"They're rushing up, Cartright! And they're a little puzzled, perhaps. They think they're going to get the very devil presently and they're preparing for a rush. It will be awful, old man! Say, how do you feel about it?"
"I'd like to blow the whole bunch up so high that they'd stick fast up there; clean beyond our attraction of gravitation! And I'd like to see the Kaiser and old Hindenburg in the bunch!" growled Cartright.
"Well, say, then, you take this battery and spring it! I guess I'm chicken-hearted. It seems like murder, but of course it's war."
"You bet I'll spring it! Give the word; that's all! Say, what's going on over yonder? For Heaven's sake, Corp; look there!" Cartright almost shrieked the last word.
And Herbert, for a moment forgetting his first duty, gazed where the other's hand indicated.
The four had been putting in their best licks, as it were. No doubt but that they had reduced the number of approaching Germans, four hundred yards, nearly a quarter of a mile distant, and their guns must have been hot. But sweeping forward on the other side of a rise of ground, a place also hidden somewhat by hedges and battle-ruined buildings, a large body of the enemy came suddenly almost between the four and any chance they had to retreat in that direction.
That also offered the only chance the boys had to withdraw in safety, for almost at the same instant a rapid-fire gun had discovered them; and to try to get away over the clear ground directly behind them would have proved certain death. And so, stooping and looking back, they made straight for the hedge and saw the unintended trap too late. In a moment Hun soldiers, detached at a command and running forward on either side, had surrounded them. There was nothing to do but surrender.
With a groan Herbert turned back to the important business in hand. There were now no scruples in his heart as to performing any acts of war. The whole business is merely one of retaliation, anyway, from first to last.
"There they are, a whole company or more, right on the spot! And some are down in the pit! Spring it, old man; push it! Ah! It worked! Poor devils! They could not have expected that. Come, we've got to beat it!"
The retreat of the two was largely made under the cover of a little natural valley, somewhat thicketed. In only one place were they exposed: while crossing a narrow bit of open field. They were hardly half way across it, Cartright, also an athlete, running just behind Herbert, when the corporal heard again that well-known sound that a bullet makes in striking a yielding substance, in tearing through flesh. A little moan followed it.