It was a pleasant, sunny day—that is, it would have been pleasant had it not been for the war. That spoiled the pleasantness, but nothing could stop the sunshine. To the great orb that had seen the earth formed, this fighting, momentous as it was destined to be, was only an incident in the rolling on of the ages of time.
"Wonder why we're being held up?" ventured Franz. "I haven't had half enough of fighting yet."
"Nor of me, neither," declared Iggy, who seemed to have recovered all his spunk and spirit. "It is of a betterness to shoot lots when of a gas mast you are delivered, yes?"
"Right, old top!" shouted Jimmy. "Hello!" he went on, as he saw the major of the battalion approaching. "I guess here's where we get orders!"
And they got them—orders to advance. And this time they went forward with yells, for it was said that the gas attack was over—the kindly wind had done its work well.
"There they are! There are the Huns!" cried Roger.
His chums looked, and saw dimly through the smoke, a gray line, like some great worm, that would oppose their progress.
"Come on! Come on! Eat 'em up!" shouted Jimmy.
The others needed no urging. At the Huns they went—firing and being fired at.
For a time it was a battle of rifles—the artillery and machine-guns seemed to have been silenced temporarily. On rushed the Sammies, in their own peculiar but comparatively safe, open formation. Rushing, dropping, firing, up again, now down, but ever going onward, led by their officers.