Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

OVER THERE SERIES

THE MARINES AT CHATEAU THIERRY

THE CANADIANS AT VIMY RIDGE

THE DOUGHBOYS AT ST. MIHIEL

PERSHING’S HEROES AT CANTIGNY

THE ENGINEERS AT CAMBRAI

THE YANKS IN THE ARGONNE FOREST

THE GERMANS GAVE WAY UNDER THE TERRIBLE FIRE OF THE TANKS.
[The Marines at Chateau Thierry]

OVER THERE
WITH
THE MARINES
AT
CHATEAU THIERRY

By

CAPT. GEORGE H. RALPHSON

Author of

OVER THERE WITH THE DOUGHBOYS AT ST. MIHIEL, OVER THERE WITH THE CANADIANS AT VIMY RIDGE, OVER THERE WITH PERSHING’S HEROES AT CANTIGNY

M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY

CHICAGO NEW YORK

Copyright, 1919

M. A. DONOHUE & CO.

CHICAGO

CONTENTS

Over There with the Marines

at

Chateau Thierry

CHAPTER I
PHIL AND TIM

Top Sergeant Phil Speed did not know exactly where he was when the long train of trucks bearing hundreds of khaki-clad American Marines stopped at a small town within easy gun-roar of the battle front in France. They were making little demonstration now. For weeks they had been cheering and been cheered until their throats became sore and well again—calloused, as it were. So spontaneous and so nearly universal had been the enthusiastic reception extended to them everywhere that it seemed as if every person who didn’t yell his head off must be pro-kaiser.

With the noise of battle becoming more and made distinct through the rumble, roar, and rattle of trucks and ordnance racing toward the scene of conflict into which they themselves were about to plunge, the hearts of these messengers of liberty were not so gay as they had been for weeks, aye, months, before. Everywhere, among all sorts and conditions of men, even among fighting patriots, there are bound to be a few “smart” ones who forget the proprieties sometimes as their bright ideas go skyrocketing. And this sort of gay wight was not lacking even among the pick of America’s young manhood; but for once the gayest of them were serious and sober minded.

The person who would joke in the face of death, or with a messenger of eternity lurking in the vicinity must be a philosopher “to get away with it.” Phil had no idea of putting the thing in such language, but if somebody had stepped up close to him and whispered the conceit in his ear, he probably would have responded, “That fits the situation exactly.” Still a considerable period of time elapsed before he was able to dispel all doubt as to the occasion of such unwonted sobriety.

“I wonder if we’re not all cowards, and if that isn’t the reason we’ve all stopped our noise,” he mused. “I hope we don’t turn tail and run lickety-cut when we see a big bunch o’ boches swinging over the top at us.”

As if in reply to his musing, Timothy Turner, a training-camp chum, who stood at his elbow in the midst of the throng of soldiers waiting for orders to move along, spoke thus rather grimly:

“We’re quite a solemn bunch, aren’t we, Phil? I guess what we need is the explosion of a few bombs in our midst to get us good and mad.”

“Maybe,” Phil replied, regarding his friend meditatively. “Well, it won’t be very long before we’ll have a chance to find out. Do you think an explosion a few feet away from you would make you mad, Tim?”

“Yes, I do,” the latter replied unhesitatingly. “I believe it would make me want to telescope with the next shell that came whistling along.”

Tim was a kind of bullet-headed Yank, “built on the ground,” his school-boy friends used to say. Really he looked as if he might be accepted as a personification of that irresistible force which would create “the most powerful standstill” if it struck an immovable object. But in spite of his bullet-headness, Tim was anything but dull. Both officers and fellow soldiers regarded him hopefully as one of the prospective star fighters of the regiment because of his mental keenness as well as his physical prowess.

Phil was built along different lines. He was strong and athletic, but he would hardly have been expected to be able to push over a stone wall. Whether or not he was more intelligent than Tim may be a matter for debate. It may be admitted, perhaps, that he was not so shrewd, but if they had both lived in the middle ages, Phil undoubtedly would have listened with interest to the first declaration that the world was round, while Tim would just as surely have repelled it with derision. But in business Phil might have fallen a comparatively easy victim to the wiles of a trickster, where as the cleverest “con man” would have had to get up very early in the morning to catch Tim napping.

So here we have a double-barreled standard for measuring intelligence among men and among boys. Shall we call Phil more intelligent than Tim, or vice versa? Let us dismiss the debatable question without answer, while we admit that they were both intelligent, but different; and in spite of their difference—some would say “in consequence of their difference”—they were very good friends.

CHAPTER II
FOUR KILOS ON HOBNAILS

“Battalion!” called out the major.

“Company!” the captain followed, as it were, with the next breath.

“Attention!” continued the battalion commander.

The line was quickly formed, two deep, officers in position, the major in attitude of review.

“At ease!” was the next order which indicated “something coming.”

“Men,” he said with an incisiveness of tone indicating that his words would be brief, “word has just reached me that the officers of the enemy division that you are soon to meet welcome you with expressions of contempt. They say you are soft and will melt before the Hun armies like wax over white heat. Will you show them you can go through fire hot enough to melt steel?”

The yell that greeted this question set at rest all doubt that may have inspired the “wonder” which came to Phil’s mind a few minutes before as to their courage. And nobody yelled louder or more fiercely than Phil did. After it was over he heaved a sigh of relief.

“That’s what we needed,” he muttered.

“What did we need?” asked Tim, who heard the remark.

Phil had no opportunity to reply. The major was giving orders again.

“Attention!”

“Squads, right!” the superior officer added, and immediately there was a swinging half-about along the line, and a column of American Marines, four abreast, was marching up the street that led away from the detrucking point.

Then followed a hike of four kilometers (two and a half miles) along the Paris-Metz road. After journeying on hobnailed soles this distance, the order was given to fix bayonets.

Phil and Tim were good enough soldiers by this time to accept everything as it came and not to look for too much that was not in evidence. They had had try-out experience at Verdun and, along with other rapidly seasoning warriors of their regiment, had given a good account of themselves. And yet, in spite of all this curiosity-crushing experience, they could not help looking just a little expectantly for a camouflaged line of “bloomin’ boches” upon whom to use their one-tined pitchforks when the order was given to “fix bayonets.”

“Does it mean charge?” both of them longed to ask somebody, and after this question they realized must follow another equally important:

Where was the mysterious enemy?

It proved, however, to be only a precautionary move to guard against surprise while advancing through a wheatfield. There might be a score or two of machine-gun nests in that field, Phil reasoned. But then, he wondered how that could very well be, as it must mean that the gunners had made their way undiscovered through the front line, which was a mile farther on. However, the surmise proved to be in error, for nothing of livelier nature than a flock of hens and turkeys was encountered. Presently a halt was ordered at a group of deserted farm buildings, where quarters were established pending the development of further plans.

Meanwhile there were other battalions following, and the country round about was rapidly becoming a concentration camp of reserves, who were sent forward in sections to take positions in the front line as rapidly as way was prepared for them, the French moving out to take positions in other sections. Phil and Tim were pleased when it became apparent that they would not be ordered ahead before the next day, for they were weary from exertion and loss of sleep and longed as much as anything else to be in vigorous, fresh condition when it came their time to meet the merciless, unscrupulous foe in battle.

There was nothing radically new in this experience to any of the Marines billeted at this place less than two kilometers from the front line, which was being pressed hard, by the enemy. All of them had seen a very real kind of practice service along with the French at Verdun, and so there was little to arouse their wonder in the sights and sounds of rumbling camions, tanks and artillery as they were rushed hither and thither, the shouts of officers and drivers, aeroplanes soaring overhead, and the whistle of an occasional shell fired with apparent random purpose and exploding far beyond the range of serious mischief. These sights and sounds were fast merging into the obscurity and quiet of darkness and inaction as Phil and Tim lay down under a large apple tree, resolved to get as much rest as possible before the next daybreak.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you a question ever since we detrucked from those lorries four kilos up the road,” said Tim after the two boys had lodged themselves in the privacy of a “ten-foot sector” of the orchard. As he spoke, he picked up a full-grown apple from the ground and sunk his teeth into it.

“This apple isn’t very ripe,” he observed, indicating by his digression that the question on his mind was not as vital as the importance of appeasing his appetite or of winning the war. “But the juice is sweet and pungent and I’m going to make a cider press of my jaws and squeeze the beverage down my throat.”

“If you haven’t forgotten your question, you may put it to me,” Phil returned more to the point.

“I was wondering what you meant when you remarked, ‘That’s what we needed,’ after the major made his little speech to us and we yelled our throats hoarse to prove we weren’t soft,” said Tim. “Were you afraid we really were soft?”

“No, not exactly,” Phil replied. “But I just had a kind o’ longing for proof that we weren’t.”

“But we’d proved ourselves at Verdun, hadn’t we?” Tim reasoned.

“Yes and no,” answered Phil. “At Verdun we fought all right, but we had a lot o’ French vets right at our elbows to ginger our nerve. Here, I understand, they’re going to give us a front all our own, ten or fifteen miles. I was talking to Corporal Ross about it. He’s been doing messenger service at the major’s headquarters and picked up a good deal of information. He says we’re bound for a place called Belleau Wood. The French call it Bois de Belleau. The Huns, you know, have been pressing the French pretty hard all the way from Rheims to Soissons, and we’ve been sent to relieve the French at this point so that they can stop the enemy at other points. But I’ve got a suspicion that a lot more American boys will be thrown in about here and we’re going to have a chance to make ourselves famous in the next few days.”

“It’s up to us to make good,” declared Tim with characteristic bullet-headed doggedness. “The Marines have been criticised a good deal lately. Some say we ought to be eliminated from the service.”

“We’ve got to make good,” Phil echoed emphatically. “The reputation of the Marines is at stake.”

CHAPTER III
DIGGING IN

Sergeant Phil was a year older than Corporal Tim. The latter, unbeknown to anybody except himself and his parents, had entered the Marine Service in not the most regular manner, but it was real patriotism that had caused him to misrepresent his age, which was the only bar to his eligibility. A wait of eight months longer would have put him “over the top” in this respect but he decided not to wait. He looked 18 years old, and boldly declared this to be his age, and, as some of his slangy boy friends would have said, he got away with it. When his Philadelphia father learned of his enlistment, the bullet-headed youngster was already on his way for probation at the Paris Island, South Carolina, recruit depot.

Then Mr. Turner thought twice and decided not to interfere. He was thoroughly patriotic and concluded that if his son had put over anything on anybody it was on the kaiser.

Phil was a more regular sort of fellow in such matters. He would never have misrepresented his age in order to gain admittance into Uncle Sam’s fighting force. If he had not been able to pass all the tests on merit, he would have sought to aid the government in some other branch of service. This is not intended, by contrast, as a serious reflection on Tim. The latter was different. He saw no particular harm in adding a year on his age if thereby he might help to shorten the reign of the Prussian despot.

Tim kept his secret religiously, fearing lest he be sent home or assigned to disgrace service if it should come to the knowledge of his superior officers.

Phil and Tim were disappointed in their expectation that they would move early in the morning following their arrival at the deserted farm to a position in the front line. But they were not disappointed in their anticipation of thrilling activities before the close of the day. Until late in the afternoon the entire battalion was busy perfecting arrangements for relieving the Frenchies in this sector.

The excitement of the day came at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The firing at the front was heavy, but not of intensity such as they had witnessed at Verdun. But it seemed to grow hotter and nearer, so that the only conclusion the Americans could draw was that the boches were driving the French back through the woods.

Suddenly the company to which Phil and Tim belonged was thrown into confusion by the bursting of a shell on the roof of the barn in which they had sought shelter. This would have been a poor place for them if they had been under constant fire from the enemy. But it had served well enough against injury from shrapnel, and still better from flying debris heaved in all directions by the explosion of bombs dropped from hostile aeroplanes. That the wrecking of the roof of the barn was effected by the bursting of a cannon shell was evidenced by the shriek that immediately preceded the explosion.

None of those in the barn was killed or injured so severely that he had to be taken to the rear for surgical treatment, but the lieutenant was severely cut on his right arm. Phil sprang to his assistance and helped him to bandage the limb; then they rushed out after the rest of the company. The wounded officer now gave order for all to take to the woods and dig in.

The Marines thus deprived of a shelter rushed back into the roofless building, grabbed up a supply of entrenching tools and then made a dash for the woods. Most of them had snatched up their guns before making their hurried exit. About halfway between the barn and the woods another shell burst in their midst, killing five and severely wounding a score of others. Almost as if by magic a corps of stretcher-bearers were on the scene. The uninjured scarcely hesitated, and almost in less time than is required to tell it the order to “dig in” was being obeyed with the skill and speed of long practiced teamwork.

The digging-in process was a simple though strenuous task. All of the members of the company not seriously injured by the bursting of the shell were presently spading in the earth for dear life a short distance within the timber. They worked as if according to a systematic, prearranged schedule. If they had been going through a drill performance, under instruction from manual and teacher, their work could hardly have been more nearly true to military form.

Each of these Marines quickly scratched off a rectangular plot about three by five feet and then began to dig. Phil and Tim, who always endeavored to keep as near together as possible in all emergencies where they might be able to aid each other, “dug in” a few feet apart. After they had cut roots and scooped the dirt out to a depth of three or four feet, they dashed about here and there in the immediate vicinity and gathered dead limbs and brushwood with which each built a shelter at one end of his funk hole, or “stub trench.” These shelters were rendered more stable and impervious to rain by heaping on them mounds of loose earth that had been shoveled out of the trenches.

But the disastrous explosion of the two shells seemed to have served as a false alarm as to what ought to be expected for some time thereafter. The fact of the matter is, “nothing happened.” Three days they remained “dug in” and not another shell or bomb struck within two hundred yards of any point of the sheltered “stub trenches” of the recently bombarded regiment.

On the evening of the third day they received an order to make a quick march to a shell-shattered village on the front line.

“Now we’re going to see some real fighting,” Tim prophesied to his friend, as they prepared to obey the order.

He was not mistaken.

CHAPTER IV
GAS MASKS

Phil and Tim had made good use of their time while in training at Paris Island, so that when they were ordered on board a transport to steam for “somewhere in France,” they could boast of being “Jacks of all trades and masters of all” in the hyperbolic parlance of Sea Soldier excellence. They could do pretty nearly everything from the fitting of gun gear to the operation of a wireless outfit or a portable searchlight. Moreover, they were both well qualified to handle machine guns, and Phil was drawing an extra $3 a month as a rifle sharpshooter.

The company to which Phil and Tim belonged was stationed just outside the village. They reached this position at about 2 p. m. and had little more than completed their digging-in operations, when the word was passed along that they would “go over the top” at 4:30.

But this announcement was presently countered from headquarters, coupled with a “man-to-man message” that scouting aeroplanes and observation balloons had communicated to headquarters the information that the boches were evidently planning to “come over” at the Yanks. A hurried conference among the officers of the Marines decided then that it would be better strategy to let the enemy come on and get their fill and then counter their decimated forces with a good strong bayonet and hand-grenade drive.

Phil and Tim were near enough to each other to carry on a conversation in ordinary tones, and when the word reached them that they must wait for the enemy to attack them they expressed their disappointment vigorously.

“I hate this waiting business,” Phil declared. “We’ll never reach Berlin at this rate.”

“So do I,” responded Tim. “I wonder what those minions of the kaiser think they’re going to do. To my mind it’s a sign of weakness on their part, making a drive this time o’ the day.”

“Why?” Phil inquired. “I don’t see why it should be a sign of weakness on their part any more than our plan to go over the top at 4:30 is a sign of weakness.”

“Maybe not from their point of view. But we know what we’ve got behind us—millions of men and billions of money. We know, too, that we’ve got vastly more of these than the boches have. So you see, I have something more than suspicion to base my theory on that they like to make an attack late in the day so that if they fail they will have the darkness to cover their retreat. I bet that when our record is summed up you’ll find that we made most of our dashes against the enemy’s lines at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning.”

“I hope I’m spared to contemplate such a record,” said Phil soberly.

“You don’t doubt it, do you?” Tim asked, for he was surprised and disappointed to hear his friend speak so diffidently.

“I was just wondering,” Phil replied meditatively.

“See here, Phil,” Tim said, shaking his hand toward his soldier comrade; “you’re making a big mistake. You’re meditating. Do you realize that a soldier should never meditate? He should never even think twice. He’s got to do his best thinking the first time.”

“What’s that got to do with my wondering whether I’m going to come out o’ this alive?” Phil inquired.

“It’s got this to do with it: It’s as bad as writing poetry in a trench. I think you’ll agree with me that anybody that does that is a nut. Now, I don’t believe I’m going to have my head blown off. Notice that I don’t say, ‘I don’t let myself think I’m going to be killed.’ I’m dead sure I’m not going to be killed. Get me?—dead sure; not sure dead.”

“Sure thing I get you,” Phil answered enthusiastically; “that’s a peach of an idea. It’s too bad all the other soldiers of the Allies haven’t got the same idea.”

“How do you know they haven’t?” Tim demanded quickly.

“I don’t know it,” Phil admitted with a smile, for he saw what was coming next.

“A fellow must get this pretty much by himself to make the best kind of soldier,” Tim said, speaking with the convincing manner of a veteran. “I’ve heard young fellows talk about going into battle with the expectation of being killed, but that’s before the bullets begin to fly and the shells begin to burst. The real soldier is never desperate. The minute you get desperate, that minute you are rattled. The soldier who goes into battle expecting to be killed, goes into battle desperate and is soon rattled. Don’t go into battle expecting to be killed; go into battle expecting to kill, kill, kill, and keep on killing.”

“Hooray!” said Phil jocularly. “That’s what I call war philosophy. Get me? War Phil-osophy for a fighting Phil of Philadelphia.”

“Philosophy nothing,” Tim snapped back. “You make me ashamed of your name with your jesting pun. I thought you understood me better than that, Phil. Wartime is no time for philosophy. That’s what got a lot of pacifists into trouble and some of them in prison. They weren’t philosophers enough to realize that you can’t stop to philosophize when somebody is punching you in the nose.”

“Gas masks!” yelled Phil suddenly, and similar cries came from others along the timber-sheltered line.

But the warning was not needed by Tim.

Even as he uttered the last word of his soldier’s common-sense lecture, he caught a faint whiff of mustard. Instinctively he held his breath, and eight seconds later he was inhaling the pure, safe lung-fuel, “canned oxygen,” contained in the reservoir of his mask.

CHAPTER V
A MACHINE-GUN BARRAGE

That settled it in Phil’s mind. There would be no “over the top” from the enemy lines that night. Probably, after all, he was mistaken in assuming that the boches, conscious of their own insufficiency of reserves, would hesitate to make a morning attack. They were planning to harass the Yanks all night with gas and a hurricane of shells, and in the morning make a charge that would sweep everything before it.

With the putting on of the masks, the conversation between Phil and Tim stopped. It really seemed that the former’s soliloquy following this operation was better reasoning than his earlier conjectures had been. The cannonade that followed the “gas wave” was terrific and it seemed that such a barrage must mean something in the nature of a sequence, but they would hardly charge right into the gas they had shelled into the Yank’s lines.

But again Phil was privileged to change his mind, and that very suddenly. The bombardment continued until after dark and many shells exploded perilously near the Pershing forces—a few did fatal damage right in the midst of the waiting Americans at the edge of the woods.

At about 9:30 o’clock this bombardment ceased as suddenly as it had begun. Neither Phil nor Tim had taken part in or witnessed a night attack, except in the nature of a cannonading, since their first experience on the Verdun front, and they were greatly astonished at what came next.

But they were not without warning, for the signal service was on the qui vive constantly, as were also the advance sentries, and about two minutes before there was any sign of the approach of the enemy, word went along the line to be on the lookout for an attack.

“So my first surmise was right, after all,” Phil mused. “They’re going to attack under cover of the darkness so that they may retreat more successfully if their attack fails.”

Another surprise was coming not only to Phil and Tim, but to many other “dug-in” Marines along the American front. It had to do with the character of the attack.

Suddenly the American lines were swept with a sharp, snappy, vicious machine-gun fire. The boches had crept up under cover of the darkness and succeeded in planting a score or more of machine guns at various places in the timber a hundred yards ahead and started pumping a murderous storm of bullets at the doughboys.

But fortunately it was murderous in sight and sound chiefly, for very few of the Yanks were hit. In the first place, it was almost a random attack, for the muzzles of the guns were elevated a degree or more too high to rake the edges of the funk holes in which the Americans were crouching. Moreover, the intervening trees intercepted many of the bullets, as was evident from the tattoo thuds that could be heard even amid the noisy spitting of the machine guns.

Just what the enemy hoped to accomplish by this method of attack it was difficult at first to determine, although the Yanks were destined to discover very shortly that it was a clever sort of camouflage.

But the cunning boches were destined to discover something, too, and to Phil was due the credit for this rather startling enlightenment of the enemy.

“Tim,” he called out to his friend, “I believe that is nothing but a machine-gun barrage intended to throw us off our guard. They’re planning a surprise attack.”

A “machine-gun barrage” was a new one to Tim, but he listened respectfully for further explanation.

“We can expect them to come over any minute,” Phil continued rapidly. “I’ve got an idea of how they’re going to do it. By the way, I’m going to make a dive over to Lieutenant Stone and tell him what I’ve got in mind. He’s only a few jumps away. He’ll probably reprimand me, if he doesn’t report me to headquarters, but the suspicion I’ve got seems to me so important that I’ll risk any punishment this side of the firing squad.”

The thunder of the cannonade and the sharper rattle of the machine guns were so intense that Phil found it necessary to scream his message to his next-trench neighbor to insure being heard.

“Well, if it’s so very important, don’t stop to tell me about it, but hurry up and get it where it will do most good,” Tim yelled back. “They won’t take me by surprise.”

A moment later Phil was dashing over the underbrush and among the trees in momentary danger of butting his head against a very solid and substantial interference or of sprawling violently on the ground. But he had surveyed the vicinity carefully before the shadows of evening thickened in the woods and knew pretty accurately where the lieutenant had dug in. He had to move just as carefully also as if he were stealing along an enemy line of trenches, for some of the American soldiers were likely to discover him and shoot him as a spy.

He succeeded in making his way within a few feet of the lieutenant’s trench and, crouching low, began to signal to him by calling his name in graduated rising tones. Presently the officer replied and Phil informed him who he was.

In a few words the sergeant communicated his self-imposed message to his superior officer.

“That is probably the best suggestion that has come from any source on this front since the American Marines were stationed here,” remarked Lieutenant Stone. “Now, you get back to your post as fast as ever you can, or I’ll order you sent back behind the lines under guard.”

Phil darted back gleefully along the rear of the American line and toward his empty funk hole, which he reached with very good caution as well as expedition.

CHAPTER VI
THE BOCHE CHARGE

Before Phil got back to his funk hole, the intelligence he had communicated to Lieutenant Stone had been transmitted over the trench telephone to every camouflaged station, and rapidly thereafter by runners to every man in the line. The message thus delivered was this:

“Look out for an attack while the machine guns are going full blast. They may elevate the muzzles of their machine guns and send their men over the top when it seems impossible for them to leave their trenches without being mowed down with their own fire.”

Phil’s prediction was fulfilled. Indeed, the preliminary, which constituted, in effect, a signal for the charge, was exceedingly obvious to all the Marines in the front line after they had been advised as to what to expect. It is quite possible that many of them would not have observed the elevation of the streams of machine-gun fire to an angle of forty-five degrees if they had not received Phil’s warning; and most of those who might have observed this seemingly reckless waste of “powder and pills” undoubtedly would have been puzzled, if not confused, by so strange a phenomenon.

As it was, the Yanks were able to time the attack with remarkable accuracy and met the boches with volleys from their rifles so nearly simultaneous that those of the enemy who were not taken off their feet by the deadly hail of steel-jacketed bullets must almost have been taken off their feet with astonishment. At any rate, the attack failed utterly, not a few of the Marines leaping out of their “trenchettes” and engaging the panic-stricken boches with bayonets or clubbed guns.

It was impossible to get any idea of the number slain in the fight, for although the sky was clear and the stars shone brightly, the moon had not risen and the woods was almost as dark as a pocket. The Americans kept a sharp lookout for the appearance of shadowy forms a few feet away from their intrenchments, and as soon as they saw them creeping cautiously forward they blazed away with good execution.

The Marines were bothered with no more “over the top” from the boches that night, although there was a heavy bombardment from their larger guns located beyond the opposite edge of the woods. When this began, Tim called out to his friend:

“That means they’ve gone back a respectful distance. We’re surely safe from another attack as long as that keeps up. By the way, they’re pretty bum marksmen, aren’t they? Those shells are dropping far behind us.”

“Yes; but we have other lines back there, and they’ll get a taste of what is probably meant for us,” Phil replied. “Say, there’s a wounded fellow lying only a few feet away from me. Somebody else shot him. I was just drawing a bead on him when some good friend tipped him over for me. It wasn’t you, was it, Tim?”

“Yep, I’m the fellow,” Tim answered modestly. “I’d disposed of the baboon that was coming in my direction and saw the one that was makin’ for your hole in the ground, and I said, says I, to myself: ‘Phil’s well able to take care o’ himself, but I don’t think he’ll be offended if I relieve his soul of the burden of slayin’ a man.’ So I pulled my trigger, and over went the villainous gink.”

“Good work,” Phil commended. “I won’t criticise you for failing to kill him, for you did far better than I did as it was. You’ve put at least two serfs of the kaiser out of business, and I didn’t even fire my gun at one.”

“What’ll we do with ’im?” asked Tim. “Pull ’im back behind the lines to wait till the Red Cross comes along?”

“No, we won’t pull him,” Phil returned more compassionately. “We’ll pick him up and carry ’im.”

“He doesn’t deserve any such gentle handling,” Tim objected stubbornly.

“It isn’t a question of what he deserves, but the kind of record we Americans want to leave behind us,” Phil replied earnestly. “You know how horrified we were by the sinking of the Lusitania and the atrocities in Belgium and northern France. Because of those atrocities we called the whole group of central allies Huns. Do we want to deserve the same title of reproach? Besides, the boches aren’t more than half responsible. They were brought up that way. A man can get in the habit of thinking anything that’s popular if he drifts with the current.”

“Now, you’re doing the very thing I warned you against,” Tim protested vigorously. “I told you that wartime was no time for any philosophy business.”

“And I agreed with you,” Phil responded. “You win. Come on and we’ll get that fallen foe and hustle ’im back behind the lines. We’ll take him any way you say.”

The two boys leaped out of their shallow “trenchettes” and picked up the boche and carried him almost gently ten or fifteen feet to the rear. Just then two relief men dashed up, laid the wounded man on a stretcher and hustled him away.

“Bloodthirsty Tim listened to reason that time,” Phil told himself.

“I drove some common sense into Phil’s head,” Timothy mused. “I hope he keeps it and he’ll make a better soldier.”

CHAPTER VII
TIMBER FIGHTING

Early the next morning a squadron of aeroplanes flew over the American lines dropping bombs and doing considerable damage. But it was not long before they were met by a score of Allied planes, which poured into them such a fusillade of machine-gun bullets that two of them dived to the ground with a crash and the others were driven back behind their own lines.

The cannonading from the German big guns during the night did little damage to the Americans, for most of the shells dropped far to the rear. Moreover, the Yankee field artillery replied with much better marksmanship than that of the boches, as was reported in the morning by scout aviators and balloon observers. But it was not necessary to wait for these reports to get an idea of the devastation effected by the Americans’ cannonading. The timber that had shielded the enemy forces, whose attack had been camouflaged by a spitting of machine guns “at the stars,” was now a scene of arboreal ruin. The boys decided that they had never seen quite so abundant an assortment of splintered kindling wood in their lives.

In the course of the day the American lines were advanced to the farther edge of the belt of timber in which the battle of the night had been fought. It seemed that this belt had been entirely cleared of the enemy. Beyond the waste of splintered and contorted forestry was a narrow open stretch of lowland, and beyond this was another woods undoubtedly peopled with outpost of sharpshooters and machine-gun nests. The Yanks did not have to wait long for a verification of this suspicion. Scarcely had they taken up their positions near the edge of the area of green kindling wood when there came a vicious spitting of machine guns and sharpshooters’ rifles.

It was exceedingly difficult to bring up the artillery through the shell-and-shrapnel-torn timber for the purpose of raking the opposite woods in a similar manner. There was considerable work for the engineers before this could be done. Meanwhile, however, the commander of the Marines decided not to wait in idleness. Machine-gun corps were stationed behind uprooted trees and splintered stumps and huge boulders and in yawning shell holes and deep gullies and were presently spitting away into the opposite timber wherever a nest could be located.

At last several cannon were brought up and a storm of shell and shrapnel was poured into the woods beyond the clearing. This proved to be effective to a considerable extent, for many of the machine guns of the enemy were silenced, as were also a battery or two located behind the enemy’s front line.

But certain nests of sharpshooters and machine guns proved to be exceedingly difficult to dislodge and orders were given to take those positions at as little cost as possible, but take them. Accordingly a body of Marines were selected for this duty, including the company to which Phil and Tim belonged.

It was a dangerous task, for it meant a charge across an open stretch into another timber in which an uncertain number of the enemy were concealed waiting to receive them with all the advantage of position and concealment on their side. They did not make the fatal error of massed attack that so often characterized the death plunges of the boches. Rather, they scattered out and dashed forward with more or less individual independence and bravery almost unknown among the usually kamerad-encouraged enemy.

“I’m going to try Tim’s method of generating self-confidence,” Phil told himself as he dashed with his fellow Marines across the open. “Here it is: I’m going to come out of this without a scratch and I’m going to kill, kill, kill.”

He saw several Marines in front and on each side of him fall victims of the accurate shooting of the concealed enemy, but this did not feaze him in the least. He knew he was going to dash through successfully and he knew he was going to find a hidden machine-gun nest and whip it single handed if necessary.

And he was not mistaken. He reached the opposite timber without receiving a scratch. Then followed a more careful procedure to hunt out the pests that were doing everything in their power to make things uncomfortable for the Marines. The latter were armed with rifles and hand grenades, and the timber was soon ringing with evidence of their discoveries.

Phil had charge of a squad that worked as a unit in the scouring of the woods, and Tim was a member of this squad. Alternately they were in hiding in thickets of saplings and bushes or racing ahead to make a swift surprise attack on a machine-gun nest located by the sound of firing or the creeping cunning of a camouflaged spy. This handful of Marines cleaned out two nests without the loss of a man, and then, it appearing that there were no others within the sweep of their advance, they separated in parties of two or three each to hunt for snipers after agreeing on a place of meeting and a call by which Phil might summon them together again whenever he desired.

Phil and Tim, perhaps by force of habit, continued together without other company. The Marines were now driving a considerable rear guard of the enemy ahead of them, principally snipers and machine gunners, who were trailing behind the main body of the defeated boches to facilitate the latter’s retreat. Realizing that the remnant of this rear guard was moving more rapidly in its haste to get out of the way of the terrible American butt-or-muzzle riflemen and hand-grenade throwers, Phil and Tim put as much speed to their advance as the character of the terrain would permit, hoping to overtake some of the fugitive snipers.

A few minutes after the squad had spread out to cover a larger territory, the two friends arrived at the meadow-like opening into a wooded ravine which appeared to grow deeper and deeper in the direction taken by the fleeing boches. With little hesitation they dashed into the ravine, becoming more cautious, however, as they entered the timber-shaded lowland with its tangle of ferns and shrubbery.

It was really a dangerous undertaking, but these boys were in a dangerous business. The ravine was lined with many ideal places for concealment of snipers and the route taken by the venturesome pair along the bottom was an ideal place to get sniped. But Phil and Tim felt that the place ought to be explored, and as a call to summon the other boys of the squad would serve only to alarm any hidden bodies in the vicinity, they decided to take the burden of the investigation on their own shoulders.

They advanced a hundred yards into the ravine without seeing another living creature, except a few squirrels and hundreds of birds which chattered and chirped away as if the carnage of a world war was the farthest possible from their thoughts.

The boom of cannon was confined now to distant portions of the indeterminate battle line, and the discharge of smaller firearms also had ceased in the immediate vicinity. It seemed to the two boys that they and the squirrels and the birds had the ravine all to themselves, but they were destined presently to be disillusioned.

Suddenly—of course, for all explosions are sudden,—Phil was startled by the discharge of two rifles from behind a thicket twenty feet ahead. “Ping!” sung a bullet past his left ear. Tim was not startled. He did not know what hit him. Over he went, and Phil sprang behind a tree, as a true American, to meet the enemy Indian fashion.

CHAPTER VIII
AID FROM THE AIR

A bullet through his own body would not have given Phil as intense a pain as the one that struck Tim and apparently ended his career. But he was too good a soldier to let even so distressing an incident delay him in the duty of speedy self preservation.

And yet, swift though he was in springing behind a tree and bringing his rifle into position for firing, there were others just as speedy as he. Six men in gray uniforms, but decidedly un-uniform as to size and grace of physique, were standing out in full view with guns leveled at him.

Instinctively Phil’s hand moved an inch or two toward his hand-grenade sack. But it stopped almost with the impulse. He had used the last of his grenades half an hour before in the squad’s last fight that resulted in the extermination of one of the most obstinate of all the machine-gun nests in the woods. How he wished he had been more mindful of his supply while hurling those missiles at the enemy. Two of them, he recalled distinctly, had gone wide of their marks and represented a sheer waste of powder and shell. Oh, if he had only one of those grenades! With it he could produce such execution in that group of snipers that he could easily capture or finish with his rifle those not slain by the explosion of the hand missile. He was sure he could hurl a grenade accurately and at the same time keep his head and body fairly well protected from the enemy’s rifles behind the hole of the tree.

But there was no use now of mourning over spilled milk or exploded shells, and an attempt to engage in battle, alone, with six Hohenzollernites, all of whom had the drop on him, could mean nothing more hopeful than death.

One of the snipers called out an order in German, but Phil did not understand it, although he had studied the language one year at school. Then all six men advanced toward him with their guns ready to fire the instant the Marine showed a disposition to fight.

The boy was on the verge of offering to surrender when a new interruption of proceedings produced one of those spectacular thrills that relieve the carnage of battle of some of its dreadfulness. Almost without warning, save for a heavy, momentary rushing sound in the atmosphere, there was an explosion and upheaval of earth midway between the boches and the American Marines.

Phil did not see what occurred. For the moment he could see nothing but confusion. His first thought was that the explosion was caused by a shell from either American or boche artillery. But this could hardly be. He had heard no shrill scream that always heralds the approach of such missiles. Sound travels more rapidly than even a cannon projectile, and soldiers often comment with grim amusement on their acquired skill at “dodging” shells whose approach is announced by their own shrieks piercing the air ahead of them.

Suddenly Phil recalled that, in the midst of the excitement attending his and Tim’s excursion into the ravine, he had heard faintly a familiar noise in the upper atmosphere—caused by the powerful gyrations of an aeroplane. As the echoes of the explosion of the shell died away, he heard the super-sonorous buzz of the “great mechanical bee” again and looked upward.

It was a French aeroplane, from which the bomb had fallen. Apparently the flyer had seen the unequal combat going on below and dropped an explosive in the hope of incapacitating the opponents of the boy in khaki to do him any harm. The overhead foliage was not heavy at this point and it was not inconceivable that the aviator might have seen even more of the activities of the six snipers than Phil and Tim had seen.

None of the advancing enemy was killed, although it seemed well-nigh miraculous that all of them were not at least fatally injured. However, Phil saw two of them picking themselves up after the cloud of flying earth, stones, and sticks had fallen back to earth. Blood was trickling from the face of each of these and all of the others were nursing severe cuts or bruises.

Phil saw his opportunity. Every one of the boches had dropped his gun in order the better to pet his smarting wounds. The boy, protected by the hole of the large tree which he was endeavoring to keep between himself and the enemy’s bullets, had not been touched by even the smallest of the flying stones, sticks, bits of earth or pieces of shell. Springing out from behind the tree he ran toward the panic-stricken sextette, with rifle ready to be brought to his shoulder at a moment’s warning.

“Halt!” he cried; “Halt, or I’ll shoot!”

CHAPTER IX
KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL!

Whether or not the boches could understand this much, or this little, English was a matter of no importance. They evidently knew what the Marine in khaki meant, and they obeyed, several of them yelling “Kamerad!” in tones of panic.

Phil had not forgotten all his school German vocabulary. The next order that left his lips slipped out with very good Prussian accent:

“Kom her! Hande ueber Kopf.”

The now timid Teutons advanced with hands over their heads toward their youthful captor, in strict obedience to the order.

Phil was relieved that his prisoners did not laugh at his German. They came forward with all due respect for the order given—or was it for the bullets in the boy’s gun? He did not know. Under ordinary civil circumstances he would have hesitated to engage in conversation with a German in the latter’s native tongue for fear lest he show his ignorance of the idioms of the language. “Hande ueber Kopf” was a literal translation of “hands over (your) head.” It might be very good German, and then again it might be very poor.

Relieved at the failure of his prisoners to give him the laugh, he decided to continue to give orders in their language whenever he could recall words that seemed to carry the intended meaning. But he found it difficult sometimes to keep from laughing at himself, for he knew unmistakably that some of the German he was using was at least unique. Still his prisoners regarded him with profound respect—or, again, was it the bullets in his gun?

Phil was puzzled what to do with his prisoners, whose condition of captivity was, after all, rather uncertain. He dared not take his eyes off them for a moment. Possibly some or all of them carried small firearms, which they would bring into action at a moment’s opportunity. The boy dared not attempt to search them, nor dared he attempt to march them back through the woods toward the American rear line. They were almost certain, if they carried such weapons, to find an opportunity, by springing behind large trees, to whip out their pistols and turn the tables on him.

There were evidently only three courses open for Phil to pursue. One was to stand where he was and compel his prisoners to remain in their present positions, with hands over their heads until help came. Another was to shoot the six men down in their tracks as rapidly as he was able to discharge his repeater accurately. The other was to turn and flee with all his well practiced fleetness of foot.

The last he could not consider for an instant. The second was contrary to American principles opposed to unnecessary frightfulness in war. The first was impracticable in view of the fact that the sun was setting and darkness would soon cover the ravine.

It occurred to the young sergeant that he might also compel his doubtfully secured captives to divest themselves of their uniforms in order to make certain that they had no concealed firearms, but such a course would not guarantee his ability to prevent them from escaping in the woods after dark. It might, however, be the means eventually of saving his life if the men should escape from him, and Phil decided to adopt it as a precautionary measure.

But at the same time he cast about him in a vague hope that help of some kind might be at hand. He glanced quickly up to see if perchance the French flyer was not about to offer him further assistance, but that very thoughtful air-fighter was now engaged in a skirmish with an enemy plane, which was taking them farther and farther away from the precarious scene in the ravine. Then the young officer bethought him of his fallen companion, and with almost hysterical hopefulness he cast a quick glance toward the spot where the corporal had dropped without a groan. As he did so, it seemed that he must behold his friend rising on his hands and knees in a determination to lend his much needed assistance.

Phil shuddered as he saw the bullet-headed boy lying as still as any corpse on a battlefield.

“Poor Tim,” he muttered. “He was sure he wouldn’t be killed. Well, so am I,” the doubtful captor of six doubtful prisoners added. “I’m not going to be killed—I know it. I’m going to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, as Tim said I should do. There, I said ‘kill’ six times. That means that these six prisoners have to die as rapidly as this repeater can repeat. Fortunately, I’m a sharpshooter and can do the job before the last one of them can much more than shudder and look pale. Well, here goes, converting my army rifle into a machine-gun.”

CHAPTER X
A NOVEL DISARMAMENT

“No, I can’t do it. I’m no Hun.”

That sentiment, which flashed revulsively through Phil’s brain, probably saved the lives of those six boches, but it also must be held responsible for certain subsequent misfortunes and hardships that rendered Sergeant Speed’s army experiences worthy of a many-chaptered record. Meanwhile there was nothing in the boy’s manner or actions that indicated what was going on in his mind. None of them knew how narrowly they escaped execution at the hands of a “firing squad of one.”

Phil’s next order to his captives was such a mongrel admixture of English, poor French and worse German that he has asked that it be not recorded against him. But it was thoroughly understood, being in several short sentences intended to carry something of an explanation of his purpose, and was obeyed.

One of the men with hands over their heads was directed to step forward and remove his “roch und beinkleider.” This he did expeditiously, having a great respect for the khaki boy’s gun, and presently appeared in the very amusing combination of—beginning at the feet, surveying upward—a pair of coarse heavy shoes, a suit of union underwear and a steel helmet.

It had occurred to Phil several times since the dropping of the bomb from the aeroplane that he could best serve his own interests in the present predicament by sending forth the call agreed upon for reassembling the members of his squad, except for one grave possibility. The sounding of such a call might be taken by his six prisoners as indicating panic on his part and serve as a signal for a desperate move by them. He decided, therefore, to make certain that they were stripped of all firearms, before issuing any such summons.

So he continued the de-uniforming program already begun, and soon six much humiliated boches stood before him in “union-suit uniforms,” the “complexion” of which indicated that the laundry business was not thriving among the minions of the war lords of central Europe.

Then Phil ordered his prisoners to move a considerable distance away from the litter of uniforms strewn over the ground. When he was satisfied as to their position and arrangement, he issued a few more orders with his ingenious, but hardly idiomatic adaptation of first-year school German, which were obeyed with, as much respect as if delivered by a Heidelberg graduate with military authority.

The prisoners, who no longer were required to keep their hands over their heads, were standing near the apparently lifeless form of Corporal Tim; and Phil now, with the aid of expressive motions of his hands and nodding of his head, communicated to them that he desired an examination made of his friend to determine if he were yet alive. The officer in charge, a fellow of surprisingly large girth for a soldier, and another boche of ungainly physique complied with apparent alacrity, and after a seemingly diligent inspection straightened up with looks of sadness on their faces that would have been comical indeed if it had not been for the seriousness of the situation. With voluble expressions of condolence and deprecating shrugs of their shoulders, they gave the young American soldier to understand that they regretted profoundly that his companion lying on the ground was dead.

“You’re a pretty pair of liars,” Phil said to them with a “happy scowl.” He made no effort, however, to express himself in German, for his utterance was intended more as an outburst of feeling than a communication. “That boy is alive, or I don’t know anything about the early stiffening of a corpse. When you lifted that body up it hung as limp and limber as a wet rag.”

Whether any of the six captives understood what Sergeant Phil said could not be determined from the expression, or lack of expression, on their faces. However, that question mattered little to Phil now. He must do something quickly to secure his prisoners against escape and also to effect freedom for himself, in order that he might render much needed first aid to his unconscious friend.

In his early school days, Phil had been the envy of all his boy friends because of one achievement that every boy longs to attain. He could pucker his tongue against his teeth and expel a gust of breath through the straitened avenue thus formed in such manner as to vie in shrillness a miniature fire alarm siren. He was not much good at whistling a tune, but he surely could wake the echoes with a piercing air blast through his teeth, and this he proceeded now to do.

It was his agreed signal to the other members of his squad to assemble and it surely startled the six boches, as was evident from the fact that their faces no longer were expressionless. There was no doubt in the boy’s mind now that their minds had been secretly busy over something that they did not wish communicated to him and that his shrill signal was not in the least pleasing to them.

However, although Phil never had all the facts and circumstances before him to aid him in determining the truth, he is of the opinion now that his call was the one thing needed by his prisoners to bring about the very result for which they longed most deeply. But the startled look on their faces indicated that they did not know it.

Phil waited a minute for an answer from other members of his squad, but received none. Then he was about to repeat the call, when something occurred that rendered another shrill whistle through his teeth virtually impossible.

Suddenly a heavy weight landed on him from behind. A pair of powerful arms were thrown about his neck, and he was borne to the ground by the impetus of the onset.

CHAPTER XI
PHIL A PRISONER

Although this overpowering attack from behind was doubtless almost as much a surprise to Phil’s six prisoners as it was to the boy himself, it did not take them long to recover and seize advantage of the situation. Like a football team they rushed forward to tackle their recent captor, but their assistance was scarcely needed, for the fellow who had leaped on Phil’s back was a powerful 200-pounder, and the shock that resulted when earth and the boy came together half stunned the latter.

But it was not enough to deprive him entirely of his senses, and as he was being jerked to his feet, he had the hazy gratification of hearing an answering whistle to his own “siren shriek.” The boches evidently were alarmed by the same sound, for they put greater energy and speed in their actions in order to get out of the ravine as soon as possible.

First they raced about and gathered up their guns, which lay strewn around the crater-like hole made by the explosion of the bomb dropped from the aeroplane. Then they gathered up their uniforms, but did not stop to put them on, and darted into the thick of the timber in the direction of the retreating boche lines, two of them half carrying, half dragging their boy prisoner between them.

But Phil was not the kind of lad who would attempt to hinder the progress of his captors by hanging back and pretending to be unable to keep pace with them. He preferred to conduct himself as thoroughly able-bodied as soon as he had recovered from the shock that attended his capture. In a few minutes he won just a slight manifestation of good-will from the two who had hold of his arms by “going them one better” and actually leading them slightly in the race through the timber.

In a short time the dusk was so heavy in the woods that it was difficult for them to make progress at more than a slow walk. Efforts to push ahead rapidly were sure to result in trouble with tripping underbrush, scratching branches, and bruising boles of trees.

Phil realized that it was next to vain to hope that they would be overtaken by the comrade Marines of his squad; for although answering calls from them had reached his ears, indicating that they had almost arrived at the scene of his capture, there was small likelihood, indeed, that they would be able to hit the trail of the fleeing boches and overtake them and rescue him. He was tempted several times to repeat his whistle and yell out information as to his predicament, but vicious threats from the officer of big girth in charge of the squad now in “underclothing uniform,” accompanied by a significant pressing of a rifle muzzle now and then against his head, advised him convincingly against any such proceeding.

Sergeant Speed’s one hope of rescue was that they might run into a body of Americans who had advanced farther into the timber in their search for retreating snipers and machine gunners. But this hope was only remotely reasonable, for the instruction from the commanding officer had been that the entire raiding force return by nightfall. Undoubtedly he and Corporal Tim, and perhaps the other members of the squad as well, were being reckoned among the missing. It was hardly probable that the latter had yet given up their efforts to rejoin him after hearing and answering his siren whistle. Possibly they had discovered Tim lying on the ground and even now were doing their best to revive him or were bearing him back toward the American lines.

Phil and his captors had by this time advanced some distance into this wooded battle ground, most of which had until recently been occupied by the enemy. But the heavy shell fire and attacks by the air fleet of the allies had driven the main boche division back a considerable distance, and after the Marines had routed out the nests of machine guns and sharpshooters that were concealed in the woods and rendered perilous any further attempt on the part of the enemy to hold these positions, the captured timber terrain was a desolate waste indeed.

No doubt there would be no attempt on the part of the Marines to move much farther toward the enemy’s lines that night. In the morning probably the commanding officer would order another advance unless the enemy anticipated him with a counter attack.

The effects of the shelling of the woods by the American artillery was evident to some extent almost to the very front of the boche new positions. In spite of the darkness, Phil could see with the aid of the stars that peeped down through the foliage, torn, twisted and splintered branches and tree trunks, while every now and then they stumbled into or narrowly avoided a jagged shell-hole in the ground.

But at last they reached the objective of the young non-com’s captors, which was a position of safety behind their own lines, and Phil found himself confronted with the prospect of remaining a prisoner in the hands of the enemy for the duration of the rest of the war.

CHAPTER XII
A BARBED WIRE PRISON

A short distance out in No Man’s Land from the German lines, Phil’s captors stopped long enough to put on their outer clothing and thus cover the comical evidence of their humiliation by the young American who subsequently became their prisoner only through a surprise rear attack. Doubtless they had not stopped sooner for this purpose because they feared the possible consequences of any delay, with a swarm of Yankee “devil dogs” scouring the timber for boches.

Phil was rushed to the rear where he was placed under guard with a dozen other American prisoners who had been brought in from various quarters. Half an hour later, it appearing that no more prisoners would be brought in that night, they were hustled back several miles over a rough road to a physically wrecked village, deserted by its civilian population, and there corralled in a barbed wire inclosure already occupied by more than 200 captured Americans and Frenchmen. There each prisoner was stripped of his helmet and every other superfluous article of use or treasure.

It was a wretched place, from all dim appearances in the darkness. There was not a glimmer of light within the barbed wire prison, and only a few outside. The patrol of guards that paced about outside the inclosure were ghostly looking shadows against the various background of empty darkness or debris of shell-shattered buildings. The other prisoners did not pay much attention as the newly captured Marines were driven into the place like so many cattle. This apparent indifference doubtless was due to the darkness of the night and the weariness of all the prisoners.

The young Marine sergeant at once sought a resting place for the night. He knew better than to expect any courtesies in the way of food, water, or couch for the night from men of the brutal type that characterized most of the boches with whom he had come into contact thus far.

Phil was tired and fell asleep “as soon as his head touched his pillow,” which consisted of his arm curled up under his head. Later when this became uncomfortable for the “pillow,” he rolled over in his sleep, and his only headrest was the uncushioned earth.

The boy awoke at sunup and looked around him with a kind of eager curiosity, rendered possible by his refreshed condition following a very good night’s rest. A soldier does not need a hair mattress to insure slumber in comfort. Sometimes he would be thankful for a dry six feet of earth on which to rest his weary form. Phil congratulated himself as he lay down to sleep on his first night as a prisoner of war not only that he had a dry resting place in the open air, but that the weather was warm.

About two-thirds of the prisoners in this inclosure were French, as nearly as Phil was able to estimate after the dawn of day rendered it possible for him to get a clear view of his surroundings. The invading army had selected what appeared to have been a small village park and fenced it in with barbed wire stapled to the rows of trees that marked the marginal border line. The young Marine “non-com” soon picked out the “colony” of Americans in the place and discovered among them two young fellows, Dan Fentress and Emmet Harding, whose acquaintance he had made at the last billeting place before the Yanks were given the Belleau and Bouresches sector. The three were soon engaged in an animated conversation on the events of the last few days. All expressed themselves as deeply disappointed because it appeared probable that they had struck their last blow for world freedom and must in all probability labor as slaves for the mailed-fisted kaiserites until their more fortunate fellow crusaders drove home the last blow which would make the entire Hohenzollern host throw up their hands and yell “Kamerad!”

“What makes me sorest in my hardest-to-hurt spot,” said Dan, grinding his teeth with impotent rage, “is the fact that I can’t go back home and say that I know I killed a Hun. Not that I wanted to brag about it. I might not even tell anybody about it if I had shot holes through a dozen slayers of women and children. But I’d just like to be able to say I’d made a record to be proud of and—and—then—keep the secret to myself if I liked modesty as well as I’d like real American roast beef in a Hun prison camp.”

“Maybe you’re just playing modest now,” suggested Emmet Harding with a shrewd smile. “Maybe you’ve actually wiped out a score of Huns and are just practicing, to feel how it seems to deny you’re a hero.”

“No, I don’t believe he’s doing any such thing,” interposed Phil almost eagerly. “At least I hope he isn’t, for I want company right now. I’m in the same boat he says he’s in. I don’t know that I’ve even smashed a cootie on a Hun’s hide, although I had a chance to shoot down half a dozen apostles of frightfulness like so many ten-pins, but didn’t do it; and that, very probably, is the reason I’m here now.”

“What!” exclaimed Dan in tones of contemptuous astonishment. “What sort of animal are you—a pacifist? You’d better keep that story under your hat when you get back home.”

“I don’t know whether I’ll be able to,” Phil returned with a forlorn smile. “You see, there’s no person I’d rather tell a joke on than myself, and this is surely a joke on me. At first it looked like a joke on the Huns—”

“Whoever heard of turning the biggest and most bloody war this world has ever known into humor?” Dan interrupted almost angrily.

“I respect your impatience under the circumstances,” Phil returned quietly. “But hear me through before you judge me too harshly. I’m the sort of fellow that wouldn’t be guilty of a Lusitania sinking or of a violation of a Belgian treaty. Neither would I shoot enemy soldiers after they’ve thrown up their hands.”

“Did those six Huns throw up their hands?”

“Yes.”

“And you had a gun pointed at them?”

“Yes.”

“And did they yell ‘Kamerad?’”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. You’re a fool. But where’s the humor in that situation?”

“The first joke, I suppose, came when I ordered them to strip off their uniforms one after another and had them standing before me in brogans, underwear and steel helmets.”

“A comical sight, indeed,” declared Phil’s critic sarcastically. “But what did you do that for?”

“To be sure they had no firearms on their person,” interposed Emmet.

“Well, what did you mean to do after that?” inquired Dan as Phil nodded assent to Emmet’s interpretation.

“March them back to our lines.”

“And why didn’t you?”

“You’re admitting by your line of questions now that there may have been a little intelligence in my method,” Phil observed as a prelude to his answer.

“Intelligent enough if you had succeeded,” retorted Dan grimly.

“I get your argument and am inclined to agree with you in a way,” the severely grilled Marine returned. “Well, I’m going to tell you why I didn’t take my prisoners back to our lines in triumph. A 200-pound boche sneaked up from behind and jumped on my back and—”

“That’s enough; you got what was coming to you,” declared Dan with a finality of opinion that admitted of no further discussion. “If you care for my judgment in the matter, I’ll say it’s up to you to use your wits as you never used ’em before and whip the kaiser internally in order to retrieve your honor. Get me? You’re on the inside now and you must do something to help win the war from this side of the boche lines. But here’s the call to breakfast and some guards coming this way. Methinks they’re curious to know what’s the nature of this warm discussion of ours. Everybody shut up and look hungry—for something a dog can hardly eat.”

CHAPTER XIII
MR. BOACONSTRICTOR

“Something we can hardly swallow” proved to be a true characterization of the meat-and-vegetable stew that was served to the prisoners in tin bowls, which looked as if they had seen service in the Franco-Prussian war. The meat was in small bits, which were few in number and so tough or gristly as to be hardly edible. The vegetables were principally potatoes and onions. This combination would have been fairly well calculated to sustain life if it had been well seasoned and if it had not tasted and smelled as if it had been warmed several times over a low fire insufficient to bring it to the boiling point. A piece of stale brown bread was served to each prisoner with this stew.

In order to prevent any of the prisoners from getting double portions of this mess, the men were lined up next to the barbed wire fence, along which several boys and men, the latter too old for military service, passed, carrying kettles of stew and buckets of sliced bread and handing out dippersful and slices through the fence to the hungry Americans and Frenchmen.

Meanwhile two guards, also of the superannuated post-military class entered the inclosure and advanced to the spot where the animated discussion was going on among the three comrade Marines. The latter, as has been observed, noticed their approach and so camouflaged their further words and actions that the evident suspicion of the guards was effectually dispelled.

There was a good deal of comment among the prisoners concerning the quality of food served to them and other conveniences—or inconveniences—with which they were provided. The general opinion among them was that the enemy was approaching dangerously near the limit of their resources, which might mean an ending of the war in the not far distant future. Indeed, Phil was sure that he could detect signs of spitefulness in the manner and actions of both commissioned officers and non-coms toward the prisoners, and he was equally certain that the reason for this spitefulness was an undisguisable consciousness of their shortage of resources and equipment.

“This war isn’t going to last very much longer,” Phil remarked to his two friends as he forced down the last spoonful of stew. He was ravenously hungry, having had nothing to eat since early the preceding day, and in spite of the fact that the food served was most unpalatable, he deemed it wise not to waste any of the scanty portion served to him.

“That’s what lots of soldiers are saying principally because of stories of experiences similar to ours that find their way across No Man’s Land,” said Dan. “But there’s one thing that gets me in this connection more than anything else, and that is that the more defeat you cram down these boches’ throats, the more arrogant and overbearing they become. Just look at that human boaconstrictor strutting around as if utterly unconscious of the fact that he ought to be going to sleep.”

“I don’t get you,” said Emmet with an expression of challenging curiosity. “If we were campaigning with the British among the pyramids of Egypt, it might be appropriate for you to talk like a Sphinx.”

“I get him,” announced Phil. “He means that boche officer has such an ungainly girth that he looks like a boa that has swallowed a pig and ought to be taking an after-dinner nap. But I have something to add to Dan’s observation. That fellow is one of the six kaiserites whom I forced to strip to their underclothes and who turned the tables on me and recaptured their pants et cetera, and brought me here as an honored guest.”

“Better keep out of his sight then,” Emmet advised. “If he sets eyes on you, he’s likely not to rest until he gets his revenge. And you know what revenge means in wartime. He’ll probably find some way of blowin’ you to atoms to feed the molecules.”

“You do him too great a chemical honor by presenting the matter in such light,” Phil objected, screwing up one side of his face to indicate his skepticism. “He looks to me like an ordinary butcher, and I don’t think he’d attempt to do anything more than make mincemeat of me.”

“Have it your own way,” Emmet returned with a shrug. “But look out for him at any event. He seems to be recognized as having a good deal of authority around here.”

“He’s only a second lieutenant,” was Phil’s reminder.

“That doesn’t make any difference,” Emmet insisted. “This fellow’s in right with the higher-ups. It may be easier, you know, to use an officer of low rank for all sorts of jobs than one of higher rank. He can work more quietly—won’t attract so much attention sometimes.”

Phil decided to take his companion’s advice, and keep as much in the background as possible in order that “Mr. Boaconstrictor” might not fall into revengeful temptation at the sight of him. And before long he was congratulating himself on this decision. Half an hour after the early “feed,” as he was pleased to designate the morning stew and bread, the order was given for everybody in the inclosure to get ready to move. This was succeeded by another order ten minutes later for all to file out through the gate and follow two soldiers who would lead the way.

Mechanically Phil glanced toward the two soldiers referred to by the prison guard who made the announcement. Dan and Emmet, who were still near him, did likewise.

“It seems impossible for you to shake your friend, Boche Boa,” observed Emmet. “He’s going to be one of the leaders of the grand march to some munitions factory, where, undoubtedly, we will be set at work making big shells to shoot at the Allies.”

“Let’s hang back and fall in at the rear end of the line of march,” Dan suggested. “He may have forgotten all about his experience with Phil, and the sight of the fellow who dragged his dignity in the dust may make him show his fangs.”

This seemed to be good advice, and was followed as nearly as possible, although they were forced into the line several paces ahead of the rear end by the guards who herded the prisoners out of the inclosure without regard for the wish or convenience of anybody.

CHAPTER XIV
A NEW PRISON

There were few incidents of special interest during the first day of the march of these 250 prisoners toward the German border. Of course to persons unaccustomed to the sights and scenes in the blasted war zone, everything along the route must have been interesting. But to these men of several months’ experience, a landscape of unmarred beauty and order must have been a novelty worthy of observation.

Every town, village or hamlet that they passed through was partly or completely wrecked by shell explosions or fire. Most of the French inhabitants had fled, although here and there were a few who had been caught in the advancing wave of the invading army. Much of the open country was disfigured with shell holes and trenches, and many of the farm houses had been converted, wantonly it appeared, into heaps of charred woodwork, black masonry and ashes.

An hour before the dusk of evening they arrived at a small town that was in better condition of physical preservation than any of the others they had passed through. Apparently it was used as a sort of way-station in the line of communications between the fighting front and the Rhine frontier.

There was no barbed wire inclosure for keeping the prisoners over night in this place, and so they were housed in buildings that showed no serious effects of recent bombardment. Phil and his two friends managed to keep close together during the march and were much gratified with the result of their efforts when they found themselves lodged in the same building for the night. They were given their unvarying breakfast-dinner-supper stew and stale bread shortly before dusk and then, together with a dozen others, were locked in a small house that undoubtedly, before the last big drive of the enemy, had been occupied by a French family of not more than three or four.

The house was bare. Every article of furniture had been removed. Not even a lamp with which to dispel the gloom of the place was to be found.

“There isn’t a bit of ventilation in this house,” declared one of the prisoners, whose name, it soon developed, was Arthur Evans.

“And we don’t dare try to open a window for fear one of the guards may try his marksmanship at us,” said another who had been addressed in Phil’s hearing as Jerry Carey.

“It’s almost as big a menace as being gassed,” muttered another Marine, who answered to the name of Burns.

“I don’t suppose we fifteen men would exactly die in these tightly closed rooms in one night,” said Phil meditatively; “but I’m afraid we’d almost have to be carried out by morning. We’d better get our wits together and contrive some kind of vent that will make possible a current of air up through the chimney.”

“I’m in favor of smashing one of the windows with a shoe,” Burns announced. “We can all drop down flat on the floor and escape a volley from the guards if they fire in here.”

“Let’s try something else,” Phil proposed. “Here’s a trapdoor. Maybe it opens into a basement or cellar. Let’s see if we can’t get some air through that.”

There was no ring or handle of any kind with which to lift the door. So Phil hunted around until he found a small stick with which he was able to get a slight purchase and lifted the door until he was able to get hold of it with his fingers. A moment later the entire group of prisoners were gazing down into a dark hole in which the only visible object was the upper part of a rude flight of steps.

“There’s no air in that place,” declared one of the Marines, sniffing in disgust at the scent of mold and must of the atmosphere in the cellar.

“I wish I had a light and I’d go down and explore it,” said Phil. “Who knows what we might find in it?”

“Some rotten apples and potatoes and a lot of mice and vermin, more’n likely,” prophesied Dan Fentress pessimistically.

“Oh, I agree with you there, and I agree also that it is hardly probable that I’d find anything worth while,” Phil replied. “Still, just to be doing something, I’d like to explore that hole in the ground. Remember, fellows, this is pretty nearly on the other side of the world from where we live. Consequently, everything we see and hear around, about, within and among these our approximate antipodes ought to interest us.”

“Nobody could say you nay after such poetic persuasion as that,” avowed one of the imprisoned Marines who thus far had been conspicuous principally because of his silence.

“I left a hard-headed friend unconscious back in Belleau Woods yesterday who had no use for poets in war,” Phil returned quickly. “He regarded them as worse than enemy spies, and I don’t know but that I agree with him. So, you see, you haven’t complimented me very much.”

“There seems to be a little light down there,” said Evans, who had been peering into the cellarway while the others were engaged in what he regarded as profitless palaver. “There must be a window in the cellar wall, and as it isn’t dark yet, probably a wee bit of daylight is filtering through.”

“I’m going down and feel about with my hands,” Phil announced, placing one foot on the top step. “If there’s any light at all down there, I’ll get the benefit of it after my eyes have got accustomed to conditions. So here’s hoping that I’ll find something of more value than rotten apples.”

“I hope you’ll find a keg o’ cider,” said Evans, smacking his lips.

Phil had descended no more than half a dozen steps when he stopped with a low exclamation of interest.

“What’s up?” asked Emmet Harding.

“There’s a shelf here right beside the stairway and several things on it. I’ll hand them up to you, and you see what they are.”