CHAPTER XV
STRATEGY
WITH three men on watch and eight working like beavers, silently andeffectively, the two partly excavated and stone-built shelters werecompleted in little more than two hours. Tomlinson, a brick mason andwith a head for construction generally, was given direction of thework. From the fact that a little noise could not be avoided and indeedwas desirable, the Huns were sure that the Yanks were alert. But withall quiet a little later it must have seemed more opportune for a nightattack. That such would come the squad had no doubt and, therefore, itproceeded to put young Judson’s scheme into practice.
It was very certain that no attempt would be made by the enemy topenetrate the dense thickets on the up-hill side; it could neverget through without lights. And so the squad began assembling a lowbreastworks of stones on the up-hill side and but a few yards beyondthe rock basin. Forming a line behind this in order that every man’srifle would command the basin, the Yanks set themselves to patientlywaiting.
“A ol’ deer stand ain’t nothin’ to this fer expectin’,” Jenningsremarked to Gill.
“More like waitin’ for bear,” was Gill’s reply.
“It must be fast and sure work, boys,” Herbert said. “Don’t stop tosee your sights, but get the glint all along the barrel and shoot low;always shoot low! You have McNabb’s rifle; eh, Don?”
“Yes, and it’s all right; seems to throw lead just where you hold it. Itried it, just before it got dark, on a Hun who was cleaning his gun,away on the far side of their camp, and I knocked his gun out of hishands. I’ll bet he was some surprised.” This was said lightly; then theboy’s voice lowered and he spoke thoughtfully, as might an old friendand present comrade to another at such a time:
“I think, old man, that in the football days back at Brighton we nevercould have imagined we would be together in anything quite like this.”
“It would have been just dreaming, Don, if we had. Football! Child’splay! And yet in many a game we had as much determination to win aswe have now. Funny; isn’t it, how the human mind can be swayed by bigand little things to show similar tendencies? Professor Galpard wouldcall that ‘a most interesting study in comparative psychology, younggentlemen;’ wouldn’t he?”
“Just that and right he’d be, too,” Don replied. “But I think thedetermination to win out now is somewhat different from anything I havepreviously experienced; you’ll have to admit it has more pep to it thanany game we ever got into.”
“I will admit that,” Herbert said.
“For back of it is that primal love of life. We are willing tosacrifice everything rather than miss the glory of fighting on untilwe’re done for, but yet, Herb, it’s kind of sweet to think of living todo something worth while; to make an effort to gain happiness. You knowI’m quoting a little from the principal’s last commencement address.”
“And yet I know as well as that I’m lying here on a hard rock that it’sa hard, cold fact that nobody could induce you to surrender,” arguedHerb.
“Perfectly right, old man. If there were ten thousand Jerries, as theboys call them, going to rush us in ten minutes I would want to stayright here and give it to ’em until our cartridges were all gone.”
“Do you remember young Gaylord at Brighton, Don?”
“Remember him? Who doesn’t? You’re going to refer to the fact that hewas generally considered a softy; that he was so blamed gentle thatevery one looked for him to burst into tears at any trying moment;aren’t you?”
“Yes, but you know what he did once; don’t you?”
“You mean standing off those burglars?”
“Just that,” said Herbert. “They tortured him horribly for an hour tomake him tell where Grant, his roommate, kept his money hid--a lot ofit--and did Gaylord tell? Not he! He refused and made mental notes ofthe men; they were arrested and sent up on it.”
“But what, exactly, has that to do with us, Herb?”
“It only shows that no matter what a fellow’s get-up is he may rise toany occasion. And I guess that’s us, Don. I know I used to hate theidea of shooting any living thing, and I do now, but in war--and theyare human beings, too!”
“I know, but human beings may be thugs and criminals, Herb. I’drather much less shoot a robin or a bluebird than some murderers andcut-throats who deserve nothing else.”
“But, Don, granting that the Kaiser and his war ministers are no betterthan murderers, all of his soldiers are not thugs and cut-throats.Many of these fellows are kindly, fair-minded family chaps, livingblamelessly at home and minding their own business; hard-working,enjoying their simple pleasures until war calls them and they have nochoice but to enter into the killing of their fellowmen of anothernation. Because they are the dupes of an unjust military system theymust be driven into duties that may make them victims of others whohave no personal desire to harm them, except that being at war makes itnecessary. I tell you, Don, there is nothing more harshly unjust thanwar!”
“I guess you’re right. We ought to know, being in it. And yet, wewouldn’t be called pacifists, Herb.”
“Pacifists? Never! Our cause is just; our country had to fight and itis the duty of those who could fight to get busy for her.”
“Sure; just the same, I take it, Herb, as when a ruffian terrorizesa town. The police must go get him, stop him, or there’s no tellingwhat harm he may do. Germany is that ruffian and our army is one of thepolicemen.” Don was nothing if not logical.
“You’ve got the right dope,” Herbert said. “And yet isn’t it a pitythat there are ruffians and that those who must go get them are liableto get hurt; perhaps killed? Don, I think there should be no suchthing as war; something should be brought about that would make warimpossible.”
“I reckon every fellow who is in this thing would agree with you, Herb.Listen! What’s that? Kelly and Gerhardt coming in?”
“Yes, and in a hurry, too. There’s something doing down the hill. Whatis it, Kelly?”
“They’re coming up, Lieutenant, on the quiet; the whole bunch, I think.Gerhardt saw them first and came over to me; then we waited a littleand could hear them plain. So we sneaked in quick.”
“Then get to your places,” Herbert said. “Dead quiet, now, everybody!”
“And don’t anyone shoot too soon and spoil the scheme!” Judson demanded.
“Nobody shoot until Judson yells ‘fire’!” Herbert ordered.
There was the suggestion of a sound as of moving objects down thehillside. It seemed to grow a little plainer, be multiplied, to comenearer and was barely discernible. To every member of the squad itwas not apparent that the enemy was approaching; a few of trainedand keener senses knew it. Jennings and Gill detected the fact verysoon after Kelly and Gerhardt came in. Said Jennings, presently, insomething like a stage whisper:
“Most here, Lieutenant. Reckon this is goin’ to be a reg’lar circus ferall concerned, ez they say in court.”
“Sh!” “Hush!” and “Can the talk!” came in muffled accents from alongthe line.
“Sho! He knows how far away they are and that they couldn’t hear him.The nearest one ain’t closer than half way up the hill and they’re allcoming together. When you lay for deer----”
“I think we’d all better keep quiet now,” Herbert said, and the deerhunters subsided.
Several minutes passed without any apparent incident; if straining earscaught any sounds they were difficult to distinguish until a stone wasdisplaced on the down hill side of the rock basin. This was hardly asignal, but if an accident it probably precipitated the ensuing action.
There was a sharp, shrill whistle; the yells as of a thousand impsof Satan suddenly filled the night with a fury of sound. With a rushthe enemy’s suspected night attack began. Quick orders in German,the leaping forward of heavy feet upon and over the rock parapet,the surging on of men eager to kill marked the arrival of the entireplatoon into the Americans’ stronghold. And then a transformation,almost as sudden as the charge, took place.
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p; The yells died down, ceased. Exclamations followed, gutturalexpressions of evident surprise, announcement, chagrin, at finding theenemy gone. The natural question was: had the Americans quitted theirrefuge? And the answer was self-evident. Lights were thrown here andthere about the rocky floor, into the stone shelters, out among thespruces. Under officers and men gathered in the very center, in hastyconference; twenty, or more, were thus beneath the dim light from atorch stuck in a limb of a spruce tree. Other torches in the hands ofthe Huns within or on the rocky sides of the basin suffused the placein a pale fight. Only a few men remained without the stronghold. Andthen, more suddenly than the coming of the platoon, the action, like awell rehearsed drama, took on a vastly changed aspect.
“Fire now!” yelled the shrill voice of Judson, from among the denseherbage ten yards up the hill; the burst of flame and the roar fromeleven rifles almost drowned the last word. Nearly as many Huns wentdown; the second and third irregular volleys followed before theinvaders could more than lift a gun and about as many more men dropped.More shooting, fast and furious, sent still others to the earth, a fewwounded, most of them done for. Of the reinforced platoon not a dozenmen got safely out of the place and disappeared in the darkness. Therehad not been a single shot fired in answer to the American fusillade.
What followed with the squad was partly mild elation; partly animmediate performance of duty. A detail went about to get the woundedinto the shelters, giving them also first aid wherever possible.Another bunch became the undertakers.
Those Huns who had escaped from this virtual massacre in reprisalwould, of course, make their way to their divisional headquarters toreport and another and stronger body of men would be sent to make shortwork of the Americans, but all this would take time. Probably, too,hearing the firing at the rear, the officers in command of the new linewould also send a reserve detachment to clear the matter up and such acombined force would simply mean annihilation of the squad.
Swiftly the duties of the Americans were performed. Half the nightwas yet to come. Wilson and Kelly begged leave to inter poor McNabb’sstiffened body and to mark the spot. Lieutenant Whitcomb, after anotherearnest talk with Don Richards and the corporal, called the mentogether again. They were cautioned against too much elation now, orself-assurance. Not one of them, Herbert knew, felt any real delightat the defense they had made, except that which was prompted by havingonce more defeated an implacable foe and of being spared a bayonetting,a blowing up or other almost certain death.
The corporal had made a suggestion: What was the sentiment regarding abreaking up and an attempted escape, every man for himself, through theGerman lines and back to the American front? Could it be done? Would itbe worth trying?
Some of the squad looked rather askance, some dubious, some shook theirheads.
The Brighton Boys in the Argonne Forest Page 16