[CHAPTER X]
War is—War!
Yes, it was war. There could be no question about its being the real thing, with all the frills and thrills that go along with a gigantic, brain-taxing, muscle-straining attempt to kill an enemy and not be killed by him.
If Sherman designated the kind of war practised two generations ago as having a resemblance to the infernal regions, what would he call war as practised in this generation? A combination it is of dozens of varied Hades, with all the little devils of hate and villainy and slow torture thrown in.
Corporal Herbert Whitcomb, though a mere boy, had been placed in the command he held, however small, because of his wonderful skill in shooting, together with his manliness, strength of character and the reputation he had earned for doing everything well that he was set to do at the training camp back in the dear old United States.
With his introduction to the combined trench and gun pit on the French front and the duties he was compelled to assume as commander of a squad of snipers, he was at once impressed with the fact that this was war; and in a very short time thereafter that war is hell.
Lieutenant Jackson, of the old Regular Army and a veteran of long service, who was in command of the pit and was Herbert's superior officer, had told him enough to render such a verdict and to impress him with the seriousness of the job before the Allies, the American Army and their small body of men, fifty-seven in all, in the pit. These comprised the platoon of Regulars, thirty-two men, four corporals, two sergeants and the lieutenant, the artillery squad of eight men and one corporal, and the sniper squad of an equal number.
The Regular Army men were generally rough-and-ready fellows, admirably fitted for any duty of war, except that only two or three of them were admittedly expert shots. These had tried sniping, but were too few in numbers to awe the German long-distance sharpshooters making attempts to kill off the artillerymen.