Again they felt all the thrill that goes with a battle. No doubt, too, they experienced something of the horror also; for it was not their country that was being trodden under the iron heel of the oppressor, nor their capital in danger of being captured again, as back in ‘71.
After taking a steady look along the whole front, as seen from that hill top, the boys rested their eyes. Their friend the colonel was conversing with some of his fellow officers; Thad even suspected that he might be telling them of the exploit carried through by the boys in faded khaki, whose presence there at such a crisis must naturally have aroused the wonder of the Frenchmen; for several times he saw the latter look their way.
“Hello! where’s Bumpus now?” suddenly demanded Allan, showing that in all the excitement he had not missed the stout chum until then, but supposed the other must be only hanging behind, as usual.
“I hope now he hasn’t got lost as he did the other night, though I don’t see how he could, coming only that short distance, and in broad daylight too. Thad, what’s the answer?” and Giraffe turned on the patrol leader as he demanded this.
“Well, the poor fellow just got cold feet, that’s the truth of the matter,” was the way Thad explained it. “You know he isn’t built on the same lines as you happen to be, Giraffe. Bumpus has seen about all the fighting he can stand. And between us I give him credit for staying back by the car.”
“Oh! well, I’m not so crazy as to want to see much more myself,” admitted the tall scout. “It cuts me to the bone to see such terrible things; but stop, and just think how proud we’ll all be some day to be able to declare we watched this wonderful battle that’s going down in history as one of the greatest ever known. It means a whole lot to get up and say, ‘yes, that’s right, because I was there, and saw it with my own eyes!’”
“All of the officers seem to be watching one particular place now,” advised Thad; “and we’d better follow suit. They act as if they thought some vital stroke might be on the carpet over there on the left.”
Accordingly all of the boys leveled their glasses again. It was easy to tell which way to look, because they could figure that out by a glance at the Frenchmen. No one was talking just then, but every officer had his eye intently glued to his binoculars. And no sooner did Thad focus upon the distant ground than he saw why those men were in such a state of suspense.
The Germans were making possibly the most savage assault of the whole day. They had issued forth from cover, and were crossing the open ground in dense masses. It was simply amazing to see how splendidly those ranks kept their formation even after all manner of machine-guns, and those of larger bore, opened a hailstorm of lead and iron.
If men went down, as they undoubtedly must have done here, there and everywhere, like leaves falling from the trees with the Autumn wind, the slight gaps were not noticeable at that distance, for others simply closed in, and the solid mass kept charging on and on like a machine that, once set in motion, could not be stopped by any power on earth.