And then began for the Motor Boys and their chums a life of the utmost tension, strenuousness, and danger, although theirs was a comparatively quiet sector at that particular stage of the war, 90 and they were holding the trenches more to guard against a surprise attack than anything else.
“Well, there’s one comfort,” remarked Jerry, as he was placed in his station in the trench, with Bob on one side and Ned on the other, both within talking distance.
“What?” asked Bob. “Do we get better eats here?”
“Eats, you heathen!” exclaimed Ned. “Can’t you forget that once in a while? What are you going to do if the Germans make you a prisoner? They won’t feed you at all!”
“Then I won’t be a prisoner!” declared Bob. “But what were you going to say about comfort, Jerry?”
“We don’t have to drill,” was the answer.
And this was true. All the life of the camp was now done away with, even the training camp of France, where the boys had finished their war education, so to speak. But if they did not have to drill there was plenty else to occupy them.
While on duty in the trench they had constantly to be on the alert, and this not to guard against the unexpected approach of some friendly officer, bent on determining how his sentries were performing their duty, but to be on the watch against the approach of a deadly enemy. There must be no sleeping—not even dozing—on post.
Then, too, there was work to do. There was 91 food and water to bring up, and fire wood to scurry for when the chance offered, for it was not often possible to bring up hot rations to the front lines, and the boys heated their own as best they could, in discarded tin cans with a few twigs for fuel.
There were lines of trenches to cut, dugouts to repair after they had been blown to bits by the German guns, and there was barbed wire to replace under cover of darkness when it had been severed by the rain of steel and lead from the enemy’s guns.