Facing the Enemy
"Go to it, old scout! That's what we're here for."
Such was Corporal Whitcomb's grave remark to Private Flynn when out of the squad of eight expert marksmen stationed in a rocky pit to help protect a certain new havoc-wreaking, shrapnel-shooting field-piece, three were chosen to first go out and stop any attempt of the enemy to pot-shot the artillerymen who were working the gun very much to the hurt of the German trenches three hundred yards away.
A little rocky hill held by the American troops new in action gave a protection to the position of the wonderful gun that shelled the enemy trenches disastrously beyond and successfully prevented the setting up of German heavy ordnance in the vast plain in the rear.
It was, therefore, impossible to try to smash the new gun by shells; it was well-nigh suicidal to attempt to charge the position, and, therefore, it became a matter of sharpshooting, of night raids and of dropping bombs from German planes very high overhead.
But the enemy were soon to learn that in the matter of marksmanship their best was greatly outclassed, and also that to escape injury from high-powered, .30-caliber bullets sent into the air their warplanes had to seek a very considerable elevation from which the dropping of bombs was an uncertain thing. Moreover, there were powerful French-American airplanes not far behind the American trenches, and they had come out and up to meet these German planes, downing two of them.
Meanwhile, from its pit, successfully bomb-proofed and camouflaged, the new gun barked every few minutes, throwing out no smoke to disclose its position. From the hilltop there was an occasional rattle of machine guns and the crack of rifles, another squad of snipers, under Corporal Lang, being there on duty, backed also by a platoon of United States Regulars. And on the other side of the hill, Herbert learned, there was another pit that contained another one of the terrible new guns, similarly guarded by Billy Phillips' squad and more Regulars.
That first twenty-four hours had been "a corker," as Roy Flynn put it. There had been something doing every minute from the time the platoon had left the French training camp where Uncle Sam's infantry was getting the fine points from French officers relative to modern trench warfare.
At nightfall the platoon had entered six auto trucks, called by the British "lorries," and had proceeded with a French guide toward the front, though going where few knew, and in fact the exact destination had been disclosed only to lieutenant Loring and Sergeants Barry and Small.
It had been very dark and rainy. The road, at first smooth, had glistened like a mirror; the occasional lights from road lamps and windows, closer together in the villages, had thrown a luster quite uncanny over everything. Then the lights had become less frequent, the road suddenly rougher, even rutty, the speed had grown less and they were always floundering along, or sometimes stuck in the mud.