Part 40 (1/2)

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE ATTACK

It was three minutes to the attack or less, and the hurricane fire of the French artillery swept cyclonic over the German lines.

A thousand yards away, more or less, as the ground gave advantage, the French front-line trenches were filled with men awaiting the hour of 10--two minutes off now--to go over the top.

The German batteries, behind, knew that the time was near; but just when it would be, in two minutes, or in ten or in an hour-they did not know. When the fire of the French guns lifted, they did not know whether it would be to let the poilus a.s.sault, or whether it would be only to trick the German infantry and machine-gun men out of their tunnels and dugouts to meet the frightful fall of the French hurricane fire again.

But the German guns doubled their response now when the French trebled theirs.

One minute to 10 o'clock!

Chester, lying in a sh.e.l.l hole with, his bag, of grenades open before him, felt a shock on his back. A bit of sh.e.l.l or shrapnel had struck him, but he moved his arms and, except for the stinking pain, he was all right. He choked--and instantly held his breath. A bit of metal, flying from somewhere, had pierced his gas mask. The tear was right before his mouth. He thrust the fabric into his mouth and bit it, holding it tight between his lips. That patched the hole; there was no other. He breathed again without choking.

Ten o'clock!

From over the German front-line trenches, a half mile or more forward, the storm of the French artillery fire had lifted--lifted to add to the cyclone of sh.e.l.ls sweeping the reserve lines. The German star-sh.e.l.ls, rising and floating and glaring constellations, spread their garish light over the front, and showed the French charging forward in the open.

They rushed onward, few falling, almost unopposed. For the Germans in the front-line trenches--those who had not been withdrawn under that hurricane of sh.e.l.ls-were dead or crouched down, stunned, and in stupor.

The French took the advanced trenches, the second supporting, and came on.

Now, from the ”pill-boxes”--the few scattered points for machine-gun support which the artillery had not found--resistance came. The French, though fewer, came on.

Before Chester, lying with his bag of grenades open at the edge of a sh.e.l.l crater, the ground suddenly opened and, a great causeway gaped down into the earth. Where solid ground had seemed to be, men were rus.h.i.+ng forth--German infantrymen with rifles and bayonets fixed to the counter-attack.

Off to the right twenty yards another such gap yawned in the ground.

And Chester, rising, hurled a missile from the bag he had carried.

It burst among the emerging men; he hurled another. A leap of blue flame, which flared high and blinding, followed its detonation. He hurled at the other causeway, first halting by a bomb the out rush of men; and thus he marked the mouth of this second causeway the next instant by a sheet of blue game.

Off to the side, 200 yards, blue flames shot up and glared. Hal was alive, that meant--at least, he had been alive a moment ago, calling sh.e.l.ls upon himself from the French batteries, as well as attack from the Germans coming from the ground.

For the sh.e.l.ls already were arriving; one burst just beside the great causeway and blocked it.

The sh.e.l.l annihilated the men rus.h.i.+ng at Chester. He rolled over, deaf and unseeing. Sh.e.l.ls were coming true and straight. An aeroplane appeared overhead so close down that Chester could see it plainly in the light of the star-sh.e.l.ls when his sight came back. Aeroplanes were guiding the guns and dropping aerial torpedoes.

One landed in the mouth of that other causeway and blew it out of shape, and this was the last thing which, for a long time, Chester remembered.

When Chester opened his eyes, he lay on a bed with the whitest of sheets. For a moment he could remember nothing, then the details of the great battle carve back to him.

His first thought, naturally, was of Hal. He sat up in bed. There, in another bed in the center of what Chester now recognized as a hospital tent, lay Hal, his head swathed in bandages.

”He's safe, anyhow,” said Chester to himself.

The lad pa.s.sed a hand across his head, and ascertained that his head also was wrapped tightly, and that there were more bandages around his body.

”Wonder what's the matter with me?” he muttered. ”I don't remember being hit, and here I am all wrapped up like a baby doll. I must be in pretty bad shape.”

Nevertheless, now that his mind had been eased regarding Hal's safety, Chester soon closed his eyes, again and slept.