There was no way to get through the enemy’s lines, except between the positions in front and to the right of the unfortunate messenger, and the Germans were practically in touch with each other at this place. Time was flying, the night was wearing on; the order, rather a plea, to hasten and the immediate need of his comrades, their ammunition largely spent and no water to drink, inspired the youth.
A small ravine, with exceedingly precipitous sides and a dry waterway or gully along its bottom formed the ground over which he must make his way. Probably the Germans believed this terrain would be impassable to an assaulting or scouting force and hence did not occupy it, except to station a sentry there.
An unfortunate sentry he proved to be, for Morgan, after ascertaining that the enemy occupied only the ground at the top of the hills on either side, crept down the gully, spied the light of the Hun’s pipe or cigarette, approached near enough, without being heard, to hit the fellow with a stone and when the sentry showed signs of regaining his wind and yelling Morgan banged him another that finished him for good.
Wearing the sentry’s cap, his own stuffed in his blouse, the messenger advanced then a little less carefully and presently he came to another sentry, who took him for a comrade and sleepily let him pass without question.
On the messenger went, even a little faster. The Huns seemed to be farther away on both sides of him; was he getting through and past them? He actually straightened up and was stepping along the water-worn gully in almost a trot. The woods were silent; there was hardly a sound except the everlasting boom of guns miles away to the east. A large hare, in no great haste, crossed the ravine directly in front of him, leaping up the hill and startling the boy not a little. Small birds also, from time to time, were frightened from their roosting places in thickets. With a ripping sound following a sharp blow a bit of bark on a tree not two feet ahead flew off, sending pieces that stung his face and upon the instant came the report of the gun that sent the bullet. This was intended for him, no doubt; a forward sentry had caught sight of a moving figure where he must have known a Hun soldier had no right to be.
Morgan stopped and crouched. At the brink of the gully not three feet above was a clump of grasses; up the back of this the boy dived, lying flat, at the same time pulling his automatic.
A voice, some little distance away, spoke in German; another, much nearer, made reply. Then almost beside him a third man growled out a lot of guttural stuff. He it was who had fired the shot, but with what result he could not have ascertained. The fellow was on the steep slope opposite and across the gully from where Billy Morgan lay and the least move of the latter might be seen.
Morgan could plainly discern the outline of the German against a patch of sky above and between the trees. The young fellow’s home was in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas; he had three brothers and all had enlisted together. Since quite small he had been almost as familiar with shooting irons as he was with a knife and fork, and hunting turkeys on their roosts at night had been a much followed pastime with the brothers. To get one’s sights against the sky before shooting did the trick. An automatic pistol was not the accurate weapon that a finely sighted rifle is, but the man was much nearer than one could ever get to a roosting turkey.
Morgan, quite noiselessly, turned partly over on his side and brought his right arm around with the elbow resting on the ground. He glanced along the barrel of the little weapon, holding it toward the open sky above the German’s head. Then without altering the relative line of eye and weapon he lowered his arm until the pistol barrel was blended into the dark form of the Hun and pulled the trigger.