The place that Herbert had chosen was a small natural depression of a few feet; a pile of stones and hastily filled sand bags helped this much until a trench, really a nearly square hole, had been dug. Then this was roofed over with some half-charred planks and boards brought from a nearby pig-sty which the Huns had tried to burn, but could not.
Herbert and Cartright succeeded in throwing some earth on the roof without being hit by shells and other gun fire that had begun to come their way and they were delighted to notice that an anti-aircraft gun, undoubtedly well guarded, had been installed not a fourth of a mile back of them, insuring much safety from that quarter, at least.
When night fell half the squad went on guard outside; the others worked like beavers, and without food until the task was done, to successfully camouflage the shelter, using grass and weeds pulled up by the roots from the half frozen ground and placed upright on the roof. The entrance down earth steps was made through the dead-leaved branches of a large uprooted bush.
Meanwhile, with Cartright as his most skilled assistant, Herbert was placing the fifty pounds of explosives in a large niche cut in the side of the pit and guarded by stakes, from which spot, under cover of darkness, a wire was laid for fully four hundred yards and the battery that was to set the charge off was buried in the ground and the spot marked.
The Germans did not seem at first to pay much attention to the pit until the final act of camouflage. A messenger, at night, sneaked to the pit and informed Corporal Whitcomb that it was deemed advisable to take this step now, as from airplane observations the previous day the Huns were getting ready to make a heavy counter-attack.
At once, therefore, a flexible steel flag-staff was firmly planted beside the pit and from it, with the first streaks of the coming day, the enemy viewed a division staff headquarters flag and a signal station flag flying in the sharp breeze. Then the shells flew, but the flags also kept right on flying. The steel staff was struck and shaken again and again, but its tough flexibility saved it; the flags showed many a hole, but still they fluttered proudly and the Boches went mad.
Snipers tried to down the banners and incidentally pick off a few of the supposed officers and observers that must grace such a spot, but the squad of American experts with the rifle was more than ready for them and they quit that game both through the day and the night following. Perhaps because of this or the night-long bright moonlight, no raid was attempted; perhaps it was because a bigger move was in process of formation.
And on the next day the enemy launched a mighty counter-thrust to regain lost ground.
A barrage fire was laid down and it continued for a full hour. Private Wood took it upon himself to make some observations as to how the flags and staff were bearing this and he got too far above the shelter with his head. There are those who will do, against all sane judgment, most foolish, unnecessary things, and Wood was one such.