One evening, after the five Brothers had reported back to their billet for duty, and while they were in the dugout, detailing over again some of their experiences at the mill, the sergeant-major entered.
"Get set, boys!" he exclaimed. "The orders are coming in. We go over the top again in the morning, and it's going to be some fight!"
And when the zero hour was signaled again the five Brothers were in battle once more.
CHAPTER XVI
HELD UP
Equipped with gas masks, their packs filled with first-aid outfits, carrying emergency rations, with the "tin hats" on their heads and with rifles firmly grasped, over the top went the Khaki Boys, and thousands like them, in another attempt to subdue the Boche enemy.
Behind the boys roared out the big guns that were laying down a protecting barrage—a veritable curtain of fire behind which they might advance and without which they would have been swept back into their trenches broken and bruised and killed. The artillery duel had been under way some little time now, and it had evidently taken the Germans by surprise, for they were longer than usual in replying.
"Smash 'em up! Smash 'em up!" yelled the lieutenant in charge of that particular part of the advance in which Jimmy Blaise and his chums were included. "Smash 'em up, boys!"
"Wow! We're with you!" howled Franz. "Smash 'em up!"
Forward they surged, the gallant American lads, who a short time before were peaceful clerks, factory and farm hands and happy college lads, and some boys who instinctively shrank from the mere thought of killing. But now their spirits were on fire with the sacred wine of liberty, and they were daring as they had never dared before. Their daring was imbued with right, and other than this nothing will stand.