"Men, you all know Whitcomb and you've all heard of his work. He's your commanding officer now, lieutenant of this platoon. The order to advance now will come in about ten minutes, I think."
A low cheer, intense with feeling, with expectation, with eagerness, greeted these words; there were mingled expressions of approval of their new leader and the idea of again going forward against the Germans.
Lieutenant Whitcomb never could remember much about the new push. He went with his men over the top; they charged in open formation again across the country over which he had come back with poor Cartright.
They cut and tore aside wire entanglements; they faced and overcame machine-gun fire; they encountered long bursts of liquid flame and with rifle and revolver fire at short range finished the devils who dealt it. They leaped over piles of sand bags and into trenches, using only their pistols against a brave attempt to meet them with bayonets, and when all of the Huns in the first line had been accounted for or made prisoners the Americans went up and on again, always forward.
And then the gas. It came at them like a small typhoon of white and blue smoke, showing again the iridescent colors, the gray-black center of its spreading force, and this time there was no Susan Nipper to disperse the poisonous fumes with her fiery tongue lashes sent into their midst.
Herbert knew the awful danger that confronted them and he feared that his men, with only the lust of battle in their eyes, hardly comprehended it. He turned and dashed down the line.
"Your masks, men! Every man get on his gas mask! Keep your wits about you! Get on those masks in a hurry, but get them on right! You're down and out, if you don't!"
Bent on saving his men, bent on disproving Captain Leighton's half-jesting comment as to his luck with a command, he forgot for the moment his own safety, his own mask, and the fumes were upon them.