How Maud got there no one in the entire regiment could have told. It was like Maud—German spy, Tom had called her—to be forever upsetting law and order and the best-laid plans. She was interfering now with the movement of a large part of an American army, and yet the lads who had known and loved the beast despite its unruly disposition felt much as though a personal friend thus was to be put forever out of the way.
A corporal who had mounted the trench side to try and help lift Maud out, jumped down in front of her and placed his pistol at her head.
“And be careful not to hit Granger,” was the captain’s final warning, as he again noticed “Buck,” still in the vice-like grip and rapidly being crushed breathless.
The corporal pointed his pistol in such a way that the bullet could not endanger “Buck;” a German gun went off and simultaneously with it there was a flash at Maud’s head, her whole body quivered for an instant, and then she went down in a heap.
The hundreds upon hundreds of men who followed those of Company C through that trench, stepped upon something big and bulky and soft, but none knew until later that it was the dead body of what had been one of the most cantankerous mules in the American army.
How the word came none knew, but nevertheless the various regiments hardly had taken up their appointed places before it became whispered from man to man that simultaneously with the American attack upon the southern wing of the St. Mihiel salient, the French were to launch an equally vigorous attack from the north.
It was satisfying information, or prediction, although the Americans, needless to say, required nothing to sharpen their enthusiasm, nothing to bolster up a courage which was prone at times even to sweep away discretion and better judgment and carry them into unnecessary hazards.
Nevertheless, it was good news to know that the poilus were “going in,” too—that it was to be a strike-together battle for quick and indisputable supremacy.
It was not known until later how true the information was, but the German high command would have paid a fat price to have been apprised of it; for not only was it exactly what did happen, but had the Boches known of the plan undoubtedly they would have been able to put up a stouter defense, even though it was bound to crumble in the end under such terrific attacks as Foch and Pershing launched against the armies which for four years had lain impregnable in that bulging line, a menace to the Allies in any forward movement that the Huns might be able to put under way.
The marvel of it all, though, to the men who entered the trenches that night, was the completeness and the readiness of the preparations for the opening of the battle they were to make.