I had written to Emily Grant telling her the circumstances of Lieutenant Nickerson’s desertion without, however, a word of explanation, or what I felt or thought about it. In her reply, she wrote as though she knew I was blue and troubled about it, and simply said, “You can not do anything but wait. Time sometimes brings explanations that can not be given otherwise. Miss Rich is deeply troubled; but she will not believe that your friend is a traitor.”
Shortly after the talk I had with Colonel Burbank, there was another desertion that hurt me. Muddy mysteriously disappeared for parts unknown. I inquired at the mess sergeant’s, where he sometimes went for a bit of meat or a bone; but he had not been seen there. Neither was he at the colonel’s, where he was often to be seen asleep in a chair. The last I had seen of him he was asleep on my blankets.
Several days passed without his appearance, and I was annoyed and perplexed; for he had never absented himself like this before.
The enemy, who had been unusually quiet for several days, began to show greater activity. Their air craft came inquisitively nosing around, and when one was brought down or driven back, others persisted in coming to take their places in spying. Their heavy guns, that for a time had been inactive, now began firing with increasing intensity.
“It looks,” said Captain Cross, “as though another drive was maturing. Possibly they have got some new information about us, and have been training their men for a decisive drive and are now about ready to strike.”
The cannonading continued quite active for a day or two, and then slackened and died away. That a sudden attack was feared was shown by the unusually watchful guard kept on the line of the river. Occasional raids began to be made on the enemy’s positions. The slightest movement there was regarded with suspicion, sometimes with amusing results. Our gunners were exceedingly proficient. An artillery officer had said to me, “I can always place the third shot in a five foot square. And then, as he saw an enemy soup kitchen coming down a far-off hill, added, ‘Now watch me do it!’”
He fired two shots, and the second one was a perfect hit, the “soup gun” flying into flinders.
“Some of the poor devils,” I said, “will have to go without their soup tonight.”
Then, shortly after, our artillery in the sector to the right of us, opened up a wonderful barrage with an impressive roar of guns and exploding shells. We relished it a good deal more, since we knew that our men were “pulling off” a raid, and not the Boches.
Just then my attention was called by Sam Jenkins to an object in the river.