"I reckon I've been feeling something of the kind; yes," answered the lieutenant. "At any rate, I didn't seem to want to get sleepy at my usual hour. This sort of thing bothers a fellow at times."
"I think we must hear things we don't know we hear, or get a notion of them in some way," offered Herbert.
"Well, as a Southerner—and we are quite religious in our parts, my boy—we give the Almighty credit for that sort of thing."
"Yes, of course." Herbert sat, deeply thinking for a moment. "Lieutenant, I have wondered lately about the strategic wisdom of our position here, to use the words of Brigadier-General Harding and of Captain Leighton, of our company. They often gave us a talk about that. It has struck me of late that a very few of us are defending a point of great importance, one that the Boches would like to capture and destroy. How about that, if I may ask?"
"A natural and a wise question, Corporal; very," Lieutenant Jackson made answer. "But rest easy. You came through at night and could not see much on the way. Right back of us, not a quarter of a mile and on the other side of the ridge, one whole division is in barracks, not in billets, as the French term them, but in good, old American log houses, shielded by sand bags on this side and roofed the same way. And a mile beyond, on each side, there are some more infantry regiments; I don't know just how many, but enough. And there must be almost half a division in the trenches, nearly two in all, guarding this one quiet sector and ready to start toward Berlin when the order comes."
"I suppose putting these men in barracks is to save crowding the trenches," offered Herbert.
"Exactly; and it's a great scheme. But even without them I have a large idea that the Huns couldn't get enough men on this ground to push us back an inch, much less get our trenches. And heaven help them if they try it!"
"We don't want them to get this gun pit."
"They'll have to go some to do it! We're always ready for them."