The Two Went Down Together
Gill got a hold on his antagonist’s throat and the Hun began to choke. Not being able to break that hold and to save himself, the big fellow tried to reach around under him for his pistol and Gill tore loose, flung himself over the ground and got his own automatic. The two men fired almost at the same instant, the German’s bullet tearing through Gill’s blouse not six inches from his heart, but without even scratching the skin. Gill’s shot was better placed. Without another glance at the dead Hun the mountaineer remarked to himself.
“They’re onto me here. Reckon I’ve got t’ move again.” He crept back into the bushes once more and made another detour, coming out at the edge of the thicket farther away from the field piece, but an increase of distance did not worry him much regarding his certain marksmanship.
Again he took up his vigil and pinched himself to keep awake, but the need of sleep was even greater than before and he made the same mistake of getting into a comfortable position. A few flies and mosquitoes aided his efforts to maintain wakefulness, but apparently nothing short of a Hun charge upon him could have sufficed.
When he awoke again not one, but five, grinning Huns stood over and around him. Gill got to his feet and made an instant mental reservation not to surrender. He would not go into Germany as a prisoner. Finding his weapons taken, he did the only thing he could: rush at the nearest man, get him in the stomach with his shoulders and, upsetting him, fetch another a blow on the jaw that put him down and out. There is no telling what the Yank would have succeeded in doing next had not all light and sense been blotted out. The well directed butt of a gun proved harder than his head.