“Well, we’ve won the first round anyway,” remarked Billy jubilantly, as the Army Boys gathered in a trench that had been hastily constructed and sat down to eat.
“Yes,” admitted Tom, “but there may be a good many rounds to this fight. Heinie’s got lots of fight in him yet and don’t you forget it. He knows he’s in the last ditch and that if he doesn’t stand here, it’s all up with him.”
“Quit your croaking,” admonished Billy. “We’ve got the Indian sign on him and he knows it. This last ditch business doesn’t go with the Huns. They’re all right when they’re winning, but they can’t stand losing. They don’t want their cities devastated in the same way that they’ve ruined the cities of France and Belgium. When the time comes they’ll cave in. You just wait and see what kind of a prophet little Billy is.”
“I think you’re both right,” said Frank. “I agree with Tom that we’re due for one big fight before Heinie will admit defeat. But I also think with Billy that when that defeat comes they’ll curl up and quit so quickly it will make your head swim. But what’s the use of our chinning about it and letting our chow get cold? All we’ve got to do is to fight. We’ll leave it to Pershing and Foch and the other men at the head of things to settle things with the Germans after we’ve licked them to a frazzle.”
They attacked their meal with an appetite sharpened by the strenuous work of the morning, and then at the call of the bugle they again took their place in the line to finish the work they had so well begun.
From that time on, the work was more like guerrilla fighting than any battle in which they had engaged so far. The woods were so thick and the obstructions so many that it was impossible to advance in anything like regular formation. Instead of tens of thousands of men being hurled against other ten thousands in a mass attack, both armies were broken up into countless groups of ten, twenty and a hundred men, each following a general plan of advance but depending upon circumstances and natural conditions as to the way they carried out that plan.
The Germans had the advantage of a greater familiarity with the ground, which they had held for years, and also in their tremendously strong system of defenses. But the Americans had against these the consciousness that they had beaten this enemy in every fight where they had met them, and the feeling that they could always beat them. Then, too, the Americans were more accustomed to act on their own responsibility. If their officers were killed or wounded, they figured out for themselves what was the best thing to do and went ahead and did it. In a certain sense, every private was a general when he had to be. The Germans, on the other hand, were excellent fighters in the mass. But they needed to have their shoulders touching those of their comrades, and they had been taught to rely so utterly upon the directions of their officers that they felt lost and bewildered when they had to make decisions for themselves. Of course there were exceptions, but this fairly expressed the difference between the two armies.
Not only that day but for many days thereafter the fighting kept on. The Americans had given themselves two weeks to clear the forest. Day by day the lines advanced, sometimes slowly, again more quickly, but they always advanced, and every nightfall found them nearer their goal than they had been the day before.
The Army Boys were in their element. Here at last was enough fighting to suit even their hot blood. The only thing lacking to their satisfaction was the absence of Bart.
They had not yet even been able to hear from him, as they were kept so busy and the lines shifted so constantly that all communication between them and the hospital was cut off.