“He’s got a fat chance to get away from me, sir,” he said. “I’m the spy bustin’est baby in this man’s army.”
“You will treat him with courtesy,” Cowan ordered. “He is a brave man.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied. “So was Nathan Hale, sir–but he got shot just the same.”
251CHAPTER XIII
The Last of the Big Shows
1
The following morning had no dawning. A light rain had fallen during the night and a heavy, obliterating fog arose from the wet earth, blanketing hill and valley alike. So dense was it that troops in the front lines, peeping over the top in anxious nervousness as they awaited the zero hour, saw nothing but a wall of white that made the shell-tortured land before them more mysterious than any dream of battle ever fancied.
What did it hold? Where were the German lines? And just what had been the effect of this five hour tornado of screaming shells?
Machine guns, under cover of the fog, were boldly mounted on the trench parapets. They danced and chattered on their tripods as they pounded forth streams of lead upon the unseen enemy positions.
Zero hour at last! Along the line officers blew shrill whistles, or some, calmer than the others, gave the signal with a confidently shouted, “Let’s go!”