[CHAPTER XVII]
MISSING: A BROTHER
In the bright sunlight of early morning, No Man's Land was a sight to behold. It was fairly covered with grayish-green forms, rifles, tin cups and accoutrements belonging to Fritz. Here and there one of the grayish-green figures was seen to move feebly. The majority, however, lay motionless. Uncle Sam's rifles and machine guns had done their deadly work only too well.
As for the German front-line trench, it was practically ruined. That it was still inhabited was proven by bullets which whined across No Man's Land every time a Sammy chanced to expose his body ever so little. Sammy sharp-shooters were also on the job, returning the compliment with interest when the least sign of a Hun was visible.
Looking through the periscope at the wreck across the way, Jimmy Blaise again marveled that he was alive and unhurt. Compared to the bombardment of last night his first experience of being under fire seemed mild. He wondered that so many of his comrades were still left in the fire trench, practically uninjured.
The American fire trench itself was a sickening sight. It was sticky with mud and blood and littered with the shattered bodies of dead Sammies, each in itself a ghastly horror.
Here and there detached arms and legs added to the gruesome spectacle. Not far from where Jimmy stood at the periscope lay the head and trunk of a Khaki Boy cut fairly in two by an exploding shell.
As yet the stretcher-bearers were too busy to remove these dreadful evidences of the night of carnage through which Jimmy had somehow passed unscathed.
Since the cessation of firing on both sides he had been picking his way through the trench, seeking his bunkies. His search, thus far, fruitless, Jimmy had paused briefly to look through the periscope.