Army Boys in France; or, From Training Camp to Trenches

by Albert Bigelow Paine

  CHAPTER X

  INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH

  As time went on the boys became quite expert in bayonet practice. AFrench officer who had seen some of the bloodiest fighting on the Sommewas their instructor, and he was voluble in his praise of the "_espritde coeur_" the young men showed.

  Of course in the beginning there were some laggards, but these werepromptly whipped into line by officers and comrades.

  "It is maybe all right now to laugh and take the little interest," theFrenchman was fond of saying to these few who lagged behind. "But whenyou are in the trench, fighting hand to hand with your enemy, moreaccomplished than you, it will not be so great a joke. You will notlaugh then!"

  "He's right too," remarked Fred Anderson, one of the veteran members ofthe regiment who had seen service in the Philippine Islands. "Therewill be plenty of hand-to-hand fighting where it's cut and thrust, andthe man who can handle his weapon best will come out on top."

  "I suppose most of your own experience has been along that line," saidFrank.

  "Yes," replied Fred, as a reminiscent look came into his eyes. "Ofcourse that dinky little war in the Philippines wasn't to be comparedwith this, but there was lots of savage fighting just the same. Morethan once I've been within an ace of losing the number of my mess."

  "What's the tightest place you were ever in?" asked Bart.

  "The thing I remember most was a scrap we had with the Moros," repliedFred. "That was pretty hot while it lasted.

  "You see," he went on, "those fellows had been acting nasty and hadgiven a good deal of trouble to one of our outposts. So our lieutenantwas ordered to take a detachment in a launch and go up a little riverthat led to a settlement of theirs and give them a lesson.

  "We landed at the nearest point and had about five miles of jungle togo through before we could get to their village. We did our best tomake it a surprise, but in some way they got wind of our coming and layin ambush. We were picking our way in single file when suddenly therecame a rain of bullets and several of our men went down. The rest ofus took to cover and the fight was on.

  "The Moros you know are Mohammedans, and about as nifty fighters as youcan find anywhere. Like all men of their religion, they believe thatany one who dies on the battlefield goes straight to Paradise, and thatgives them an absolute contempt for death. They were well armed toowith Mauser rifles that they'd managed to get hold of somehow, butluckily for us they hadn't learned to handle them well and most oftheir shots went wild. If their shooting had been as good as theirhearts were stout, they might have wiped us out, as they outnumbered ustwo or three to one.

  "Has anybody got the makin's?" he inquired, as he stopped to roll acigarette.

  "Give them to him, somebody," said Bart exasperatedly.

  "For the love of Mike don't keep him waiting!" ejaculated Frank. "Iwant to hear how Fred got out of it."

  Fred, not a bit averse to the interest he had aroused, wastantalizingly slow in taking his time.

  "Keep your hair on," he drawled, as he struck a match. "I got throughall right, or I wouldn't be chinning to you now.

  "Well," he resumed after a preliminary puff, "we kept picking them offwhenever a head showed itself until they found that we could outplaythem at that game, and then they resorted to other tactics. Throwingaside their guns and grasping their machettes--those murderous knivesof theirs that will cut a man's head off with a single blow--they camecharging down upon us. We didn't propose to stand on the defensive,and after a vast volley that swept a lot of them away we fixed bayonetsand rushed to meet them."

  The group that had by this time gathered about Fred drew a littlecloser.

  "It was touch and go for a few minutes," continued Fred, "but ourweight and discipline told, and soon we were pushing them back. Justthen however I stumbled over a root and fell to the ground, striking myhead and stunning myself. At that same moment the Moros werereinforced and came back with a wild rush that by sheer weight ofnumbers forced our line back for twenty-five feet or more.

  "I was trying to get to my feet when four or five of the nearest Moros,brandishing their knives, swooped down upon me. It would have been allover with me, if one of our fellows, a big fighting Irishman namedHennessy, hadn't come plunging through the crowd swinging his rifleround his head like a flail. They went down like bullocks hit with anaxe. They simply couldn't get inside the circle made by that gun andby the time he had knocked down a half dozen or more, our boys hadrallied and had the beggars on the run."

  "Phew, but that was a close shave!" ejaculated Frank.

  "Close is right," agreed Fred. "I'd certainly have cashed in rightthen and there if it hadn't been for Hennessy. I told him that he hadsaved my life and that I owed him more than I could ever repay, but hewouldn't have it so. The joke of it was that I think he was reallygrateful to me for giving him a chance for such a lovely scrap. Hetold me that he hadn't enjoyed himself so much since the last time hehad gone to the fair at Tipperary."

  There was a general laugh.

  "If it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't have had your chance now toget a hack at the Huns," remarked Bart.

  "No," assented Fred, "and that would certainly have been hard luck.But to get back where we started from, I want to put it up to youfellows that what the Frenchman said was true. We can't take thispractice too seriously. Especially bayonet practice. We've had lotsof proof that the Germans don't like cold steel. They're brave enough,but the French and English put it all over them in bayonet work."

  "That's right," agreed Frank, "and it's up to us to show that UncleSam's boys can do the same."

  The hand grenade throwing was of special interest to the boys and wasthe one most readily mastered. This was due chiefly to the fact thatit had points in common with baseball. Many of the boys wereproficient in the great national game.

  The firm of Moore and Thomas had maintained its own nine, and in theseason before they had carried off the championship of the commercialteams in Camport. Frank had officiated in the pitcher's box and had anassortment of curves and drops together with great speed that had beenthe chief factors in the winning of the pennant. Bart had "dug themout of the dirt" at first base.

  Billy Waldon, too, had been as quick as lightning in "winging themdown" from short.

  So that their throwing arms were fully developed and they took up thisnew and grimmer game with the skill born of long practice.

  "This ought to be nuts for us when we get to the trenches," remarkedBilly, as he cut loose with a grenade in practice that landed withintwo feet of the object aimed at.

  "It sure gives us a big advantage over the Germans," assented Frank."Of course they're drilled in throwing, but by the time they've startedin with it their muscles must seem strange to it. We've been throwinga ball around ever since we were kids. It's in the blood. Our eyesand arms have learned to work together. And then, too, a thing you'velearned to do from the love of it must be better done than when it'sforced on you."

  "Imagine a crack pitcher with a grenade in his hand and the Kaiser ahundred feet away," said Billy with a grin.

  "An A1 pitcher wouldn't do a thing to him!" chuckled one of the otherrecruits.

  "Would he put over a bean ball or a fadeaway, do you think?" asked Bart.

  "It would be a strike-out, whichever one he used," declared Frank."The Kaiser would do a fadeaway."

  The bomb they used was the Mills bomb which had been adopted forgeneral use in the British army.

  "Let's hope there'll be plenty of them, whatever else we're short of,"remarked Bart.

  "They're handy little things to have around when the Boches come overfor a friendly call," observed another lad.

  "If we run short we can make some ourselves," declared Frank. "Theywon't be quite so nifty as these Mills bombs, but they'll do the work."

  "Listen to Edison talking," chaffed Billy.

  "I'm not kidding," declared Frank. "I got the tip from one of theTommys who was wounded in the Ypres fighting
and is over here on leave.Hustle around some of you chaps and get me an old tin can and I'll showyou what the Tommy showed to me."

  "What kind of a can?" asked Billy.

  "Oh, any old kind," answered Frank. "An old soup can, tomato can, anycan that Eli hasn't eaten up already."

  Eli was the big goat that served as the mascot of the regiment. He hadan omnivorous appetite and ate anything from cigarette butts towashrags, and if anything was missing it was customary to charge itagainst Eli. He was not only a billygoat but a scapegoat.

  A little search however brought to light an old can that Eli hadspared, and the boys looked on with interest while Frank prepared hishomemade bomb.

  "I'll roll up my sleeves, gentlemen, to show you that I have nothingconcealed there," said Frank, in his best conjurer's style. "Now watchme carefully and I'll try to instill some scientific knowledge in thosethick noddles of yours."

  He took a handful of clay from the edge of the trench where they hadbeen practising and lined the inside of the can with it.

  "Now for the dirty work," joked Billy.

  Frank withered him with a glance.

  "Get me a lot of junk," he commanded.

  "That's rather indefinite," suggested Bart. "Junk shops are not a partof this regiment's equipment. Uncle Sam's had so much on his mind thathe hasn't got to them yet."

  "A handful of nails or bits of iron or cartridge shells will do,"returned Frank, putting a detonator and explosive in the can andtamping it down in the clay. "Anything will do that will make Fritzsee stars when it hits him."

  Bart volunteered a broken jack knife; one lad contributed a couple ofmetal buttons; others handed over nails.

  Frank arranged the miscellaneous collection in as compact a mass aspossible, put in more clay and then put on the tin cover, into which hefirst punched a hole. Through this hole the top of the fuse protruded.Then he wrapped wire around the can so that the top could not come off,and the bomb was ready.

  "There," he said, as he held his handiwork up for their inspection,"when that is sent over to the enemy trenches there will be somethingdoing. It isn't much in the beauty line but it will get there just thesame."

  "Great head!" said Bart admiringly.

  "Not mine but the fellow's who first figured it out," said Frank. "Butit's a good thing to know, and you never can tell when it may come inmighty handy."

  "I hear we're going to be gassed to-morrow," remarked Bart, as theymade their way to their quarters.

  Billy made a wry face.

  "That's one of the most hideous things the Huns have brought into thiswar," he said. "I can imagine Satan chuckling when he heard of the gasattack."

  "I don't think he chuckled," said Frank bitterly. "More likely he wasjealous to have a German think of it before he did. It isn't oftenthat he lets anyone get ahead of him."

  "He'll have to step lively to keep ahead of the Huns," said Bart."They say there's no torture equal to that suffered by a man who hasbeen gassed."

  "And even if they don't die of it after days of agony, they mightbetter have died," added another, "for it leaves them ruined for life."

  "Surgeons get hardened in carrying on their profession," commentedFrank. "They have to be or they couldn't keep their nerve. But theysay that even the surgeons broke down when they stood beside the bedson which the gas victims lay gasping for breath. They had never seensuch horrible anguish."

  "Well, there's no use expecting Germans to carry on war like acivilized nation," declared Frank. "They've thrown all decency andhumanity to the winds. They've raised the flag of the skull andcrossbones and want to make all the rest of the world walk the plank.They're pirates and barbarians, and there'll be no peace or securityfor mankind until they're punished for their crimes."

  "It's a tough job that's put up to us Allies," said Bart. "A man'sjob. But we'll put it through, no matter what the cost may be."

  "Right you are," ejaculated Frank fervently. "It wasn't only NathanHale who wished that he had more than one life to give for his country.There are a million Nathan Hales among Uncle Sam's boys and millionsmore to come."

  As Bart had predicted, their squad was lined up the next day for apractical test in gas defense. They had already had preliminary drillsin adjusting the masks, which had to be slipped on in six seconds. Ittook a long time before this stage of excellence could be reached, forsome of the men were doubly slow, slow in thought and slow in action.The quicker ones had soon acquired the habit of adjusting the masks inthe required time, and Frank and Bart could do it sometimes in fiveseconds. But the drill went on unceasingly until all acted as one man,for a single second's delay in fending off the infernal attack mightmean all the difference between life and death--and such a death!

  It was not a pretty sight, for the masks were hideous and the menlooked like weird monsters from another planet.

  "If only our friends could see us now!" murmured Bart to Frank in anundertone.

  "They'd drop dead from fright," returned the latter.

  "Deep sea divers have nothing on us," chimed in a third lad.

  "You're insulting the divers," said Billy. "If they went down lookinglike this, the sharks would throw a fit."

  At last the drill worked with clock-work precision, and the perspiringlieutenant wiped his brow and gave vent to a sigh of relief as helooked along the grotesque ranks.

  "I guess they're ready now," he said, turning to the sergeant. "Takethem down half a dozen at a time and let them get a sniff of the gas."

  "_Let_ them," murmured a lad. "What a blessed privilege. Anyone wouldthink that he was giving us a furlough for good conduct."

  "Save your breath and come along," admonished Billy. "You'll need allyou've got in a little while."

  The squad was marched off to a little hut that stood in a distantcorner of the camp. It was a crude creation with a door and only onewindow. Long before they got to it the boys could detect a faint acridodor in the atmosphere.

  "Now," said the sergeant halting his men at a little distance, "youfellows break ranks and come along in single file."

  The single room of the hut had been filled with the same kind of gasthat the Germans were using along the western front, but in greatlydiluted form.

  "Take off your masks," commanded the sergeant, "and go along past thatwindow one by one. Make quick time too. I want you to learn just whatthe gas smells like, so that you can detect it the minute it comes nearyou after you get to the trenches."

  The men obeyed orders, and, as they passed, each got a whiff of the gasthat was escaping through a slight opening of the window. There was agasp, a cough, a wry face and a hurried scuttling by as each man wentthrough the ordeal.

  It is needless to say that there was no disposition to linger. Eventhe slowest man of the squad displayed unsuspected capacity for speed.

  "Look at Fatty Bates," chuckled Billy, alluding to the most ponderousmember of the company. "Talk about winged heels! Mercury has nothingon him."

  "It certainly got a rise out of Fatty," grinned Bart. "It's worth adollar to see him jump. Put a gas cloud after him and I'll bet he'd doa hundred yards in ten seconds flat."

  "You'll jump too when your turn comes," prophesied Frank. "You'llthink the lid has been taken off of the infernal regions."

  The prophecy was verified, for though there was no danger, since thegas had been vastly diluted, yet the odor was so vile and the death itsuggested was so horrible that they could not get away from it quicklyenough.

  "It's like passing close to a rattlesnake whose fangs have been drawn,"commented Frank. "You might know that he couldn't kill you, but if hestruck at you you'd jump instinctively, just because he was arattlesnake."

  "Some perfume that," remarked Billy with an expression of dire disgust.

  "New-mown hay--I don't think," growled Bart, sneezing as though hewould shake his head loose from his shoulders. "I got a bigger dosethan the rest of you slackers," he added with an air of superior virtue.

>   "Martyr to duty," mocked Frank. "But we're not through yet, fellows.The worst is yet to come."

  "Nothing can be worse," grumbled Fatty Bates, with profound conviction.

  "Oh, yes, it can," said Billy, assuming the role of Job's comforter."We've got to go inside that Chamber of Horrors and stay there fiveminutes by the clock."

  "Will we come out on our feet or be carried out?" asked Fatty Bateswith a worried expression.

  "You'll never be carried out, Fatty," chaffed Billy. "It would takethe whole regiment to do that. It'll be a crane and derrick for yousure."

  "We'll put a torpedo under him and blow him through the roof," addedBart.

  "Now men," said the sergeant, "put on your masks and go inside, oneafter the other. There's no danger if you've learned to put them onperfectly. But if there's any sloppy work, the fellow that's carelesswill find it out soon enough, and he'll get all that's coming to him."

  "Not much nourishment in that," muttered Billy under his breath."Suppose the mask's defective, got a hole in it or something like that."

  "If it is, it's better to find it out now than when we're actually inthe trenches," answered Frank. "I suppose that's the real reason forthis test. Here's hoping that no shoddy contractor had put one over onthe government."

  They filed into the grim little room after having adjusted their maskswith especial care and stood crowded closely together looking in theirghostly attire like so many spectres.

  It was a grisly five minutes that seemed more like an hour to each oneof them. The dead silence added to the discomfort of the occasion.Death seemed to be all around them, reaching out to them with itsskeleton fingers. They were in the "valley of the shadow," and itsobered them.

  It was an immense relief when the knock of the sergeant on the doorsummoned them forth and the test was over. And there was greatsatisfaction when it was learned that all the masks had held and shownthat they could be relied on.

  Once out in the clean, sweet air and under the blue sky that neverbefore had seemed so beautiful, the boys tore off their masks in ahurry.

  "Now I feel like a respectable member of society and not like one ofthe Ku Klux Klan!" exclaimed Bart, as he looked around on the flushedbronzed faces of his comrades. "My, but it's good to be out of thishideous rig. I'd like to throw it into the river," he added digginghis fingers viciously into the unoffending mask.

  "You'll be glad enough to have it some day before long," prophesiedFrank. "Then you'll count it the best friend you have."

  "Isn't it pretty nearly time for mess?" asked Fatty Bates wistfully.

  "Not yet, little one," remarked Billy. "The sergeant's got somethingelse up his sleeve, or I miss my guess."

  A groan went up from Fatty, which was quickly suppressed when thesergeant looked sternly at him.

  "Form in single file, men," commanded the sergeant, "and make your waythrough the trench. Bend over as you go, for you're supposed to be onthe enemy front, and not a head must show to be a mark for snipers."

  They did as they were told, and after they had reached a designatedportion of the shallow trench they were halted by their leader.

  "You're going to be gassed right and proper now," he said. "Some gasshells are going to be thrown over toward you and it's up to you whenyou see them coming to get those masks on mighty quick."

  Crouching low and on the alert, the men waited until a gas shell with ahiss and a scream came hurtling in their direction and broke a hundredfeet in front of the trench. A cloud of gas came rolling toward them.On went their masks in the twinkling of an eye, and the vapor passedover them harmlessly.

  Several times this was repeated until the keen eye of the sergeant wassatisfied with the dexterity shown by the squad. And there was ageneral sigh of relief when he summoned them out of the trench andannounced that drill was over for the morning.

  "Phew, but that was some strenuous work," remarked Frank, as holdingtheir masks in their hands the men strolled back in groups of twos andthrees toward their quarters.

  "I feel as though I had been drawn through a knothole," said FattyBates.

  The thought of Fatty being drawn through a knothole was so ludicrousthat it provoked a general roar.

  "I guess we all feel pretty well used up," said Bart when the merrimenthad subsided, "but all the same it's things like this that are going tohelp us lick the Huns."

  And so the days passed in learning the grim lessons of war, and theshadows, lengthening into evening, brought supper, perhaps some specialmusical entertainment, a vaudeville show, or moving pictures, sometimesonly bonfires with smoking, laughing, joking crowds about them. Theboys enjoyed these latter evenings most when the funny events of theday could be passed in review and enjoyed by them all.

  Then, promptly at nine the bugle called for "all lights out," and theyoung soldiers, early as was the hour, obeyed it willingly. Thestrenuous days in the open air made the narrow cots in the longbarracks particularly appealing.

  "Did you hear that joke Jameson was telling about the Yankee soldier?"Bart asked one night, when all the rest were either asleep or on theway.

  "No," said Frank, sleepily. "What was it?"

  "It seems a guard challenged him," chuckled Bart, "with the regular,'Who goes there?' and he answered, 'Aw, you wouldn't know if I toldyou. I've only been here a couple o' days'."

  "That's all very well here," yawned Frank. "But it wouldn't go in 'NoMan's Land'!"