He and his chums took their places in one of the communicating trenches, waiting for the American and the French soldiers in the front ones to spring up and go "over the top."
Every minute seemed an hour, and there were frequent consultations of wrist watches. Suddenly, at five o'clock exactly, there was a roar that sounded like a hundred bursts of thunder. The artillery had opened the engagement, and the moving picture boys, at last on the firing line, grasped their cameras and reels of film as the soldiers grasped their guns and waited for the word to go.
The earth beneath them seemed to rock with the concussion of the big guns.
CHAPTER XVII
BOWLED OVER
Not a man of the American and French forces that were to attack the Germans had yet left the protecting trench. The object of the artillery fire, which always preceded an attack unless it was a surprise one with tanks, was to blow away the barbed-wire entanglements, and, if possible, dispose of some of the enemy guns as well as the fighting men.
The barrage was really a "curtain of fire" moving ahead of the attacking troops to protect them. This curtain actually advanced, for the guns belching out the rain of steel and lead were slowly elevated, and with the elevation a longer range was obtained.
Waiting in a trench slightly behind the troops that were soon to go into action, Blake Stewart and his chums talked, taking no care to keep down their voices. Indeed, they had to yell to be heard.
"Well, we're here at last," said Blake.