“Let us get busy with these hand-grenades right away.”
They were all enthusiastic, and Dave more so than any one else. His eyes lit up with patriotic fire as he got a hand-grenade ready for use.
“All right, boys! If you say so we’ll go over the top and at ’em,” he cried. “Get your grenades ready, but don’t throw until I give the word. And then be sure to give it to the Heinies just where it will do the most good.”
There was a brief pause, and then Dave leaped forth from the gully, followed almost instantly by all of the others. Away they sped over the ground in the direction of the machine-gun nests.
They had covered fully fifty feet before the Germans discovered them. Then a yell went up and several shots rang out, the bullets whistling over their heads.
“Now then—all together!” yelled Dave, and let fly with his hand-grenade. The others hurled their explosives at the same time.
While two of the hand-grenades went wide of the mark and one other failed to go off, the others came down directly in the midst of the two machine-gun nests. There was a loud explosion, followed rapidly by a number of others. The machine-guns were completely wrecked and the bodies of the gunners were hurled in all directions!
CHAPTER XV
LIEUTENANT PORTER
“A hit! A perfect hit!”
“That’s the time we showed the Huns what we can do!”