The enemy lay one day with his trench-tops commanding a steep river-bank and a deep, swiftly-flowing current of tawny water, adding defense to his front. Half-way across this stream the broken abutments and twisted girders of a dynamited railroad bridge showed his preparations for attack. Yet both river and trenches must be crossed, and the 26th Volunteers had come, among others, to do it. A small mortar was merrily tossing shells across the way, but they fell on roofs devised of the rails from the uptorn track, and fell for the most part harmless. One small section of the earth-works was unroofed, and from it the mortar had driven the Insurgents. That troubled the enemy only because it was the one loop-holed portion of the defenses and consequently more healthful for riflemen.
A few strong swimmers might carry a rope across, thought Major Falkins, and attach its loose end to the bamboo stakes which went up at the very edge of the trench-embankments, provided they could live long enough. Killing is quicker work than swimming in a strong current. But, if three started and one arrived, his fellows could follow in the few leaky barges that were available. These barges could cross, if at all, only by rope-ferry. The current set its veto on any use of oars. For such character of work a "suicide squad" is asked to nominate itself, and among those who responded was Corporal Newton Spooner, formerly Private Newton Spooner of the Shirt-tailers, and before that, No. 813 at Frankfort.
As the boy stripped off his khaki and stood naked behind a screening tangle of riverside growth, several machine-guns and the musketry of the regiment were preparing to give him at least a noisy end.
Major Falkins stood by, coaching the three swimmers as a trainer coaches his jockey when the saddling bugle sounds in the paddock.
"Watch the rope," commanded the major briefly. "Swim in single file, and not too close together." He turned to Newt, who happened to be standing nearest him.
"It's going to be mean work, Spooner," he said in a low voice; "I hate to order it."
Corporal Spooner saluted, but his eyes narrowed and glittered with a light venomously serpent-like.
"I reckon," he said in a guardedly low voice, which only the major heard, "you'd like to see me peg out, wouldn't you? But I ain't goin' to do it. I'm goin' to live long enough to finish a job I've got to attend to yet. I reckon you know what it is."
Then he slipped without a splash into the water, for he was to lead the little procession. The major raised his hand in signal, and the spattering roar became a solid thunder. Rapid-fire guns, mortar and Krags played on the earth-works. Every Shirt-tailer was sighting as though for a sharp-shooter's medal—carefully, deliberately. A scathe of lead raked the trench tops, under which every brown head went down and stayed cautiously invisible. With strong, sure strokes the three naked men shot out into the stream and past its center—seemingly unobserved. It began to look as though they would gain the other side unseen by the enemy. But suddenly, from the loop-holed section, came spiteful little squirts of fire. Against that fire only the mortar could cope—and the mortar had turned its attention elsewhere. Tiny geysers kicked themselves up where the Mauser bullets struck and skipped on the water. The roar from the Shirt-tailers rose in louder indignation, and the crew serving the mortar was feverishly refinding the range. A few more strokes, and the three men fighting the current would be safe in the lee of the steep bank—but the little geysers were multiplying. The third man suddenly turned his face backward over his shoulder, and shook his head. He raised a hand as one who waves farewell at a railroad station, and went down. Corporal Spooner and the other man were reaching out to grasp the projecting roots that fringed the opposite shore, but, as the second man crawled up on the bank, there appeared on his naked flesh a constantly spreading splotch of crimson. Corporal Spooner paused to drag him under cover, then proceeded to tie the rope and—safe, because of his very proximity—sat down, panting, to wait.