CHAPTER XV Strategy

WITH three men on watch and eight working like beavers, silently and effectively, the two partly excavated and stone-built shelters were completed in little more than two hours. Tomlinson, a brick mason and with a head for construction generally, was given direction of the work. From the fact that a little noise could not be avoided and indeed was desirable, the Huns were sure that the Yanks were alert. But with all quiet a little later it must have seemed more opportune for a night attack. That such would come the squad had no doubt and, therefore, it proceeded to put young Judson’s scheme into practice.

It was very certain that no attempt would be made by the enemy to penetrate the dense thickets on the up-hill side; it could never get through without lights. And so the squad began assembling a low breastworks of stones on the up-hill side and but a few yards beyond the rock basin. Forming a line behind this in order that every man’s rifle would command the basin, the Yanks set themselves to patiently waiting.

“A ol’ deer stand ain’t nothin’ to this fer expectin’,” Jennings remarked to Gill.

“More like waitin’ for bear,” was Gill’s reply.

“It must be fast and sure work, boys,” Herbert said. “Don’t stop to see 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. I tried 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 his hands. I’ll bet he was some surprised.” This was said lightly; then the boy’s voice lowered and he spoke thoughtfully, as might an old friend and present comrade to another at such a time:

“I think, old man, that in the football days back at Brighton we never could have imagined we would be together in anything quite like this.”

“It would have been just dreaming, Don, if we had. Football! Child’s play! And yet in many a game we had as much determination to win as we have now. Funny; isn’t it, how the human mind can be swayed by big and little things to show similar tendencies? Professor Galpard would call that ‘a most interesting study in comparative psychology, young gentlemen;’ wouldn’t he?”

“Just that and right he’d be, too,” Don replied. “But I think the determination to win out now is somewhat different from anything I have previously experienced; you’ll have to admit it has more pep to it than any game we ever got into.”

“I will admit that,” Herbert said.

“For back of it is that primal love of life. We are willing to sacrifice everything rather than miss the glory of fighting on until we’re done for, but yet, Herb, it’s kind of sweet to think of living to do something worth while; to make an effort to gain happiness. You know I’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’s a hard, cold fact that nobody could induce you to surrender,” argued Herb.

“Perfectly right, old man. If there were ten thousand Jerries, as the boys call them, going to rush us in ten minutes I would want to stay right 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 he was generally considered a softy; that he was so blamed gentle that every 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 to make him tell where Grant, his roommate, kept his money hid—a lot of it—and did Gaylord tell? Not he! He refused and made mental notes of the 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 to any occasion. And I guess that’s us, Don. I know I used to hate the idea of shooting any living thing, and I do now, but in war—and they are human beings, too!”

“I know, but human beings may be thugs and criminals, Herb. I’d rather much less shoot a robin or a bluebird than some murderers and cut-throats who deserve nothing else.”

“But, Don, granting that the Kaiser and his war ministers are no better than murderers, all of his soldiers are not thugs and cut-throats. Many of these fellows are kindly, fair-minded family chaps, living blamelessly at home and minding their own business; hard-working, enjoying their simple pleasures until war calls them and they have no choice but to enter into the killing of their fellowmen of another nation. Because they are the dupes of an unjust military system they must be driven into duties that may make them victims of others who have no personal desire to harm them, except that being at war makes it necessary. I tell you, Don, there is nothing more harshly unjust than war!”

“I guess you’re right. We ought to know, being in it. And yet, we wouldn’t be called pacifists, Herb.”

“Pacifists? Never! Our cause is just; our country had to fight and it is the duty of those who could fight to get busy for her.”

“Sure; just the same, I take it, Herb, as when a ruffian terrorizes a town. The police must go get him, stop him, or there’s no telling what harm he may do. Germany is that ruffian and our army is one of the policemen.” Don was nothing if not logical.

“You’ve got the right dope,” Herbert said. “And yet isn’t it a pity that there are ruffians and that those who must go get them are liable to get hurt; perhaps killed? Don, I think there should be no such thing as war; something should be brought about that would make war impossible.”

“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. What is 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 little and 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 the hillside. It seemed to grow a little plainer, be multiplied, to come nearer and was barely discernible. To every member of the squad it was not apparent that the enemy was approaching; a few of trained and keener senses knew it. Jennings and Gill detected the fact very soon after Kelly and Gerhardt came in. Said Jennings, presently, in something like a stage whisper:

“Most here, Lieutenant. Reckon this is goin’ to be a reg’lar circus fer all concerned, ez they say in court.”

“Sh!” “Hush!” and “Can the talk!” came in muffled accents from along the 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 all coming together. When you lay for deer——”

“I think we’d all better keep quiet now,” Herbert said, and the deer hunters subsided.

Several minutes passed without any apparent incident; if straining ears caught any sounds they were difficult to distinguish until a stone was displaced on the down hill side of the rock basin. This was hardly a signal, but if an accident it probably precipitated the ensuing action.

There was a sharp, shrill whistle; the yells as of a thousand imps of Satan suddenly filled the night with a fury of sound. With a rush the 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 entire platoon into the Americans’ stronghold. And then a transformation, almost as sudden as the charge, took place.

The yells died down, ceased. Exclamations followed, guttural expressions of evident surprise, announcement, chagrin, at finding the enemy gone. The natural question was: had the Americans quitted their refuge? And the answer was self-evident. Lights were thrown here and there about the rocky floor, into the stone shelters, out among the spruces. Under officers and men gathered in the very center, in hasty conference; twenty, or more, were thus beneath the dim light from a torch stuck in a limb of a spruce tree. Other torches in the hands of the Huns within or on the rocky sides of the basin suffused the place in a pale fight. Only a few men remained without the stronghold. And then, more suddenly than the coming of the platoon, the action, like a well rehearsed drama, took on a vastly changed aspect.

“Fire now!” yelled the shrill voice of Judson, from among the dense herbage ten yards up the hill; the burst of flame and the roar from eleven rifles almost drowned the last word. Nearly as many Huns went down; the second and third irregular volleys followed before the invaders 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 few wounded, most of them done for. Of the reinforced platoon not a dozen men got safely out of the place and disappeared in the darkness. There had not been a single shot fired in answer to the American fusillade.

What followed with the squad was partly mild elation; partly an immediate performance of duty. A detail went about to get the wounded into the shelters, giving them also first aid wherever possible. Another bunch became the undertakers.

Those Huns who had escaped from this virtual massacre in reprisal would, of course, make their way to their divisional headquarters to report and another and stronger body of men would be sent to make short work of the Americans, but all this would take time. Probably, too, hearing the firing at the rear, the officers in command of the new line would also send a reserve detachment to clear the matter up and such a combined force would simply mean annihilation of the squad.

Swiftly the duties of the Americans were performed. Half the night was yet to come. Wilson and Kelly begged leave to inter poor McNabb’s stiffened body and to mark the spot. Lieutenant Whitcomb, after another earnest talk with Don Richards and the corporal, called the men together again. They were cautioned against too much elation now, or self-assurance. Not one of them, Herbert knew, felt any real delight at the defense they had made, except that which was prompted by having once 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 a breaking up and an attempted escape, every man for himself, through the German lines and back to the American front? Could it be done? Would it be worth trying?

Some of the squad looked rather askance, some dubious, some shook their heads.