"We can't call you fellows together with a bugle," Sergeant West announced, in a stage whisper. "But it's a few minutes of three o'clock; everything is as quiet as a mouse. Two of our men are over there to give an alarm. All get ready. There'll be no falling in, no formation. Keep well spread out. Orders will be given only by signals. Three of us have whistles and we hope they won't get all three. One short blow means follow the leader; two means all return; three means retreat in a hurry, but with prisoners, if you can get them; a long-continued blast means retreat for your lives. I guess all understand. But no signals will be given until after we attack. We must go across absolutely without noise and we must go quickly. Get the fellow at their listening post, or any sentinel first. It's our first raid in this sector and they will hardly expect us. Now, boys, follow Gerry. He knows the lay of the land."
And over the top went the forty odd, wishing they could do so with a cheer, but keeping as silent as an army of cats after an army of rabbits—only the prey they sought was by no means as harmless as rabbits, and this fact made the need of silence greater.
Not a word came from the scouts, and if the men in the enemy's trench were apprised of the coming of the Americans they were not able to communicate with their fellows before the raiders had scrambled through, or rapidly pulled aside the barbed wire, squirmed over a pile of sand bags and leaped into the German trench.
Not a man hesitated, and the first signal of any kind they heard was the bark of Gerry's revolver as he sent down the foremost and lone Hun he encountered just as the fellow tried to raise his gun.
At short range the handier, expertly used revolver won and it was so throughout the mêlée that followed.
As the Americans landed, some few dashing on and into a wide shelter or dugout lined with berths and concrete-floored, in which fifty men reposed or waited for night duty, the short, sharp, rapidly repeated bark of the ready pistols sounded almost like, though less regular than, a machine gun.
But the revolvers were used only against those that opposed them; the foeman who indicated surrender, who was without a weapon or who dropped it, or who held up his hands was fully disarmed and pushed aside between guards, quickly signified by Sergeant West.
It was not all surrender, however; at the very rear of the dugout a dozen men quickly leveled their Mausers and discharged a volley, point-blank, at the Americans who had entered, the most of them being still in the trench fighting the Huns who had rallied from either end.
The snipers' squad, all light and active young fellows, had been the first into the trench; the first into the dugout, they were in the fore when the volley came. Herbert, a gun in both hands, leaped to prevent two Germans from seizing their guns; Gardner on the other side held up three men; Watson blazed away at a commander who blazed away at him, without making a hit, and half a dozen Regulars behind were coming on to perform a like duty. But it was Rankin who saw more of the resisting squad at the far end of the dugout.