heart." In consequence, he forgot his awe of the great Voissard
and beamed genially upon him.

"Just to be even with _you_, Ignace So Pulinski, I'm going to tell
what _you_ did," announced Jimmy.

"No-a!" Ignace raised a protesting hand.

Nevertheless, Jimmy recounted the incident relating to his Polish
bunkie's firm faith in the destroyer, which immediately raised a laugh.

"Now you even, you don' say no more nothin'," decreed Iggy, very red in
the face.

"All right, I won't," promised Jimmy. "I haven't anything more to say,
anyway, except that we all got together again in Ireland. We went to
England to a rest camp and from there to France. Now let's hear what
happened to the Twinkle Twins since we saw 'em last."

"Just a minute and we'll tell you," nodded Jack. "Did you ever hear
whether the body of this bridge fellow was recovered? A good many of
the bodies of those poor Sammies were washed ashore."

"This fellow isn't dead." Jimmy's eyes grew briefly troubled. "Bob
forgot to say in his wonderful story that I saw him afterward in
Belfast. We were on the train just getting ready to pull out of
Belfast. I was watching the crowd on the station platform from the
window. I saw him, sure as guns. He saw me and he recognized me. He
gave me one awful look and beat it through the crowd."

"Quite remarkable!" Voissard's dark eyes were fixed reflectively on
Jimmy. "Describe the appearance of this man. I may be able to place
him. The Prefect of Police, here in Paris, is my personal friend.
Through him I have learned much regarding criminals. I have seen
photographs of many Germans badly wanted by the Allied powers, either
for particularly serious crimes, or because they are known to be spies
of unusual cleverness and daring."

"This Charles Black, as he called himself, is no common criminal,"
began Jimmy, then continued with a detailed description of the "tiger
man."

The aviator listened attentively, a slight frown contracting his dark
brows.

"I cannot place him," he said when Jimmy had finished. "My friend, the
Prefect, may be able to do so. I intend to remain in Paris for a day or
two. I expect to dine with him to-morrow evening. I will make inquiry
of him. In case I should learn anything of interest I will communicate
it to you either in person or by letter. It is possible that I may soon
visit your camp at R----."

"I wish you would sir," Jimmy responded with a fervor that conveyed his
utter delight of the prospect.

"_Merci._" The one simple word was spoken as only a Frenchman can say,
"Thank you."

Their eyes meeting levelly, boy and man each realized that he had found
a friend.




CHAPTER III

TRAILED


"You made us tell our troubles first, now it's time the Twinkle Twins
took a turn at talking," Bob presently suggested.

The _garcon_ having at last been allowed to take the dinner order of
the new arrivals, a brief lull in conversation had ensued.

"Oh, we haven't much to tell," Jack responded lightly. "We made good in
a hurry at Berkley. You can't keep a good man down, you know."

"A couple of good men," insinuated genial Jerry.

"Twins that are equal to the same twin, are equal to each other,"
supplied Jimmy, smilingly misquoting a well-known axiom in geometry.

"That's us." Jack beamed widely. "We hunt in couples. There's only one
drawback. Some day when I go up in a Nieuport and bring down a Zep,
Jerry'll probably get the credit for it."

"You mean it'll be just the other way round," retorted Jerry.

"It's a sore subject. Let's can it. Where was I when my beloved twin
butted in? Oh, yes. We did pretty well at Berk. As soon as we showed
'em, we put up a howl to go over. We kept it up, too. They got so sick
of us, they shipped us out of the States to get rid of us.

"We had a peach of a voyage over. Fine weather, and neither of us
seasick. We were used to the old pond, you know. When we landed we
were sent to an American aviation station near Paris. We've been there
ever since. That's only a few weeks, though. We've been studying like
anything, and making a few flights. Haven't yet had a chance to go out
on a real fighting expedition."

"Emile's trying to get us transferred to the French Flying Corps,"
put in Jerry eagerly. "We pestered him about it until he promised in
self-defense. We want to fly a Farman or a Nieuport. It's hard to get
on the Nieuport squad. We'll have to do a lot of practice work before
we're ready to handle one."

"Emile thinks we can make good," Jack declared jubilantly. "Don't you
old coz?"

"Yes. These two have greatly surprised me." Voissard directed this last
to the Khaki Boys. "I did not know they had enlisted in the aviation
corps until they wrote me from the American station in France. I am
not sure that a transfer to the French Flying Corps can be arranged.
However, these boys were born in France, and of French and English
parents. This fact will, perhaps, be of much help in arranging the
transfer."

"We feel nearer to France, somehow, than to the U. S., even though
we've lived in the States a good deal," explained Jack. "We should have
piked over here and signed up with the French Flying Corps in the first
place. It would have saved a lot of red tape."

"Leave it to old Emile," was Jerry's disrespectfully affectionate
comment. "We should worry. Let Emile do it."

"You see!" Cousin Emile's eyebrows and shoulders went into amused play.

"They're a lucky pair of twins," was Bob's hearty rejoinder.

"Not yet," demurred Jack. "Wait until we're 'aces.'"

"And after that '_Communiqués_,'" added Jerry soulfully.

"To be an 'ace' you have to kill five Boche flyers, and bring
down their planes," explained Jack. "Ten is the number to be a
'_Communiqué_.' Emile is four times a '_Communiqué_' and five to boot.
He's clipped forty-five Boche birds of their wings and lives. Some
record! He has medals enough to cover his chest, only he won't wear
'em. He's the 'Flying Terror of France,' all right."

With one accord the Khaki Boys fixed wondering eyes on the "Flying
Terror of France." His sky-blue uniform flaunted but two of the many
emblems of valor he had daringly won.

His honors appeared not to trouble him in the least. He merely smiled
and said in his inimitable way:

"I have been fortunate. It cannot continue." He shrugged faintly.
"Our career in the air is, of a truth, brief. The danger is great,
but the reward greater. When we have, as the English say, 'done our
bit,' France has many more ready to replace us. That is, indeed, of a
satisfaction."

A momentary silence reigned as the aviator ceased speaking. His calm
disregard of self brought home anew to the Khaki Boys the gallant,
indomitable spirit of France in the great war. Each cherished the
secret hope that he, too, should never be found wanting in the high
quality of loyalty to the cause which Voissard possessed to such a
degree.

Apparently desirous of leading the conversation away from himself,
Cousin Emile began asking the Khaki Boys numerous interested questions
concerning their training in America. Though his eyes frequently rested
on Jimmy, to whom he had taken a decided fancy, he slighted no one of
them.

Bob's humorous manner and breezy speech evidently amused him
considerably. Quick to note this, Bob laid himself out to be
entertaining, and succeeded to the extent of making the great man laugh
in a delightfully boyish fashion that put his somewhat awed group of
soldier admirers quite at their ease. Voissard was, after all, "just a
good fellow."

The reappearance of the waiter with the dinner, ordered by the Twinkle
Twins and Cousin Emile, reminded the five Brothers that considerable
time had passed since they had finished their own meal.

"It's after eight," Jimmy Blaise announced regretfully, after a glance
at his wrist watch. "We'll have to be moving along. If we were back
in the U. S. now, we'd hang on till the last drop of the hat and then
hot-foot it. But not in gay Paree, with the gay knocked out of it by
the Boche scrap. If we get back to the station O. K., and on the right
train, we'll think ourselves some smart little Sammies."

"Oh, that's too bad!" exclaimed Jack ruefully. "Why beat it so soon?
You don't have to be back in camp before midnight, do you?"

"We're free till then, but we'd rather not risk starting any later,"
Roger answered. "We don't know Paris as well as you do."

"It's a blooming shame," deplored Jerry. "We wanted to take you around
with us for a while after dinner."

"Maybe we'll have a chance to come up to Paris again," was Bob's
hopeful reply.

The Khaki Boys had now risen most reluctantly, and were about to say
good-bye.

"We'll try to run down to your camp to see you," promised Jack. "We'll
send you a line beforehand."

The twins and their distinguished cousin were now on their feet.

"Make it soon, then," stipulated Jimmy:. "We think we're going to start
for the front before long. 509th Infantry's ours, you know. You won't
have much trouble finding us."

"If it happens that we don't see you again there, we'll hope to meet
you somewhere back of the firing line," declared Schnitzel earnestly.
"I've surely enjoyed meeting the Twinkle Twins.

"And you, sir." He turned to Voissard. "It has been a great honor to me
to shake your hand."

"_Merci._ I have also much enjoyed this hour with my American Allies,"
responded Voissard graciously.

He offered his hand to Schnitzel, then in turn to each of the other
four Brothers, all of whom expressed their warm pleasure of the meeting.

Jimmy came last. As the two men clasped hands their eyes again met
and again exchanged that silent message of friendliness. A general
hand-shaking with the Twinkle Twins followed, then the Khaki Boys said
a last good-bye and left the restaurant.

"Shall we walk or hail a taxi?" asked Bob, as they stepped out into the
street. "The full moon is on the job to-night. We can see our way along
even though this burg is shy on street lights."

Since the beginning of the war Paris had shown few street lights after
nightfall. Due to the fiendish Boche practice of making nocturnal air
raids for the purpose of dropping bombs, principally upon defenseless
women and innocent little children, every possible precaution had been
taken to guard this city against the inhuman cruelty of an ignoble foe.

"We'd better ride," decided prudent Roger. "It will be quicker and
we'll run no chance of losing our way. Here comes a taxi now. Hail it,
Blazes. You know how to _parlez-vous_."

Immediately complying, Jimmy signaled the driver of the machine. A
moment's shrewd bargaining with the latter regarding the fare to the
station, and Jimmy motioned his bunkies to step into the motor car.

None of the five observed, as they entered the vehicle, that a man had
emerged from the shadows of a neighboring building and signaled another
taxicab just driving up to the curb. In consequence, they were not
aware that the second taxicab was sedulously keeping on the trail of
their own.




CHAPTER IV

AN UNSEEN FOE


It was not a long journey to the station for which the Khaki Boys
were bound. During the ride they had plenty to say in regard to the
interesting trio they had left behind them. What had been rather a dull
afternoon had suddenly turned into a red-letter evening. Not only were
they jubilant at having again encountered the Twinkle Twins. They had
also met one of the great heroes of France, and they could not readily
get over it.

Arrived at the station, they were obliged to spend half an hour there
before getting a train back to camp. Still absorbed in enthusiastic
talk concerning their absent friends, they were not impatient over this
little wait.

With the train on time, the five Brothers calculated reaching camp in
good season. Once there a few moments' brisk walking would see them
safely back in quarters.

All now being non-commissioned officers they had found it
comparatively easy to make arrangements to be together. They were
now well aware, however, that when they reached a village back of
the firing line this state of affairs could not continue. Each would
probably be quartered in a separate residence with a number of privates
in his charge.

"We've barrels of time," announced Bob, as the train stopped in front
of the camp station. "Where's our jailer? It's time he came and let us
out of the jug."

By "jug" Bob humorously referred to the compartment which the guard
had locked at the beginning of the journey. As it happened, the guard
was at that moment engaged in unlocking another compartment from which
issued a solitary man, heavily bearded, his hat pulled over his eyes.

Almost coincidental with Bob's inquiry the "jailer" appeared and opened
the door for his temporary prisoners. The Khaki Boys skipped nimbly
out of the compartment and started off at a leisurely pace across the
station platform.

"A fine evening for a hike," pronounced Roger presently, drawing in a
long breath of the crisp night air. "Just enough cold to make a fellow
feel brisk and snappy."

"Don't you get 'snappy' with me," warned Bob jokingly. "I'm in a real
good humor and I'd hate to have to snap back."

Now well away from the station, the hikers were tramping along five
abreast in the middle of a street of a little French village, which
they had to traverse in order to reach their camp.

"It's almost as light as day," Jimmy squinted up at the round moon.
"This would be a fine night for a Boche air raid on Paris."

"Too light," disagreed Schnitzel. "A Zep would be spotted in a hurry
and the Archies would get busy and smash it."

By "Archies" Schnitzel referred to the anti-aircraft guns, a part of
the defenses of Paris against air raids.

"Did you hear what Voissard was telling me about the megaphones posted
outside the city?" asked Roger.

Ignace, Schnitzel and Bob answered in the affirmative.

"I only caught part of it. I was talking to Jack," replied Jimmy. "What
was it he said?"

"Well, they call these megaphones 'the ears of Paris.' They are
recording reversed machines with microphone attachments. They're set up
in clusters of four at different points just outside the city. Through
them the sound of an airship's engine and propellers can be heard five
miles away. There's a look-out for every bunch of 'em. The minute they
begin to hum he sends warning. Then, bing! The searchlights blaze up
in the sky and a flock of aeroplanes get busy and attack the Boche
raiders."

"Good work!" approved Jimmy. "I wonder if it's the same in London?
There seem to be more raids there than any place else. Almost every big
raid you read about's on London."

"I suppose the fog gives the brutes more of a show to drop bombs,"
reflected Schnitzel.

"It's a horrible business," growled Bob. "I'm glad the Allies are
beginning to give the dogs some of their own dope. I wish they'd wipe
Germany off the map."

"She'll do that for herself if she keeps on trying a little longer. I'd
hate to be deutschy Deutschland when our Allies get through with her.
She'll sure be out in the cold," predicted Roger.

"Let her freeze. She deserves it," was Jimmy's vengeful opinion.

"So think I," echoed Ignace, who had been plodding tranquilly along
with his Brothers in his usual silent fashion.

"Poland at last heard from!" exclaimed Bob. "I thought it had been
struck dumb by Cousin Emile."

"No yet," flung back Ignace. "So much I hear I feel to keep the shut
up. So mebbe I learn som'thin'."

"Oh, my conversation is always highly instructive," Bob patronizingly
assured. "You can learn something from Bobby every time he opens his
mouth. He's a walking compendium of knowledge and a spouting fount of
useful information."

"We'll let _Bobby_ tell it," jeered Jimmy. "I wouldn't be caught
dead----"

Walking next to Bob, something suddenly cut the narrow space between
the two with the peculiar whistling whine which belongs only to a
speeding bullet.

"Drop!" yelled Jimmy, suiting the action to the word. "Some Boche has
it in for us!"




CHAPTER V

A WILD GOOSE CHASE


Like a flash, five uniformed figures flattened themselves to the ground
as several more bullets whistled above them. Though they heard no
report, a peculiar sound as of an almost silent concussion accompanied
the whine of each winging bullet.

For a moment or two the Khaki Boys pressed close to the cold earth, too
greatly flabbergasted for speech.

It was Jimmy who first cautiously raised himself a little from the
frozen ground. A bullet promptly sang past his head causing him to
quickly duck and resume his former position.

"Where are they coming from?" breathed Bob.

"On the left. That gateway," muttered Roger.

The Khaki Boys had been in the act of passing an apparently deserted
house on the outskirts of the village. It was surrounded by a high
stone wall, but the gate was missing, leaving a wide aperture.

Roger's alert eyes had noted it just as they came abreast of it. On the
other side of the road a little above it stood another house, dark like
the first.

"Then charge it," came impatiently from Jimmy.

Up in a flash, the quintet made a bold dash toward the danger spot.
Strangely enough not a single bullet more was directed at them by their
unknown foe.

Reaching the gateway, no one was to be seen. The clear moonlight shone
whitely down upon it, bathing the darkly outlined wall with radiant
light.

"Whoever ambushed us has cut and run along close to the wall and down
among those trees and outbuildings," surmised Bob.

"Come on, let's after 'em," proposed Jimmy sharply. "We're losing time.
We'll never nab 'em at this rate. Hug the wall, though. It's safer."

Led by impetuous Jimmy the party traversed on the run a long stretch of
bare ground that sloped gradually down to a small orchard at the end
of the grounds. Their eyes were sharply trained ahead to catch a first
glimpse of their quarry, hidden perhaps behind the trunk of a tree.

Against the moon's silver rays the trees stood out sharply, their bare
branches affording little shadow in which the fugitive enemy might seek
concealment.

First impulse toward self-protection under fire had been completely
routed by the desire to give chase. The hunters now darted recklessly
in and out among the trees, oblivious to the possibility of a fresh
attack from a new quarter.

None came. Neither did they glimpse any human beings other than
themselves. The enemy evidently had abandoned his or their murderous
project, and fled from the premises. Continued search led to the
discovery of a gap in the lower end of the wall.

"Here's where they beat it!" Bob pointed triumphantly to the gap.

"Looks like it. We've gone over every foot of this orchard."

Roger frowningly eyed the break in the wall.

"I don't believe it was _they_." Jimmy shook a decided head. "It was
_he_. A one-man game. He had a gun with a Maxim silencer, too. That's
why we heard only a queer muffled sound instead of distinct reports."

"That's so," agreed Schnitzel. "Anyhow, if there'd been two or three of
'em the whole bunch couldn't have skiddooed without our seeing at least
one of 'em."

"So think I mebbe scare som' Boche pretty bad, we run after," offered
Ignace.

"Somebody was sure plugging for the Fatherland," asserted Bob. "Nearly
plugged us, too. The first shot zipped between Blazes' head and mine."

"If we'd jumped up and started on we'd have got another peppering. The
sharpshooter who couldn't shoot sharp didn't figure on our rushing the
gate. It gave him such a jolt that he beat it."

"Where did he go?" demanded Jimmy.

"In an opposite direction to us, I suppose," surmised Schnitzel. "While
we were hiking for that orchard he was hot-footing it along the other
way. Two of us should have gone one way and three the other."

"Then he certainly didn't go through this gap. We're a nice bunch of
rookies," jeered Bob. "All run in one direction like a flock of sheep."

"Well, we were excited," excused Jimmy with a sickly grin.

"You mean rattled," laughed Roger.

"It was all Bob's fault," accused Jimmy jocularly. "If he hadn't gone
and said that our gunman had beat it along the wall and into that
orchard we wouldn't have been in such a rush to beat it after him."

"Yes, and what did you say?" retorted Bob in the same joking spirit.
"You were first man to yell, 'Come on, let's after him.' Then away you
went and took us along."

"Well, you didn't have to go, did you?" countered Jimmy.

"Sure we did, else why are we Blazes' bunkies?"

There was an earnest note back of this lightly uttered reply. Jimmy
caught it. Slapping Bob on the shoulder he said: "Good old Bob. You're
not so worse. I kind of like you."

"So glad, I'm sure," simpered Bob, returning the slap with interest.

"It's just as well that we kept together, I guess," commented Roger
soberly. "There's safety in numbers, you know. I don't see that there's
any use in hanging around here. Our man has given us the slip. It must
have been some stray Boche out on his own. Not a soldier, but some
secret sympathizer with the Fatherland, perhaps. Else why would he be
slipping around behind gates to plug passing soldiers? It's unusual for
a party from camp to be shot at like that so far back from the fighting
district."

"This yellow sneak might have been hanging around the station when we
got off the train."

As usual, Bob was full of theories. "He knew it was a straight road
to camp and that he couldn't miss us. Very likely he knows this part
of the country like a book, so he just took a cross-cut and waited at
the gate for us. It was a fine chance to get a whack at the 'American
dogs.' Long live Bunco Bill--not! I hope he chokes!" anathematized Bob.

"Some healthy little hate," snickered Jimmy.

"Oh, Bobby's a fine hearty hater," was the light assurance. "Well,
let's be on our way. We'd better be traveling along to camp. Double
quick, fellows, when we hit the road. We'll stand less chance of
getting potted as we go."

Out on the road again an excited discussion arose as they hurried
campward. It pertained to the motive for the unexpected attack.
Undoubtedly a prowling Boche had fired on them. They believed it was
not usual for soldiers to be thus attacked so far back of the fighting
district. Certainly they had not anticipated such an ending to their
peaceful pleasure jaunt.

Camp limits reached, they were challenged by a sentry and allowed to go
on to quarters after making satisfactory response and being advanced to
be recognized.

After he had turned in that night a swift, unbidden thought popped into
Sergeant Jimmy Blaise's brain just as he was dropping off to sleep.
It left him wide awake and staring reflectively into the darkness. He
wondered if, by any possible chance, the "tiger man" had succeeded in
picking up his trail.




CHAPTER VI

THE UNFORESEEN


"I've got fine news here for you guys!" Jimmy Blaise bolted into the
midst of his bunkies, who were grouped together in their own corner
of barracks waiting for supper call to blow. In his hand was an open
letter which he waved triumphantly at them.

"From Voissard," he jubilantly informed them. "He's coming down to see
us on Saturday, along with the Twinkle Twins. Glad it's a half-holiday.
We'll have more chance to show 'em around. Wait a minute and I'll read
it to you."

Surrounded by an interested audience, Jimmy spread open the letter and
read:

 "'Dear Sergeant Blaise:

 "'With much pleasure I write to inform you that my cousins and myself
 expect to pay you and your friends the visit on Saturday afternoon. I
 have something of importance to impart to you regarding the matter we
 discussed in Paris. With best wishes I remain,

  "'Sincerely,

  "'EMILE VOISSARD.'"

"Three whoops for Cousin Emile!" caroled Bob. "We certainly are the
original white-haired boys. Think of a visit from the 'Flying Terror of
France'! This place won't hold us, we'll be so puffed up with pride and
vanity!"

"He's not a bit particular about his company," grinned Roger. "The
humble non-com and the president of France are all one to Cousin Emile.
That's the way it looks."

"That's the way it _is_," emphasized Jimmy. "Voissard has earned the
right to do as he pleases. He knows it and that explains everything.
Anyway, he has business to talk over with Blazes. Ahem!"

"See him puff out his chest." Bob wagged a derisive head at Jimmy. "He
throws that old bluff, 'I'm not so much,' but he means, 'I'm it!'"

"Spotted at last," was Jimmy's grinning admission. "I knew you'd get
wise to me some day."

"We hated to tell you," teased Schnitzel, joining in the banter. "Now
you know it, don't feel too bad about it."

"My heart's bruised but not broken," retaliated Jimmy. "I can stand a
few more such shocks and still keep on going. What's the matter with
you, Iggy? Haven't you a gentle little knock to hand me? Now's the
time. I'm in a real good humor."

"Never I hand you him that knock," responded Ignace with deep solemnity.

"He keeps 'em for Bobby, don't you Iggins?"

"Ye-a." Ignace snickered at Bob's accusation. "I like make the fon to
you, 'cause always you make the fon to me."

Supper call broke in upon this good-humored exchange of raillery. Loyal
to the death the five Brothers rarely took one another seriously. Even
solemn Ignace had learned the art of "joshing" which is second nature
to the American youth.

Several days had passed since the Khaki Boys had made the eventful trip
to Paris which had ended in an attempt on their lives by an unknown
foe. They had reported the affair to headquarters the next morning.
Jimmy Blaise had said nothing, however, to anyone, of his own private
suspicion concerning the "tiger man." It was merely a vague supposition
on his part, and he was quite willing to "let sleeping tigers lie."

Inquiry in camp among men who had been there longer than themselves
revealed to the Khaki Boys the knowledge that occasionally similar
night attacks had been made upon soldiers going or coming from the
village. In one instance a Sammy had been wounded in the leg and
had lain groaning by the roadside until picked up by a party of his
comrades returning to camp from the village.

This rather put a crimp in Jimmy's theory that his old enemy had
trailed him from Paris. He decided inwardly that he was an idiot to
allow such "crazy" ideas brain room and promptly banished them from his
mind.

It was on Thursday that Jimmy received the letter from Voissard
announcing his intention of visiting the Khaki Boys' camp on Saturday.
The visit was destined not to be paid, however, for on Friday morning
the detachment of the 509th Infantry, to which the five Brothers
belonged, received the longed-for order to move on.

The selected men of the 509th Infantry were to accompany part of
another American regiment, longer in training than themselves, on this
new move toward the front. None knew whether the order meant a brief
interval of rest in a village near the fighting lines or if their
journey would lead them straight to the trenches. The men of the 509th
were hopeful that this last would be their lot. They were intensely
eager to "get a whack" at the Boches. As Bob soulfully remarked: "There
aren't any cold feet in the little old 509th."

There was only one drawback to the five Brothers' satisfaction. How
were they to send quick word to Voissard and the Twinkle Twins of this
new turn in their affairs?

In desperation Jimmy finally sought Major Steadman, his commanding
officer, and laid the matter before him. Fortunately for all concerned
the major chanced to be well acquainted with the aviator. Not only did
he show evident interest in Jimmy's story of how he and his bunkies
happened to be acquainted with Cousin Emile. He very kindly volunteered
to take the responsibility on himself of sending the aviator a
personal dispatch. Thus it was arranged, but five Sammies were deeply
disappointed over the sudden collapse of the "Flying Terror's" proposed
visit.

Friday afternoon saw the selected detachments marching to the station
to entrain, looking not unlike a herd of overloaded young camels.
Hiking about Camp Marvin under "full pack" was easy compared to the
amount of equipment with which the Khaki Boys were now loaded down.
Each Sammy fairly bristled with the paraphernalia of war.

Everything needful for trench life was attached to some part of his
person. All the worldly goods bestowed upon him by the Army, he now
carried with him, together with as many of his own personal possessions
as he could make room for and bear the weight of. Undoubtedly few of
these last treasured gifts would go with him to the trenches. They
would have to be reluctantly cast aside or given away, leaving him with
only the absolutely necessary articles and equipment provided by the
Government.

Burdened as they were, it was a thrilling moment for the Khaki Boys
when late on Friday afternoon the bugles called them to Assembly in
front of barracks. All day they had been impatiently waiting for the
order. Every young face glowed with patriotic fire as they obeyed
the call, "Fall in," and were marched, company after company to the
station, there to entrain for the front.

All along the way they were cheered by the inhabitants of the village
who had come out to catch a farewell view of the gallant Sammies and
send them into the fight with warm-hearted expressions of their good
will. Many a French mother breathed a prayer and made the sign of the
cross as she saw these sturdy youngsters taking the same stretch of
the Glory Road over which had passed a beloved son or sons of her own,
never to return.

Arrived at the station our Khaki Boys were marshaled with the rest into
the waiting "48 Men, Eight horses," which had been used to convey so
many Allied soldiers to the fighting district. Entering these cheerless
and highly uncomfortable box-cars, they were leaving behind them the
comparative ease and safety they had enjoyed since landing in France.
From now on the Glory Road would mean a succession of trials and
hardships, with death always lurking in the foreground.

Every mile the train ran meant a nearer approach to the goal for which
they had so long striven. At last they were on the way to strike their
first definite blow in the big war.




CHAPTER VII

"AT HOME"


"This is certainly some ride," grumbled Corporal Bob Dalton to Sergeant
Jimmy Blaise. "I've had enough of old Eight Horses and goodness knows
how many men to last me for a while. There are supposedly forty-eight
Sammies in this band-box. I should say there were nearer ten thousand.
I'd have sure croaked standing up, if you hadn't been along to take the
curse off."

"I'm glad we got in the same car, shoe-box I mean."

Sergeant Jimmy's voice sounded decidedly weary. Luckily for himself and
Bob, they had been assigned to the same car, Bob being corporal of a
squad in Jimmy's platoon. Roger, Schnitzel and Ignace were scattered
somewhere through the train, though neither Bob nor Jimmy knew which
car their bunkies were in.

"Well, it'll soon be over." Jimmy breathed a sigh of relief. "We've
been two days and two nights on the road. It's now five o'clock, we
ought to be out of this dump soon. I never believed I could sleep
standing up, but I know it now."

"Here, too. I hope we get a night's rest stretched out before we hit
the trenches," was Bob's wistful reply.

"Oh, we won't go straight to the trenches in this train. We'll probably
be in rest billets several days before we're called to take our turn."

"Wonder how the fellows like it," mused Bob. "I'll bet Iggy's slept
most of the way. Nothing fazes him when he wants to sleep. He could
pound his ear standing on his head."

Both Khaki Boys snickered a little as they imagined Ignace turned
upside down and sleeping peacefully, nevertheless.

"It seems a long while since we left Sterling, doesn't it?"

Jimmy broke the silence that had fallen upon both, succeeding Bob's
humorous remark concerning his Polish Brother.

"It certainly does. I had a funny standing-up nightmare about old
Sterling last night." Bob grinned reminiscently. "I'd braced my back
against the wall of this box and was taking forty winks. I'd been
thinking about that Bixton affair and old Schnitz, and I dreamed that
good old Major Stearns was a Boche spy, and that he was trying to
finish me with a bayonet. He'd just given me an awful punch in the
chest and I was yelling: 'What's eating you, you rough neck!'

"The sound of my own voice woke me up, and I found that a man next to
me had hauled off and binged me one in his sleep. It was a joke, and we
both laughed after we got wise to ourselves. Wonder you didn't hear me
yowl."

"I've heard so many different kinds of yowls since I landed in this jug
that I'm used to 'em. Well, it's a great life if you don't weaken."

Jimmy yawned and, reaching for his water bottle, took a long drink.

"Hope we stop somewhere soon," he observed. "I've emptied this bottle,
and I'm still thirsty."

Shortly afterward his wish for a speedy detrainment was granted. A
series of jolts, which caused the imprisoned Sammies to behave like
nine-pins, except that they had not sufficient space to topple over,
and the famous "Eight Horses" came at last to a full stop.

Freed at last, the Khaki Boys gladly hustled from the ungracious
box-cars to the platform of a village station, dotted as usual with the
friendly French folk, whom the Khaki Boys had noticed were always in
evidence wherever they went.

The two detachments of Uncle Sam's boys had hardly left the train,
however, before they discovered that for once they were not the center
of attraction. Waiting on the platform to enter the train they had
just left was a company of slightly wounded French soldiers returning
from active service on the firing line.

Though these men were still able to walk, they presented a pitiful
sight. With arms or heads bound up in blood-stained bandages, their
faces wan and racked by pain, they brought home to the full the grim
horror of the trenches. Yet nearly every face wore an attempt at a
smile. Bandaged heads made gay attempts at nodding to the villagers who
were worshiping at their shrine in true French fashion.

One man whose arms were both bound up, blood trickling from his face,
bent painfully down to speak to a little boy who was shouting lustily,
"_Vive la France_," and waving a little French flag at the wrecked
heroes.

Watching the little scene in fascinated horror, it occurred briefly
to Jimmy that for fighters these men were a curious-looking lot.
Accustomed to the olive drab uniform and the usually clean-shaven face
of the Sammy, these whiskered _poilus_ with their red trousers and long
blue coats pinned back from the front seemed strangely unlike soldiers.
Their bandaged heads and arms, and scratched, bleeding faces told quite
a different story, however. They had known what it was to be under
fire. They had done their bit for France.

Ardent as was the admiration shown for these wounded soldiers, the
Khaki Boys were not slighted. As they formed into platoons and marched
away from the station, they were wildly applauded by the gathered
throng, part of which followed along after them.

As they tramped along through the narrow streets to headquarters, their
progress was accompanied by a new sound--a steady, heavy rumble that
went on ceaselessly. They had now come within the thunder of the big
guns. Off to the east of the village the fight against an unworthy foe
was raging. With every heavy detonation, war was taking its toll of
lives.

Under his breath, Jimmy found himself repeating:

  "At the front brave men are falling,
  Now's your time to do and dare!"

He wondered if the man who, far back in peaceful America, had composed
the words of the "Glory Road" song could possibly realize the meaning
of his own song.

A march of a little over a mile through the village, and the long
lines of soldier boys had reached headquarters. Here began the work of
assigning them to temporary quarters. With night approaching it was
necessary to put the men in lodgings with all possible despatch.

"Lodgings" for fighting men nearing the front consist of anything from
the odd, not over-clean French farmhouses to stables and barns. The
best horses naturally fall to the officers; with the enlisted men it is
a case of Hobson's choice.

Just as the first stars of evening began to appear in the clear, wintry
sky, Jimmy Blaise marched his command into a stable. Ten minutes later
he had begged the back cover of a note-book from Corporal Bob Dalton,
and printed on it in large black letters:

  AT HOME
  SERGEANT BLAISE
  AND
  THIRTY-TWO MEN

Sergeant Jimmy Blazes was "at home" to all comers.




CHAPTER VIII

A BOCHE TESTIMONIAL


It was after eight o'clock that night when Jimmy's detachment finished
a supper of the inevitable bully beef and biscuit, washed down with
coffee furnished them by the kindly French woman to whom the stable
belonged, and whose farmhouse was situated only a short distance from
it.

Worn out by two-days' sojourn in the narrow confines of "Eight Horses,"
both Bob and Jimmy were only too glad to resign themselves to the
doubtful comfort of the straw-strewn stable floor.

It proved to be a restless night for all concerned. "Sergeant Blaise
and Thirty-Two Men" had their first unpleasant experience with the
"cooties," a baleful gray vermin that has been the perpetual bane of
the soldier in France since the beginning of the war.

Later, when trench life had taught the Khaki Boys to accustom
themselves to "most any old thing," the ever-present "cootie" became
insignificant when compared to other trials they were called upon to
endure. That first night, however, was one of such itching horror as
they were not likely to forget in a hurry.

In spite of this new trial they managed to snatch a little sleep,
though Jimmy stoutly declared his intention of rolling up in his poncho
and sleeping outdoors thereafter.

Obliged to depend upon the rations previously issued them for breakfast
the next morning, Jimmy rebelled and made a quick hike up to the
farmhouse, returning with the glowing information that "Madame" was
quite willing to furnish breakfast to such as desired to partake of her
hospitality. Her charges for the same were low, and the majority of the
men were very willing to pay them. In consequence, Sergeant Blaise's
little flock feasted on bacon, eggs, white bread, and preserves.

Breakfast finished, a hasty going over of equipment ensued, and Jimmy
marched his men to a not far distant field for inspection, where they
had been ordered to report and parade. Here they found the rest of
their own detachment. Inspection over, the entire unit put in the
morning in drill, with three ten-minute intermissions for rest, during
which the newly arrived Sammies had a chance to compare notes.

The first of these intermissions saw the five Brothers engaged in
a zealous hunt for one another. Together, Bob and Jimmy made speedy
effort to locate their bunkies, managing to pick them up just as the
command came to "Fall in."

"Meet us here, next break," called Bob over his shoulder, as he ran
back to his squad.

At the next order of "Fall Out," the five made prompt rush for the spot
which Bob had designated.

"Well!" exclaimed Roger, as they grouped themselves eagerly together.
"Where did you fellows get off at?"

"In a stable," was Jimmy's disgusted answer. "It's not far from here.
Our 'at home' sign's out."

"Come and see us. You'll love the place. I hate to think of leaving
it," grimaced Bob.

"I'm in the same boat. I mean the same sweet kind of a billet," grinned
Roger. "A nice hard floor, straw, lots of 'cooties,' and all the
comforts of a cow barn. Schnitz lives in a house that nobody else but
Sammies wanted. The folks moved away before the French Revolution came
off and took the furniture along."

"Nothing left but dust and rats," supplemented Schnitzel. "We haven't
found any live stock yet. That's something to brag of."

"Iggy is the lucky guy. He's in a real house with real people, real
eats, and real beds to sleep in. He and his squad grabbed a cinch."

"I don't like," objected Ignace mournfully. "My Brother sleep in
stable, so would I there be."

"Can the sob stuff, Iggy," railed Bob, though his black eyes were very
kind. "Never mind about us. Be glad you landed soft."

"I am no the pig," asserted Ignace with lofty dignity.

"Sure you aren't. If you were you couldn't camp in that nice billet.
You'd land in a pig sty, and that would be worse than a cow barn."

Bob winked drolly at Roger.

"Where'll we meet after drill?" broke in Jimmy. "We'll have to decide
right off the bat. Our time's almost up."

"Right here," suggested Schnitzel. "We'll probably break ranks and be
dismissed here on account of being scattered all over the village."

"I wonder if we are going to have regular mess kitchens set up. Don't
believe we will, though. I guess it's cook-wagons for ours or buy our
own grub if we want variety. I have an idea we're going to move on
soon."

"I hope so," Bob said fervently. "These Frenchies are very decent about
not soaking a fellow for his grub. They'd give it to you if you'd let
'em. Even so, pay-day's a long way off, and Bobby's no millionaire.
I like to pay as I go. These people can't afford to treat after all
they've been through. A franc in itself isn't much, but when it's a
franc here, and two francs there, it counts up like the mischief."

"Wait till I hear from home and we'll have money to burn," declared
generous Jimmy. "I had the nerve to ask Dad for five hundred. I'll bet
I get it, too."

"Keep the change," laughed Roger. "Your money's no good with us. We
spends our own and goes broke. Blime if we gets so low as to sponge off
a pal!"

Roger imitated to perfection the tone of a Tommy. The Khaki Boys had,
by this time, come to know and like many of England's sturdy, fighting
Tommies.

Command to again "Fall In" broke up the brief reunion. Drill ending at
noon, the Sammies were given the rest of the day for their own until
Retreat, which was scheduled to take place on the impromptu parade
ground at the usual hour.

Left to themselves, the five Brothers gathered briefly together after
dismissal. Agreeing to meet again at the same place half an hour later,
they set off for their billets to put away their rifles.

Meeting again promptly at the appointed time, they started out to find
some place where they might obtain a substantial dinner. This was
rather hard to find, as almost every house in the village had its quota
of transient Sammies to care for. By dint of inquiry they finally
located a quaint little inn, and entered it to find it overflowing with
men of their own detachment who had also been seeking a place to eat
real food, regardless of expense.

After standing about waiting for a time, they at last managed to grab
a table, and were presently served with a savory meal, cooked in true
French fashion.

Dinner over, they left the inn and wandered about the village with its
quaint gray stone houses and winding streets. Close examination of it
showed that it had not escaped the enemy's spite. Here and there the
ruins of a house or a deep furrow in the ground showed the effects of
Boche gun or bomb work.

The inhabitants were a simple, friendly lot who treated them to smiling
looks and bobbing little bows of admiration and respect. The heart of
France beats warmly for Uncle Sam's Boys. Her people look upon them as
the savior of the Allied cause, come in the hour of need.

Deciding to put off writing letters to the home folks until the next
day, the five Khaki Boys spent their entire afternoon in wandering
aimlessly about, seeing something of interest, no matter in which
direction they walked.

One sight in particular filled them with righteous wrath. Traversing
one of the smaller streets, they encountered an apple-cheeked French
woman and a boy of about ten years. To their united horror they
instantly noticed that the child's arms had been lopped off just below
the elbow.

"Great Heavens! Look at that!" muttered Bob, as the two drew nearer.
"Speak to her, Blaise. Ask her if that's Boche butchery."

"_Bon jour_, Madame." Jimmy's hand went to his helmet.

Since coming to the village, the Khaki Boys had been ordered to replace
their campaign hats with the bullet-proof helmets, which the soldier
must wear constantly as he approaches nearer to the firing lines.

"Is this your son?" he inquired in French. His gray eyes were dark with
mingled horror and sympathy, as he indicated the pitiful little figure.
"How did this happen to him?"

"But _non_, _Monsieur_," the woman replied. "He is a Belgian. _Les
Allemands_, this they do. Father and mother, both they kill. This poor
child--_Voila_, you see for yourself! He was brought to me thus. Now I
have taken him for my own. Three sons I once had. All died at Ypres and
for France."

In the face of this tragic recital, the five Khaki Boys stood silent.
Instantly every helmet was doffed to this grand figure of womanhood.
There were no signs of tears in her bright black eyes as she spoke,
only a fleeting expression of intense suffering, which merged instantly
into a look of intense pride, as she mentioned the loss of her sons.

"Ask her, Blazes, if she'll allow us to make the poor kiddie a
present," ordered Roger, a trifle unsteadily.

The woman flushed, then smiled, showing two rows of strong, white teeth.

"It is not necessary, Monsieur," she returned. "Still, if _les
Americains_ of the great heart please--I am very poor."

"Cough up a dollar or two apiece, quick," ordered Bob, who had
understood the reply. His recent complaint regarding far-off pay-day
was now forgotten.

Each Sammy's hand went instantly to his money belt.

"This is your donation party, Rodge." Jimmy handed a two-dollar note to
Roger. Ignace, Schnitzel and Bob handed him a like amount.

Adding his own offering, Roger tendered it to the woman, who thanked
them with a pretty courtesy that quite won their hearts.

"Can such things be?" was Bob's savage question as they strolled on.
"It's bad enough to read about 'em, but when you meet 'em face to face!
Ugh! Lead me to the trenches, and do it quick!"




CHAPTER IX

ON THE MARCH


Jimmy's prediction that they were likely to move on soon was speedily
verified. The very next morning at Assembly the men were ordered
to report on the parade ground at noon under full pack. An hour's
drill and they were dismissed in order to allow them to make final
preparations before starting on their march to the front.

Though they had had hardly time to explore the little village or make
the acquaintance of its inhabitants, the entire population turned out
to see them off. French matrons and pretty young girls fluttered their
handkerchiefs at the marching columns of Sammies, just as the American
mothers, wives and sisters did when the trains pulled out of the home
towns bearing Uncle Sam's Boys away to the training camps.

With the backbone of winter broken, the day was clear and fair. The
sun shone brightly down in inspiriting fashion. There was but one
drawback--the ever-present mud. A recent spell of wet weather had
made of the roads an unending succession of small pools of water,
interspersed with little stretches of sticky, clinging mire, into which
the soldiers' feet sank, ankle deep.

Long before the afternoon merged into sunset, the Khaki Boys had begun
to feel the effects of that strenuous march. Their heavy, hob-nailed
trench shoes, made heavier by constant contact with the mud, blistered
their feet and caused them acute suffering. Yet they sang home songs,
and joked with one another as they plodded along, unmindful of their
discomfort. Not a man hung back or gave up. Neither did the fact
trouble them that every step they took was bringing them nearer to the
big guns, the booming of which was ever in their ears.

For each hour on the road they were allowed a ten-minutes' halt, in
which to nurse their swollen feet, and rest their weary backs, aching
from the heavy packs. Though the majority did not know of how long
duration the hike would be, a few knew that their difficult march would
end in a partially ruined village, just out of range of the German
guns. There they would be billeted until the order came to take their
first turn in the trenches.

It was after eight o'clock in the evening when a foot-sore,
mud-spattered company of young defenders tramped wearily along the
principal thoroughfare of the French hamlet. That thoroughfare was
nothing more than a very muddy road. On each side of it stood the
shattered remnants of what had once been the homes of the unfortunate
inhabitants whose quaint little cottages had been demolished by the
enemy's guns. Less than half the houses in the village still remained
intact. So near to the firing lines, they had not been able to avert
the dire misfortunes of war.

Continuing on through the village, they were finally halted in a large
meadow on its outskirts. Here the work of erecting shelter or "pup"
tents began, in which they would sleep that night. The cook wagons,
too, immediately went into action, and the way-worn travelers were
presently given the comfort of a hot supper before turning in for a
night's sleep.

Rolled up in their ponchos, the Khaki Boys slept as soundly that night
as though back in the home barracks they had so long ago left behind
them. A hot breakfast the next morning and they were again in good trim
for the eventful hike that would bring them to the firing line.

Save for an hour's limbering-up drill, the day was theirs to roam at
will about their new environment. Not until the dusk of evening had
settled down upon the landscape would they start again on the last lap
of their journey.

Immediately after drill, the five Brothers got together and went on a
roving tour about the partially wrecked village. By daylight they found
it teeming with life. It seemed principally peopled, however, with old
women and children, although they encountered a goodly number of French
soldiers resting in billets from trench duty.

Here and there they saw small inns, largely patronized by the French
_poilus_. Entering one of them out of curiosity, they were rather
disappointed to discover that they could obtain little there in the way
of refreshment other than brown bread, cheese and French wines, the
latter in which none of them ever indulged.

"For a place that's been all shot to pieces by Boche Kultur, I must say
it's a mighty prosy old burg," was Bob's opinion.

The quintet had repaired to their impromptu camp for dinner, and
afterward started out again in the hope of finding something really
exciting. They had been roaming about for over an hour since dinner,
and had, thus far, met with no startling adventures.

Bob's remark arose from the fact that they had just passed a
schoolhouse, through the opened windows of which came the high, shrill
voices of children, placidly reciting their lessons.

"Funny, isn't it, that those kids can settle down to school with the
noise of the guns going on all the time?" mused Roger. "You'd think
they'd be scared out of their baby wits."

"They're just like all the rest of these good sports of Frenchies.
They've grown so used to it they don't blink an eyelash now," declared
Schnitzel. "Wish I'd been born a Frenchman instead of a G. A. The A's
all right, but not the G."

"Well, you got the G. out of your system when you enlisted," consoled
Bob. "You've no kick coming."

"Thank goodness I did," was Schnitzel's fervent response. "I'd hate to
feel that I had a single tie that bound me to these cursed, butchering
Boches. If some of the Germans in the U. S. could really be made to
believe what we've seen with our own eyes, it would give 'em a jolt."

"They don't want to believe," Bob cried out scornfully. "But wait
awhile. If some German-American father whose son got in the draft
and was sent over here gets word that his boy has been crucified or
tortured by a delegation of Fatherland friends, he'll wake up in a
hurry."

"Yes," nodded Schnitzel, "when the chickens begin to come home to
roost, it's going to make some difference in the way these German
fanatics at home feel about this war."

Greeted on every side by evidence of havoc and devastation wrought by
the enemy, the talk of the strollers remained centered on the war.
In the home camps and on shipboard they had discussed it but little,
preferring to keep it in the background. Now they were so near to the
great conflict it could no longer be ignored. It had become the one
vital topic of conversation.

"Let's go into that wreck and see what it looks like inside," proposed
Roger at last.

Proceeding in an opposite direction from their camp, they had walked
the breadth of the village, and were well toward the open country.
Standing by itself in a field, the broken stone walls of a shelled
cottage had attracted Roger's attention.

"I'll go you," was Bob's ready response.

"I'm game," agreed Jimmy.

"So would I it to see," assented Ignace. "Yet think I there is no mooch
by it, only the many stone and mooch roobish."

Circling the wrecked cottage for a place by which to enter it with
the least effort, the explorers climbed over a heap of debris, which
partially blocked a doorless aperture at the rear, and gained the
interior.

Once inside they saw nothing more remarkable than ragged heaps
of stone, splintered beams, and the broken remnants of household
furniture. The only part of the floor still intact was the narrow strip
on which they stood.

"Let's go. It's fierce." Jimmy spoke in hoarse, husky tones.

Sight of that ruthless wrecking of a home made him think of his own
beautiful, far-away home, where his beloved "folks" dwelt in safety,
immune from shot and shell.

"I guess we know why we're here, when we look at this," he continued
tensely. "If I had a thousand lives I'd give 'em all to save the home
folks from such a thing ever happening to 'em."

"Right-o!" emphasized Bob.

Silence hung over the group for an instant, then, by mutual consent,
they turned and left behind them the frightful demonstration of
"Kultur."

"Look who's here! He's mine. I saw him first!"

Emerging from the ruin a step in advance of his comrades, Bob suddenly
raised his voice in a shout, and set off on the run across the field
behind the cottage.

Echoing his yell, his bunkies tore after, laughing as they went. Bob's
prize was nothing more than a solemn white goat, meandering aimlessly
about the brown field in search of a green bit on which to graze.

"You old fake! I thought you'd lamped something wonderful! Nothing but
an old Billy goat. Hello, Bill! How's tricks?"

Jimmy now jocularly addressed his goatship.

"M-a-a-a!" bleated Bill politely.

"Don't call him Bill," objected Bob. "Have some respect for his
delicate feelings. You can see for yourself it won't go down with him.
He's a werry fine animule, and I'm going to adopt him and call him
Gaston. He's a French goat, hence the _Français_ handle."

"You'd better let him alone," warned Roger. "He must belong to somebody
around here. You know what'll happen to you if you pinch him."

"Pinch him nothing. I'm no goat-robber," was Bob's indignant retort.
"I'm going to do the square thing by Gaston. See that house down the
road? Well, I'm going to tie him up and lead him to it. Bobby has a
nice piece of string in his pocket. I'll bet the folks down there know
his history. If he's a orfin, then Bobby will be his foster-papa and
train Gaston to charge on you fellows if you ever get too fresh. Won't
you, Gaston?"

Gaston, it appeared, was already about to get busy. His first surprise
at the invasion having vanished, he lowered his head and dashed at his
admirers with an energy that sent them scattering.

"He's got the true war spirit," yelled Bob. "Now watch me tame him!"

Bob agilely circled the belligerent Gaston. The goat had stopped after
making the charge to reflect upon his next course of action. Pouncing
upon the surprised animal, Bob grasped it by the horns. To his delight,
it meekly stood still, whereupon he relaxed one hand from a horn and
promptly fished a piece of tough string from his trousers' pocket. An
instant later, Gaston was being led, an acquiescent captive, from the
field by his beaming master. Prudence, however, warned Bob's bunkies to
walk in Gaston's rear.

Duly arriving at the house Bob had pointed out, he consigned his
new pet to Roger's care, and went boldly up to the door in quest of
information.

Watching him, his comrades saw him ushered inside the house by a pretty
young French girl.

Ten minutes later he emerged, grinning like a Cheshire cat. At his
heels trooped two or three children, the girl and an old man, all of
whom made bobbing little bows to _Les Americains_.

"He's mine!" called out Bob jubilantly. "I bought him for two plunks.
He's an old-timer, and not very popular with the family. He's going to
billet here, though, while I'm in the trenches. I'm going to pay for
his keep and be a father to him when I'm not on duty. If I get plugged
the first whack, then somebody else can have my goat. But as long as
Bobby's in good health, Gaston's going to have a friend. Believe me!"




CHAPTER X

THE LAST LAP


Though the shadow of the trenches hung over them, Bob's latest
acquisition put his bunkies in a decidedly lightsome mood. After
bidding a pleasant good-bye to Gaston's keepers, and giving the
redoubtable Gaston himself a fairly wide berth, the five Brothers
wandered on through the village. It was not yet three o'clock, and they
were not due back to camp until four o'clock.

Dusk would see them under full pack again, and ready to take the road
to the firing line. The advance guard, composed of military police,
were to start at least two hours ahead of the main detachment. They
would not march in a body, but would straggle along by ones and twos,
lest some lurking enemy along the road might learn from their numbers
that a new army was soon to be on its way to the front-line trenches.

"We'd best turn back to camp," Schnitzel at last suggested. "It's
twenty after three, and we must be almost a mile from headquarters. I
want to fix up my pack before we start."

The exploring party had left their heavy packs and equipment in charge
of a comrade. They carried on their stroll only their haversacks
containing their supper and breakfast ration, two thick sandwiches
apiece.

Until dugout shelters were reached the next morning, they would have
no more hot food. Nothing that required cooking would be given them on
this last march except hot coffee. Now, so close to the German lines,
the cook wagons would be temporarily closed. Bits of food or sparks
dropped in the road might also serve to inform the enemy that Uncle
Sam's Boys were nearing the front.

About to retrace their steps, the five Khaki Boys were suddenly brought
to a sudden standstill by a loud cry from Ignace.

"Look you!" he exclaimed, pointing upward. "So is it the fight by the
air!"

Instantly turning their eyes skyward, the group saw high above them an
aeroplane cutting wild circles in the air. Around it little puffs of
white smoke were continually bursting. As each puff burst, a peculiar
"plopping" could be heard, though dully.

The plane itself was up too high for the watchers to tell much about
it. Besides, they were not familiar enough with the various types of
aeroplanes used by the Allies and the Huns to be able to distinguish to
which side it belonged.

"It must be a French or an English plane, and the Boches are peppering
it with anti-aircraft shells," surmised Bob, ever ready to theorize on
whatever chanced to meet his gaze.

"You're wrong, old man. It's a Boche plane, and the Allied guns are
after it."

Schnitzel's correction was uttered with a quiet positiveness that
brought instant questions of, "How do you know?" "Who put you wise?"
"What makes you so sure of that?"

"Oh, I've been finding out all I could about anti-aircraft guns,
batteries, shells and all that," Schnitzel answered. "I worked in a
gun plant, you know, before I enlisted. I've told you that. Machine
guns were its specialty, but I learned a lot about other kinds of guns,
too. I put in a request for Artillery when I enlisted, but I landed in
Infantry instead. I was pretty sore about it at first, but I soon got
over it.

"Just the same," he went on, "I've still a hankering after the big
guns. I've been asking questions right and left ever since we came
over. Back in England at the rest camp I met a Tommy who'd been in
artillery since the war began. He'd done his bit, and lost an eye, so
he was back to Blighty for good. He told me a lot of interesting stuff
about guns. He said the Allied anti-aircraft shells showed white smoke
when they exploded, and the Boche anti-shells showed black. So there
you are. If what he said was so, and I'm sure it was, that's an Allied
battery shelling a Boche plane."

Listening to Schnitzel's explanation, the eyes of the quintet,
nevertheless, remained fixed on the swooping, circling black speck
overhead. Not for a moment did the concealed Allied battery cease its
attack on the enemy plane.

Though their necks began to ache and their eyes to smart, they could
not draw their fascinated gaze from that gyrating black dot. Even as
they watched, it seemed to grow a trifle larger.

"It's coming down!" yelled Jimmy. "They got it! Hurray! I'll bet this
plane was trying to get a line on what was doing down here."

"It's dropping, sure as a gun!" shouted Bob. "Some drop! Oh, glory, I
wish it would flop right here!"

"It's coming down, down, down, all right!" sang out Roger. "We won't
see it though. It'll probably land miles from here, on the other side
of those hills. That aviator didn't have much show as an observer."

In what seemed to them an incredibly short time, the doomed plane had
sped earthward, and out of sight behind the distant hills east of them.

"So is it, some Boche get kill pretty quick. He never more do
nothin'," commented Ignace with grim satisfaction.

"Not so you can notice it," airily agreed Bob. "If he wasn't croaked by
the anti, he'd hit the ground with a bump that would finish him. Well,
show's over. We've seen a Boche plane shelled and a Hun aviator downed,
now let's be on our way. If we never live to see another Fritzie
birdman's wings clipped, we've seen one, anyhow."

"We're going to live to see a whole lot more welcome sights like that,"
asserted Jimmy sturdily.

"Glad to hear it," grinned Bob. "Only the saints croak young. We have a
pretty fair show to keep on going, according to that."

Signally inspirited at witnessing the defeat of an enemy the five
bunkies set off for headquarters talking cheerily as they walked. There
they found their comrades had already begun to assemble, preparatory
to the night march, which would begin as soon as sheltering twilight
descended. Group after group of soldiers, who had been resting during
the afternoon, or roaming about the village, now reported, and stood
awaiting the order to "Fall in."

As time went on, conversation gradually died out among the men. Earlier
exchange of good-humored badinage ceased, and comparative silence
replaced it, broken only by an occasional low murmur of voices.

With the first signs of twilight the tension began to tighten. A
curious hush pervaded the two detachments, as the heavily burdened
Sammies stood about and watched the dusk grow and deepen. Strangely
enough, no distant rumble of artillery broke the spell. Though the
voices of the guns had boomed all day, now they were silent. It was an
hour which those who survived the struggle they were about to enter
would long remember.

At last it came; the clarion notes of the bugle, blowing the order
"Fall in." With calm, resolute faces each Khaki Boy found his place in
the long double line.

The order was passed along: "Right dress--right dress!" A shuffling of
feet, a straightening of lines, and the Khaki Boys were ready for the
next command.

"Front!"

Every pair of boyish eyes looked unswervingly ahead.

"Report!"

Corporal after corporal accounted for his squad. There were no laggers
or deserters in that heroic band. The time had come, and the Khaki Boys
were ready.

"Squads right--March!"

By rows of fours the soldier boys turned, then in the growing darkness
they swung off, rifles on their shoulders, stepping alertly, and with
the rhythm that long training had given them. On every face shone the
quiet determination to do well. Every man was imbued with the resolve
to give good account of himself. The Khaki Boys were out to "do and
dare" for the honor of Uncle Sam and his Allies.




CHAPTER XI

IN THE FIRE TRENCH


Shortly before midnight, the columns of marching Khaki Boys reached a
village that lay practically in ruins. Passing through one neglected
street after another, the company leading was halted just at the
turning of a street by an English major, astride a mettlesome horse.

"Who is in command of this company?" came the sharp query.

"Captain Reynolds, sir."

Saluting, a steel-helmeted officer stepped forward.

"Very good. See that every man in your command adjusts his gas mask at
alert. All cigarettes must be thrown away."

A moment and both orders had been carried out.

"Forward march by platoons, fifty feet apart," was the next order. "You
will be in range of shrapnel directly you leave here."

Obeying instantly, the first company passed on in the designated
order. Turning the corner, it started down a road that led straight to
the front. It was followed by a second and so on, each company being
briefly halted by the English major to receive similar instructions.

In silence, broken only by the thud of tramping feet, the two
detachments of Khaki Boys hiked steadily toward the trenches. All
realized that at any moment the German guns might tune up. If the two
detachments reached the front-line trenches without "clicking" any
casualties, they would be lucky, indeed.

Perhaps for the time being they bore charmed lives. More probably,
however, the foe was not aware of their advent into the trenches. At
any rate, not even a shrapnel shell was hurled at them by the German
artillery.

Amid a hush so deep that each soldier could hear the beating of his own
heart, the Khaki Boys finally entered the zig-zagging communication
trench, through which they must pass to reach the front-line trench
where they were to receive their first initiation into the hazards of
war.

Now they were no longer marching in fours. In single file, six paces
apart, they plodded mutely along, their tired feet sinking deep into
the mud. In the trenches mud is seldom absent. It scarcely ever dries
up sufficiently to make walking easy.

An hour from the time of entering the trenches, the Khaki Boys had
reached the front line of their sector, and had taken up their
positions. Sadly in need of a little rest, the majority of the men
seated themselves on the fire step. In the darkness a long line of
American soldiers filed past them, on the way to another communication
trench that would lead them away from the firing and back to billets
behind the lines. These were the men whom the Khaki Boys had come to
relieve.

In the front-line trench, however, a goodly number of veteran Americans
still remained to receive the new men and initiate them into the
mysteries of trench warfare.

Trying to catch satisfactory glimpses of the shadowy figures which
flitted past him in a long succession, Jimmy Blaise speculated as to
how long they had been on duty. He was amazed at the number still alive
and apparently unscathed. Remembering that, thus far, all night the
guns had been silent, he decided that this was the reason why so many
Sammies were left to return briefly to billets. He wondered if as many
more were still left in the trench.

His thoughts turning to his bunkies, he wondered what they thought of
it all. A corporal in his platoon, he knew that Bob, at least, was not
far away. In the dense darkness, however, there was a small chance of
locating him.

He wondered, too, what time it was. It had been almost midnight when
the marching men had been halted in the ruined village by the English
major. It must be after two now. Perhaps the Germans would attack just
before dawn. He had heard that with both sides this was a favorite hour
for attack. At that hour, a man's faculties were the least alert. He
was less likely to give good account of himself.

Although he was anything but at home in his new environment, Jimmy was
relieved in that he felt not in the least afraid. He had always hoped
that it would be thus. Yet he had never been quite sure of himself on
that point. He had always known that he should never be afraid in the
cowardly sense of the word. Still, he had often pondered as to whether
he would "have all his nerve with him" when the eventful front-line
hour arrived.

He was rather surprised to find himself as "nervy" as ever. He almost
wished that something would happen to break the deadly monotony around
him. Most of all he wished for daylight to come, so that he might take
stock of his surroundings and perhaps "bump into" his bunkies.

The night wore on and nothing happened. With dawn came the order "stand
down," and the two veteran sentries posted at each traverse along
the line got down off the fire step. To them had fallen the task of
standing there all night, heads above the top of the trench, eyes
straining into the darkness of "No Man's Land."

The passing of the word "stand down" was hardly more welcome to the
tired sentries than to the newly arrived Sammies huddled along the
fire step. It meant to the latter a certain relaxation from duty, and
a chance to sleep until the order "stand to" saw them back in their
places on the fire step, ready for whatever might come to them.

Attempting to rise from the fire step, Jimmy discovered that every bone
in his body ached. Crouching in a cramped position on a muddy ledge
was not conducive to great agility. Pulling himself together, Sergeant
Jimmy went through a series of limbering-up exercises. Burdened by his
equipment, which he had not been allowed to remove, he was not very
nimble at first. Soon he felt his muscles growing more flexible under
the persistent treatment he gave them.

Very promptly he saw to it that his men went through a similar set of
movements, which did them all good. To his delight, he found Bob only
a few men away from him. The latter's face looked rather wan, but his
black eyes were bright and snapping as ever.

"Some night," cheerily greeted Bob, as Jimmy hurried over to him.
"Nothing like a fire step for solid comfort--not. Thought the Fritzies
might send over a hot shot or two for a welcome. Nothing doing in
Dutchyland, though."

"Don't worry. We'll get ours soon enough. Maybe to-day. Still, we might
be here quite a while before anything happened. The Boches aren't quite
so ready as they used to be to keep hammering the Allies. They've
learned a few lessons since this war began.

"Here comes our coffee!" exclaimed Bob. "I certainly am ready for it."

Glancing up the trench, he had spied two men coming down the line,
bearing huge pots of the steaming beverage.

"The Tommies may have their tea for breakfast, but coffee for Blazes
every time!"

With this emphatic comment, Jimmy proceeded to extract from his
haversack the large metal cup belonging to his mess kit. Along with it
he brought out the remaining sandwich of the two issued to him on the
day previous. It was to be his breakfast.

Bob made room for him on the fire step, and the two settled themselves
to await the coming of the coffee men.

Very soon they were hungrily munching their sandwiches, and enjoying
the strong, black coffee, which was, indeed, welcome. It warmed them
through and through, and put new life into their chilled bodies.

"I'd give a good deal to see the fellows," sighed Jimmy, as, his
breakfast finished, he stood up and stretched himself. He was feeling
decidedly better, and very wide awake. "Wonder if we dare go up or down
the lines a little way."

"You're a sarge. You can travel around, I guess, with no come-back.
I wouldn't want to risk it, though. This front-line business doesn't
carry many privileges."

"Even so, we can't stick to the fire step all the time. We have to
sleep in the dugouts, and when it's quiet we'll be allowed to hang
around in them. It's at night that we'll have to do most of our work, I
suppose."

"Yes, I presume so. After we get used to this trench system we'll know
better how to manage our affairs," was Bob's sage opinion. "We'll have
to ask these fellows who are here to help us all about what to do."

Breakfast over and quiet still continuing, the men were ordered to the
dugouts for rest.

Earlier in the great war, the heroes of Ypres, Mons, the Marne, and of
other memorable battles, found trench life almost unendurable. Since
then trench conditions have changed for the better. To-day there are
plenty of dugouts, trench platforms, and many other conveniences which
help to make the men on trench duty vastly more comfortable than of old.

After seeing that his men were made as comfortable as possible, Jimmy
accompanied Bob to one of the dugouts, and flung themselves wearily
down on the narrow canvas cots provided for their rest. Just before
entering the dugout, however, both had gone a little way up and down
the line in search of their bunkies. Failing to find them, and sadly in
need of rest, they had agreed to postpone the search until later.

How long they slept neither knew. Both were awakened by a thunderous
roar that threatened to split their eardrums.

Instantly springing from their cots, they made a dash for the dugout's
opening, along with the rest of the men it contained. All knew what had
happened. The enemy had at last been heard from.

Among the first to gain the trench, Jimmy saw that a portion of the
parapet on his right had been demolished. It had fallen into the trench
completely blocking it. His heart stood still as he saw at the edge of
that heap of tossed-up earth an olive-drab arm moving feebly.

Others besides himself had now reached the scene, among them a veteran
lieutenant who ordered a pick and shovel detail to get busy at once.

"Back to dugouts!" was his sharp order to the Sammies who had run to
the scene. "Don't expose yourselves unnecessarily."

Jimmy, however, was one of the digging detail. Seizing a shovel, he
began to dig furiously into the soft earth. It yielded easily. Careful
lest he strike the body of the buried soldier with the shovel, he soon
had enough of the smothering mud cleared away to expose the man's head
and shoulders.

First sight of the victim's head, and Jimmy shuddered. The face under
the helmet was caved in, an unrecognizable, bloody pulp.

"Poor fellow," Jimmy muttered. "He got it pretty quick." He wondered
who the man was. Not one of his men. They had all been in the dugout
when the crash came.

While he continued at digging the dead man out of his prison, the rest
of the detail were busy clearing the trench of the piled-up earth that
formed a blockade.

"It was a 'Minnie,'" one of the veteran diggers informed Jimmy.

"Minnie" means a high-power trench mortar shell, of German invention.
It is used particularly by the Germans to demolish the Allied trenches.
Its real name is "Minnenwerfer." It is especially deadly, as it makes
no noise coming through the air. The English soldier is responsible for
giving it the name "Minnie."

"Funny they don't follow it up with some more," Jimmy observed to the
man, as the latter stolidly wielded a pick.

Hardly had he spoken when a hail of bullets set in from an enemy
machine gun. The Boches had begun to turn their energies to the
caved-in parapet. Occasionally a single bullet sped past the diggers,
but none of them were hit.

By this time another detail, composed of green and seasoned men, were
engaged in filling sandbags with earth and passing them on to still
another group who were rebuilding the parapet.

Farther down, a second deafening roar announced that another "Minnie"
had burst in the trench. Jimmy wondered how much damage it had done.
Already stretcher-bearers had come up on the double quick, and were
taking care of the shattered form which Jimmy had now released from
the pinioning earth. They would bear it away through the communication
trench to the rear. Presently it would be laid to rest in foreign
soil, and an identification tag would go speeding across the ocean
to tell its own gruesome story to the Sammy's dear ones back home.
Though he had not lived to fire even one shot at the Germans, he had,
nevertheless, done his bit. He had died for his country.




CHAPTER XII

GETTING USED TO IT


After a third "Minnie" had sped across No Man's Land and into the
front-line trench, an advanced American battery opened up on the Boches
and returned the compliment with a hot fire that soon put a temporary
check on Fritzie's activities so far as the sending over of more
Minnies went. German machine guns, however, continued to direct their
fire upon the gaps in the trenches made by their mortars.

Four men had been killed and several wounded, as a result of the last
two mortar shells.

Immediately the damage had been wrought to the trench parapet, willing
hands set to work to rebuild the broken places to their original
height. During the operation three more men lost their lives, shot down
by the bullets from the Boche machine guns.

After this brief exchange of hostilities quiet again settled down,
broken only by the occasional letting loose of a Boche shrapnel shell
directed at some point behind the lines.

Their digging detail finished, Jimmy and Bob again repaired to the
dugout and slept until noon. Both awoke at dinner time greatly
refreshed by their brief sleep. A palatable stew and more hot coffee
put them in excellent trim for whatever duty might fall to them later
on.

Dinner over, they promptly made a fresh effort to find their bunkies.
Roger, Schnitzel, and Ignace, who were fairly near together some
distance down the line, had also started out on a hunt for Bob and
Jimmy. Both search parties met about halfway respectively from their
own stations. Bob and Jimmy had the good fortune to bump into their
bunkies just as the latter were entering a dugout.

"Come on in and let's talk," urged Roger. "Goodness knows we may never
have another chance."

"Did either of those last two mortars get any of your men?" was Bob's
first question of Roger, as the five sought a corner of the dugout and
sat down on the floor in a compact circle.

"No; but Schnitz lost two good boys and Iggy one. My men were in the
dugout asleep when it happened."

"It was horrible." Schnitzel's dark face wore an expression of deepest
gloom. "Ryan and Harvey, corking fellows, both had their heads blown
almost off their shoulders. I'm all broken up over Ryan. He was one of
the straightest guys I ever met. Gritty, too. He was dying to get a
whack at the Boches. Now he's gone West, and never had a chance to kill
off even one of the dirty brutes. He was an only son, too. His folks
just worshipped him. I'm going to write to his mother. I promised long
ago that I would if it came to the scratch. He gave me her address."

Schnitzel spoke with intense bitterness. Ryan had been the best man in
his squad.

"Tough luck!"

Jimmy voiced his most emphatic expression of sympathy.

"When come him that one shail, so have I the dugout jus' leave," burst
forth Ignace. "Then hear I som' the loud thoonder an' fall down in
trench. So think I mebbe I daid for minute."

"Ha, ha!" jeered Bob. "How could you be dead and keep on thinking, you
funny old top?"

"Mebbe I daid, you no laugh," responded Ignace with a tranquillity that
showed he was quite used to Bob's raillery.

"You're right I wouldn't." Bob's merry face quickly sobered. "It's
because you're not 'daid' that I'm laughing. It's a poor subject to
josh about, though. Let's forget it."

"I'll never forget that fellow I dug out of the mud," declared Jimmy
tensely. "He was the one croaked by the first 'Minnie.' I was in our
dugout with Bob when it hit the trench. All the fellows in there rushed
out to see. Lieutenant Jaynes shoved 'em back in a hurry, except a
detail to dig and one to repair the parapet. I was detailed to dig and
I went at it, too. Hauled the fellow from under all by myself. His face
was all smashed in. Don't know yet who he was, except that he wasn't
one of my men. One of the greenies, like us, I guess."

"It's a pretty savage business, but I'll bet our guns clicked some
Boche casualties, too," asserted Roger.

"I thought we'd all get the order to 'stand to' after that third
shell, but not yet. I suppose the Huns thought they'd send over a few
'Minnies' to scare us. Wonder when they'll make a real stab at us?"

"When they get good and ready," shrugged Schnitzel. "Maybe not while
we're here. We may be the ones to start the ball rolling. One reason
it's been so quiet, I guess, is because the Fritzies haven't any
ammunition to waste. I've been told that the Allies are sending over
twenty shells to their one these days."

"Some improvement." Jimmy expressed his deep satisfaction at this
rumor. "When the war began it was twenty to one in favor of Bill
Kaiser. Now the shoe seems to be on the other foot."

"I hope I live to see the day when it'll be fifty to nothing in favor
of the Allies," was Roger's heartfelt declaration.

"It'll come, even if we don't live to see it," assured Schnitzel
prophetically.

"So think I," nodded Ignace. "Byme by, thes' Boche have no the nothin'.
Then get kill pretty quick. I would him myself that ver' bad Bill
Kaiser kill."

"Why don't you ask for the detail?" was Bob's mischievous suggestion.
"I'll lend you Gaston to help do the dirty work."

"Now again you mak' the fon to me," giggled Ignace. "I say only I would
it to do. So is it."

"'So is it,'" repeated Bob. "I can just see our Iggins and dear Gaston
hot-footing it to Bill's royal shebang to put him out of his misery.
Gaston would be some fine little ally. You could turn him loose on the
imperial guard while you went in the back door of the palace and did up
William."

Bob's nonsense brought a smile even to Schnitzel's somber face. No one
could be serious for long with Bob on the premises. His light-hearted
ability to see the funny side of things when in the midst of shadow was
always eminently cheering to his bunkies.

"I wish I had Gaston with me," Bob continued regretfully. "I'll bet
he'd win a whole string of honor tin cans going Over the Top. He'd
probably eat 'em afterward, though, unless Bobby was around to see
that he didn't overload his heroic stomach. Just as soon as I get back
to a rest billet, I'm going to take Gaston to the K. O. and offer his
services. I'll bet they'll be gratefully accepted."

"Unless Gaston takes it into his head to charge on the K. O.,"
laughingly supplemented Roger.

"Oh, I'll speak to Gaston about that beforehand," airily assured Bob.
"I'll put him wise to the difference between a K. O. and a bunch of
insignificant non-coms."

"Don't forget to class yourself with that bunch," reminded Jimmy.

The five Brothers continued to talk in this light strain, well content
to get away briefly from the grim shadow of war. Already they were
unconsciously leaning toward the desire to keep strictly to the surface
of things.

In the front-line trenches men soon realize that it is futile to worry
over what may happen. They learn to live from hour to hour and make the
most of whatever cheer lies at hand.

They gleefully plan for the future, refusing to reflect that a
well-directed shell or bullet may send them speeding West immediately
afterward. If it were not for this cheery ignoring of grim Death
hovering ever near, arrant Fear would soon step in and claim toll on
them. Dread of Death courts Fear indeed.

Toward supper time the Khaki Boys witnessed from the trench a spirited
bout in the air between Boche and Allied aircraft. From somewhere back
of the enemy trenches, half a dozen German aeroplanes suddenly rose
against the evening sky and began a flight toward the American sector.

When hardly halfway over No Man's Land they were met by a fleet of
French planes which had promptly risen to drive them back. Though they
were some distance up the line from the portion of the front line
trench occupied by the 509th Infantry men, the Sammies had a fairly
good view of the fight. They could hear the constant pop-pop of the
aircraft machine guns as the contestants swooped, dived and circled
about one another.

Jimmy Blaise centered his attention particularly upon one of the French
planes. It had been the first to rally to the scene and was giving good
account of itself.

Its aviator appeared to bear a charmed life. Shells from the German
Archies, which had immediately gone into action, failed to reach him.
He spiraled and sank, sank and spiraled with an elusive dexterity that
was dizzying to watch. At times his plane would lurch wildly, dropping
a little, as though shell-pierced and about to fall. Instantly it would
right itself and soar upward, cleverly maneuvering so as always to
attain a position in the air where its gunner could pour a mercilessly
effective fire upon the Boche planes.

One of them went down to destruction as a result of the wonderman's
marvelous exhibition of skill and daring. A plane of the French fleet
also met disaster. Seeing one of their number down, the Frenchies
rallied to the onslaught with a zeal that soon put another Boche plane
out of business. By this time Allied Archies were sending their shells
against the invaders with a demoralizing aim that crippled a third
enemy plane and sent the three remaining Boche flyers soaring out of
danger and back to their own lines.

In the trenches the Sammies were cheering with wild enthusiasm as they
watched the spirited conflict in the air. Here was a spectacle beside
which even baseball paled into insignificance as a purely "sports"
proposition. They were only sorry that it lasted so short a time.

"Great work," yelled one of the seasoned men who stood beside Jimmy.
"That one guy was a sure-enough peach of a birdman."

"You bet," agreed Jimmy fervently.

The clever work of the daring aviator had brought to his mind the
"Flying Terror of France." He imagined that only a man like Voissard
would be capable of giving such a wonderful exhibition of flying as he
had just witnessed. Where was Cousin Emile now, he wondered, and would
he ever see Voissard again? Perhaps he would not live long enough
to learn the important information concerning the "tiger man" which
Voissard had mentioned in his letter to Jimmy.

Until now Jimmy had not once thought of the "tiger man" since the march
to the front had begun. The events of that memorial hike had driven
the past quite out of his mind. Standing there in the trench his gray
eyes grew retrospective as his mind harked back to the time he and his
bunkies had boarded the _Columbia_. He had not realized until then how
really remarkable had been his adventures since he left the United
States. Living them from day to day they had not seemed so very unusual.

The greatest adventure of all yet lay ahead of him. He had still to
know what it meant to be actually under fire and take part in a real,
bang-up fight. His natural impatience of delay made him wish that it
would come soon. Perhaps this latest attempt of the Boches to send
observation planes over the American trenches meant that the enemy was
getting impatient, too. He hoped so.

He had come to the trenches to fight and he felt it would be a bitter
disappointment should his first tour in the trenches end without at
least one opportunity to fire a shot for Uncle Sam.




CHAPTER XIII

UNDER FIRE


Eating an early supper, the order "stand to" came just at dusk and was
passed along from traverse to traverse. With it two veteran sentries
in each traverse took up their positions on the fire step to keep ward
over No Man's Land.

Until relieved by other sentries, one of the two in each traverse would
stand, immovable on the fire step, watching over the parapet for any
signs of activity on the part of the enemy. The other man would sit
at his feet ready to inform the platoon officer of whatever reports
his companion might make in regard to what he saw going on across the
narrow stretch of land that divided the two armies.

It was an especially trying post for the observation man. Not for an
instant did he dare remove his eyes from the portion of land in front
of him. Whether he spoke to make a report or to answer a question put
to him by his companion, he was obliged to speak in guarded tones and
without turning his head. His motto had to be "Eyes Front."

In the trench, ranged along the fire step, with bayonets fixed, Uncle
Sam's young defenders sat ready for duty at the slightest word of
command.

Now strictly on the alert, the Khaki Boys dared not speak above a
whisper and only when necessary, as, for instance, in passing an order
along the lane. Rigid discipline had to be observed in this respect,
lest some loudly-uttered word should be heard by a Boche detail out on
listening post duty.

In the daytime No Man's Land is never a land of living men. Often
it occupies a space hardly larger than a good-sized garden. It is a
desolate stretch of ground, indeed. One sees only masses of barbed wire
and yawning shell holes, sometimes containing all that remains of what
once were fighting men. Perhaps a few ragged stumps dot it here and
there, or a pile of debris that originally formed part of a farmhouse,
long since leveled to the earth by the barking dogs of war, the big
guns.

At night, however, it undergoes a swift transformation. Under cover
of the darkness it soon swarms with living men. They crawl stealthily
about on their details. Perhaps they are risking their lives on
listening duty. Again they may be out to mend broken-down wire. After
a battle they steal out to bring in their dead and wounded.

Night expeditions across No Man's Land are of equal importance to both
sides. Each sends out its eyes to keep tab on the movements of the
other and find out, if possible, his opponent's strength and plans.

Many a silent battle is fought there in the dark when two enemy details
chance to meet. Never a shot is fired. Steel meets steel and the victor
goes on his way, leaving behind the lifeless form of his antagonist.
Out there, kill quickly and mercilessly is the watchword. The ethics of
No Man's Land permit of no quarter.

The quiet continuing all evening, toward ten o'clock the new men and a
part of their seasoned comrades were allowed to seek the dug-outs for a
little sleep.

At three o'clock in the morning the sleepers were routed out with the
order "stand to." Though the Khaki Boys could not know it, a patrol
had returned half an hour before with the information that they had
surprised a Boche wiring party, who were busily engaged in cutting
lanes in their own wires, and had killed two of them. This looked
decidedly suspicious, to say the least. The patrol was of the belief
that an attack on the American trench would soon begin, followed by a
raiding party of Boches.

Shortly after the Khaki Boys had taken up their positions on the
fire-step, the German guns began a furious bombardment of the American
trench, forcing the men to shelter themselves behind the parados.
The parados, in this particular trench, were composed of squares of
sandbags built up at intervals for a distance of about three feet
behind the parapet, leaving a lane in the trench just wide enough for
passage back and forth behind them. These parados did much to avert
casualties caused from bits of bursting high-explosive shells.

The American batteries lost no time in opening up on the Germans,
returning their fire with equal fury. For a while the din was terrific.
Shells screamed overhead, causing a pandemonium of racket. Bursting,
their fire made No Man's Land almost as light as day. In the trench
many Sammies were dropping, wounded or killed by pieces of exploding
shell. The Khaki Boys were receiving their baptism of fire in earnest.

It was a battle in which the Sammies themselves took small part, save
to crouch in the trench, shielding themselves as best they could from
that devastating rain of fire. The noise was too great for them to make
themselves heard in passing an order, save by cupping hands to mouth
and yelling as loudly as they could.

For an hour each side continued to bombard the other's trenches. All
along the parapet of the American trench yawning gaps began to appear.
As fast as one was made, men set to work upon it to repair the damage
before dawn should appear and expose the Sammies to the rifle and
machine-gun fire of the Boches.

The Khaki Boys turned to with a will. Some filled sandbags with mud,
others rebuilt the shattered parados and stopped the gaps in the
parapet. Toiling with desperate energy, they could only hope that the
American guns were doing much heavier damage to the Fritzies' fire
trench. They had faith that their own artillery could register more
telling hits than that of the enemy.

Considering the number of shells that the Germans were sending over,
many of them had been aimed in the direction of the flare from the
American batteries. These passed right over the trenches. The American
guns continuing to keep up a constant thundering, it looked as though
the Boches had not succeeded in wiping out any of these batteries.

The gray light of dawn showed first glimpse of the enemy trenches. It
was a sight that cheered the Sammies immensely. Gap after gap yawned in
the parapet of their fire trench, through which could be seen plainly
the forms of German soldiers, hurrying back and forth or toiling
desperately to re-establish a protecting wall between themselves and
the Sammies.

If the Boches had intended to raid it seemed evident that they had
given it up as a bad job and devoted themselves strictly to the
business of playing safe.

With daylight their guns suddenly became silent. The American batteries
went on hammering at them, however, for some time after the Boche
artillery had ceased firing.

The dilapidation of the Boche fire trench gave the Sammies the
opportunity for which they had been waiting. They now began to pour
a hot rifle and machine-gun fire at the enemy, inflicting heavy
casualties. The German batteries immediately got busy with smoke shells
and soon hung a curtain of heavy smoke in front of their lines, which
completely obstructed a view of their trenches.

Through the smoke the Sammies continued to harass the foe, until the
order came to cease firing. Though the Americans had suffered a good
many casualties, the Germans had clicked a far greater number. Their
proposed raid had ended in a sound drubbing for them. When night again
fell they would have the pleasure of mending the wires they had been
in such a hurry to cut, provided they did not make a second attempt to
raid within the next few hours.

Of late these night raids had become a new feature in the war.
Beginning with a heavy bombardment, the attacking troops would dash
over the top, take the enemy trenches, make thorough search of them,
capturing as many prisoners and machine guns as possible. Instead of
occupying the trenches taken, these would be destroyed by fire or
dynamite, the victors returning to their own lines.

It was such a raid as this that the Germans had been on the point of
making. Thanks to the efficient work of the American batteries, they
had not been able to carry it out.

When it was all over and comparative quiet had again settled down on
both sides, Jimmy Blaise was amazed to find himself not only alive but
unhurt. Through those terrible hours he had seen comrades dropping
on both sides of him, yet, somehow, he had come through that raging
hail of shot and shell unscathed. He marveled that, while it had been
going on, he had worked like a tiger at helping rebuild the shattered
defenses without a thought that he might be living his last moments of
life.

After firing a final shot and getting down from the fire step, he
stared about in a half-dazed fashion. To and fro through the fire
trench stretcher-bearers moved continually, bearing the shell-shattered
soldiers away through the communication trenches to first-aid posts.
Many a bloody form lifted gently to the stretchers was beyond human aid.

Jimmy's first coherent thoughts centered on his own men. He must find
out what had happened to them. Pulling himself together he began an
investigation. He soon discovered that he had lost four of them for
good and all. Several others had been seriously wounded. Like himself
a few had come out of the fray untouched. For a time he busied himself
in doing what he could for the wounded, until relieved by the first-aid
men.

The aroma of coffee in the air brought him to a dim realization that it
was breakfast time. He was not hungry. Who could be after seeing those
broken, bloody shapes being lifted to the stretchers? He felt as though
he would not be able to eat for a week afterward.

"Thank God, Blazes, you're not one of 'em!"

A friendly hand clutched his arm.

At the sound of the familiar but rather unsteady tones and the touch
of a hand Jimmy whirled to find Bob beside him. The latter's face was
grimy, a little stream of blood trickled down one cheek from a shallow
gash high up toward his left eye.

"Bob!" Jimmy grabbed his bunkie and fairly hugged him. "You're hurt!"
he exclaimed.

"Just a scratch. I can hardly feel it. A Fritzie bullet shinned past me
and broke the skin. I just used my first-aid dressing on a fellow in my
squad."

"Let me fix you up."

Jimmy hurriedly reached for his first-aid packet, took from it his last
bit of antiseptic gauze and applied it to the bleeding gash, careful
not to touch it with his fingers. As Bob had declared, it was hardly
more than a scratch.

"I'd plaster it up," he said, as he staunched the bleeding, "but you'd
better hike down to first-aid post and have it looked after there. You
mustn't run chances of infection."

"I started for first-aid when I bumped into you. You're a welcome
sight, believe me, Blazes!" Bob spoke with an intensity of affection.
"I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you standing there. Not
a scratch on you, you good old scout! How any of us managed to live
through that fracas beats me. Under fire, at last! Well, I guess so!"

"Maybe I'm not just as glad to see you!" Jimmy's gray eyes shone. His
brief flash of joy changing to anxiety he asked: "Bob, have you seen
any of the fellows? We've got to find out----"

"Rodge is all right," Bob quickly responded. "I saw him right after
things quieted down. He's looking up Schnitz and Iggy now. As soon as
I get this Boche memento plastered up I'm to meet him at the dugout we
were in yesterday. He'll have found out about the boys by then."

"Go to it and get plastered, then. I'm going after Rodge. Look out
while you're in the communication trench. If you hear a whishing
sound, duck for cover. The Boches are likely to send over shrapnel,
'cause they know the stretcher men are using that communication trench
now."

"Duck's the word. See you at the dugout."

With a wave of his hand, Bob hurried away. Jimmy watched him for a
second, then started up the trench toward the dugout he and his bunkies
had been using since their arrival in the trenches.

All the way he encountered stretcher men, busy with their ghastly work.
Three times he stopped to aid them in lifting a wounded Sammy to a
stretcher. By the time he reached the dugout he was feeling sick at the
stomach. It was the sickness of fear, however. With every bleeding form
he had seen, his heart had been in his throat lest in it he recognize
Iggy or Schnitz.

Finally reaching the dugout, he was about to enter when he spied Roger
coming down the trench toward him. Behind Roger were two disheveled,
grim-faced men, whom he nevertheless recognized. Despite the
restriction against using a handkerchief to staunch bleeding, one of
them was holding that forbidden bit of linen to his cheek.

Uttering a shout, Jimmy ran toward them. "Oh, you fellows!" was his
heartfelt cry of relief. "It takes more than a Boche thunderstorm to
put the five Brothers out of business!"




CHAPTER XIV

DETAILED TO SCOUTING DUTY


The joy of that meeting, even under such grim circumstances, can be
better imagined than described. To all it seemed unbelievable that
they should have been spared to fraternize once more. The tears raced
frankly down Ignace's smoke-blackened face as he crooned over Jimmy
in Polish. He could find no English in which to express his utter
happiness at seeing his best beloved Brother safe and sound. By common
consent the quartet sought a dugout for a few minutes' talk. They were
wild to compare notes.

"Take that handkerchief from your face," Jimmy commanded of Schnitzel.
"Where's your first-aid packet?"

"Gone. Used it on one of my men. It didn't do him much good. He went
West in my arms. This beauty spot on my cheek is nothing much."

Schnitzel's joy at seeing his friends vanished from his face, leaving
it doubly somber.

"I've only one whole man in my squad," he said. "Curse the Boches!"

"Amen!" agreed Roger savagely. "They lost me two good men. They
certainly soaked it to the fire trench."

"We went 'em one better," exulted Schnitzel. "Their artillery isn't in
it with ours. It's a wonder they didn't slam their own fire trench.
Some of those shells were aimed by Boche tailors, I guess. They
certainly went wild. But, oh, Boy! What our batteries did to their
trench was beautiful! Wish we'd gone over the top. We could have taken
their first trench easy as wink."

"That's what I thought," put in Roger. "I expected every minute to get
the order to go after 'em."

"We're too green yet, I suppose, for that," was Jimmy's opinion. "This
stretch in the trenches is really our practice turn. Next time in,
maybe, we'll get a chance to leg it across No Man's Land."

"That's what the Boches had up their sleeve," declared Schnitzel.
"They've been on pins to find out our strength and all that. They
haven't got much of a line on the Sammies yet. They'll know more about
us when we get through with 'em, those that are left alive."

"So think I. By my squad have I the one man see get the head shoot off.
Now will I soon the five Boche kill. So is it to pay the head this
poor man. This remember I when go over top. I will it do, I no get the
croak firs'," vowed Ignace vengefully.

"A Polish vendetta." Schnitzel smiled faintly. "A five to one
proposition like that suits me, though. I'll rid the earth of as many
Fritzies as I can. If ever I get one where I want him, the Kamerad
business won't go down with me. They say the dogs whine like anything
for mercy in a bayonet charge. Cold steel gives 'em the Willies."

Having won safely through their first trial by fire, the Khaki Boys
were full of rancor against the enemy. The horrible slaughter of their
comrades had given Hate fresh impetus.

Bob presently returned, his face neatly plastered. Another joyful
reunion took place between himself, Ignace and Schnitzel.

"Go and get your face fixed, Schnitz," he advised when the first
effusion of greeting was over. "The first-aid fellows have their own
hands full, but they'll do you up quick if you can get hold of one."

"I'm going to feed first," replied Schnitzel. "I didn't know I was
hungry until I saw you guys. Seeing you all to the good brought back my
appetite."

"I'm hungry, too. It's a queer game, isn't it? How a fellow can see
his comrades go West by the shell road and then feel like eating is a
puzzle to me," mused Roger.

"We're beginning to get used to the trenches," was Schnitzel's grim
opinion. "A few more scraps like this and nothing will faze us. If we
expect to be any good as fighters we've got to eat, no matter what
happens."

A little later the five bunkies found breakfast very palatable, even
after the horrors they had recently witnessed. The trench now fairly
clear of wounded and dead men, the survivors sat along the fire step
and hungrily devoured their stew and hot coffee.

After breakfast, sleep became the order of things, except for those
detailed to various trench labors, particularly that of completely
restoring the parapet. Men engaged in this task were relieved from time
to time by a fresh detail, thus enabling all to get a few hours' rest.
Except for occasional Boche shrapnel shells aimed principally at the
communication trenches, all remained serene.

A communication trench is not easy to hit, as it makes use of
everything available for cover. It is cut through the ruins of barns
or houses and seeks in every possible way to conceal itself from enemy
observation. As it must run indirectly at right angles to the fire
trench and thus toward the German, its zig-zag, tortuous windings are
necessary to keep it from being enfiladed by the enemy guns. When it
reaches a spot bare of bushes, ruins or similar protection, it makes
a quick turn to the right, then to the left, to the left once more,
forming a partial square, which prevents the preceding bit of trench
from being enfiladed.

It is generally about five feet deep and the earth taken from it is
piled up on each side, forming mounds. Stakes are driven into it to a
height of about two feet above its open top on each side, and between
these stakes expanded metal is stretched to keep the piled-up earth in
place.

Along the dirt walls on each side are rows of telephone wires. These
belong principally to the artillery batteries. Failing to get a direct
whack at a communication trench, the Germans are fond of shelling "at
it" nevertheless. In consequence, their shrapnel does much damage to
the top and sides of it. After a bombardment it keeps both engineers
and sappers (wiring men) busy putting it in order again. Often the
wires become so tangled that the various artillery signalers have great
difficulty in locating their own.

In going to an advanced first-aid dugout to have their slight wounds
dressed, Schnitzel and Bob had traveled back a little way through one
of these trenches. By daylight it was teeming with activity. They
passed sappers, engineers and various worried-looking persons, all of
whom were busy putting the place to rights after the attack of the
morning.

Bob, in particular, was so much impressed by what he had seen that,
before going to sleep after breakfast, he wrote down a detailed
description of the communication trench as it appeared to him. Proudly
exhibiting it to Roger, he met with a severe shock.

"You'd better tear that up quick," was Roger's stern advice. "You
mustn't carry it around with you. Suppose you got the order to go over
the top. You'd go and maybe get killed. Then some Boche might get hold
of that paper. It's information, you know."

"Oh, I'd tear it up if I knew I was going over," asserted Bob.

"You might forget to do it. Better be on the safe side and can it."

Grumbling a little, Bob reduced the fateful paper to bits.

"I guess I won't gather much data in this dump," was his regretful
opinion. "If I write it in billet and try to send it home to Mrs.
Blaise, the censor'll probably can it. I'll have to keep it all in
my head. If a shell takes my head off, it'll be a great loss to the
literary world and a greater one to Bobby."

"When the war's over and you get back to the U. S. you can scribble all
you want to and no one will stop you," consoled Jimmy. "Won't that be
nice?"

"Yes, when it is and when I do is something to gamble on," jeered Bob.
"Another such shindig as this morning and Bobby may be taking a little
trip West. I'm going to sleep and forget this pesky old ditch for a
while."

Awakened toward the middle of the afternoon to relieve men who had been
on duty, the five Brothers were kept busy by various tasks which they
were called upon to perform. Quiet still prevailing, evening drew on
with no signs of immediate hostilities on the part of the foe. All day
they had prudently kept the smoke curtain across their lines in order
to conceal their activities from the Americans.

Shortly before dark Jimmy Blaise was set aquiver with excitement
when he received information that he had been chosen to make one of
a scouting party who were to go out on a scouting expedition into No
Man's Land.

The party was to start out at ten o'clock and creep across to the
German lines in order to discover whether the Boches had repaired their
wire entanglements or had still left lanes in them, preparatory to
making a raid that night. They were also instructed to keep their eyes
and ears open for anything else that might fall to their lot to see or
hear.

Realizing that this scouting duty might be his last, Jimmy sought out
his bunkies for a farewell word. Though it was still light, the order
"stand to" had gone forth and half of the occupants of the front-line
trench ranged along the fire step with bayonets fixed and ready. The
other half were still resting in the dugouts.

"I'm going out as a scout," he informed Bob, who was nearest to him.

"You don't say! Take me along!"

"Wish I could. I don't know who all is in the gang. Lieutenant
Redmond's in command," Jimmy replied. "I've got to beat it and see the
fellows before dark. Now will be my only chance to get a word with 'em.
We're to start out at ten. See you again in a few minutes."

So saying, Jimmy went on down the trench to where Ignace, Roger and
Schnitzel were usually stationed. He was not sure whether they were on
duty or in a dugout. He soon came upon them. They were seated on the
fire step not very far apart.

Jimmy's news brought a shadow of deep gloom to Ignace's solemn face.

"I no like," he said sadly. "I would by you go the care you to take.
You no come back, I hope shail hit me then pretty quick."

"Cheer up, Iggins. I'll come back. Now shake hands. Not good-bye. Just
for luck. I'll see you again to-night all right."

Ignace looked his deep distress as he mournfully shook his Brother's
hand. He would not have minded going out on such a hazardous
enterprise, but he hated to see Jimmy go.

Roger accepted the news very quietly. There was a wistful look in his
blue eyes, however, as his hand met Jimmy's.

"Do be careful, Blazes," he urged. "Don't jump headfirst into something
without looking before you jump. You're too blamed venturesome for your
own good, you know."

"I'll be a regular slippery sleuth," Jimmy promised as he left Roger to
go on to Schnitzel. "Schnitz," he began, "I'm going out on a scouting
party. I----"

"So am I," was the amazing response.

"Under Lieutenant Redmond?" was Jimmy's excited query.

"Yep."

"Good work!" Jimmy brightened visibly. "Then we're in the same detail.
It certainly suits Blazes."

"That's fine," glowed Schnitzel. "I was going to wait till a little
later and tell you fellows. I intended to ask leave to have a word with
you and Bob before I went."

Together the two walked to where Roger and Ignace were stationed.
Pausing only to shake hands again with both, Jimmy went on to his
station, leaving Schnitzel with his other two bunkies.

Shortly afterward Schnitzel came to bid Bob farewell. The latter did
not look as cheerful as usual. Jimmy had already informed him that
Schnitzel was also to be one of the party. Two bunkies going on a
danger hike into No Man's Land made Bob feel rather downcast. He kept
his feelings to himself, however.

The same yearning light that had darkened Roger's blue eyes leaped into
Bob's black ones as he shook hands with Schnitz and wished him a safe
return. He could not help thinking that it would be a miracle if either
Schnitz or Jimmy Blazes got back from the detail alive.




CHAPTER XV

OUT IN NO MAN'S LAND


At exactly ten o'clock a cautious little party of nine men went through
an embrasure in their own fire trench and set stealthy feet upon No
Man's Land. Besides Lieutenant Redmond and the two non-coms, Jimmy and
Schnitzel, there were three veteran infantrymen and three from the
509th Regiment. Lieutenant Redmond was also of the veteran contingent.

Safely on the ground, they passed through a lane purposely cut for exit
in their own barbed wire. For a few feet they walked along, the officer
in the center. The sending up of a German star shell caused the whole
party to drop like a flash and hug the ground.

These star shells are used at night by both sides for the purpose
of illuminating No Man's Land. They are fired from a tube somewhat
resembling a pistol. When fired, they hang in the air for about twenty
seconds, giving forth a radiant, silvery light, highly betraying to a
scouting party.

Each member of the scouting party was armed with a bayonet and knife.
Lieutenant Redmond was the only one of them to carry a pistol. Should
they encounter a German patrol or scouting party they would be obliged
to engage in hand-to-hand combat with its members. Battles such as they
might have to engage in had to be fought out in the dark with noiseless
weapons. The crack of a rifle or a pistol would immediately draw down
upon the scouts the machine-gun fire from both sides, with the result
that neither Boches nor Sammies would escape.

Following the ascent into the air of the star shell that had flattened
the scouts to the ground, they separated, Lieutenant Redmond and two
infantrymen crawling away together, the others in pairs. The point
in their own sector from which they had made exit was nearest to the
German fire trench.

Jimmy found himself creeping slowly along over the rough, uneven
ground in company with one of the veteran Americans. On they went,
side by side, scarcely breathing. Frequently they had to flatten
themselves to the ground on account of star shells. Numerous shell
holes also afforded them considerable cover. They had to be specially
careful, however, of these same holes. To drop suddenly into one of
them, unawares, they were likely to make enough noise to attract the
attention of some sharp-eared enemy scout or perhaps a Boche sentry.

Little by little the two wormed their way across No Man's Land until
at length they reached the Boche wire entanglements. Here the two
separated, to travel in opposite directions along the wire, feeling
every inch of it to determine if it were open at any point. The patrol
had been divided so that each man had a certain section of enemy wire
to account for.

His first feeling of nervousness vanished, Jimmy was beginning rather
to enjoy his nocturnal adventure. Strongly imbued with the spirit of
daring, this hazardous expedition appealed to him immensely. His right
hand grasping his bayonet, his left lightly investigated the wire as he
moved slowly along.

Instantly afterward his heart almost skipped a beat. His alert ears had
caught the sound of voices, speaking in the guttural Boche tongue. He
knew that these voices proceeded from the enemy fire trench. He wished
he could understand German.

Pausing briefly to listen, he again started on. Grasping the wire, his
hand moved gingerly along it. He stifled a little gasp as the groping
hand suddenly dropped into space. Quick investigation revealed to him
that he had discovered the very thing he had been sent out to learn.
He had come upon a clean severing of the wires for a distance of about
two feet.

Jimmy also discovered something else in the same moment. He landed
squarely upon a form lying flat on the ground. Involuntarily a
whispered "Great Guns!" issued from his lips.

"Blazes!"

Jimmy's incautious utterance alone saved him from bayoneting his own
bunkie, Franz Schnitzel. Had Schnitzel not recognized him and whispered
his name, Jimmy's bayonet would have done its deadly work.

In the darkness the two clung to each other without speaking. Each was
trembling at the narrowly averted tragedy. As they lay there, the sound
of voices from the trench could be plainly heard.

A quick pressure of his arm by Schnitzel informed Jimmy that Schnitz,
at least, could understand what was being voiced by the near-by enemy.
Still holding to Jimmy's arm, Schnitzel began to edge along. Obediently
Jimmy followed him in the direction from which the German-American had
come when the two bunkies had fallen over each other. A few feet and
Jimmy understood. They were descending into a shell hole directly below
the barbed-wire entanglement.

Hardly had they reached it when a star shell went up and hung directly
over the spot they had just left. The shell crater was deep enough,
however, to convince them that they could not have been seen from the
enemy's fire trench.

For half an hour they lay there, scarcely making a movement, while
Schnitzel listened to the talk that went on in the trench. One of the
voices heard almost continually had a harsh, authoritative ring. It
gave Jimmy the impression that it must undoubtedly belong to a German
officer. He wished he could understand what the Boche was saying.

At last Jimmy felt Schnitzel's hand press over his body until it
reached his head. An instant and Schnitzel's lips against his left ear
breathed:

"Back to our lines quickly!"

Immediately the German-American began wriggling along, Jimmy following.

Presently they were out of the shell hole and had turned themselves
toward their own lines. Although the scouting party had started out
together, the men had been ordered to return singly or in couples to
the American lines, using their own discretion as to the length of time
they remained out.

Now began the ticklish task of crawling safely back to their own
trenches. The nearer they came to the center of No Man's Land the
greater grew their danger. Jimmy knew that Schnitzel's desire to reach
the American trenches quickly meant that he had learned something of
decided importance.

Coming to a shell hole a little over halfway across the danger land,
Schnitzel pulled him into it. One side of this crater projected over,
forming a little cave underneath it. Into this, as far back as he could
go, Schnitzel piloted Jimmy.

"Listen," he breathed. "I've got to tell you this in case anything
should happen to me before we get back. The Boches are going to try
another raid at four o'clock. They're going to open fire at two
o'clock. One of their crack Prussian regiments has just come into the
fire trench. No matter what our guns do, they're coming over, several
waves of them. They're going to use extra batteries of their biggest
guns to smash our defenses. They're after prisoners to torture. I heard
'em brag what they're going to do to the dogs of Americans. Now I'm
going to get out of here and beat it for our lines. Wait what you think
to be ten minutes, and then follow me. One of us surely will get back
with the word. Good-bye, Blazes. If I don't see you again I'd like you
to remember what I say now: 'You're the whitest guy I ever knew and I
love you!'"

"You're the bravest old sport I ever knew, and I'm all there with the
reciprocity stuff," Jimmy whispered tensely.

The two bunkies gripped each other's hands hard in the darkness. Then
Schnitzel began to crawl away and out of the crater.

Directly he had gone, Jimmy crouched in the little cave, his ears
straining to catch any sound that might proclaim disaster to his
bunkie. Save for the occasional hiss of an ascending star shell, he
could distinguish not even the faintest noise of a suspicious nature.

Waiting until he judged the ten minutes to have expired, he began his
own perilous exit from the shell crater. He knew that the cave itself
lay toward the German trenches. Crawling out of it he must continue
straight ahead. The open side of the crater was toward the American
lines. He could only hope that Schnitzel had also remembered this.

Climbing out of the hole, he decided upon a brave but reckless course
of action. Getting to his feet he started for his own trenches, running
lightly on his tiptoes. He knew that he was likely to crash headlong
into a shell crater, or that a star shell might suddenly outline his
upright running form with its silvery light. Still, he took a desperate
chance on his fleetness of foot to reach his goal. Not for nothing had
he won the hundred-yard dash at prep. school.

Luck was surely with him that night. He reached the American barbed
wires without a single mishap, was challenged by a sentry, and passed
on safely into the fire trench.

The first man encountered in the dugout, where he had been ordered to
report on return, was Lieutenant Redmond, who had just returned, his
uniform covered with mud and a gash across one cheek.

"Has Corporal Schnitzel returned, sir?" was Jimmy's anxious question.

"No. You are the first man back besides myself and one of the men who
went with me. My other man, Drayton, was killed. We had a fight with
two Boches. We killed both, but I lost a good man."

The lieutenant's voice was choked with anger. Drayton had been the best
man in his platoon.

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm glad you did up the Boches and got back safe. I
haven't time to tell you the details of what happened to Schnitzel and
me. The Boches are going to attack at two o'clock and come over at
four. A crack Prussian regiment is now in their trenches and----"

"Come with me to headquarters!"

With this explosive command the lieutenant dashed out of the dugout,
Jimmy at his heels. As he followed the officer's hurrying feet through
the trench, Jimmy's mind was not on the coming attack but on Schnitzel.
Had their good-bye in the little cave been a final farewell? Had No
Man's Land really "got" Schnitz?




CHAPTER XVI

FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED


It seemed to Jimmy Blaise that he must have stayed a very long time in
No Man's Land. In reality he had been away from his own lines hardly
more than two hours. It had been only a little after midnight when he
returned with the important communications intrusted to him by the
still absent Franz Schnitzel.

The information Schnitzel had gleaned set headquarters in an orderly
flurry of industrious preparation to beat Fritz at his own game. The
wires of the communication trenches hummed continually with messages to
the American batteries behind the lines. By one o'clock every man of
the front-line trench units was "standing to" on the fire step ready to
give the Boches a warm reception.

In darkness and in discreet silence the work of preparation went on.
Every possible precaution was taken to spring upon the Fritzies the
surprise they trustingly expected to launch at the Sammies.

With the exception of Schnitzel the remainder of the scouting party
had all returned by a little before one o'clock. They reported the
finding of lanes cut in the enemy's wire entanglements, but that was
all. Stellar honors had fallen to Schnitzel, whose knowledge of the
German language had enabled him to obtain such valuable information.
Schnitzel, however, did not appear to claim them. His mantle had
partially dropped upon Jimmy's shoulders.

Jimmy had been roundly commended at headquarters for his work that
night. Ordering him to be brief, the commanding officer had requested
him to give an account of his scouting in No Man's Land. In telling his
story, Jimmy gave Schnitzel full credit, explaining that he had been
merely the German-American's messenger.

He left headquarters with a heavy heart. The fact that Schnitz had not
reported there proved him to be still absent. Jimmy was fairly sure
that the American batteries would open fire before long, thus stealing
a march upon the enemy. The Boches would then get busy. What if
Schnitzel were lying wounded upon No Man's Land? He would then be under
the fire of both sides. And he had been the one to warn his own side of
the purposed bombardment! It was too horrible to contemplate!

Back in his own place in the fire trench, Schnitzel's fate continued
to haunt the heart-sick sergeant. Perhaps Schnitz was already dead.
Perhaps he had gone down in hand-to-hand conflict directly after he and
Jimmy had parted. Again, he might now be a prisoner. That would be even
worse than death. As a German-American the Boches would wreak a ghastly
vengeance upon Schnitzel.

Shuddering, Jimmy felt that he would prefer his bunkie to be dead
rather than the prisoner of such inhuman fiends.

If only he could talk to someone. Bob was not far away. He might just
as well be a thousand miles off. In that dark hour of waiting not a
word more could be even whispered that was not actually necessary.
Jimmy did not know that the rest of the scouting party had returned.
He judged it to be at least one o'clock. The German bombardment was to
begin at two. He wondered how soon the American batteries would open up.

At precisely half-past one the intense quiet of the night was shattered
by the terrific roar of American batteries concentrated on the Boche
trenches. A blinding red glare lighted up the sky at the rear of the
Sammies' trenches. Over their heads shells screamed their devastating
way across No Man's Land. Above the terrible din came the sighing moan
of shells from the big guns. The American batteries were at it in
earnest. With one accord the Sammies leaped to the fire step and peered
over the top of the parapet. It was too glorious a display of fireworks
to miss. The Fritzies were getting a real "strafing" and the Khaki Boys
proposed to see all that there was to be seen.

Undoubtedly the Fritzies were amazed to discover that their trap had
been neatly sprung on them. Very soon, however, their own guns began
to send over shells, causing the fire-step audience to get down into
the trenches again. Boche shells began to hit the American fire trench,
shattering portions of its parapet and dealing out death to the men
behind it. The fight was on in earnest.

One shell landed just behind a parados, killing five men and causing
the dirt to spout upward like a fountain. Another ripped away a section
of parapet, wiping out half a dozen brave fellows.

Yet for every one shell the enemy sent over, the Sammy batteries had
five with which to meet it. So heavy and concentrated was the fire of
the American guns that it seemed as though the German front-line trench
must soon be utterly demolished by it.

In the glaring light made by exploding shells, enemy forms could be
plainly seen through the gaps rent in their parapet.

American machine guns, trained on these gaps, sent forth a raking fire
of bullets. Though the Sammies were having a hard enough time of it,
the Boches were faring far worse.

For two hours the bombardment continued unceasingly on both sides.
Toward daylight the German batteries put up a heavy barrage fire,
which indicated that they intended to come over despite the frightful
casualties they must have clicked.

The night had seen many Sammies fall to rise no more, and in the
American fire trench the stretcher-bearers were constantly traveling up
and down, bearing away the wounded.

The dead had to lie in the trench. Not until later would the rushed
first-aid men have time to take them away.

Still the fire step was lined with intrepid Khaki Boys, who proposed to
sell their lives dearly when at close grip with their hated antagonists.

Just at daybreak the German barrage fire suddenly lifted. Down
the American line the order was passed to be ready. It was a
never-to-be-forgotten moment for the Khaki Boys when they heard the man
at the periscope shout:

"The Boches are coming over!"

Mounted on the fire step, rifles ready, the Khaki Boys saw wave upon
wave of grayish-green-clad figures leaving their trenches to charge
across No Man's Land, shooting from the hip as they trotted doggedly
forward, driven like cattle by their officers. A German officer never
leads his men.

Before they had traversed a dozen yards of No Man's Land an advanced
American battery opened fire on that moving gray mass. Other American
batteries began to speak and Sammy machine guns and rifles mowed them
down with a merciless hail of bullets.

Completely demoralized by the wholesale slaughter of their comrades
many of the Boches threw down their guns and ran for the American
trenches to give themselves up. They could never have lived to get back
to their own trenches. They had started across to take prisoners. Now
they were glad to become prisoners.

Thus ended the Boche raid which, thanks to Franz Schnitzel, had been
so effectively checked. The raid having failed utterly, the German
guns suddenly slackened their fire. Gradually the American batteries
ceased. Soon quiet settled down upon that scene of carnage; a stillness
that was almost uncanny after the terrible racket that had made night
hideous.

Details of Sammies herded their prisoners together and marched them off
through the American trenches. What might have been a dreadful defeat
to Uncle Sam's Boys had turned into a glorious victory. And all because
of one man, who, perhaps, was long since beyond knowledge of the great
service he had rendered his country.




CHAPTER XVII

MISSING: A BROTHER


In the bright sunlight of early morning, No Man's Land was a sight to
behold. It was fairly covered with grayish-green forms, rifles, tin
cups and accoutrements belonging to Fritz. Here and there one of the
grayish-green figures was seen to move feebly. The majority, however,
lay motionless. Uncle Sam's rifles and machine guns had done their
deadly work only too well.

As for the German front-line trench, it was practically ruined. That it
was still inhabited was proven by bullets which whined across No Man's
Land every time a Sammy chanced to expose his body ever so little.
Sammy sharp-shooters were also on the job, returning the compliment
with interest when the least sign of a Hun was visible.

Looking through the periscope at the wreck across the way, Jimmy
Blaise again marveled that he was alive and unhurt. Compared to the
bombardment of last night his first experience of being under fire
seemed mild. He wondered that so many of his comrades were still left
in the fire trench, practically uninjured.

The American fire trench itself was a sickening sight. It was sticky
with mud and blood and littered with the shattered bodies of dead
Sammies, each in itself a ghastly horror.

Here and there detached arms and legs added to the gruesome spectacle.
Not far from where Jimmy stood at the periscope lay the head and trunk
of a Khaki Boy cut fairly in two by an exploding shell.

As yet the stretcher-bearers were too busy to remove these dreadful
evidences of the night of carnage through which Jimmy had somehow
passed unscathed.

Since the cessation of firing on both sides he had been picking his
way through the trench, seeking his bunkies. His search, thus far,
fruitless, Jimmy had paused briefly to look through the periscope.

He was savagely glad at the slaughtered Boches it revealed, yet his
real object in viewing bloody No Man's Land was to see if, among that
gray-green assemblage of motionless, distorted shapes, he could catch
a flash of olive drab uniform that had once held a living, breathing
bunkie, Franz Schnitzel.

Unable to discover that which his straining eyes eagerly sought, he
turned away from the periscope and stumbled on down the trench,
blinded by the swift blur of tears. Where was Schnitz, and would he
presently come upon Iggy, Bob and Roger, or what had once been his
three Brothers?

He had hoped to find Dalton easily, as their stations were so close
together, but he had seen no trace of cheery old Bob. His spirits
dropped to zero, Jimmy poked a disconsolate head into a dugout. It was
filled with wan-faced, disheveled men, nearly all of whom had sustained
minor injuries, which they were attending to themselves with the help
of first-aid packets.

Uttering a loud cry, Jimmy suddenly bolted into the dugout and straight
to a corner where a man was engaged in binding up the injured wrist of
another.

"Oh, you two!" he choked.

Dropping down at the feet of the busy pair he buried his face in his
hands, sobbing out of sheer nervous relief.

"My ver' bes' Brothar!"

His wounded wrist forgotten, Ignace Pulinski jerked away from Roger
Barlow and plumped down beside Jimmy, hugging the latter with his well
arm.

"Blazes!" was all Roger could say as he bent and laid a hand on Jimmy's
shoulder.

"Gee, but I'm a big baby!" Jimmy raised his head and beamed at his
bunkies with wet eyes. "I guess I'm all in. I've seen so many dead
ones in the last few minutes that I could hardly believe my own eyes
when I lamped you two.

"Let go of me, you old Polish bear!" This affectionately to Ignace,
whose good arm still encircled his neck. "Up on your feet and get that
wrist fixed. You've pulled the bandage almost off of it."

Getting to his own feet, Jimmy hauled Ignace to a standing position.

"Now stand still, Iggins, and let me do you up," he commanded. "Does it
hurt you much?"

"No-a. Never I feel sooch hurt. It is the little one from the piece
shail. It is the hurt here." Ignace's well hand touched the region of
his heart. "Think I, mebbe so is Jimmy, Bob, Schnitz, daid. Now is
my heart better. Still is the ache we don' see the nothin' Bob an'
Schnitz. Roger have no get the scratch. For that am I the glad. Now see
you are the all to him good. It is the great happiness."

"Rodge and I are a couple of lucky guys." Jimmy's tones vibrated with
thankfulness. "I can't find Bob. I think he must have been wounded. His
station was near mine. I've hunted all along there among----"

Jimmy paused. The horror of that search robbed him of words to continue.

"We were going to hunt for you as soon as I tied up Iggy's wrist. We've
looked for Schnitz." Roger's voice was rather unsteady. "His station
was near ours. I'm afraid he never came back----"

"He's missing." Jimmy shook his head sadly. "But he did his bit all
right for the Army." Triumph rang in this tribute to his absent bunkie.
"We met last night out there."

Lowering his voice, Jimmy recounted the events of the scouting party.
His gray eyes glowed with pride as he told of Schnitzel's splendid
achievement.

"And to think that he couldn't be the one to come back with the news he
risked his life to get! It makes me sick," Jimmy ended with a groan.

"Splendid old Schnitz," eulogized Roger. "A real Brother from the word
go. I thought as much of him as of you and Bob and Iggins, even if I
hadn't known him as long."

"No one could help liking him. He was my idea of a thorough-going
man. I know we've got to expect this horrible business of losing one
another, but it comes hard. Tough luck!"

"Mebbe Schnitz no daid. Mebbe him prisonar," faltered Ignace. "So think
I better be daid than go live by Boche."

"Here, too," agreed Jimmy bitterly. "I'd rather think him dead ten
times over than at the mercy of those black-hearted fiends. We ought to
treat the prisoners we took the same way they've threatened to do to
our men. But we won't. We're human and they're inhuman.

"We've got to get busy and find Bob," he reminded. "I'd be as much in
the dumps about him as Schnitz, if it wasn't that I know that whatever
has happened to him, he's not a prisoner of the Hun dogs. I'm going out
now to look again for him. You fellows wait here for me. We'll soon
have coffee and grub handed us. I'll take a hike up the trench and come
back in time to eat with you. Afterward I'll go at it again unless I
get a detail that'll keep me from it. Last night's fracas means hard
work all day and lots of it."

Leaving his bunkies in the dugout, Jimmy retraced his steps through
that ghastly lane of dead men. Every few paces he paused to stare
darkly at a still form, the face of which was smashed beyond
identification.

Frequently he stooped over such an one and examined the identification
tag attached to the left wrist. He also kept a sharp look-out for a
gold service ring which Bob had worn on the ring finger of his right
hand. The four Brothers had service rings exactly alike, save for the
initial engraved on each plate. These rings had been given them by the
Blaises during that memorable Christmas furlough spent with Jimmy's
parents.

This careful scrutiny of the dead, coupled with the constant passing
to and fro of stretcher-bearers, made his progress through the trench
very slow. The groans of the wounded wrenched his heart. Often he
stopped and held his water bottle to the lips of a pain-crazed Sammy,
who moaned piteously for water. Again a stretcher-bearer would solicit
his help in placing a wounded soldier gently upon a stretcher.

It was during one of these labors of mercy that Jimmy stumbled upon
news of Bob. Assisting a couple of first-aid men to place the bleeding
wreck of an infantryman upon a stretcher, one of them looked sharply
over and said:

"I think we took a friend of yours back quite a while ago. A
black-eyed, curly-haired chap. I saw him with you after the bombardment
the other morning when we came up here to carry off the casualties. He
was at the dugout afterward to get his face fixed up. The plaster was
still on it when we took him back this morning."

"That's Bob! What happened to him?" Jimmy fairly shouted his question.

"Knocked out by a piece of shell. It grazed his scalp and put him to
sleep. Nothing very serious. Come along with us and you can see him.
We'll fix it for you," was the kindly offer.

"You're all to the mustard," Jimmy responded gratefully. "Will I go
along? Well, you bet."

Trotting along behind the stretcher, Jimmy was soon in the
communication trench. A short walk brought him to a first-aid dugout.
It was full of cots, on which lay wounded soldiers, many of whom would
soon be on the way to a hospital back of the lines.

"There's your man." Pointing to a cot, the good-natured
stretcher-bearer immediately turned to attend to his work.

Jimmy, however, did not need direction. He had already spied Bob.

"Hello, Blazes," greeted a faint but cheerful voice, as Jimmy reached
the cot. Very white, his head bandaged, Bob's grin was still in
evidence.

Tears again rushed to Jimmy's eyes as he grabbed the hand Bob stretched
out to him.

"I've been hunting you ever since the guns quit," he said brokenly.
"Are you hurt any place besides your head?"

"Nope. A piece of shell barked my venerable cocoanut. The rainmaker had
to put a few stitches in it. It's all right now. I'm going to dig out
of here first chance I get. I'll be back in the nice safe fire trench
before night. Just watch my speed. Maybe I'm not tickled to see you,
you blazing Blazes! What about Roger, Iggy and Schnitz?"

Bob's voice rose in worried alarm.

"Roger is O. K. Iggy got his wrist gashed by a bit of shell.
Schnitz----"

Jimmy gulped.

"Gone West?"

The question came almost in a whisper.

"Missing. Never came back from No Man's Land."

Rapidly Jimmy again related all he knew of Schnitzel. When he had
finished, a heavy silence descended upon the two.

"Poor Schnitz!" Bob said at last. "Brave, wonderful Schnitz, I mean. He
was all A. and no G. Well, Blazes, it's a great life, but it doesn't
last long. We do our little bit of a bit and away we go, Westward
bound. What we miss to-day we'll get to-morrow, maybe. The Glory Road
is a pretty dangerous thoroughfare these days. Just the same, it's the
only road any right-minded fellow can travel. I'm not sorry I took to
it. Hope I last long enough to run a few Boches into the ditch."

"The 'ditch' is full of 'em this morning," was Jimmy's grim response.
"Most of that crack Prussian regiment is taking a long sleep out there
in No Man's Land. Their fire trench is all smashed in and the Dutchies
don't dare show a head. Our fellows are potting 'em right along. You
ought to see it."

"I'm going to."

Bob swung his legs over the side of the cot and stood up, swaying a
little. "Hang the rainmakers," he grumbled. "Bobby was a sick Sammy,
but he's improving werry fast. Come on, let's beat it out of here.
I'm going back to the fire trench and enjoy myself. My pack is kicking
around here somewhere. That shell did for my helmet. You'd better go on
ahead. I'll follow soon. Goodness knows what happened to my rifle. I
can get another easily enough."

Jimmy could not help smiling. Nothing short of utter disablement would
keep restless Bob long in bed.

"You lie down and take it easy," he admonished. "I'm going back to tell
the fellows you're still alive and kicking."

"Sure I'm alive," grinned Bob. "Kicking, of course I am. Who wouldn't
be? Do you think a little biff on the bean is going to keep Bobby
indoors? Nix. You go ahead and break the glad news to Iggins and Rodge.
I'll rustle up my lost traps and kiss this place good-bye. They've got
their hands full here. They'll never miss me."

Thus urged, Jimmy left the first-aid dugout and hurried back to the
front-line trench to apprise his bunkies of the good news. Good old Bob
had been spared to them. He thanked God for that. Yet his heart was
heavy with sadness, as he thought of Franz Schnitzel.

He could not reconcile himself to believe that he would never see
Schnitz again. Within him rose a curious conviction that their good-bye
in the shell crater had not been a final farewell. He had a "hunch,"
as it were, that Schnitz and himself would meet again, and before long.




CHAPTER XVIII

"IT'S A GREAT LIFE"


Toward noon a German battery woke up and amused itself by sending
shrapnel against the very communication trench which was being used
principally to carry the wounded back to the first-aid dugout in which
Bob had been briefly quartered. As a result, two stretcher men, as well
as several wounded Sammies, went West. Presently an American battery
got the range of the enemy battery and silenced it.

All day sharpshooters on both sides were busy picking off each other's
men as they labored at re-establishing their front-line defenses. As
the Sammies were by far the better marksmen, they did considerably
more damage. The Boche infantrymen are anything but good rifle shots.
It is generally conceded that the Americans have the best gunners and
sharpshooters in the world.

American machine guns also did good work through the day. So well did
their gunners succeed in harassing the Boches that when night at last
fell, they made little effort to go out onto No Man's Land to take in
their dead and wounded. Their losses had been too heavy to risk further
casualties. The constant sending up of American star shells warned them
that the Sammies were keeping a sharp look-out, ready to mow them down
at the first opportunity.

The night passed without any attempt by the Huns to renew the conflict.
Sammies detailed to listening post duty came back with reports that
Fritz was hard at work repairing his badly demolished fire trench.
They also reported that many wounded Germans still lay neglected
and suffering in No Man's Land. The all-glorious Fatherland was not
concerning itself over these helpless, bleeding husks.

For four more days the Khaki Boys continued on duty in the front-line
trench. During that time no more heavy bombardments were directed
against them by the Boches. Plenty of shrapnel shells continued to come
over. Most of them directed against the communication trenches, or
against points behind the American lines. A favorite sport of Fritz is
the shelling of ambulances, carrying wounded men to hospital.

Those days of blessed peace saw the fire trench completely restored and
everything running along again as smoothly as matters ever run in such
a danger spot. It was believed that the Germans were getting ready for
another big raid. Scouting aircraft reported the daily arrival of fresh
troops and large quantities of ammunition and supplies to the German
lines.

During this lull in hostilities, Bob, Ignace, Jimmy and Roger were
rarely idle long. As non-coms they always found plenty to do. The
vacancies in their squads had been filled by men who had lost squad
leaders and squad comrades in the recent bombardment.

All four were exceedingly gloomy over the loss of Schnitzel. The
uncertainty of his fate weighed heavily upon them. Jimmy continued to
maintain his belief that Schnitz was not dead. He had a fixed idea that
his bunkie was a prisoner. This in itself was signally depressing. The
four Brothers would far rather have believed Schnitzel to be dead.

On the evening of the eighth day came the news that the present
contingent of Khaki Boys occupying the front-line trench were to be
relieved by a seasoned American regiment under the command of a veteran
French general. The retiring troops were to start at eleven o'clock
that night for rest billets in a village well behind the lines. Here
they would remain for at least three weeks before returning to the
trenches.

Just before eleven o'clock the first relief detachment crept
stealthily into the fire trench. They had been hiding all day in a pine
woods just out of range of the German guns. Another detachment was
concealed in the ruined village through which the Khaki Boys had passed
on the way to the trenches. This detachment would not arrive at the
front until after midnight.

The departing Sammies were ordered to make an absolutely noiseless
retreat to rest billets. It was vitally important that the enemy should
not learn of the arrival of fresh troops to replace the men who had
completed their first trench detail.

Passing with his comrades through a communication trench on the
opposite from the one used on the night of entering the trenches, it
seemed to Jimmy Blaise a very long time since then. It was more like
eight years than eight days.

What a lot a fellow could stand in eight days and still live, was his
somber reflection as he stole along, six paces behind the man in front
of him. He had been under heavy fire twice. He had looked upon death in
its bloodiest form. He had slept and eaten with the shattered, lifeless
bodies of his comrades lying about him. He had waded through blood, so
to speak. He had been across No Man's Land and back. Men had died in
his arms. He had endured agonies of suspense as he searched among the
slain for his bunkies. Worst of all, he had lost a devoted friend and
Brother.

"It's a great life if you don't weaken." Jimmy smiled grimly to himself
as this expression, so prevalent among the Sammies, popped into his
mind. Back in Camp Sterling he, too, had been very prone to use it. He
was still of the opinion that, in spite of blood, mud, death, wounds,
noise, cooties and the hundred and one other vicissitudes of war, it
_was_ "a great life."

He hoped that he would be spared to do trench duty over and over again.
That was the only way a fellow could feel about it, he thought. He was
glad that he hated the Boches so hard. Back in Camp Sterling he had
often wondered how it would feel to be actually engaged in killing men.
Now he hoped that, for the sake of Franz Schnitzel, every bullet he had
sent speeding across No Man's Land had put a Hun out of business for
good and all.




CHAPTER XIX

OUT OF THE AIR


Clear of the trenches at last, it proved a long, tiresome march to
billets. The roads over which the Khaki Boys marched were rough and
full of shell holes. Long before they reached their destination a fine
rain began to fall, which soaked them to the skin. With it, however,
came a dense fog, which was a great help in concealing them from enemy
eyes.

An hour before dawn, when almost to billets, they heard a reverberating
roar, which they guessed to be that of the German guns. It announced to
them that Fritz had again begun his "strafeing." Every Sammie's heart
beat faster, as the welcome voices of their own big guns boomed forth
in answer.

To the thunderous tune played by these noisy orchestras of war, the
rain-drenched Khaki Boys at last reached billets. These consisted
of several stables, a deserted schoolhouse, and a long, barn-like
structure, which had been used by the Allies at the beginning of the
war as a supply depot.

To his great satisfaction, Jimmy drew the supply depot as a billet. It
was large enough to accommodate two hundred men, and when dawn came
he was overjoyed to find all three of his bunkies had been quartered
there, too.

"Talk about style," exulted Bob, when a little later the quartette
sat cross-legged in a row, devouring a breakfast of bacon, bread and
coffee. "This is almost as good as a real barracks. It's about the
cleanest billet we've struck since we started out in dear old Eight
Horses."

"It's pure luck, our getting together." Roger sighed his satisfaction.
"I'll bet we'll have a real cushy time while it lasts. I hope we don't
get shelled. Listen to the guns. It must be hail Columbia now in the
front-line trench on both sides. Seems funny to be away from it,
doesn't it?"

"I guess we've earned a rest," yawned Jimmy, "and a bath along with it,
about four times a day. It'll take me three weeks to get clear of mud
and these blamed cooties. First chance I get I'm going to hunt for a
creek and live in it."

"So will I," vowed Ignace. "I am the mud all over. My mothar now see,
no believe I am the son to she."

"I'd hate to have _my_ mother see me now," smiled Jimmy. "She wouldn't
sleep nights for the next year. Just as soon as we get settled I'm
going to write to her. I wrote every day to the folks while I was in
the trenches. I hope some of those letters get across."

"I guess they will, that is, if you didn't put anything in 'em that the
censors got peeved at," rejoined Bob. "About all a fellow is allowed to
write is 'I am well,' and 'good-bye.'"

"Some of us ought to write to Schnitz's folks," said Roger soberly.

"Not yet." Jimmy shook his head. "Wait awhile. Maybe Schnitz'll come
back to us."

"I don't believe it, Blazes," disagreed Bob sadly. "He got his out
there in the dark, I'm afraid. Schnitz was the kind to fight till he
dropped, rather than be taken prisoner."

"I tell you I had a hunch out there in the trench that I'd see him
again," Jimmy stubbornly asserted. "It came to me just as plain as
anything, 'Schnitz isn't croaked. He'll come back.'"

"You think Schnitz he come back, so think I," nodded Ignace, who was
always fond of backing up his best Brother's statements.

"Well, I hope it works out that way," declared Roger kindly.

Privately, his belief in hunches was not strong.

"I wish I'd never let him go that night," Jimmy continued moodily. "If
he'd waited ten minutes longer, as I did, the two of us would have got
back to the lines together."

"You might not have, at that," was Bob's opinion. "You can't tell how
it would have come out. His way was the wisest."

Continuing to talk of Schnitzel, the memory of whom was constantly
before them, the four Brothers finished breakfast and went outside
their quarters to look around them. As they had been on the march
nearly all night, they expected to sleep part of the day. So far as
military routine was concerned, they were "on their own" until Taps
that night. Next morning, however, they would be subject to the usual
military routine they had observed when in the training camps.

Wandering about in the vicinity of their billet, the four Brothers
whooped with joy at sight of a good-sized creek, which looked to be
not more than a quarter of a mile back of the depot. Hastily repairing
to their quarters, they got out soap, towels, and clean underwear.
Laden with these, an extra uniform blouse, and a pair of clean leggins
apiece, they raced across the fields to the creek, and were soon
jubilantly swimming about in its clear, but very cold water.

It was the first real bath that any of them had enjoyed since leaving
the village where they had been briefly quartered before going on their
long march to the trenches. Cold as the water was, they soon grew used
to it, and had a glorious time splashing about in its clear depths.

After their bath, they donned clean clothing, washed out their
discarded underwear, hanging it to dry in the sun on some low bushes
nearby. They also gave their soiled leggins a much-needed scrubbing.

By the time the leggins had become presentable again, their wash was
partially dry.

"We can't wait all day for these duds to get dry." Bob passed a
critical hand over his damp wash. "Let's take 'em back to billet and
hang 'em up there. Now I've had a bath, I want to go bye-bye. Besides,
we ought to tell the other guys about this French swimming pool. They
need a bath, too."

"Tell 'em nothing. Listen to that! Look over there!"

Jimmy pointed across the field. A dozen men were charging toward them,
yelling and wildly waving clean clothing, towels or whatever they
chanced to have in their hands.

"Discovered," grinned Bob. "Welcome to our bath tub!" he shouted, as
the running group drew near. "Jump in, the water's fine. It's a sure
cure for trench mud and live stock."

After exchanging a few good-natured sallies with the gleeful Sammies,
who were discarding their clothing as fast as their hands would let
them, the four Khaki Boys left the creek and started back to quarters.

"Pipe the plane!" yelled Jimmy suddenly, pointing upward. "I'll bet
it's just come from over the German lines. She's a Frenchie, too. You
can see her colors. She's flying pretty low."

"She's coming down fast!" shouted Bob. "Looks as though she'd been
nipped."

Pausing to watch the plane, it seemed to the Khaki Boys that it was,
indeed, coming down altogether too fast for safety to its pilot.

"He's lost control of it! No, he hasn't, either! He's sure some
birdman. Oh, joy! Watch him!"

Jimmy was prancing about, flourishing his wash, as he poured forth this
volley of excited exclamation.

"He's going to land right the other side of the depot! Come on! I want
to get a look at him!"

Bob had now taken up the cry. With "Come on!" he was off across the
field, his three bunkies keeping up with his mad dash. Already a crowd
of Sammies had come out of the depot, and were running toward the
aviator, who had now made a skilful and easy landing.

"We may get the grand snub," panted Bob, as they neared the quiescent
plane.

Its pilot was just stepping out of the seat. He moved very stiffly, and
staggered a little, as his feet touched the ground. His face partially
toward the plane, he turned smilingly as the noisy delegation of
Sammies rushed up to him.

"It's Cousin Emile!" bawled Jimmy at the top of his lungs, and dashed
straight toward the smiling man.

"Blaise! This is, indeed, most remarkable!" called out a deep voice.

A ready hand shot forth to meet Jimmy's, and grasped it warmly.

"Gee whiz, but I'm glad to see you, sir!" was Jimmy's fervent greeting.
"You'll have to excuse me for calling you 'Cousin Emile.' I was
certainly flabbergasted for a minute."

"No apologies," laughed Voissard, showing his white teeth in amusement
at Jimmy's confusion. "It is the very pleasant surprise to meet you
thus, my dear young comrade. And your friends, too," he added, offering
his hand in turn to Ignace, Bob and Roger, who now grouped themselves
about him with beaming faces. "Now of a truth it seems you must have
just come from the bath."

His quick eyes had taken in the newly cleansed articles of clothing in
the boys' hands.

"We certainly have," affirmed Bob. "We landed here just before daylight
from our first front-line trench detail. You can guess how much we
needed a big clean-up."

"Ah, yes, I can easily understand." Voissard's fine face grew
sympathetic. "It is the hard life in those muddy trenches. I marvel
that you are still here to tell of it. But where is your comrade of the
dark face and quiet, sincere manner? You see my memory is good."

"He's gone, sir," was Jimmy's sad response.

Inquiry for Schnitzel caused the four eager faces to cloud over.
Briefly, Jimmy informed Voissard of all he knew pertaining to
Schnitzel's disappearance.

"It is the fortune of war," was the aviator's grave comment when Jimmy
had finished. "We learn in time to accept all in that spirit. I, too,
have lost many valued and loyal friends at the front. I share your
sorrow for this brave comrade. Yet I am happy that none other of you
has met with misfortune.

"It is purely by chance that I found you," he continued. "I spent the
night over the Allemand lines. Naturally, my plane has received rough
treatment. It was necessary for me to come down and make the repairs. I
have yet some distance to go, and my bird's wings need the attention."

"Can we do anything to help you, sir?" was Jimmy's prompt inquiry.

"_Merci_, but no. My plane needs but a few touches here and there,
which only myself can give and hurriedly. I have the important
information gleaned, which I must impart quickly to those who wait for
it. For how long shall you remain in billet?"

Voissard cast a thoughtful glance at Jimmy as he asked the question.

"Three weeks, unless we get other orders."

"That is well. Watch for me. If all goes as I hope, I shall return here
to see you within the next three days. I have much to say to you."

During this conversation, the Sammies who had run out of billets and
up to the aeroplane, had drawn back a little distance from it, and the
quartette gathered about the aviator. The average American boy hates
to "butt in." Nevertheless, many pairs of bright eyes were wistfully
watching the trim Nieuport, and the favored four who appeared to be on
such intimate terms with its pilot.

Noting this, Jimmy was seized with a kindly inspiration.

"Would you mind speaking a word to the fellows back there, sir?" he
inquired deferentially. "They'd like it a lot, especially if they knew
who you really were. May I call them over and tell 'em? It will only
take a minute and they'll be good. It will be a regular bang-up treat
for them."

A half-frown touched Voissard's dark brows, then his boyish smile came
into evidence.

"Since you ask it," he consented, "but only for a moment."

At the word of permission, Jimmy hurried back to where his comrades
stood.

"Fellows," he greeted. "Come up and meet the Flying Terror of France.
I'd like him to see what a rattling fine bunch we've got in the good
old 509th."

This last compliment was slyly intended to put every Sammy on his best
behavior. It succeeded signally. An awed and admiring delegation, led
by Jimmy, filed respectfully up to the aviator. Forming a little line,
they came smartly to Attention. On the last word of presentation spoken
by Jimmy, every man saluted.

Gracefully returning the salute, Voissard made an earnest little
speech to his young admirers, expressing his pleasure at meeting them,
and thanking them in the name of France for their loyal response and
allegiance to the Allied cause.

As he finished speaking, the Sammies again saluted. Wheeling, they were
about to march off when he stopped them, expressing a wish to shake the
hand of each. To the delighted Khaki Boys it was a red-letter occasion.
Boyish exuberance getting the upper hand, they could not resist giving
three cheers for Voissard, as he took the hand of the last man in line.
Then it seemed necessary to give three more for France, and another
three for the United States. Finally, they trooped happily off, full of
gratitude to Blaise, a "corking Sarge," who "hadn't a stingy bone in
his body."

The four Brothers remained with Cousin Emile while he went over
the plane, and made the minor repairs which he had referred to as
"touches." It took the better part of an hour to make them, during
which period the boys hovered admiringly about the clean-cut little
lighting craft.

"I'd almost give my eyes to take a trip with you, sir," was Jimmy's
wistful assertion, as Voissard was about to say good-bye.

"Your company would be the great pleasure," the aviator courteously
replied. "However, we shall at least meet again soon," he added,
extending his hand in friendly farewell.

There was a quizzical twinkle in Cousin Emile's dark eyes. Had Jimmy
known what was going on behind them he would have been raised to the
seventh heaven of bliss. He could not possibly guess that his ardent
desire to take a trip with Voissard was in a fair way to be presently
realized.




CHAPTER XX

THE RETURN OF COUSIN EMILE


Assured by Voissard that he would return to the village, the four
Brothers kept up an anxious lookout for him. Five days went by, but
Cousin Emile did not materialize. During this time new platoons and
squads were formed from those depleted by trench duty, and the two
detachments, though smaller, were soon in good order again.

The Khaki Boys were required to be on hand for roll call at 6:30 every
morning. Breakfast was followed by daily inspection and parade. After
that they drilled until noon. The rest of the day and evening was
theirs, unless on some special detail, Taps sounding at the usual time.

Though the resting detachments were well behind the lines, they were
not immune from shrapnel directed against passing ammunition and
supply-trains, and even against ambulances, as these last rushed the
wounded to hospital. Then there was always the danger of being bombed
by enemy aeroplanes. Frequently, these Boche planes would appear
sailing high overhead, only to be shelled by Archies, and driven back
by Allied aircraft. It was not a particularly safe district in which to
rest, but it certainly offered plenty of excitement.

For two days after their arrival, the guns kept up a furious racket
night and day. Now and then they gleaned some word of the conflict from
ambulance drivers or men who had come from the trenches on special
errands. The Americans were grittily holding their own, it seemed.
They had gone over the top on the very morning in which the Khaki Boys
had arrived in rest billets. There had been a wholesale slaughter of
Boches. Many machine guns and prisoners had been taken. The Hun's
first-line trench had been blown up.

The Boches had beaten a wild retreat to their second trench, and were
now engaged in trying to hold it. Many Sammies had been killed or
wounded, but the Germans had suffered more in casualties. All this and
other news pertaining to the fight that still raged, the Khaki Boys
heard. They gloried in the way "our fellows are putting it all over
Fritz."

Bob's first move after settling down was to get a pass and go to the
village where Gaston was quartered at his expense. Finding that it
was not more than twenty miles from their billet, and that he could
reach it and return by train, he cordially invited his bunkies to
accompany him. Jimmy and Ignace declined to go on the expedition, but
Roger good-naturedly consented. "You need a friend on such a dangerous
detail," he slyly remarked.

It took the two a whole afternoon and evening to make the trip.
Triumphantly returning with his pet just before Taps, Bob tied Gaston
up outside the barrack, trustingly expecting him there in the morning.
In the night, however, Gaston basely chewed his rope in two and
deserted.

Bob, being of the loyal opinion that Gaston was "no yellow deserter,"
but had been "pinched," he spent his leisure time the following day
going from pillar to post savagely asking, "Who's got my goat?"

Toward night he found the lost one in the backyard of a cottage, calmly
feasting upon a linen tablecloth, which had appealed to his peculiar
appetite.

Bob and the owner of the tablecloth discovered Gaston at about the
same moment. Gaston got a beating and Bob a wigging in French, both
delivered by an irate housewife. It ended by Bob's going down in his
pocket for the price of one linen tablecloth. Gaston, nobly resenting
this outrage, charged upon the scolding woman, and thereby added
to his master's difficulties. Bob finally roped him, and led him
back to billets, sadly pondering as he went on the trials of being
"foster-papa to a blamed old goat."

In the morning Gaston had again taken French leave. This time he
wandered gaily up to the schoolhouse where a platoon of 509th men were
billeted. They received him with open arms, and promptly adopted him
as a mascot. In due season Bob appeared, and just as promptly parted
Gaston from his new friends. Next day they stole him back again.

Bob's first four days in billet were largely spent in getting his goat,
losing it, and getting it again.

On the afternoon of the fifth day he came back to billet from a trip to
the schoolhouse looking completely disgusted.

"Those pesky guys have got Gaston again," he announced, as he went over
to where his three bunkies sat on the floor, backs propped against the
wall, and busily engaged in writing letters. "They can keep him, too.
I'm through being a father to an ungrateful brute that tries to butt
his foster-parent over on sight."

This nettled confession was received with shouts of unsympathetic
laughter.

"Oh, laugh now. It's very funny," jeered Bob. Nevertheless, he laughed,
too, as he dropped down beside Jimmy.

"Did he go for you? I'm surprised," teased Roger. "He's such a gentle,
friendly beast."

"Did he?" Bob snickered. "Those thieves had him tied to a post out in
the school-yard. When he saw his papa, he lowered his head and came on
the run. Good thing he was roped. You should have heard those ginks
yell. They kidded Bobby to a finish. Said Gaston must have taken me for
a Hun, and a lot of stuff like that.

"They've got a mangy old red ribbon tied around his neck with an
identification tag hung on it," continued Bob. "It was a blank tag,
all right, but they've cut on it with a knife, 'Gaston, Platoon 4,
509th Infantry.' The robbers! Can you beat that? I certainly was good
to that beast. Treated him fine, and spent a lot of time and money on
him. That's the way, though. Be kind to your goat and somebody else'll
get it. Bobby's all through being a foster-papa. He's going to spend
his golden hours and copper coins on himself hereafter. I was bitterly
deceived in Gaston."

"Hope it won't wreck your young life," chuckled Jimmy.

"Never I like him, that Gaston. He always the too fraish. I think mebbe
him Boche goat an' no Franche. So is it he is the no good," giggled
Ignace.

"Well, I'm all done with him," declared Bob. "Hope he bowls over a
few of those smarties in Platoon 4. He owes it to me to do it. My,
what a busy little bunch you are. Guess I'd better write a few letters
myself."

"Go to it, then, and don't bother us," retorted Roger. "We want to get
through with our writing before mess. To-night----"

Roger was interrupted by a sudden exclamation from Jimmy. The latter's
glance happening to stray to an open door at the far end of the long,
barn-like room, he leaped to his feet and hurried to it. A uniformed
man stood on its threshold, his dark eyes roving up and down the place,
as though in search of someone.

"_Mon cher_, Blaise!" he exclaimed with outstretched hand as Jimmy
neared him. "It is for you I have been searching."

"We had given you up, sir." Jimmy was radiant with delighted surprise.
"We thought you had been detailed to some special movement against the
Boches."

"Not as yet." Voissard smiled mysteriously. "I have been in Paris since
last we met. But to-morrow night my work begins."

Before he could say more, Jimmy's bunkies had come up, and were
respectfully greeting the Flying Terror of France.

"I have come to invite you to the _petit souper_ at the Inn," Voissard
presently said. "There we shall be able to talk for a little. I have
some things to relate to you of my nephews whom I saw while away. There
is also the old matter of the man whom you described to me. Also there
is another matter to be discussed."

Cousin Emile's invitation was gladly accepted, and a few minutes later
the five men left the barrack for a quaint little inn, to which the
aviator conducted them.

Seated together at a rear table, the four Brothers were not concerned
as to what they ate. They had found one inn to be about the same as
another in regard to "eats." All offered eggs, cheese, brown bread, red
wine, and not much else.

In this instance, however, Voissard held a lengthy consultation with
the innkeeper himself, which sent him hustling for the kitchen.

"Now while thus we wait I will speak of my nephews first," began the
aviator. "Both are now in the Nieuport squad. Each has been out twice,
and has a Boche plane to his credit. They send you many good wishes,
and are in hopes to see you before long somewhere out here."

He went on to tell them further of the doings of the Twinkle Twins,
smilingly answering the countless eager queries put to him by the Khaki
Boys.

While they were still discussing the famous Twinkle Twins, their dinner
appeared in the shape of two immense, beautifully browned omelets, with
other accompanying delicacies, which made them open their eyes. Cousin
Emile, it seemed, knew a thing or two about French inns, which they
did not.

Directly the meal had been served and the waiter had withdrawn,
Voissard reached into a pocket of his sky-blue uniform blouse, and drew
from it a small photograph. Handing it across the table to Jimmy, he
said simply:

"Look well at this."

Jimmy looked. His gray eyes flashed as he exclaimed: "It's the same
old smile! I mean, it's my tiger man! Then your friend, the Prefect of
Police, knew him----"

"Very well," finished Voissard. "But not as Charles Black. This man's
real name is Adolph von Kreitzen. He is an Austrian, and one of the
most villainous creatures of the Central Powers that ever drew breath.
Before the war his crimes were many, yet he always eluded capture.
During the first two years of the war he did much damage to our cause
as a spy.

"Suddenly no more was heard of him. It was thought by my friend the
Prefect that he had either entered the German army or been ordered to
commit suicide by his master, on account of some failure on his part to
carry out a mission intrusted to him. This is often the fate of those
whose work as spies displeases their finicky war-lord. He graciously
rewards their efforts for the Fatherland with disgrace or death.

"Later, however, it was learned that von Kreitzen had been seen in
Belgium. A soldier who had formerly been connected with, the Paris
Police Bureau saw and recognized him. He immediately sent word to the
Prefect. Men were sent to Belgium to trail him, but again he escaped
them.

"That was the last report of him until I went to the Prefect with
what you related to me in Paris. My friend immediately recognized von
Kreitzen from the description you gave me. I would have gone to your
training camp with this photograph had I not received your commander's
kind telegram.

"Strange to say, the next day after our meeting in the café, a report
came to the Prefect that a man resembling von Kreitzen had been
recently seen in Paris. Thus it may well be true that after you saw him
in Belfast, he went from there to England, and thence to Paris. Where
he is now, who knows?" Voissard shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps back
in Germany; perhaps with his kind on the Western front; perhaps dead.
Again he has disappeared."

"I'll tell you a queer thing, sir. I never mentioned it before, even to
my bunkies here."

Jimmy recounted to Voissard the attack made on them by the hidden
gunman on the evening of their return from Paris to the training camp.

"Somehow I always had an idea that this tiger fellow, von Kreitzen,
spotted us in Paris, and trailed us to the village. He saw me and
wanted to get me. It rather tallies with what you say about his having
been seen in Paris."

"When is a clam not a clam? When it's a blazing old tight-mouth
Blazes," was Bob's caustic conundrum, self-answered.

"Well, I had a right to be a tight-mouth if I felt like it," defended
Jimmy. "If I'd said a word about it, then you fellows would have either
told me I was crazy or else you'd have worried about little Jimmy's
health. So I just canned it."

"I wouldn't be surprised if it _was_ that von Kreitzen who went sniping
at us that night," said Roger reflectively. "It's not such a wild
idea. He might have caught sight of you in Paris, Blazes, and followed
you down on the same train. He might have been in another compartment
disguised. I don't remember seeing anyone who got off the train that
night except four or five Sammies. They went into an _estaminet_ across
from the station."

"I saw an old man and a little girl. I remember seeing those doughboys,
too," put in Bob.

"So see I him, the solder and 'nother man. He have the much black
wheeskar an' the hat over the face. He walk ver' quick no look at
nothin'," was Ignace's placid contribution.

"I don't remember noticing anyone in particular," mused Jimmy. "I
guess----"

"I guess Iggy saw the most!" interrupted Bob excitedly. "Iggy saw
_him_, this von Sweitzer, or whatever his name is. That's about the way
he'd fix up to keep shady--false whiskers and his hat over his nose.
If you had not been so keen on keeping still, Blazes, we might have
figured this thing out long ago."

"It wouldn't have done us any good," demurred Jimmy.

"It would have been some satisfaction, anyhow, to have somebody to lay
it to," grumbled Bob.

Thus during the meal the talk continued to center on Jimmy's "tiger
man." It was the element of mystery that appealed so strongly to the
Khaki Boys. It made them forget for the time the grim reality of war.
Long after the meal was finished, they still sat at the table listening
to interesting information which Voissard had gathered concerning
the intricate spy-system which the Central Powers have established
throughout the civilized world.

"I have still the news for you which must interest Blaise most of
all," declared Cousin Emile at last, smiling at Jimmy. "Because of
his pleasure, I am sure all will be pleased. You said to me, _mon
cher_ Blaise, that you would give much to go with me over the lines.
_Voila!_ Your wish has been granted. It has not been easy to gain
the permission. It has been done, however. To-morrow morning your
commanding officer will send for you. I have already talked with him.
To-morrow afternoon you and I will be leaving here on a little journey
of our own for the glory of France and her Allies."




CHAPTER XXI

UP ABOVE THE CLOUDS


"Good-bye, fellows. If I shouldn't come back--well, you know what to
do about writing the folks. I'll be back all right enough, though. I'm
just as sure as anything of that."

Seated beside Voissard in a gray French racer, Jimmy Blaise leaned
out for a last word and handclasp with his three bunkies. It was a
solemn-faced trio who stood beside the long, low car. Jimmy's Brothers
were trying to be glad because Jimmy himself was so excitedly happy. It
was hard work. They felt as though they were looking their last at good
old Blazes.

The final good-byes said, the racer, driven by Voissard, shot down
the road, started on what was to prove a most amazing trip for Jimmy
Blaise. It was three o'clock in the afternoon and the two men were
bound for a French escadrille, not far behind the American sector of
the firing lines. Jimmy Blaise was presently to go out with Voissard
over the German lines. This was the extent of his knowledge regarding
the expedition. Cousin Emile had offered not a word more than was
absolutely necessary in breaking the news to Jimmy and his bunkies.

As the racer left the village behind and struck a country road,
Voissard broke the silence which had fallen between them since the
start.

"Thus far I have imparted to you nothing of to-night's detail. You
must understand that I have been granted a great privilege in being
allowed your company to-night, _mon cher ami_. It is the first favor I
have ever asked of France. _Voila!_ You are here. Some distance behind
the Boche lines a long ammunition and supply train is making its way
to the German front. I am to lead an air squadron against it. It will
be a bombing raid and very dangerous. We shall start at three o'clock
to-morrow morning. The supply train, according to our calculations,
will be at a certain point to-morrow morning at four o'clock. It is
then that we shall attack. The craft that I shall use will be a Voisin.
In it will be only you, my bombardier and myself. Unless an unexpected
emergency should arise you will have little to do save be my honored
guest. It will be for you the interesting experience, _n'est ce pas_?"

"I should rather say so!" Jimmy drew a sharp breath. "It's the
bulliest thing that ever happened to me. I can't begin to find words to
thank you, sir."

"You need not try. I understand; _tres bien_," Voissard assured, a
smile touching his firm mouth.

With this he dropped the subject of the night's work and directed the
conversation toward more impersonal topics.

Outside the village, Jimmy was amazed at the activities of the
Allied war machine. All along the way they encountered numbers of
motor-lorries, trucks and ambulances traveling over the roads in steady
streams. Huge tractors puffed and snorted along in advance of strings
of farm wagons. Occasionally a racer, carrying staff officers, shot
by them. Once they passed a company of French soldiers on the march
from one battle section to another. Frequently motorcycles ridden by
despatch men chugged by them. In the fields peasant women and children
could be seen preparing the ground for spring planting. It was a varied
and interesting panorama that Jimmy gazed upon, wide-eyed and curious.

Arrived at the escadrille, a new world of wonder was opened to him. He
saw rows and rows of hangars, housing countless Allied fighting birds.

Though Voissard did not belong to this particular escadrille, he
was very much at home there. On the way to the headquarters of the
escadrille commander, the Flying Terror was greeted with admiring
respect by all whom they chanced to encounter. Everyone appeared to
know him, though he ruefully confessed to Jimmy that he could not
recall the faces of many of the aviators who claimed his acquaintance.

As the guest of Cousin Emile, Jimmy became also the guest of the
escadrille commander. It was almost unbelievable, he thought, that an
ordinary Sammy like himself should be eating luncheon with two such
great men. Luncheon over, he was taken on a tour about the aviation
field and saw new sights to marvel at. Standing somewhat in awe of
the commander, a very tall Frenchman with a somewhat austere face,
he soon became quite at his ease. Despite his severe expression,
"_Mon Captaine_," as Voissard affectionately addressed the commander,
was a very human sort of person and treated him with the benevolent
friendliness which an older man often displays toward a youngster.

Enjoying himself hugely, Jimmy longed, nevertheless, for the great
moment to arrive when he should take his first trip through the clouds.
At eight o'clock Voissard and himself both lay down for a few hours'
rest before the start. Jimmy was too thoroughly wide awake even to doze
off briefly. Now and then, by the faint rays of the night light burning
in the room, he consulted his wrist watch. Would two o'clock never
come?

Two o'clock, though slow in coming, finally came. Provided by Voissard
with the close-fitting head-gear and heavy fur-lined coat of the
aviator, the two made their way across the aviation field to the hangar
in which the Voisin reposed that Voissard was to fly that night. They
found there the bombardier, a slim, alert Frenchman with piercing black
eyes. Jimmy grinned in the dark to hear Cousin Emile address the man as
Gaston. The name brought humorous recollection of Bob's goat.

Watching Voissard by the flaring light in the hangar, Jimmy observed
the workmanlike manner in which the aviator examined his airplane. He
tested every point of it, giving the engine a most minute going over.

Meanwhile Gaston was equally busy attending to his own part of the
work. He tested the bomb carrier and counted his stock of percussion
caps for the bombs. He went over the machine gun, set the clock in the
front of the machine to the exact second, tested the altimeter and saw
that the compass was correctly hung.

Eleven other bombing planes besides Voissard's were to take part in the
expedition. His was the only plane to carry an extra man. The others
each had only a pilot and bombardier. Besides the twelve, five lighter,
swifter planes, Nieuports all, were to go along as a guard to warn the
bombers of the approach of hostile aircraft and to give battle should
the heavier planes be obliged to retreat.

To Jimmy it was indeed thrilling to watch plane after plane line up
at the end of the field for the start. In the flaring glow cast by
powerful lights set at each corner of the field, he could plainly see
the faces of the pilots and the bombardiers. They were laughing and
talking among themselves, unconcerned by the danger of the detail ahead
of them.

Soon pilots and bombardiers were seated in their planes, awaiting the
word from the squadron commander who had come down to see them off.

Voissard's plane was to make the first ascent. Seated behind, in the
place usually occupied by the observer, Jimmy held his breath as the
commander sang out, "All ready!"

"Turn!" shouted Voissard to the mechanician standing beside the plane.

The man spun the propeller and jumped back out of the way. The engine
tuned up and then--Jimmy felt the movement of the plane as it began
rolling along the field. It gathered speed, then began to rise. At last
he knew what it meant to fly.

Higher and higher the plane rose. Far below Jimmy could see the lights
of the aviation field as mere pin points. Soon these became completely
obliterated. Looking back, Jimmy could make out the other planes
stringing in a long succession behind them. Headed straight for the
German lines, the Voisin suddenly plunged into a cloud bank and the
flying squadron vanished from Jimmy's view.

At length, emerging from the clouds, he could see none of the squadron.
He guessed that they were now going through the same bank that had
lately engulfed Voissard's plane. His first sensation of dizziness now
past, he began to realize that it was very cold up there in the clouds.
He was grateful for the warmth of his fur-lined coat. He calculated
that they must be sweeping the skies at the rate of at least eighty
miles an hour. He wished he might speak to Voissard or Gaston, but the
roar of the engine was too great for that. Shouting his loudest he
would not be able to make himself heard. He wondered what had become of
the squadron. Had they lost their companions so soon?

Keeping up an anxious watch, he saw at last plane after plane reappear.
They had won free of the cloud bank. Presently he saw something else.
Fifteen hundred feet below him, he could make out red, twisting lines
of fire, accompanied by glaring, crimson flashes. He was over his
own lines. Those flaming lines and vivid flashes proceeded from the
American guns.

Now the plane was beginning to soar higher. Voissard was getting safely
above the up-climbing curve of the American shells. On they went. They
were now crossing what looked like a dense black patch. Jimmy knew it
to be No Man's Land. He could see it plainly, as, ever and again, a
star shell rose and bathed it in a radiant, bluish-white light. It was
the deadly, cruel land that had claimed poor Schnitz.

Soon the writhing lines of fire were again visible. They had crossed No
Man's Land and were over the German lines. Both sides were furiously
at it. It was evident to him, even at that height, that Fritz was
getting heavier punishment than he was inflicting. The air shock of the
explosion of American shells made the plane rock like a ship at sea.

With the German lines safely passed, the plane flew steadily onward
toward its objective point. Engaged in keeping track of the squadron,
Jimmy felt relieved when, one by one, they began to draw closer. They
were gathering for the attack. He decided that it must be nearing four
o'clock. From then on he kept his eyes trained downward in an effort to
pick up a long, dark outline, which would be the supply train. Though
it was still dark it was the gloom that precedes dawn's first faint
light. A few minutes and he should be able to see the earth below quite
plainly.

Presently Voissard began to spiral down. His example was followed by
the pilots of the other planes. With motors shut off the squadron
volplaned. Jimmy could now distinguish the thin black line. It appeared
to be creeping very slowly. In the bomber's seat, Gaston was making
ready to drop his bombs. As flight-captain, Voissard would give the
signal. In turn each machine would come to an even keel at a point set,
drop its bombs and dart away. Voissard's machine would be the last to
go. The whole performance would last hardly more than a minute.

As each plane did its work and scudded off, another took its place.
Each bomber strove to land his bombs where they would do the most good.
Peering downward with strained eyes, Jimmy saw and heard that which
filled him with delirious joy. Amid continuous explosions and angry
tongues of fire, the long black line appeared suddenly to completely
dissolve, and disappear. Few of the bombs had missed their mark. Jimmy
could well imagine the devastation attending that raid.

It was over now. Gaston had done his bit and Voissard was flying for
home. Directly behind him came the fighting Nieuports, ready to cover
the retreat of the bombing planes. They would be needed. Across the
rapidly coming dawn half a dozen German Aviatiks were hastening to
the fray. From below Boche antiaircraft guns were now pegging at the
returning bombing party.

The speed of the Aviatik being very great, five of them soon drew upon
the Nieuports and attacked them viciously. The first Aviatik to the
scene swept straight over in pursuit of Voissard, opening fire upon the
plane. Very trickily it kept behind and a little lower, thus making it
impossible for Gaston to pepper it with machine-gun bullets.

Voissard, however, had no intention of permitting the Aviatik this
liberty. By a clever ruse he caused his plane to dive sharply, as
though hit and disabled. Allowing it to careen wildly for an instant,
he made a lightning drop in front of the German plane, then swept past
it like a flash. When he again brought it to an even keel it was under
the Boche plane and a little to its rear.

Gaston whooped with joy and turned the machine gun upon it. Incidental
with this, one of the Nieuports came to the rescue. Under a heavy
fusillade the Aviatik promptly took to her heels and sailed out of
danger.

Again Voissard took up the homeward flight. The plane was still behind
the Boche lines when a well directed shell from a German Archie grazed
it, causing it to pitch violently. The shock of the explosion, coupled
with the wild rocking, would have thrown Jimmy out of the plane had
he not been securely strapped in. He saw Gaston clap a hand to his
breast and crumple. Splinters flew from one of the struts. The plane
continued to stagger. It was dropping now. Yes, Voissard was still at
the controls, working like a madman to keep the plane under guidance.
Still the rushing descent continued. Jimmy felt a queer giddiness sweep
over him in long, sickening waves. This was the end.




CHAPTER XXII

THE UNSPEAKABLE CRIME


Within the next two minutes Jimmy reversed his opinion that the end
had come. True, they were still dropping, but at the instigation of a
master hand on the controls, the Voisin was once more obeying its pilot
and volplaning easily earthward.

Now they were not more than two hundred feet from the ground and
hanging over a ruined farmhouse. Some distance behind it stood a
dilapidated barn. A little below the barn was an orchard of apple trees
which sloped gradually down to open meadow land.

At a point in the meadow close to the orchard, the plane finally made
harbor. As it touched ground Jimmy peered anxiously about for signs of
human beings. German soldiers could not be far away. Behind the German
lines, as they were, they could not hope to escape being seen and fired
upon.

Strangely enough, no shots were fired as the plane made a landing.
Over all hung the mystery of dawn, broken only by the pounding of the
guns on the battle lines. Jimmy had fully expected to fight for his
life the instant he reached terra firma. It dazed him to find himself
behind the German lines, for even a moment, unmolested.

"We are in a most dangerous locality, _mon cher_ Blaise." Voissard
had already left the machine and was circling it, making a hasty
examination as he went. "We must leave here at once!" he continued. "It
was either this or perhaps a fall when over the Boche lines. I knew
not the extent of damage done by that Archie. It has lost me my good
Gaston. That is, indeed, a loss. I am deeply grieved. Yet this is not
the occasion for the grief. A moment and I shall know how quickly we
may ascend. I knew this spot and determined thus to take the risk of
one little moment's landing."

"Is there anything I can do, sir?" Jimmy eagerly offered. "Perhaps I
can help----"

"Wait."

Voissard dived into the car, returning with a pair of revolvers and a
box of cartridges.

"Take these and stand guard," he ordered, offering one of the revolvers
to Jimmy. "Should a Boche soldier appear, shoot him on sight. It is yet
early and we are some distance from the enemy trenches. Still there is
always the outpost guard or the patrol to reckon with. Again, this is
of a truth a fitting spot for an early morning execution."

Obediently mounting guard, Jimmy stood at alert while the aviator
busied himself with his machine. For twenty minutes he remained thus,
his ears cocked for the slightest hostile sound, his eyes keeping a
bright lookout.

"It is well!" the aviator at length exclaimed, raising up from the
engine. "The damage to the plane has been, after all, small. We shall
regain our lines easily, provided we can escape enemy planes on our
way. We cannot fight as we have no Gaston. The enemy guns we may escape
by flying high. Come; into the seat, my boy. We must lose no time. Do
not fail to strap yourself in."

Motioning him into the observer's seat, Voissard turned sorrowfully to
the crumpled form of the bomber. It had slid well down into the seat
Gaston had been occupying when killed. Strapping the body securely, so
that it could not tumble out, the aviator sighed:

"_Mon pauvre ami_," he mourned. "It is the best I can do for you until
we have reached our station."

Very grimly he strode to the propeller. Starting the engine he leaped
into the pilot's seat. The engine responding with a deafening roar, the
plane began to roll over the soft ground.

His revolver in readiness, Jimmy kept his eyes trained earthward as
they left the meadow and took to the air. Again they passed over the
orchard and were on the point of spiraling upward when a shout issued
from Jimmy's lips that Voissard heard even above the noise of the
engine.

Simultaneous with it a revolver spoke. Instantly Cousin Emile looked
down and understood. Shutting off the motor, he volplaned and made
skilful landing on an open space between the barn and the orchard.
Before the plane touched earth, the revolver had spoken again.

"Oh, the brutes! The dirty, yellow brutes! Thank God, I've done for two
of 'em!"

Another shot accompanied Jimmy's hoarse exclamation, shouted in a
perfect frenzy of loathing. Out there in the stillness of the morning,
Jimmy had come upon the thing which will forever brand the Germans as
fiends incarnate. Half a dozen Boches were about to crucify an American
soldier.

Looking down, his eyes had come to rest on the barn. Grouped about the
closed door were half a dozen German soldiers. He caught a glimpse of a
hatless, olive-drab figure, spread-eagled against the door. He saw the
gleam of bayonets--then he shouted and in the same instant fired his
revolver.

Intent on their fiendish work, the crucifiers had paid no attention to
the purr of the aeroplane's engine. They were not looking for an enemy
plane so far behind their own lines.

At Jimmy's first shot a Boche threw up his arms and dropped. Instantly
the other five whirled and left their victim, whose outspread arms were
bound to two staples hastily driven into the door. Then another Hun
clutched his breast and pitched forward. A third fell, shot through the
head.

Always cowardly when cornered, two of the remaining trio took one look
at the plane and ran. Only one stood his ground. Bayonet discarded, he
pulled an automatic pistol and opened fire on Jimmy.

A shot from Voissard's revolver pierced the Hun's left arm. Jimmy fired
again. He thought he had missed his man, and was about to try again
when he saw the Boche sway, take a tottering step forward, and collapse
forward in a heap on the ground.

The plane having rolled along a few yards and come to a standstill,
Jimmy and the aviator leaped out of it and ran to the rescue of the
trussed Sammy.

"My poor fellow----"

Sheer amazement checked the expression of sympathy that welled to
Cousin Emile's lips. His young friend Blaise was laughing and crying
and hugging the man fastened to the door as though quite bereft of his
senses.

"Oh, Schnitz! _Oh, Schnitz!_" Jimmy sobbed out wildly.

"Blazes, my--bunkie!" Down Schnitzel's wan cheeks the tears were
streaming.

Then Voissard knew and his own eyes blurred. For a moment he stood
back, saying nothing. Realization of their peril made not only speech
but prompt action necessary. Whipping a clasp knife from a coat pocket
he opened it and proceeded to cut Schnitzel loose from the door. This
done he offered his hand to the German-American, saying simply: "Thanks
to _le bon Dieu_, we arrived in time. Now we must leave here instantly.
Two of the beasts have escaped. They will give the alarm and a patrol
will be sent out against us. We must make haste or perhaps all suffer
the fate intended for you. The Boches will be much enraged over the
loss of these _canaille_."

Voissard scornfully indicated the four dead Boches, sprawling hideously
on the ground, the result of Jimmy's ability to shoot to kill.

"I'd forgotten the dogs for the moment." Turning from Schnitzel,
Jimmy's face registered the utmost loathing as his eyes took in the
ugly but satisfactory sight.

"Just a second and then we'll beat it. Come here, Blazes."

Schnitzel strode over to one of the dead, lying face downward in the
mud. Grasping the body by the shoulders, he turned it viciously on its
back. It was clothed in the uniform of a Boche captain.

Jimmy peered down at the ghastly, black-bearded face. The dead man's
eyes, wide open, stared malignantly up at him.

"The tiger man!" burst from his amazed lips.

At the cry, Voissard sprang to his side. Together the three men stood
looking down for an instant at that glassy-eyed, wicked face.

"And _I_ got him!"

Jimmy spoke in awed, unbelieving tones.

"Come," Voissard warned sharply. "To the plane. The explanation of this
must wait. I doubt not that it must be of a truth amazing."

"It is," Schnitzel grimly assured.

With one accord the three turned and hurried to the spot where the
aeroplane stood. Turning his revolver over to Schnitzel, the aviator
ordered them into the plane, provided Schnitzel with an extra coat and
cap which had belonged to Gaston, and made hurried preparations to
rise. The open space between the barn and orchard was large and level
enough to permit of an easy get-away.

Hardly had the plane left the ground when the dreaded patrol appeared.
It was composed of at least a dozen Boches. They charged through the
orchard, shooting as they came. Bullets whistled past the plane, but
failed to touch it.

Spiraling on upward, the plane drew away from the orchard and beyond
range of Boche rifles. Higher and higher it flew and found protection
above a long gray cloud-bank. The morning sky heavily overcast, Cousin
Emile looked to the friendly clouds to shield them in their flight over
the German lines.

Once well above the clouds, Schnitzel had laid aside his revolver
and turned his attention to the machine gun. Finding a fresh belt of
cartridges close beside it, he removed the spent belt, which Gaston had
used up in the attack on the Aviatik, and loaded the gun for ready use.

Traveling at high speed half an hour's run would see them clear of the
German lines. As they continued the flight the clouds began to scatter
and the sun came out. Above No Man's Land they broke from the clouds
and in the same instant encountered a foe. Not far ahead and above them
flew an Aviatik on its way back to the German lines. It had also been
taking advantage of the cloud curtain.

Each pilot saw his enemy in the same moment. Without a gunner, Voissard
realized that in flight lay the only chance of safety. He must dash
straight on under the Aviatik and win clear of it if he could. Its
speed being greater than that of his own plane, he already regarded
himself as doomed.

As the plane darted on in a swift, level course, Voissard's ears
caught a dim rattling sound that briefly startled him. Had Gaston come
to life? A flashing glance over his shoulder revealed not Gaston, but
Schnitzel, at the machine gun. Schnitzel had acted with lightning
swiftness. His carefully gathered knowledge of guns and aircraft now
saved the day.

Behind the Aviatik and on an even keel under it, he knew their position
to be ideal for hitting the Boche plane. Having made ready for any
emergency, he had opened fire at the right moment. A rain of bullets
hit the Aviatik squarely. One of them toppled the pilot over. Others
must have struck a vital point of the machine, for it began to stagger.
Fairly riddled by bullets, the doomed plane lurched wildly, turned
half over, and began a last tumultuous, uncontrolled descent to earth.
Schnitzel had indeed made good as a gunner.

The Aviatik done to death, the flight was swiftly continued. Now over
the American lines the danger momentarily lessened. In the distance
they saw three French planes chasing a Boche Albatross that was making
a desperate effort to get away from its pursuers.

They came at last to the aviation station and were received jubilantly
by a group of shouting aviators who had run out to meet them. It had
been feared by those who had taken part in the bombing expedition that
Voissard had made his last flight.

Clambering out of the aeroplane, it seemed to Jimmy Blaise as though
he was returning to reality from a strange dream. Only the living,
breathing presence of Schnitz, his bunkie, standing beside him, assured
him that he had not dreamed. His "hunch" that Schnitz and he would meet
again had not been an idle one. Out of the very jaws of death, Schnitz
had come back.




CHAPTER XXIII

LOYAL UNTO DEATH


What happened next, Jimmy Blaise never forgot. The instant Voissard
was out of the plane he strode over to Schnitzel. Laying a hand
affectionately on the German-American's shoulder, he addressed in
French the group of aviators crowded about him.

"My comrades," he said, "here is indeed a gunner!" Then he went on to
relate to his fellow flyers the details of the fight with the Aviatik,
speaking rapidly and gesticulating in true French fashion. Going back
further, he next cited Jimmy up for honors. When he had concluded
his account, Jimmy and Schnitzel underwent the embarrassment of each
being saluted on both cheeks by Cousin Emile. Nor did it stop there.
The enthusiastic French flyers proceeded to do them honor in the same
way. Afterward both solemnly swore to each other in private never to
do anything again in France that would put them in line for another
"kissing bee."

Outwardly they behaved very well, considering the ingrained prejudice
a sturdy American lad has to being thus saluted by his own sex. When
it was all over, they accompanied Voissard to headquarters. Both were
immeasurably relieved to find that the squadron commander made no
attempt to kiss them. He shook hands with them, however, and said some
highly complimentary things to each.

Both Schnitzel and Jimmy were longing with all their hearts for a
chance to talk things out. While in the plane the noise of the engine
had made exchange of speech quite impossible.

Of his own accord, however, Jimmy could have cheerfully hugged Cousin
Emile when the aviator tactfully cut short the interview with the
squadron commander and marshalled his heroic charges to the quarters of
a friend, a _Communiqué_ of that particular escadrille.

"Here we shall have the hot bath. Afterward the breakfast at
L'escadrille mess. My friend, Pierre, is not within. Always his
quarters are mine, when I chance to visit here," Voissard explained as
they entered the _Communiqué's_ snug little quarters.

"I guess you knew, sir, that we were dying to talk," burst forth Jimmy
gratefully.

"I had the suspicion." Voissard smiled at impetuous Blazes. "Soon the
opportunity will be ours. May I suggest that you have the patience
until after the bath? At breakfast there will be no one to interrupt."

The luxury of a hot bath was greatly appreciated by the three
adventurers. Schnitzel, however, deplored the dilapidated condition of
his uniform.

"It's been dragged all through Bocheland," he mourned. "Guess I'll keep
my rags covered with this big coat. I'll have to go on borrowing this
cap, too, until I get back to Sammy headquarters."

Seeking the escadrille mess, they were glad to find it practically
deserted of occupants. The members of the escadrille had already
breakfasted and were either out in the field or on various details.

"Now, Schnitz, for Heaven's sake tell us what happened to you out there
in No Man's Land," sighed Jimmy, when the trio had taken seats at a
table and ordered breakfast.

"It seems about a hundred years since then." Schnitzel paused. For an
instant he was silent.

"I hadn't gone six yards from that shell crater when I ran full tilt
into a Boche patrol," he began. "I put up a fight and croaked two of
'em. They were too many for me. One of the brutes hit me over the head
and I went to sleep. When I came to I thought for a minute I was back
in our own trenches and that I'd been dreaming. My head hurt like
sixty. I put my hand up to the back of it and when I looked at it it
was covered with blood. Then I saw a couple of Sammies a little way
down the trench. They looked all banged up, too. I started to yell at
'em and a Boche sentry came up and kicked me and spit on me and ordered
me to shut up. I felt for my identification tag and it was gone. Then I
knew where I was all right enough.

"That sentry was dying for me to say something so he could kick me some
more, but I fooled him. I shut up like a clam. I stayed there all day
without so much as a drink of water. The sentry, the fellow that kicked
me, was on the job every minute till he was relieved. His relief was
worse. He kept walking by the three of us and every time he passed us
he'd either strike or kick us. Our hands were tied behind our backs and
our feet were tied together, so we couldn't do a thing to him. Whenever
we tried to talk to one another we got a clip from him.

"After dark a couple of Boches came and untied my feet. They walked me
to a dugout. There were half a dozen Hun officers there. One of 'em,
a Boche captain, began talking to me in German. I pretended I didn't
understand. He got raving mad and said he knew I was a German by my
identification tag. I didn't fall for him, though.

"Then he turned to an Unteroffizier and ordered: 'Question him in
English.' The fellow saluted. Then he asked me in English if my
name was Franz Schnitzel. I said it was and he asked me if I could
understand German. I said I was ashamed to say that I could. He told
the captain and the brute got up and hit me across the mouth.

"He hit me a good one. It made me dizzy, but I pulled myself together
and laughed in his face. Then I turned on the Unterdog and let him
have it. I told him I hated the Boches like poison and that I was all
American and not a bit Hun and a lot of other things that weren't
exactly complimentary to the Kaiser and his brood.

"I wondered why they didn't all jump on me at once and finish me. They
wanted to, I guess, but they didn't. They had other plans for me. The
Unterdog told me I was a traitor to the Fatherland and that they were
going to make an example of me. I said for them to go as far as they
liked, and that ended the seance. The two Boche watchdogs took me back
to the trench and the one behind me kicked me all the way there.

"I didn't get anything to eat that night but next morning I got a
bit of black bread and a tin cup full of barley coffee. I was crazy
for water, but nothing doing. I got a little in the afternoon and a
piece of bread and some sausage at night. That's a sample of what
happened every day for the next three days. I used to take a trip to
the captain's dugout once a day and he'd try to make me talk to him
in German. The third time I went I slammed the Boches so hard to the
interpreter that when he told the captain what I said the brute got
crazy and flew at me like a wild beast. He gave me a terrible walloping
with a gun-barrel. I went to sleep and had to be dragged back to the
trench. It was one of the reserve trenches I was in. I had to make a
long hike through a com. trench every time I went to visit the captain.

"It went on like that until last night. Early in the evening I took
my usual trip to the dugout. When I got there I saw a new face in the
officer crowd. It belonged to that beast you croaked, Blazes. He had
the wickedest pair of eyes I ever saw in a man's head. I didn't know
him from Adam, but he thought he knew me, it seemed. He kept staring at
me for a while, then he started to talk a blue streak to the captain. I
caught most of it. Maybe I wasn't dazed to hear him telling all about
the bridge racket back at Marvin and the _Columbia_, and that I was one
of the friends of the American swine--that was you, Blazes--who had
done for him on the _Columbia_."

"How did he know that you were?" Jimmy cried out in excitement.

"He'd been hanging around the French training camp for a week,
shadowing you. He knew every one of the five Brothers by sight. He
followed us to Paris and back and tried to shoot us up that night."

"I knew it was he!" exploded Jimmy. "What did I tell you?" He turned
triumphantly to Voissard.

"You were indeed correct." With this smiling assurance, Cousin Emile
motioned to Schnitzel to continue.

"He went on about you, Blazes, to beat the band. He certainly called
you some names. That wireless fellow on the _Columbia was_ his son.
That came out in the talk. The fellow told about signaling a U-Boat
the night you got him. He had it all planned to jump overboard and be
picked up by a Boche boat. Then you queered his game. He didn't know a
thing about the real smash. His son put that over by himself, I guess.
The father was picked up by a trawler and landed in L----. You saw him
on the station platform. He told about that, too.

"That's about all of his history, except that he asked the captain to
turn me over to him to deal with. You ought to have seen his eyes when
he said it. Some healthy little hate they registered. I was turned over
to him next morning. Before daylight he headed a gang that came for
me and marched me off to that barn. It was a long walk. You know the
rest. Your coming was a miracle. I'd made up my mind not to peep when
they bayoneted me to that door. I was going to die game for the U. S."

"Oh, Glory, but I'm glad I croaked him!" Jimmy's exclamation rang with
an intensity of hatred. "He was some spy, Schnitz. _Mon Captaine_,"
he glanced mischievously at Cousin Emile, "found out all about him.
His name was von Kreitzen. He was an Austrian spy; one of the biggest
villains going."

"I never heard his name," returned Schnitzel. "They never called him
anything but captain. Guess he must have been lying low in the army.
The other officers fairly groveled to him. You ought to be decorated
for croaking him, Blazes."

"Oh, I'm not so much." Jimmy grinned cheerfully. "You've got something
coming to you, Schnitz, when you get back to headquarters. You stopped
the raid that night, only you never knew it."

"France will also wish to honor you," declared Voissard. "You did the
great work this morning with the machine gun. My poor, good Gaston
could not have done better. I would that you were my gunner."

"I thank you, _mon Captaine_." Schnitzel smilingly borrowed Jimmy's
familiar appellation in addressing Voissard. "I should like to be your
gunner. I'd accept the detail in a minute except for one thing. I can't
resign my job with Uncle Sammy."

Schnitzel's dark face was illuminated by a radiant flash of patriotism
that sprang from the depths of his soul.

"Never mind. If you cannot be my gunner, you can always be my honored
comrade and friend." Across the table Voissard's hand went out to
Schnitzel. "It is all one. We are linked by all that we hold highest to
rid the world of the curse of militarism."

"It's all the same old Glory Road, and it leads to Berlin and victory
for the Allies," supplemented Jimmy. "Whether we're Sammies, Frenchies,
Tommies or Wops, we're all doing our bit for the same old cause."




CHAPTER XXIV

WAITING FOR ZERO HOUR


"Him is done," announced Ignace Pulinski solemnly, as he slipped the
letter he had just finished writing into an envelope. "So I never come
back, will poor my mothar this have an' keep always, remember me."

"Oh, can the croak, Iggy," ordered Jimmy Blaise, looking up from his
writing. "We're coming back, every last one of us. I've got a hunch
that this won't be our last stab at the Boches."

"That's as good as a safe conduct pass through the shindig," declared
Bob emphatically. "I've a lot of respect for those hunches of yours
since Schnitz came back."

Gathered in a corner of a front-line dugout, the five Brothers were
conducting a writing-bee which, in spite of Jimmy's "hunch," might be
the last for part, if not all, of them. Four o'clock the next morning
was to be zero hour for them. The long-expected ordeal was at hand.
The 509th men were soon to know how it felt to go Over the Top.

It was now a few minutes past ten o'clock in the evening. Just after
dark the order had come. Two days had elapsed since their return from
rest billets to the trenches. They had returned to front-line duty on
the morning following a furious bombardment of the Boche trenches by
American batteries, which had ended in a Sammy raiding party Over the
Top. The raid had been a great success so far as the capture of guns
and prisoners was concerned. Many Sammies had been sacrificed, however.
As a result the resting detachments had come back to replace their lost
comrades.

During those two days, Fritz had been having his own troubles. Night
and day the Americans had kept up a harrying rifle and machine-gun
fire. Hordes of Allied aeroplanes had sailed boldly over the German
lines, dropping bombs on the reinforcements and supplies which the
Boches were engaged in bringing up to their own lines. Fierce indeed
had been the aerial fights. Many an intrepid pilot on both sides had
gone crashing down to death. Undaunted, the Allies continued to send
fresh relays of airmen out to carry on this most hazardous work.

Now, while the iron was hot, it had been determined to strike another
blow. Thus it was that Jimmy Blaise and his bunkies were writing their
home letters, preparatory to taking part in the raid to be made just
before dawn. For almost two weeks they had been jogging along a smooth,
peaceful stretch of the famous Glory Road. Now they would soon strike
rough hiking.

On the evening following the rescue of Franz Schnitzel by Jimmy Blaise
and Voissard, the two bunkies had returned to billets. Voissard had
accompanied them and taken part in the joyful little celebration that
marked the restoration of Schnitzel to his Brothers.

Headquarters was also glad to see Schnitzel. He received flattering
commendation for his splendid services. He now wore on his left sleeve
the insignia of a sergeant. There came for him, too, a wonderful day
when France acknowledged him as a hero and placed her seal of approval
upon his breast. Jimmy Blaise, also, came in for his share of glory.
France was only too ready to decorate one who had rid the world of a
spy such as Adolph von Kreitzen. What amazed Jimmy most of all was the
receipt of a large sum of money, the price set by the French government
on von Kreitzen's head.

For the five Brothers the past two weeks had been one perpetual
holiday. It was over now and again they were facing War in all its
grimness.

They had returned from their eventful sojourn behind the lines inspired
with renewed loyalty and inspiration. This time on entering the
trenches they had felt little of the heavy oppression which had hung
over them on their first journey to the fire trench.

"Of course, we're not veterans yet by a long shot," Bob had confided
to Jimmy Blaise at the beginning of their second trench detail. "There
are quite a few little friendly acts that Fritz hasn't got around to do
for us yet. For one thing, we haven't been gassed. Isn't that a sweet
prospect to look forward to? Betcha! I only hope we'll be all dressed
up in our gas masks when the party begins."

Thus far, however, Fritz had kept gas donations at home. Given a day
when the wind favored him he would undoubtedly display great generosity
in this respect.

"Twenty after ten." Jimmy Blaise rose and consulted his wrist watch.
"I'll have to be getting back to my station. I promised the lieutenant
I'd be back at ten-thirty sharp. It was mighty kind in him to let me
off to write my letters and have a chin-chin with you fellows."

"We all owe our officers a lot for the same privilege," Roger declared
gratefully. "If we don't do 'em proud when the grand slam comes, then
we deserve to get licked."

"We're _going_ to do 'em proud," emphasized Bob. "Every last Sammy is
aching to try cold steel on the Boches. I used to think going Over the
Top would be the limit. But I'm not afraid of zero hour any more."

"So once think I," confessed Ignace, "but no now. Only am I the sad we
no go over top side by each. I would by my Brother be then, the care
take."

"You'll have all you can do to take care of yourself, Iggins," asserted
Schnitzel. "It is too bad, though, that we can't be shoulder to
shoulder in the big dash."

"We've got to stay where we're put," sighed Jimmy. "Never mind. What's
the odds where we fight, so long as we're fighting for the same good
old scout, Uncle Sam? Well, time's up. I've got to beat it. Give me
your letters. The lieutenant's going to turn 'em over to a man who's
going back of the lines to-night."

Now on their feet, his bunkies turned over their letters to Jimmy. In
silence the five left the dugout. Outside it, by mutual consent, they
halted for a last affectionate hand grip all around.

"We're not going to say good-bye, 'cause I'm just as sure as anything
that it's going to be all O. K. for the five Brothers," prophesied
Jimmy. "When the scrap's over and the Boches are canned, meet me in
this dugout. That's a date. See that you keep it."

"So is it." Ignace nodded, bound to agree with his Best Brother.

"'So is it,'" repeated Bob. "Never say die. The right dope is, 'I'll
see you later!'"

And this was the hopeful watchword the five Brothers took with them as
they separated, each to find his station and there await the fateful
coming of Zero Hour.

Just how truly Jimmy's prophecy was verified remains yet to be told
in "THE KHAKI BOYS OVER THE TOP; OR, DOING AND DARING FOR UNCLE
SAM."




THE KHAKI BOYS SERIES

BY CAPT. GORDON BATES

_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full color._

_Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid._


_All who love the experiences and adventures of our American boys,
fighting for the freedom of democracy in the world, will be delighted
with these vivid and true-to-life stories of the camp and field in the
great war._


  =THE KHAKI BOYS AT CAMP STERLING=
  _or Training for the Big Fight in France_

[Illustration]

Two zealous young patriots volunteer and begin their military training.
On the train going to camp they meet two rookies with whom they
become chums. Together they get into a baffling camp mystery that
develops into an extraordinary spy-plot. They defeat the enemies of
their country and incidentally help one another to promotion both in
friendship and service.


  =THE KHAKI BOYS ON THE WAY=
  _or Doing Their Bit on Sea and Land_

Our soldier boys having completed their training at Camp Sterling are
transferred to a Southern cantonment from which they are finally sent
aboard a troop-ship for France. On the trip their ship is sunk by a
U-boat and their adventures are realistic descriptions of the tragedies
of the sea.


  =THE KHAKI BOYS AT THE FRONT=
  _or Shoulder to Shoulder in the Trenches_

The Khaki Boys reach France, and, after some intensive training in
sound of the battle front, are sent into the trenches. In the raids
across No-Man's land, they have numerous tragic adventures that show
what great work is being performed by our soldiers. It shows what makes
heroes.


_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._


  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers      New York

       *       *       *       *       *




THE KHAKI GIRLS SERIES

BY EDNA BROOKS

_12mo. Cloth. Illustrated Jacket in full colors._

_Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid._

[Illustration]

_When Uncle Sam sent forth the ringing call, "I need you!" it was not
alone his strong young sons who responded. All over the United States
capable American girls stood ready to offer their services to their
country. How two young girls donned the khaki and made good in the
Motor Corps, an organization for women developed by the Great War,
forms a series of stories of signal novelty and vivid interest and
action._


  =THE KHAKI GIRLS OF THE MOTOR CORPS=
  _or Finding Their Place in the Big War_

Joan Mason, an enthusiastic motor girl, and Valerie Warde, a society
debutante, meet at an automobile show. Next day they go together to
the Motor Corps headquarters and in due time are accepted and become
members of the Corps, in the service of the United States. The two
girl drivers find motoring for Uncle Sam a most exciting business.
Incidentally they are instrumental in rendering valuable service to
the United States government by discovering and running down a secret
organization of its enemies.


  =THE KHAKI GIRLS BEHIND THE LINES=
  _or Driving with the Ambulance Corps_

As a result of their splendid work in the Motor Corps, the Khaki
Girls receive the honor of an opportunity to drive with the Ambulance
Corps in France. After a most eventful and hazardous crossing of the
Atlantic, they arrive in France and are assigned to a station behind
the lines. Constantly within range of enemy shrapnel, out in all
kinds of weather, tearing over shell-torn roads and dodging Boche
patrols, all go to make up the day's work, and bring them many exciting
adventures.


_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._


  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers      New York

       *       *       *       *       *




THE CURLYTOPS SERIES

BY HOWARD R. GARIS

Author of the famous "Bedtime Animal Stories"

_12mo. Cloth. Beautifully Illustrated. Jacket in full color._

_Price per volume, 50 cents, net_

[Illustration]

Splendid stories for the little girls and boys, told by one who is a
past master in the art of entertaining young people.


  =THE CURLYTOPS AT CHERRY FARM=
  _or Vacation Days in the Country_

A tale of happy vacation days on a farm. The Curlytops have many
exciting adventures.


  =THE CURLYTOPS ON STAR ISLAND=
  _or Camping out with Grandpa_

The Curlytops were delighted when grandpa took them to camp on Star
Island. There they had great fun and also helped to solve a real
mystery.


  =THE CURLYTOPS SNOWED IN=
  _or Grand Fun with Skates and Sleds_

Winter was a jolly time for the Curlytops, with their skates and sleds,
but when later they were snowed in they found many new ways to enjoy
themselves.


  =THE CURLYTOPS AT UNCLE FRANK'S RANCH=
  _or Little Folks on Pony Back_

Out West on their uncle's ranch they have a wonderful time among the
cowboys and on pony back.


_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._

  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers      New York

       *       *       *       *       *




THE BASEBALL JOE SERIES

BY LESTER CHADWICK

_12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 75 cents, postpaid._

[Illustration]


  =BASEBALL JOE OF THE SILVER STARS=
  _or The Rivals of Riverside_

Joe is an everyday country boy who loves to play baseball and
particularly to pitch.


  =BASEBALL JOE ON THE SCHOOL NINE=
  _or Pitching for the Blue Banner_

Joe's great ambition was to go to boarding school and play on the
school team.


  =BASEBALL JOE AT YALE=
  _or Pitching for the College Championship_

Joe goes to Yale University. In his second year he becomes a varsity
pitcher and pitches in several big games.


  =BASEBALL JOE IN THE CENTRAL LEAGUE=
  _or Making Good as a Professional Pitcher_

In this volume the scene of action is shifted from Yale college to a
baseball league of our central states.


  =BASEBALL JOE IN THE BIG LEAGUE=
  _or A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles_

From the Central League Joe is drafted into the St. Louis Nationals. A
corking baseball story all fans will enjoy.


  =BASEBALL JOE ON THE GIANTS=
  _or Making Good as a Twirler in the Metropolis_

How Joe was traded to the Giants and became their mainstay in the box
makes an interesting baseball story.


  =BASEBALL JOE IN THE WORLD SERIES=
  _or Pitching for the Championship_

The rivalry was of course of the keenest, and what Joe did to win the
series is told in a manner to thrill the most jaded reader.


  =BASEBALL JOE AROUND THE WORLD= (_New_)
  _or Pitching on a Grand Tour_

The Giants and the All-Americans tour the world, playing in many
foreign countries.


_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._

  CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers      New York

       *       *       *       *       *




THE HARRY HARDING SERIES

By ALFRED RAYMOND

_12mo. Cloth. Handsomely Illustrated. Beautiful jackets printed in
colors. 75 Cents Per Volume, Postpaid._

[Illustration]

The trials and triumphs of Harry Harding and Teddy Burke, two
wide-awake boys who make a humble beginning on the messenger force of
a great department store, with the firm resolve to become successful
business men, form a series of narratives calculated to please the
alert, progressive boys of today.


=HARRY HARDING--_Messenger "45"_=

When Harry Harding bravely decided to leave school in order to help
his mother in the fight against poverty, he took his first long step
towards successful manhood. How Harry chanced to meet mischievous,
red-haired Teddy Burke who preferred work to school, how Teddy and
Harry became messengers in Martin Brothers' Department store and what
happened to them there, is a story that never flags in interest.


=HARRY HARDING'S YEAR OF PROMISE=

After a blissful two weeks' vacation, spent together, Harry Harding
and Teddy Burke again take up their work in Martin Brothers' store.
Their "year of promise" brings them many new experiences, pleasant
and unpleasant, but more determined than ever to reach the goal they
have set for themselves, they pass courageously and hopefully over the
rough places, meeting with many surprises and exciting incidents which
advance them far on the road to success.

_Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_

  CUPPLES & LEON CO.      Publishers      New York

       *       *       *       *       *




THE SADDLE BOYS SERIES

By CAPTAIN JAMES CARSON

12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid.

All lads who love life in the open air and a good steed, will want to
peruse these books. Captain Carson knows his subject thoroughly, and
his stories are as pleasing as they are healthful and instructive.


  =THE SADDLE BOYS OF THE ROCKIES=
  _or Lost on Thunder Mountain_

[Illustration]

Telling how the lads started out to solve the mystery of a great noise
in the mountains--how they got lost--and of the things they discovered.

  =THE SADDLE BOYS IN THE GRAND
  CANYON=
  _or The Hermit of the Cave_

A weird and wonderful story of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, told
in a most absorbing manner. The Saddle Boys are to the front in a
manner to please all young readers.

  =THE SADDLE BOYS ON THE PLAINS=
  _or After a Treasure of Gold_

In this story the scene is shifted to the great plains of the southwest
and then to the Mexican border. There is a stirring struggle for gold,
told as only Captain Carson can tell it.

  =THE SADDLE BOYS AT CIRCLE RANCH=
  _or In at the Grand Round-up_

Here we have lively times at the ranch, and likewise the particulars of
a grand round-up of cattle and encounters with wild animals and also
cattle thieves. A story that breathes the very air of the plains.

  =THE SADDLE BOYS ON MEXICAN TRAILS=
  _or In the Hands of the Enemy_

The scene is shifted in this volume to Mexico. The boys go on an
important errand, and are caught between the lines of the Mexican
soldiers. They are captured and for a while things look black for them;
but all ends happily.

  CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers,      NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *




THE SPEEDWELL BOYS SERIES

By ROY ROCKWOOD

Author of "The Dave Dashaway Series," "Great Marvel Series," etc.

12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid.

All boys who love to be on the go will welcome the Speedwell boys. They
are clean cut and loyal lads.

  =THE SPEEDWELL BOYS ON MOTOR
  CYCLES=
  _or The Mystery of a Great Conflagration_

[Illustration]

The lads were poor, but they did a rich man a great service and he
presented them with their motor cycles. What a great fire led to is
exceedingly well told.

  =THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR
  RACING AUTO=
  _or A Run for the Golden Cup_

A tale of automobiling and of intense rivalry on the road. There was an
endurance run and the boys entered the contest. On the run they rounded
up some men who were wanted by the law.

  =THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR POWER LAUNCH=
  _or To the Rescue of the Castaways_

Here is an unusual story. There was a wreck, and the lads, in their
power launch, set out to the rescue. A vivid picture of a great storm
adds to the interest of the tale.

  =THE SPEEDWELL BOYS IN A SUBMARINE=
  _or The Lost Treasure of Rocky Cove_

An old sailor knows of a treasure lost under water because of a cliff
falling into the sea. The boys get a chance to go out in a submarine
and they make a hunt for the treasure.

  =THE SPEEDWELL BOYS AND THEIR ICE RACER=
  _or The Perils of a Great Blizzard_

The boys had an idea for a new sort of iceboat, to be run by combined
wind and motor power. How they built the craft, and what fine times
they had on board of it, is well related.

  CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers,      NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *




THE DAVE DASHAWAY SERIES

By ROY ROCKWOOD

Author of the "Speedwell Boys Series" and the "Great Marvel Series."

12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid.

Never was there a more clever young aviator than Dave Dashaway. All
up-to-date lads will surely wish to read about him.

  =DAVE DASHAWAY THE YOUNG AVIATOR=
  _or In the Clouds for Fame and Fortune_

[Illustration]

This initial volume tells how the hero ran away from his miserly
guardian, fell in with a successful airman, and became a young aviator
of note.

  =DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS
  HYDROPLANE=
  _or Daring Adventures Over the Great Lakes_

Showing how Dave continued his career as a birdman and had many
adventures over the Great Lakes, and how he foiled the plans of some
Canadian smugglers.

  =DAVE DASHAWAY AND HIS GIANT AIRSHIP=
  _or A Marvellous Trip Across the Atlantic_

How the giant airship was constructed and how the daring young aviator
and his friends made the hazardous journey through the clouds from the
new world to the old, is told in a way to hold the reader spellbound.

  =DAVE DASHAWAY AROUND THE WORLD=
  _or A Young Yankee Aviator Among Many Nations_

An absorbing tale of a great air flight around the world, of adventures
in Alaska, Siberia and elsewhere. A true to life picture of what may be
accomplished in the near future.

  =DAVE DASHAWAY: AIR CHAMPION=
  _or Wizard Work in the Clouds_

Dave makes several daring trips, and then enters a contest for a big
prize. An aviation tale thrilling in the extreme.

  CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers,      NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *




THE FRED FENTON ATHLETIC SERIES

By ALLEN CHAPMAN

Author of "The Tom Fairfield Series," "The Boys of Pluck Series" and
"The Darewell Chums Series."

12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid.

A line of tales embracing school athletics. Fred is a true type of the
American schoolboy of to-day.

  =FRED FENTON THE PITCHER=
  _or The Rivals of Riverport School_

[Illustration]

When Fred came to Riverport none of the school lads knew him, but he
speedily proved his worth in the baseball box. A true picture of school
baseball.

  =FRED FENTON IN THE LINE=
  _or The Football Boys of Riverport School_

When Fall came in the thoughts of the boys turned to football. Fred
went in the line, and again proved his worth, making a run that helped
to win a great game.

  =FRED FENTON ON THE CREW=
  _or The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School_

In this volume the scene is shifted to the river, and Fred and
his chums show how they can handle the oars. There are many other
adventures, all dear to the hearts of boys.

  =FRED FENTON ON THE TRACK=
  _or The Athletes of Riverport School_

Track athletics form a subject of vast interest to many boys, and here
is a tale telling of great running races, high jumping, and the like.
Fred again proves himself a hero in the best sense of that term.

  =FRED FENTON: MARATHON RUNNER=
  _or The Great Race at Riverport School_

Fred is taking a post-graduate course at the school when the subject of
Marathon running came up. A race is arranged, and Fred shows both his
friends and his enemies what he can do. An athletic story of special
merit.

  CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers,      NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *




ALIVE, PATRIOTIC, ELEVATING

BANNER BOY SCOUTS SERIES

By GEORGE A. WARREN

Author of the "Revolutionary Series"

12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 75 cents, postpaid.

[Illustration]

The Boy Scouts movement has swept over our country like wildfire, and
is endorsed by our greatest men and leading educators. No author is
better qualified to write such a series as this than Professor Warren,
who has watched the movement closely since its inception in England
some years ago.

  =THE BANNER BOY SCOUTS=
  _or The Struggle for Leadership_

This initial volume tells how the news of the scout movement reached
the boys and how they determined to act on it. They organized the Fox
Patrol, and some rivals organized another patrol. More patrols were
formed in neighboring towns and a prize was put up for the patrol
scoring the most points in a many-sided contest.

  =THE BANNER BOY SCOUTS ON A TOUR=
  _or The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain_

This story begins with a mystery that is most unusual. There is a good
deal of fun and adventure, camping, fishing, and swimming, and the
young heroes more than once prove their worth.

  =THE BANNER BOY SCOUTS AFLOAT=
  _or The Secret of Cedar Island_

Here is another tale of life in the open, of jolly times on river and
lake and around the camp fire, told by one who has camped out for many
years.

  =THE BANNER BOY SCOUTS SNOWBOUND= (_New_)
  _or A Tour on Skates and Iceboats_

The boys take a trip into the mountains, where they are caught in a big
snowstorm and are snowbound. A series of stirring adventures which will
hold the interest of every reader.

_Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_

  CUPPLES & LEON CO., Publishers,      NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

THE KHAKI BOYS SERIES

By CAPT. GORDON BATES

12mo. Cloth. Frontispiece

Price per Volume, 50 Cents


  THE KHAKI BOYS AT CAMP STERLING
      or Training for the Big Fight in France

  THE KHAKI BOYS ON THE WAY
      or Doing Their Bit on Sea and Land

  THE KHAKI BOYS AT THE FRONT
      or Shoulder to Shoulder in the Trenches

_Other Volumes in Preparation_

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, New York

       *       *       *       *       *





End of Project Gutenberg's The Khaki Boys At The Front, by Gorden Bates



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