“JUST LIKE HIM!”
Jerry and Ned both confessed, afterward, that the sinking feeling, which seemed to carry their hearts away down into their muddy shoes, was greater at the knowledge that Bob was missing than it had been when they set out in the darkness to raid the Germans across the desolate stretch of No Man’s Land.
It was all so unexpected. He had gone through the baptism of fire with them—he had helped capture the Huns—and had been, seemingly, all right on the return trip. And then, on the very threshold of his own army home, so to speak, he had disappeared.
“Did any one see him fall or hear of his being hit?” asked the lieutenant, as he prepared to lead out a searching party. Ned and Jerry, of course, and by rights, would be members of it.
“No, he was right near me, Sir, and he said particularly, when I asked him, that he was only scratched,” declared Jerry. “I made sure Ned was the worst hurt.” 109
“How much are you hurt?” asked the captain, turning to Jerry’s chum.
“Oh, it’s only a scratch, Sir,” was the quick answer. “I can’t feel it now.”
Ned did not speak the exact truth, but he did not want to be kept back from the search.
“Very well,” said the captain. “You may go, but don’t go too far. Much as we would like to find Baker we must not take too many chances and endanger this whole post. Be as quick as you can.”
With their hearts torn between a desire for vengeance and apprehension, Ned and Jerry went out with the others. The riot started by the raid had quieted down, and it was possible for the searchers to advance above their own trenches without drawing the German fire.
First the sentries who had been on duty near the gap in the American wire were questioned. They had seen the party depart and come back, but they had not noticed any member of it fall as though wounded, and they were positive no Germans had been able to get near enough to capture Private Baker.
“But what can have happened to him?” asked the lieutenant.
“He may have been wounded internally, and didn’t speak of it, Sir,” suggested Ned, whose own wound was troubling him woefully. “Then he 110 may have become so weak that he fell in the trench somewhere without a sound.”
“That is possible. We must make a careful search.”
This was done with pocket flashlights, for any general illumination would have, perhaps, drawn a German attack. But no sign of Bob was revealed. It was most mysterious, how he could disappear so suddenly and completely. Of course, in the general confusion, much more than this might have happened and not been noticed. But unless he had gone back after speaking to Jerry, he must either have fallen well within the American lines or have been captured there. And the last did not seem possible.
“Well,” said the lieutenant, “we’ll have to go over in No Man’s Land and take a chance there. He must have gone back after something, and been potted. I’ll have to go back and report and––”
He paused to listen. The tramp of approaching feet could be heard along the trench. Every man stood at attention, for it was possible that the enemy had slipped in between sentries and were going to pay a return visit.
But a moment later the murmur of voices was heard—voices that were unmistakably American. Some one asked:
“Is your squad stationed here?” 111
“About here, yes, Sir,” was the answer, coming out of the darkness.
“It’s Chunky!” cried Jerry.
“That’s Bob!” added Ned, joyously.
And a moment later there came into the dim light of the flashlights the stout chum himself, escorted by three soldiers. He seemed to be all right, and he carried something that was not a grenade, in one hand.
“Where have you been, Chunky?” demanded Jerry. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Yes,” added the lieutenant, “will you please explain why you did not report back with the rest of us?”
Bob seemed a trifle surprised at the rather stern order, but he smiled and answered:
“Why, I thought, as long as we got back all right, I was relieved from duty, so I went to get something to eat.”
“Something to eat!” exclaimed the lieutenant.
“Something to eat,” calmly repeated Bob. “You see it was this way. I was terribly hungry––”
“Nothing unusual,” murmured Jerry, but the stout lad, paying no attention to the interruption, went on:
“So when I got back with the rest, after we captured the Huns, I smelled something cooking 112 farther up in our trenches. I knew some of the fellows on duty there, and I felt sure they’d give me something to eat. It was liberty links they were cooking, sir, and––”
“Liberty links!” interrupted the lieutenant. “What are those?”
“They used to be called Frankfurters,” explained Bob with a grin; “but since the war that’s too German. So I went to get some liberty links, and I got ’em!” he added with a sigh of satisfaction.
“Well! Well!” exclaimed the lieutenant. And then, as he thought of what Bob and the others had gone through with that night, he had not the heart to add more.
“I only meant to run up in a hurry to where they were cooking ’em,” explained Bob, “and come back with some for my bunkies. But I got to talking and eating––”
“Mostly eating,” murmured Jerry.
“And then I forgot to come back,” finished Bob.
“We told him he’d better report, Sir,” said one of the escorting party. “He was with our bunch all right, and when he told us he’d been out with the night raiders and had slipped off before reporting back, we told him he’d better report. So we showed him the way, as the trenches are sort of mixed up around here.” 113
“Very well,” said the lieutenant, trying not to smile. “You may go back to your posts. Everything is explained.”
And so Bob was restored to his company again, and in view of the successful raid no reprimand was given him. The capture of the German prisoners proved important, as information was obtained that proved of the greatest value afterward.
Ned’s wound turned out to be only a flesh one, but it was painful enough, and kept him in the hospital a week. He would have fretted over thus being kept away while Bob and Jerry were fighting, but, as a matter of fact, his two chums received a rest period at this time, and so were out of the trenches the same time that Ned was.
But the war was far from won, and every man possible was needed on the firing line, so that, in due season, the three chums found themselves back again. And under no very pleasant circumstances.
For it rained and rained, and then rained some more, though Jerry insisted that where they got the water from was a mystery.
It was a most desolate period, when the trenches were knee-deep in mud and when casualties mounted by reason of unusual activity on the part of the Huns. But the three friends and their comrades stuck grimly to the work. There were local attacks, and counter-attacks, and night raids, in 114 all of which Ned, Bob and Jerry did their share.
Then, one day, they were given a surprise. Some new recruits were brought up to the front-line trenches, to be initiated, and among them was Noddy Nixon.
“I’ve come to show you fellows how to get a Hun!” he boasted in his usual style. “Give me a chance, and I’ll show you how to fight, though I’d rather be in an aeroplane.”
“Truth to tell, I guess he’d rather be back home, but he doesn’t dare go,” declared Jerry.
Not very much to their delight, the Motor Boys learned that Noddy was to be quartered near them, and he was on duty in the trenches in the post adjoining theirs.
There came a period of fierce attacks on the part of the Huns, when they laid down such an artillery barrage that for three days it was impossible for any relief to come to the men in the trenches, and they had to live on what food they had when the firing began. They did not actually starve, but there was not any too much to eat, and there was a lack of hot things, which were much needed as it rained almost constantly.
By hard work Ned, Bob and Jerry had managed to get together some wood which they kept dry in a niche in the trench, lined with pieces of tin. The wood they used to make a little fire to warm their coffee. 115
Coming in from several hours of duty one rainy evening, the three chums were anticipating having something hot to drink made over their little fire of cached wood.
But when Bob, who by virtue of his appetite considered himself the cook, went to get the fuel, it was not there.
“Boys, the wood is gone!” he cried.
“Who took it?” demanded Jerry.
Ned inspected the place. He picked up a piece of damp paper, and in the light of his flash torch read the scrawled writing which said:
“Borrowed your wood. Give it back to you some day.
“Noddy Nixon.”
For a moment there was silence, and then Jerry burst out with:
“Well, if that isn’t just like him—the dirty sneak!”