The Germans heard a low, plaintive call come from somewhere near; some might have suspicioned it; others hardly noticed it. But almost immediately afterward it was followed by such a yell that the enemy must have believed Satan and all his imps were on the job. Perhaps they were.
What followed was another mêlée; the Huns, being unable to swing their several machine-guns around, turned with rifles, bayonets and grenades to find their foes upon them, the revolvers of the Americans spitting fire quite as usual. The Huns were being mowed down most disastrously and in less than half a minute they were separated, beaten back, thrown into confusion, overpowered in numbers, disarmed and completely at the mercy of their superior and more dashing adversaries. Again the ready and effective revolvers had won.
"Back to our trench! March! Double quick!" shouted Sergeant West.
"A success, men; a success! I cannot give this too high praise in my report. It is worthy of being imitated. The men in the dugout were unfortunate; you couldn't help that. It is terribly hard to foresee anything, and no one would have been to blame if the whole scheme had failed. You only did your duty magnificently! And, Whitcomb, the credit for the idea belongs to you. We will have to term you our Lord High Executioner."
"Please don't, sir!" the boy protested. "We may have to do this sort of thing in the business of fighting, but I wouldn't care to have it rubbed in."
The lieutenant laughed. "Well, at any rate, your scheme, though it practically wiped out your squad, and you are the only one left, must have accounted for at least ninety of the Huns, in dead and wounded, and you took fifty prisoners. Not bad out of perhaps two hundred men in that section of their trench!"