The Big Push
Susan Nipper was talking very loud, very fast, and she had need. The Germans had started something toward the American lines and gun pits—a cloud of something bluish, greenish, whitish and altogether very ominous. It was a gas attack.
On the other side of the hill Susan's sister, and still farther beyond another one of the same capable family, were also talking loud and fast and very much to the purpose, so that wherever their well-timed shells reached the gas-emitting guns and machinery the terrible clouds, after a moment, ceased to flow out and the atmosphere and the sloping ground became clearer and clearer.
Then, all that the American boys had to do was to put on their gas masks for several hours and burn anti-gas fumes, the Boches having been put to a lot of trouble and much expense for very little gain; one or two careless fellows were for a time overcome. After that there was a wholesome contempt for the gas on the part of the boys from over the ocean.
But Susan kept right on speaking her mind. As the gas men retreated from the field in a terrible hurry they got all that was coming to them and many had come on that did not go off at all, unless upon litters.
Then, Susan paid her respects to aircraft of several kinds that had come over, not on scouting duty, but to drop their bombs here and there. There was a regular fleet of aircraft planes, or it might seem better to call a bunch of them a flotilla, or perhaps a flytilla. Anyway, they made an impressive sight, though not all coming near enough for Susan to reach.
Most of the enemy airplanes went on, despite the guns aimed at them from the earth, until, sighting a number of French machines coming out to do battle, they strategically fell back over the German lines, thus to gain an advantage if they or their enemies were forced to come to the ground.
The Americans had not before witnessed such a battle in the air as that. The birdmen turned, twisted, dived, mounted, maneuvered to gain advantage, French and German being much mixed up and now and then spitting red tongues of flame, singly or in rapid succession, at each other.
Two machines were injured and came to earth, one German, that descended slowly; the other French, that tumbled over and over, straight down. Then two other German planes were forced to descend, and, finally, others coming from far behind the lines, the French retreated, being much outnumbered; they had to be outnumbered to retreat from the hated Boches. And the Boches did not follow them up.
This had all happened soon after daylight, the different incidents following each other rapidly. It was hardly eight o'clock when Susan Nipper let fly her last shell at the airplane. Before noon a messenger arrived at the pit, and Corporal Whitcomb was sent for.