This prompt answer was an additional cause for merriment, in which both boys joined.
Crack! crack! crack! R-r-r-r-r-r. The machine guns began to speak. The men on each side became subdued, and their faces exhibited set expressions, for they knew that the voices of the machine gun meant an enemy near at hand.
At a little alcove, cut in the side of the trench, was an orderly with a telephone transmitter in his hand. The corporal leaned over to catch his words, for the din was now intense.
"The Germans have taken the first line and are moving the 22d back on the Corbeville road. The third line must hold them until the additional guns are brought up. We shall counter attack in the next section to the south." Such were, in part, the orders and instructions which the operator imparted to the corporal.
"Why, this is the Corbeville road," said Ralph in a tremor of excitement.
"Then we are in for it this time," said Alfred.
"You may have the guns," said the orderly, as the boys stood before him and repeated the request.
There was no time to give orders as to the positions they were to take. Almost instantly there arose a column of troops three hundred feet ahead and every man, without an order, leveled his gun across the parapet above the trench and fired as fast as the levers of the guns could be manipulated.
"Fire deliberately!" said the corporal, as he walked along the short stretch of the ditch directly under his command.
The moment the boys began to fire they seemed to be animated with an entirely different feeling. The tremor and excitement had gone, and they were keyed up to the most extreme earnestness. The dark, greyish line on the other side of the field kept moving toward them, but gaps in the ranks were plainly seen. Would they dare charge all the way up to the trench?