By this time another detail, composed of green and seasoned men, were engaged in filling sandbags with earth and passing them on to still another group who were rebuilding the parapet.
Farther down, a second deafening roar announced that another "Minnie" had burst in the trench. Jimmy wondered how much damage it had done. Already stretcher-bearers had come up on the double quick, and were taking care of the shattered form which Jimmy had now released from the pinioning earth. They would bear it away through the communication trench to the rear. Presently it would be laid to rest in foreign soil, and an identification tag would go speeding across the ocean to tell its own gruesome story to the Sammy's dear ones back home. Though he had not lived to fire even one shot at the Germans, he had, nevertheless, done his bit. He had died for his country.
[CHAPTER XII]
GETTING USED TO IT
After a third "Minnie" had sped across No Man's Land and into the front-line trench, an advanced American battery opened up on the Boches and returned the compliment with a hot fire that soon put a temporary check on Fritzie's activities so far as the sending over of more Minnies went. German machine guns, however, continued to direct their fire upon the gaps in the trenches made by their mortars.
Four men had been killed and several wounded, as a result of the last two mortar shells.
Immediately the damage had been wrought to the trench parapet, willing hands set to work to rebuild the broken places to their original height. During the operation three more men lost their lives, shot down by the bullets from the Boche machine guns.
After this brief exchange of hostilities quiet again settled down, broken only by the occasional letting loose of a Boche shrapnel shell directed at some point behind the lines.