Frank and Bart had drawn a handful of grenades from their sacks. At a given signal they drew back their arms and hurled them over the barrels in quick succession.
They fell right in the midst of the machine guns. There was a tremendous explosion that killed some of the gunners and threw the rest into wild confusion.
"Now!" shouted Frank, and he and Bart leaped to their feet and rushed toward the guns.
There was a wild mêlée for a moment, and then the surviving Germans turned and ran in panic down the slope.
The boys slued the captured guns around and sent a stream of bullets after their wildly fleeing enemies.
The rout was complete, and the next minute the whole company, that had charged the instant the grenades were thrown, came tearing up, and there was a scene of hilarity and enthusiasm that passed description.
"The finest thing I ever saw!" declared the captain. "You boys are the stuff of which heroes are made."
But there was no time then to dwell on the exploit. The enemy was on the run and they must keep him going.
And they did, so well and so thoroughly, that when the day was over they had swept the whole ridge that had been their objective in the fight and planted Old Glory on its highest crest. And their victory was shared by the rest of the Allied line, who not only regained all the losses of the day before, but swept the Germans out of their first and second lines on a five-mile front, inflicting on them a defeat which they were long to remember.
And how the lesson that the Germans learned that day was repeated later on will be told in the next book of this series, entitled: "Army Boys on the Firing Line; Or, Holding Back the German Drive."