The Khaki Boys over the Top; Or, Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam

"What's that, Schnitz?"

"What's what!"

"That noise. Sounds like a party coming along the communication trench!"

The talk was in tense whispers, and the listening was now of the same tenseness. Two khaki-clad Sammies stood on the alert in the muddy ditch, dignified by the title, "trench," and tried to pierce the darkness that was like a pall of black velvet over everything.

"Hear it?" inquired he who had first spoken.

"I somedings hears, too," spoke a guttural voice, with a foreign accent. "Might not it perhaps be-"

"Cut that talk, Iggy!" sharply commanded the first speaker. "Do you want the lieutenant dropping in on us!" And Corporal Robert Dalton cautiously moved nearer his fellow non-com., Sergeant Franz Schnitzel.

"Yes, not so loud," advised Schnitzel, who, in spite of his Teutonic name, was a thorough American, speaking with no trace of German accent. "Don't forget that the Boches may have listening parties out right in front of this trench, even though they may have information that we're going to rush 'em just before dawn."

"But what is that noise?" went on Bob. "It sounds like the relief coming, and yet we can't be going to be relieved so near the zero hour. It's impossible."

"Him one big word is," sighed Iggy, trying to adjust his Polish tongue to the strange language called English. "But thinks me nothing is like him in dis war!"

"Nothing is like what?" asked Schnitzel, the talk now being reduced to whispers on the part of all three.

"Him wot you said-repossible," said the Polish lad.

"Hush!" quickly exclaimed Bob, or Dal, as he was variously called by his comrades. "There is some one coming along the trench. If it's the Boches-"

This was enough to cause all three to grip their rifles more tightly. The sound of advancing footsteps, cautious as they were, was now more audible. Then came a whispered, but sharp:

"Halt! Who goes there!"

"Our lieut's on the job!" commented Bob.

Tensely the three who stood shoulder to shoulder in the darkness of the foremost trench, waiting, listened for the answer. It came, also in a whisper, but it carried to their ears.

"Sergeant Blaise and Sergeant Barlow, ordered to report here to you, sir."

"Oh golly! It's Blazes und Ruddy!" gasped Iggy.

"Cheese it!" cautioned Dal, for the Polish lad, in his enthusiasm, had spoken above a whisper, and even slight sounds carried far on this dark, still night.

"Advance, Sergeant Blaise to be recognized," came the order from the sentry, evidently acting on advice from the lieutenant in command of this part of the American trench.

There was a period of silent waiting on the part of the three who stood so close together, and then they heard their immediate commanding officer say:

"Pass on. You'll find your friends just beyond here."

A moment later the two newcomers were grasping hands in the dark with the three waiting ones.

"The five Brothers are united again," said Roger Barlow in a low voice.

"Sooner than I expected," commented Jimmy Blaise. "Now we can go over the top together."

"Over the top, may we all go together, in the wind and the rain or in damp, foggy weather," was Bob Dalton's contribution. He sometimes "perpetrated verse," as he dubbed it-a reminder of his cub reporter days.

"But say, Jimmy, how did you manage to get here?" asked Franz.

"Walked," was Jimmy Blaise's laconic answer. "They haven't had to carry me on a stretcher-at least not lately."

"Oh, you know what I mean," said Franz. "I mean, did you ask to be transferred from your station to this trench?"

"No, and that's the funny part of it," said Roger Barlow. "You know after we wrote our letters to-night-or, rather last night, for it's past twelve now-Blazes and I went back to our station."

"Yes, and we came here to wait for the zero signal," interpolated Dal.

"Well, we hadn't been out in our trench very long before we were relieved, and told to report to Lieutenant Dobson here," resumed Jimmy. "And when we remembered that this was where you three were stationed, say, maybe we weren't glad!"

"We are of a gladness also much!" whispered the Polish lad, and there was rather a pathetic note in his voice. "It is a goodness gracious to have you here!"

"Say, you can do more things to the English language than the Boches can on an air raid," chuckled Jimmy.

"Oh, well, it is of a much hardness to speak," sighed Iggy.

"Well, there's no fault to be found with your fighting, that's sure!" declared Roger. "Put her there, old pal!" and he clasped hands with his foreign "Brother."

"How's everything here?" asked Jimmy, when the five had taken such easy positions as were available in the narrow trench.

"We're all ready for the zero hour," replied Bob. "Everybody's on their tiptoes. I wish it was over-I mean here. This waiting is worse than fighting."

"It sure is," commented Franz. "But it won't be long now."

"What time do you make it?" asked Bob.

"Must be quite some after three," said Jimmy in a low voice. "It was nearly three when we got our orders to come here."

Roger took out a tiny pocket flash lamp, and, placing one finger over the bulb so that no rays would escape, held the dim glow over his wrist-watch.

"Quarter to four," he announced.

"Fifteen minutes more," sighed Dal.

"They'll seem like fifteen years, though, Bob," commented Jimmy.

A reaction, in the shape of silence, came upon the Khaki Boys-"five Brothers" as they called themselves, for they had become that since their participation in the World War. Tensely and quietly they waited in the trench for the hands of time to move to the hour of four. This was the "zero" period, when in a wave of men and steel, or lead and high explosives, the Americans would go over the top, in an endeavor to dislodge the Germans from a strong position.

Only a few hours before, after each had written a letter home, the missives having been sent back of the lines to be posted, the five lads had solemnly shaken hands at parting. The two sergeants-James Blaise and Roger Barlow-went to a distant part of the intricate trench system, while the two corporals, Robert Dalton and Ignace Pulinski and Sergeant Franz Schnitzel were together in a ditch near the middle of the barbed wire entanglements. And now, by a strange turn of fate, they were all together again, waiting for the final word that might send then all into eternity, or cause them to live horribly misshapen.

Something of this seemed to be felt by the five Khaki Boys as they stood in the mud and darkness waiting. For it had rained and the trench was slimy on the bottom in spite of the "duck boards."

"I wonder where we'll be this time to-morrow," mused Bob in a low voice.

"Oh, cut out the 'sob sister' stuff!" said Jimmy, a bit sharply.

"Isn't it gloomy enough here without that?"

They talked in the lowest whispers, and there were the murmurs of whispers on either side of them, for their comrades up and down the trenches felt the same strain, and relieved it by talking cautiously.

"I think we'll all be together again," said Roger, trying to speak cheerfully. "Somehow I've got a feeling that we'll come out of this all right."

"Me, I hat a dream," slowly remarked Iggy. "Of my dream I now know only one cling-und dot is my face was all bloody!"

"Oh, for the love of Mike! Don't croak!" exclaimed Jimmy.

"Silence down there!" came a sharp command. Jimmy had spoken too loudly, and the listening lieutenant had heard him.

Slowly the minutes dragged. Once again Roger carefully looked at his watch.

"What time is it?" whispered Franz.

"Five minutes of."

"Great Scott! Is it only ten minutes since you looked before! It seems like a lifetime. Whew! I'm all in a sweat!"

And yet the night was cool.

It was now as silent as death in the trench, and all about it. Earlier in the night there had been distant shelling, but this had ceased some time since.

Roger, unable to stand the strain longer, was about to flash his little pocket electric torch again when suddenly the stillness of the night was broken by a loud, shrill whistle.

"The signal!" cried Jimmy.

"The zero hour at last!" shrilled Roger in his tense excitement.

"Over the top!" yelled Bob. "Over the top!"

And just as the first streaks of the gray light of dawn began to pierce the blackness, the five Brothers, and their comrades up and down the trenches, leaped from their places of waiting with savage yells, and started for the German lines.

"I am glad! I am glad!" sang Iggy. "Now I can of the fight have a piece!"

He and Franz sprang out of the trench together. Side by side they raced over the rough ground, through the gaps cut in the barbed wire. A little in advance were Jimmy, Roger and Bob.

And now the big guns began their chorus. With boom and roar, roar and boom they sang their anthem of death. The rattle of rifles came in as a response, and all this was punctured by fiendish yells.

Then, too, from the German lines, came the answering song of the big guns. Though the attack had taken them by surprise, they were not slow in responding. With all that we think of the Boches we must give them credit for being savage, if unfair, fighters. They seldom declined a challenge, at least on the front lines.

"Come on! Come on!" yelled Jimmy.

"Up and at 'em! Up and at 'em!" snapped Roger.

"Wow! This is going to be some fight!" exulted Bob.

It was fast growing light, and the disappearing darkness was further illuminated by the flashes from hundreds of guns. Lines of khaki-clad Sammies were pouring from the American trenches now, in a mad rush for the Hun positions.

"Well, we're together yet, anyhow," mused Jimmy, as, looking back, he saw Bob, the Polish lad, and Franz coming on with a rush.

"Yes, we're together-yet," added Roger. They both had been firing madly at the distant gray lines of German soldiers in front of them. They had to yell into each other's ears to be heard above the din.

Suddenly the very earth seemed to drop away from under their feet. They felt the shock of rushing air. A big, high-explosive shell had dropped near them.

"That's bad!" shouted Jimmy, as the concussion died away. He looked behind him and saw, with horror, Iggy, the Polish Brother, literally being blown back through the air. Whether this was the effect of the big shell that had exploded, or whether it was caused by a smaller one going off a moment later, Jimmy could not tell. But he saw Iggy hurtling through the air, and the face of the Polish lad was covered with blood, as he himself had said it had been in his dream.