The Hills of Desire

by Richard Aumerle Maher

There were no signals, no commands, no noise. It was a game which each man played in his own way. A simple game with only two rules: First, they must not bunch together; second, no man should be last—there must not be any last man.

Saving these two rules, they went forward, each in his own way, each playing out his own hand with death.

Some ran straight, their heads down, their eyes half shut, thinking only of speed. Others ran zig-zagging and dodging as though they were picking their way, although there was no cover at all and no choice of a way.

To the watching foe, who did not even now dare to raise his head above the ground line, there seemed to be not more than three or four men coming up the slope. Of course it was puzzling that those three or four should be able to be continuously popping up at so many different places of a long line. There must be more than that number of men. But there was no way of telling how many. And that, of course, was the reason for the apparently haphazard manner of the rush.

Wardwell, at the extreme right of the uneven line, ran forward with longer sprints than was possible for the men near the middle of the line. In comparison with those others he was reasonably safe out here. His part would come later when, having gotten beyond the line of the machine guns, he must circle down upon them shooting and bombing and yelling while the men in front made the final rush.

He was not often excited now in this business, which had come to be to him merely the day's work. But, running up the hill, he felt a strange and wonderful tingle of excitation of spirit. Something was waiting for him at the end of this run. He was suddenly as sure as he had ever in his life been sure of anything that this was his last fight.

He felt the breath of bullets driving by near his head and dropped, mechanically obedient to his training. But he was up again in a moment and running madly.

Now he was up to the line of the single gun that had been placed out on the hill. But his business was not with that gun. He must run clear over the brow of the hill and get down into the ravine before the boys in front were ready to run straight upon the guns.

He was running wildly now, his body and his spirit strangely lifted with the sense that the Great Adventure was right ahead. It was not the eagerness of battle nor the fever of fighting that ran in his blood. He knew that he was coming to the break in the wall, beyond which lay the Undiscovered Country—so Augusta was whispering to him.

From the edge of the ravine he saw below him ten or a dozen men lying and working at the three machine guns. Out in the open he saw the broken line of his own fellows. There was the young lieutenant lying flat, wriggling along the ground by inches, and digging impatiently with his toe. They were ready.