“Well,” he hesitated, “you see that little bunch of woods over there? There’s a number of Germans there and we’re going after them.”
Swishing through the heavy wheat, the men now advanced in skirmish order. They were very cautious and, although the sun was making a glaring light and they were directly in an open field, they walked as though they were sneaking toward the enemy. Captain Powers, forgetting his impressive dignity, slunk along, one shoulder low and his hand grasping by the middle a rifle. His eyes were narrowed as if he were registering for the motion-pictures “extreme wariness.” As gently and softly as wading through heavy grass permitted, Captain Powers placed one foot after the other. His manner infected the men. One by one they adopted the crouching attitude, ready to spring upon their unsuspecting prey. They could almost be seen to flex the muscles in the calves of their legs and in their upper arms, rising majestically on their toes when they walked, instead of using the customary flat-footed form of perambulation.
Captain Powers, abandoning his duties as instructor of English at the Texas college, had learned modern warfare from the books supplied by the nearest officers’ training camp. He had learned how to order men about, that he was an officer and a gentleman, as the officer who commissioned him had phrased it. But yet he felt a slight interest in the men of his command. In the officers’ training-school and in the course of the practice skirmishes through which he had been he had learned that the way in which an attack was made by a small party moving forward in full daylight was by running forward in spurts until the objective had been reached.
Being a professor of English, and especially a professor of English in Texas, he sentimentalized the attack. How much finer it is, he thought, to attack as General Sam Houston attacked; to march steadfastly upon the enemy and make them surrender at the point of a sword or a bowie-knife. The only rift came in his realization that he had no sword, not even a bowie-knife.
When the party was still several yards from the edge of the woods, a mass of Germans, outnumbering them twice, emerged with their hands held high in the air and blithely calling: “Kamerad.”
The captain’s disappointment at not being able to make another attack worthy of a Texan was soon lost in his exultant emotion at the thought of the number of prisoners he had captured. Selecting one of the men to go with him, he herded the prisoners back to the regimental headquarters, where he proudly delivered them to another officer.