CHAPTER XV
IN THE BATTLE AGAIN
"Well, we've got to be thankful that we had a place to stay all night where we were out of the wet," remarked Jimmy, as he and his chums awoke the next morning in the lonely cottage of the dead Frenchman.
"Yes, and we're going to have a good day to travel, too," said Bob.
"There's the sun up good and proper, as Tommy Atkins would say."
"No telling how long it'll stay up," came from Roger. "Yesterday started in fine, but look what happened before night."
"Look what happened!" echoed Jimmy. "I don't believe since we joined the service any more things have happened in any one day. We ought to be thankful we're alive."
"Sure we are," said Iggy. "But I thinks me dat he is going to rain!"
"Who's he?" asked Franz.
"Him!" and Iggy pointed to the sun. "Der wedder I mean. Him will rain before night I feel, for of my foot there is such a pains. Always when it rain going to be is, of my foots there is a pain."
"You mean your corn hurts!" asked Bob, with a laugh. He had been rather gloomy the day before, but now he seemed to have recovered his usual good spirits. "Imagine having a corn in these days of battle!" he went on.
"He is not what you say—imagitive!" declared the Polish lad earnestly. "He is real, dat pain in mine foots! But I can away from here march quick. It gives me bad dreams," and he looked toward the kitchen where the silent occupant had acted as sentry for them.
There had been no disturbance during the night, and if any parties of Germans had passed the lonely farmhouse this was unknown to the boys. Occasionally they heard the sound of distant firing, but now, as the sun rose higher in the heavens, the noises became louder, and, seemingly, nearer.
"Must be a big battle going on not far from here," remarked Bob.
"I don't believe there's been any let-up in the big battle," came from
Jimmy.
"The only trouble is that we're being left out!" exclaimed Franz. "I want to get back in the fighting again."
"Same here!" murmured Roger. "Let's eat and then well hike. We ought to get back to our lines to-day, sure."
"If we have luck," remarked Jimmy. "Well, let's go!"
It was not much of a breakfast that the Khaki Boys had, but it was better than nothing. They managed to make a fire in the stove and boiled some coffee they found in a cupboard.
"Best meal I've had in a week!" exclaimed Bob with a grateful sigh, as he finished his cup of hot liquid. "Now I'm ready to meet Kaiser Bill himself!"
They packed up what food remained, filled their canteen from a little stream not far from the cottage, and then, bidding a silent farewell to the dead Frenchman, they started off once more.
The country through which the five Brothers traveled seemed as deserted as that over which they had journeyed the previous day after their rescue from the old mill. But the evidences of war were more frequent in destroyed orchards, ruined farmhouses and, here and there, immense holes in the ground where great shells had struck and exploded.
"What's your trouble, Jimmy!" asked Bob, clapping his chum on the shoulder, as they trudged down a road. "You look as though you hadn't heard from your girl in Buffalo in a month of Sundays."
"Neither I have," said Jimmy. "But I wasn't exactly thinking of Margaret then, though I have given her a lot of thought at different times. I'm just wondering—"
"'Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile!'" sang Bob.
"Good advice," commented Jimmy. "My troubles aren't any more serious than those of anyone else in this war. But I was just wondering if that officer told us the truth"
"What officer?" asked Roger.
"The one who called himself Captain Dickerson, and who saved our lives at the red mill?" answered Jimmy. "I can't get over his not coming with us to show us the way to the American lines. I believe he ought to have done it!" and Jimmy spoke very determinedly.
"He certainly would have if he had had any consideration for Iggy's pet corn!" laughed Bob. "We don't seem to be having any luck ourselves. It wouldn't have hurt him to have taken command of this squad of rookies and led us back to civilization."
"Civilization! I hope you don't call the trenches with their big rats and cooties and—er—other things—civilization!" cried Jimmy. "If it is—give me barbarism."
"Well, I didn't just mean that," went on Bob. "But I wish Captain
Dickerson had come back with us."
"Maybe he had orders to proceed elsewhere," suggested Franz.
"If he had he was on a dangerous mission," said Jimmy simply. "He went straight toward the German lines. I can't understand it at all. He certainly was a strange man."
"But he did us the greatest service one man can do for another," remarked Roger. "He saved our lives, fellows! Don't forget that!"
"No," agreed Jimmy in a low voice. "Whatever happens we must never forget that."
They trudged on in silence a little longer, and then Franz broke out with:
"And speaking of wondering, Jimmy, what do you suppose has become of
Sergeant Maxwell?"
"And your money, Blazes," added Bob.
"Our money," corrected his chum. "Haven't I told you that the five thousand francs is the joint property of the five Brothers."
"All right—have it your own way—anything if or a quiet life!" said
Bob, quickly. "I was just wondering, that's all."
"I have been wondering, too," admitted Jimmy. "The disappearance of
Maxwell and the cash is almost as much of a mystery as is Captain
Frank Dickerson."
Twice that day, as they tramped along, seeking in vain for the American lines, they saw small parties of German soldiers. And on both occasions the Khaki Boys were fortunate enough to sight the enemy first, so they could conceal themselves in patches of woods.
They were now in a country where there were larger tracts of forest, and after coming out of one of these thickets Bob remarked.
"Fellows, do you know what I think?"
"Do you, really?" chafed Roger.
"Do I really what?" asked Bob, a bit disconcerted.
"Think!" exclaimed his chum. "I thought you'd given that up."
"This war is enough to make a chap give it up," Bob agreed. "But seriously, fellows, I think we're lost—that we've been going around in a circle, and we aren't any nearer our lines than when we were at the red mill. Not so near, in fact, for there we knew that some of the doughboys were not more than a mile away. But here—"
"Bob, I shouldn't be surprised but what you are right!" exclaimed Jimmy. "It does seem funny that, with all our traveling, we haven't come to the American lines. They can't be so far away as all this. I guess we must have traveled in a circle. Pity we haven't a compass."
"Can't you steer by the sun?" asked Franz. "We started south, and if we keep the rising sun on our left and the setting sun on our right, we're bound to go south."
"The trouble was yesterday that we didn't see the sun after we started hiking," declared Jimmy. "It's all right now—we're surely going south. But how long we can keep it up there's no telling."
"Well, then, as long as we know we're going in the right direction now, let's double quick and cover as much ground as we can straight away, before we get turned around again," suggested Roger.
His plan was voted a good one, and the tired young soldiers hurried on. But to their chagrin it soon became cloudy, and then a mist settled down obscuring every gleam of sunshine, and they had to depend on their sense of direction, which, truth to tell, was not very accurate.
When night came, it found the boys on a lonely stretch of land, partly bogs, with, here and there, patches of woods. The prospect was most gloomy, for their food was getting scarce, and they were tired and. sore. Their wounds, slight as they were, bothered them, and though none complained, each one would have been glad to be able to slip into some dugout, no matter how rough, and there rest.
"What shall we do!" asked Jimmy, as it became almost too dark to proceed along an uncertain path. "Shall we hole in or keep on?"
"It's going to be cold, holing in this night," replied Roger, with a shiver. "Look at that fog!" he went on, as the mists rolled up from a swamp. "It goes right through you!"
"Well, then let's keep on walking," said Jimmy, trying to speak cheerily.
They walked on in silence. Bob did not get off any of his queer, improvised rhymes, and as for Iggy he turned up the collar of his coat, hunched his shoulders; and seemed like some old man tramping along.
"Hark!" suddenly called Jimmy, and the words came in a tense whisper. It was as if he had said "Halt!" for his chums came to a stop on the instant.
"What is it?" asked Bob.
"Don't you hear some one walking toward us?" went on Jimmy, his voice still low and tense.
They all listened. The fog swirled around them in cold, white clouds. And then, through the darkness, they all heard, and distinctly, this time, the measured beat of marching feet.
"Soldiers all right!" commented Roger in a whisper.
"Yes, but what kind?" was Jimmy's question. "Are they our boys, some of the Allies or—Germans?"
"What shall we do?" asked Franz, and, in the misty darkness he turned toward Jimmy, as seemed natural.
"Keep still," was the advice given. "And crouch down. If they are Boches well let 'em pass—if they'll be so obliging as to go on. If they're some of our boys—"
"Oh, boy! If they only are!" sighed Bob.
The tramping feet came nearer.
"They're headed right this way!" declared Franz, who was crouching down next to Jimmy.
"Yes. But keep still! Don't even whisper. Sounds carry very far on a misty night—almost as they do over water."
The thud of heavily shod feet sounded plainly now, and then, suddenly, so suddenly that it made the hearts of the Khaki Boys thump fiercely, there came a voice out of the darkness saying:
"I don't believe we'd better go any farther, boys. We've come quite a way from our lines, and we haven't seen a sign of even a Hun sentry. We can go back and report the coast clear!"
And the voice was that of an American! Hearing it Jimmy and his chums leaped to their feet.
"Americans there"! sung out Bob.
Instantly came the sharp challenge:
"Who's there!"
"Some of the 509th Infantry," answered Jimmy, giving the names of his companions and himself.
"Advance, Sergeant Blaise! The others stay where they are. And remember our rifles have you covered, so don't try any funny work."
It was a grim warning, but the five Brothers appreciated its need. Jimmy stepped forward, and the light from a pocket electric torch flashed in his face.
"Don't know you, but you look all right," said a tall, young lieutenant who was in charge of the party, the tramping feet of which had so alarmed our heroes. "What are you doing here?"
"It's a long story, but I'll cut it short," said Jimmy, and he did. The lieutenant listened with interest, and then, satisfied that the truth was being told, he remarked.
"You'd better come back with us. We'll take care of you for to-night, and to-morrow you can send word to your command. I don't know this Captain Dickerson you speak of."
"Are we near the American lines?" asked Bob.
"Within half a mile," was the answer.
They were led back, and soon were comfortably housed in a dugout, partaking of hot rations, and telling their story to wondering comrades. They had come upon a sector of the line held by a division made up of New York and New Jersey troops, and, though our heroes knew none of them personally, they fraternized all right.
The next day the commanding officer, having heard their story, sent them back to their own company, which had moved considerably farther toward the front since the battle of the mill, as the boys called it.
They learned that the big body of German troops which they had seen from their hiding place had not yet come into an engagement to any great extent with the Allies.
"A big battle is pending though," said their captain, when our heroes were back in their own command, where they were made royally welcome. "There have been skirmishes and some long-distance artillery work. But the big fight is yet to come. You'll have a chance to rest up and get in trim for it."
Jimmy and his chums were glad of this. They were allowed leaves of absence, and went back of the lines to a pleasant little village, where rest and good food soon made them "fit" again. All efforts to learn something more of Captain Dickerson, and the whereabouts of Sergeant Maxwell, were, however, without avail.
One evening, after the five Brothers had reported back to their billet for duty, and while they were in the dugout, detailing over again some of their experiences at the mill, the sergeant-major entered.
"Get set, boys!" he exclaimed. "The orders are coming in. We go over the top again in the morning, and it's going to be some fight!"
And when the zero hour was signaled again the five Brothers were in battle once more.