"Say, Corporal, I want to thank you for being good to me; always jolly and kind, even when I felt like grumbling. Will you do me a big favor? You see I can't write with this arm; never can, I guess. Won't you just drop a line to dad and mother? You have my home address and it would come better from you than anybody else; and you might say that I didn't run and hide when the Boches were coming. I think dad always believed I would do that. Will you?" Such was Geddes' request.
And all Herbert could do was to take their hands and press them, nod rather violently and perhaps get out a very few words like: "Oh, you'll be all right. See you later." Had he attempted more he would have quite broken down; and that, he believed, would not have been exactly the part of a soldier.
They were gone and the boy turned to his chief. "Lieutenant, there's only four of us left out of the nine; one dead, three wounded, one a traitor. This is war! But there's something more to be said; it is, how to get back at those devils down yonder? Of course, we're after them, too, but they had no business to start this war."
"I don't think those poor chaps did start it and I don't believe the most of them would have started it, either, if they'd had any say in the matter. They are mere puppets, even the higher commanders, working in a vile system that makes monkeys of them at the behest of their ambitious and conscienceless rulers, or the one ruler, Kaiser Bill. But as long as these fellows have made their bed as practical slaves, let them lie in it as victims, however the fortunes of war may swing, and we have to teach them a lesson about coming over here too readily; got to get back at them.
"To-morrow the communicating trench between our pit and the lower trench will be completed; that is a less distance across No Man's Land and some of us can join those boys down there in a counter-raid to-morrow night.
"And, Whitcomb, don't be too down-hearted; I see you are. Those fellows will mend up and we must expect some to be killed. We lost seven in all and eleven wounded. What is left of you can do very efficient work yet. The Huns are not done sniping and I will ask for some more men to refill your squad, along with two other squads of our command to take up the losses. And say, my boy, keep your eyes open for enemy airplanes; it'll be good flying weather in the morning and I've a notion they'll try again to do what the raid failed in. But Susan Nipper will wing 'em if she gets a show!"
It turned out precisely as the lieutenant predicted. The morning dawned clear and still, like an Indian summer day in the dear old United States and the men in the pit and those in the trenches below praised heaven for smiling upon them and Old Sol for drying up a bit of the bottom ooze where the trenches were poorly drained. The pit did not suffer so much, being on high and sloping ground where, even had the bottom been level and not drained, the rain water would have soon seeped away.
Herbert and Watson went out on the slope to watch for snipers in the early morning. But no snipers were in evidence and, strangely, they were not shot at even once; at that time this section could truthfully be called quiet. Not so?