Hicks got to his feet and came beside the group that was staring at the dead face of Halvorsen.
“What’s that? Little Hank get it? Je’s, that’s bad.”
And Pugh: “Poor little fellah. I give him a hunnerd francs the other day. But he sure is welcome to it.”
Funk straightened his body, letting the head of Halvorsen touch the ground. Clinching his fist, he raised it above his head and shook it toward the woods: “We’ll get you, you dirty—” He could not find the word with which he wanted to characterize the inhumanity of the Germans.
Bedford grasped at his arm: “Get down, you damned fool. Do you want to get hit, too?”
The platoon had begun the advance through the woods in good order, but after it had reached the more dense part the German machine-guns commenced firing and four men fell. They tramped on, unable to see the enemy. Suddenly they realized that they had broken contact between themselves and the platoon on their left. Advancing, they wedged themselves into the German lines and made a target for enfillade fire. Then, little more to be done except get killed, they halted.
An orderly from battalion headquarters crawling through the woods carried with him the information for Captain Powers that the company was to intrench for the night. When the news reached them the platoon failed even to comment. For once their garrulous selves were stilled. The realization that they were to spend a night freighted with experiences totally new, that through the darkness they were to lie powerless to defend themselves, stunned them.
A curving line was described by Lieutenant Bedford, and the men were deployed along it at intervals. They unslung their packs, their extra bandoliers of ammunition, and began furiously to dig holes in the ground, deep enough for them to lie in without exposing their bodies. Some used their hand shovels and picks, while others, more careless with their equipment, used their bayonets to loosen the dirt and their mess-kit lids to scoop it out.
Dusk, like powder of old blue, sifted through the trees and wrapped the shallow burrows in a friendly mystery. In their fresh-made beds, peeping through the boughs with which they had covered the tops of their holes, the men waited.