The Flag

by Homer Greene

"Tut! You'll be as brave as a lion. It's your kind that wins battles."

Pen turned his face toward a horizon lost in a haze of smoke, and the look in his eyes showed that he at least, would be no coward when the supreme moment came. Lieutenant Davis of their company strolled by; impatiently waiting for further orders. He was a strict disciplinarian indeed, but he was very human and his men all loved him. Pen pointed in the direction from which came the muffled sounds of warfare.

"When shall we be there, Lieutenant?" he asked.

"I don't know, Butler," was the response. "It may be to-morrow; it may be next month. Only those in high command know and they're not telling. We may camp right here for weeks."

But they did not camp there. In the early evening there came marching orders, and, under cover of darkness, the entire battalion swung into a muddy and congested road and tramped along it for many hours. But they got no nearer to the fighting line. Weary, hungry and thirsty, they stopped at last on the face of a gently sloping hill protected from the north by a forest which had not yet suffered destruction either at the hands of sappers or from the violence of shells. It was apparent that this had been a camp for a large body of troops before the advancement of the lines. It was deserted now, but there were many caves in the hillside, and hundreds of little huts made of earth and wood under the sheltering trunks and branches of the trees. It was in one of these huts that Pen and Aleck, together with four of their comrades, were billeted. It was not long after their arrival before hastily built fires were burning, and coffee, hot and fragrant, was brewing, to refresh the tired bodies of the men, until the arrival of the provision trains should supply them with a more substantial breakfast. There was plenty of straw, however, and on that the weary troops threw themselves down and slept.

At this camp the battalion remained until the middle of June. There were drills, marching and battalion maneuvers by day, such recreation in the evenings as camp life could afford, sound sleeping on beds of straw at night, and always, from the distance, sometimes loud and continuous, sometimes faint and occasional, the thunder of the guns. And always, too, along the muddy high-road at the foot of the slope, a never-ending procession of provision and munition trains laboring toward the front, and the human wreckage of the firing line, and troops released from the trenches, passing painfully to the rear. No wonder the men grew impatient and longed for the activities of the front even though their ears were ever filled with tales of horror from the lips of those who had survived the ordeal of battle.

But, soon after the middle of June, their desires were realized. Orders came to break camp and prepare to march, to what point no one seemed to know, but every one hoped and expected it would be to the trenches. There was a day of bustle and hurry. The men stocked up their haversacks, filled their canteens and cartridge-boxes, put their guns in complete readiness, and at five o'clock in the afternoon were assembled and began their march. The road was ankle-deep with mud, for there had been much rain, and it was congested with endless convoys. There were many delays. A heavy mist fell and added to the uncertainty, the weariness and discomfort. But no complaint escaped from any man's lips, for they all felt that at last they were going into action. Four hours of marching brought them into the neighborhood of the British heavy artillery concealed under branches broken from trees or in mud huts, directing their fire on the enemy's lines by the aid of signals from lookouts far in advance or in the air. The noise of these big guns was terrific, but inspiring. At nine o'clock there was a halt of sufficient length to serve the men with coffee and bread, and then the march was resumed. By and by shells from the guns of the Allies began to shriek high over the heads of the marching men, and were replied to by the enemy shells humming and whining by, seeking out and endeavoring to silence the Allied artillery. Now and then one of these missiles would burst in the rear of the column, sending up a glare of flame and a cloud of dust and debris, but at what cost in life no one in the line knew.

As the men advanced the mud grew deeper, the way narrower, the congestion greater. The passing of enemy shells was less frequent, but precautions for safety were increased. Advantage was taken of ravines, of fences, of fourth and fifth line trenches. The troops ere not beyond range of the German sharpshooters, and the swish of bullets was heard occasionally in the air above the heads of the marchers.

It was toward morning that the destination of the column was reached, and, in single file, the men of Pen's section passed down an incline into their first communicating trench, and then past a maze of lateral trenches to the opening into the salients they were to supply. It was here that the soldiers whom they were to relieve filed out by them. Going forward, they took the places of the retiring section. At last they were in the first line trench, with the enemy trenches scarcely a hundred meters in front of them. Sentries were placed at the loop-holes made in the earth embankment, and the remainder of the section retired to their dug-outs. These under-ground rooms, built down and out from the trench, and bomb-proof, were capable of holding from eight to a dozen men. They were carpeted with straw, some of them had shelves, and in many of them discarded bayonets were driven into the walls to form hooks. It was in these places that the men who were off duty rested and ate and slept.

In the gray light of the early June morning, Pen, who had been posted at one of the loop-holes as a listening sentry, looked out to see what lay in front of him. But the most that could be seen were the long and winding earth embankments that marked the lines of the German entrenchments, and between, on "no man's land," a maze of barbed wire entanglements. No living human being was in sight, but, at one place, crumpled up, partly sustained by meshes of wire, there was a ragged heap, the sight of which sent a chill to the boy's heart. It required no second glance to discover that this was the unrescued body of a soldier who had been too daring. Pen had seen his first war-slain corpse. Indeed, war was becoming to him now a reality. For, suddenly, a little of the soft earth at his side spattered into his face. An enemy bullet had struck there. In his eagerness to see he had exposed too much of his head and shoulders and had become the target for Boche sharpshooters. Other bullets pattered down around his loop-hole, and only by seeking the quick shelter of the trench did he escape injury or death. It was his first lesson in self-protection on the firing-line, but he profited by it. Two hours later he and Aleck, who had also been doing duty on a lookout platform, were relieved by their comrades, and threw themselves down on the straw of their dug-out and, wearied to the point of exhaustion, slept soundly. With the dawning of day the noise of cannonading increased, the whining of deadly missiles grew more incessant, the crash of exploding shells more frequent, but, until they were roused by their sergeant and bidden to eat their breakfast which had been brought by a ration-party, both boys slept. So soon had the menacing sounds of war become familiar to their ears. After breakfast those who were not on sentry duty were put to work repairing trenches, filling sand-bags, enlarging dug-outs, pumping water from low places, cleaning rifles, performing a hundred tasks which were necessary to make trench life endurable and reasonably safe. The food was good and was still abundant. There were fresh meat, bacon, canned soups and vegetables, bread, butter, jam and coffee. The two hours on sentry duty were by far the most strenuous in the daily routine. To remain in one position, with eyes glued to the narrow slit in the embankment, gas mask at hand, hand-grenades in readiness, rifle in position ready to be discharged on the second, the fate of the whole army perhaps resting on one man's vigilance, this was no easy task.