Some of the raiders leapt down into the trench, and were submerged at once. A few threw bombs, most of which were deftly caught and thrown back before they could explode. Others were engaged upon the parapet itself. The rest, making heavy weather in the wire and tortured by the stream of bullets, broke back, only to find that the second machine gun was maintaining a steady enfilade fire across their line of retreat.
At the height of the turmoil the sky far behind the American lines was suddenly illuminated by flashes. Next moment, with a rush and a roar, the American retaliatory barrage was tearing up No Man’s Land and the German fire-trenches beyond. The raiders were completely isolated.
For four minutes the tempest of shells raged. Then, with stunning suddenness, came silence, grim as death, broken only by a few hoarse cries and a little sympathetic uneasiness farther down the line. The raid was over. How it had fared the Germans over the way never knew, for not a single raider came back to tell them.
The dead and wounded enemy were disentangled from the wire, where most of them had fallen. American casualties, thanks to Boone’s warning and Major Powers’s dispositions, had been comparatively slight, though the bombs had taken a certain gruesome toll. Eddie Gillette, who with Al Thompson had returned from his tour of inspection just in time to take part in the defence of the trench, was suffering from abraded knuckles, due to an encounter with a set of Teutonic teeth. Otherwise, none of our particular friends had received a scratch, though Boone and Gogarty had escaped their own artillery barrage by four seconds.
An hour later the life of the line had reverted once more from Hell to Monotony. A working-party was out in front, repairing wire and replacing sandbags. Patrols were out again, in case the enemy should feel disposed to throw good money after bad. The artillery stood to, prepared to resume the argument if need be. But not a German gun cheeped all night. Possibly they were surprised about something.
Meanwhile a string of prisoners was filing back to Regimental Headquarters, down a communication-trench—or boyau, to employ the expressive phrase of its Gallic constructors—muddy, dishevelled, and sulky. German prisoners in these days are not usually sulky: most of them are frankly delighted to be counted out of the War. But this particular consignment were distinguished, under their grime, by a certain peculiar and awful air of outraged majesty.
On arrival at Headquarters the mystery was revealed. An American Staff Officer, an expert linguist, took charge of the party, and issued the usual orders.
“Sergeant, find out if there are any officers among them, and put them by themselves. Then search the others.”
He was answered—in tolerable English—by a lanky youth who stood at the end of the long line of prisoners.