CHAPTER XVI Pluck

“I GOT a objection to quittin’ any o’ me buddies.” Jennings was always the first to announce an opinion and it ever rang true.

“Sho! Me, too. I’ll stick t’ him, if all the rest leave!” Gill exclaimed vehemently, loyal beyond measure to the man he loved to banter.

“Lieutenant Richards and I feel the same way,” Herbert said, “but we want to do what is the best not only for ourselves, but for our country. If we stick here, we’ll likely stay forever; if we try to break through tonight some of us may be successful and can go on helping to lick the Huns. Perhaps, though——”

“Let’s all stick,” Farnham suggested. “We can do just as much here. Even if they get us, we can get a lot of them and the fewer Heinies there are, the sooner they’ll get what’s coming to them.”

“You bet, Lieutenant, they won’t get us without we do up a lot more of them!” Kelly declared.

“It seems to be the general desire, Herb, to stick,” Don said.

“Stick we will, then. Back to the mines!” Herbert turned to the rock basin. “Wilson, better set up that Browning again. Corporal, detail two men to fix up some comfortable beds out here on the ridge and four others to make a couple of rough litters to carry these wounded men. We’ve got to get them out of here. Don—you’re a doctor’s son—can you see what these fellows need and look after them a little?”

“Sure. They all have first aid kits. I’ll pick out those who are the least hurt and get them to looking after the others. Corporal, I’ll be one to fix up a hospital. Who—? Gerhardt? Come on, then, young fellow; we’ll have these poor chaps comfortable as possible in a jiffy.”

But one of the wounded Germans was far gone, with a bullet evidently through the bottom of his right lung. He was coughing blood and slowly bleeding to death. Another was terribly ill from a shot through the abdomen; eventually he would die. Of the other seven one was blinded, another had a part of his jaw shot away, the rest had injuries to legs, arms, shoulders, a hip. And one was a medical student, which fact he made known to Don in mixed German and bad English, the former of which the boy understood a little, or guessed at it.

The student was genuinely grateful for the care that Don insisted that the wounded men must have and for the help in getting his own shoulder bandaged. Then, beneath an improvised cabin of poles, with thatched roof of spruce boughs, the embryo surgeon went to work with one hand. Jennings, meanwhile, somewhat against his will, had made a trip to the spring run and refilled the water bucket for the wounded foes and returned to fill the empty canteens of the squad.

“Didn’t see nary Jerry on the way,” he announched. “Reckon we got ’em scared off.”

“Sho! You’ll find out about ’em bein’ scared a bit later. Trouble with you is your swelled head,” Gill asserted.

“I’ll swell your head with my foot if you don’t go away from me!” the big mountaineer threatened.

“If you sling your old hoof this a-way, I’ll jest bite it off,” Gill chuckled.

The two went on working side by side, still further strengthening the defenses. Presently they were seen, with arms over each other’s shoulders and carrying their beloved rifles, sitting on the stone wall, swapping experiences about shooting deer and bear.

During the rapid work about the stronghold, Lieutenant Whitcomb had gone out on picket duty, choosing the valley side of the hill. The corporal was on the hillside above. The orders then to the squad were that all who could must get some sleep before morning. The food had been exhausted, but the boys, though ravenously hungry, made no complaint. Some coarse rye bread, found in the Kits of the dead Huns, did not go very far nor give much satisfaction. Into the shelters several of the boys went and to sleep almost immediately; others were too wakeful to think of closing their eyes. Jennings and Gill, questioned as to their need of rest, declared they were too empty to sleep and being used to long night vigils when hunting, they preferred to chat awhile.

“Ever go on a coon hunt, son?” Jennings asked Kelly. The latter had never experienced that pleasure.

“Me, I’ve been coon hunting three nights straight an’ follered the plow all day between,” Gill said.

“Huh! Four nights straight fer me,” was Jennings’ boast.

“Sho! ’Course you’d lie to beat the world’s record for stayin’ up. Jen, listen: I’m an awful good liar myself, but you make me jealous.”

“Fact, you runt! Four nights. Me an’ my brother Ben. You knowed Ben an’ you kin ask him.”

“Now? Where is he?”

“Back home; when you go back——”

“Mebbe I won’t, so I better do it now, only my holler’s a little wore out tryin’ to talk sense into you and I reckon Ben wouldn’t hear me ’bout four thousand miles.” Then the two went on bantering over some trifling incident.

Herbert moved slowly across to where the German wounded were ensconced and was accosted by Don as the latter was leaving.

“I suppose human nature doesn’t differ much the world over,” Don said. “Those poor chaps in there are a queer lot, nevertheless. Some of them seem grateful for what I was trying to do for them; one of them caught and tried to kiss my hand. Another, who is very bad, kept talking to me and when I held my torch and stooped over to say something that he might understand for sympathy, I’m hanged if he didn’t reach up and try to strike me and he spit at me, too, like an angry cat. It made the young surgeon so mad that he slapped the fellow’s face; then apologized to me most profusely. And the string of German talk—ugh! I’ll never want to hear a word of it again when I get back home.”

“You won’t ever hear much of it, I’m thinking,” said Herbert.

“Why, do you think we’re not going to get out?”

“I was meaning that the language is going to be very unpopular at home for a long while.”

“How about Professor Meyer at school?”

“Just before I left I heard that he had left; was fired. They traced some propaganda to him, and other things.”

“Hurrah for old Brighton!” Don said.

“And may we enjoy her bright halls once more, Don.”

“Amen! But it’s a toss-up; eh, Herb?”

“It must be getting near morning now. Have you had any sleep?”

“No; I don’t need it. I couldn’t go to sleep. But how about you? I’ll take this watch and you can go up and turn——”

“Listen! Firing. Away to the south.”

“Southeast, too. Must be all along the line. And more and more. Herb, is it a barrage?”

“What else could it be? Is another drive on—the one that was soon to come off? Oh, Don, if it is, there’s a chance for us. If it is not, then before long——”

“I know it’s serious, old man, and I guess you and the corporal see it clearer than the rest of us. But—it’s a barrage in full force and the drive will follow.”

“Look! It’s getting gray over yonder; morning. Let’s go up and get the fellows awake and in their places. If the Heinies are chased back again, and they will be, some of them may want to stop on the way and take another fling at us. I wish we had more ammunition; there are barely fifty cartridges left to each man. I have about seventy, but I must have been a little more careful.”

“Slower and surer, Herb. I tried to follow your example. There are about seventy in my box; poor McNabb’s. How about pistol ammunition?”

“Plenty, I guess, Don. We must fall back on that at close quarters. Oh, hear the music of that cannonade!”

“I hope they don’t drop any long ones over on us, Herb.”

“They won’t. The barrage is not much good in the woods, nor are shells. East of the Aire in the more open country, you know, it’s different. What we hear in the south is the Hun machine guns and our rifle fire. Our divisions are attacking again in force all along the line. The boys are at it, Don; they’re at it and they’ll get here!”

The young commander’s joy and enthusiasm were shared by all the others of the squad except Jennings.

“Lieutenant, we’re havin’ a right good time here, ain’t we? Nobody hurt much, except McNabb, and laws! most ev’ry year some feller gets killed even huntin’ deer. Some fool takes him fer a ol’ buck an’ lets fly. Well, me an’ Gill, my buddy, we’re havin’ a little fun makin’ these here Huns wish they’d stayed home an’ if——”

“Sho! You talk for yourself, Jen,” Gill said, for the first time deserting his friend. “I told you, Lieutenant, that the big boob wasn’t right; he’s got bog mud in his head ’stead o’ brains. Thinks he can lick the whole German Army.”

“I kin, too, if they’ll give me a chanct t’ hunt a tree an’ then come at me one at a time in front,” asserted Jennings.

“You couldn’t lick a postage stamp if it was sick a-bed,” Gill muttered, evidently angry because the big mountaineer didn’t seem to know good news from bad.

There was no levity in Gill’s manner nor speech and the others appeared to share his feelings, though Jennings’ statements generally caused a laugh. However joyful the squad may have felt over the resounding evidence of a new drive, they all sensed that the final hour or so before their probable delivery must hold for them the question of survival. They knew that their leader’s foreboding was correct; they would be furiously attacked by some of the re-established Huns, and in greater numbers than before, for then men had been needed to hold the line elsewhere.

Therefore, it was a quiet and serious lot of young fellows that looked to their weapons and lay behind the rocks of the little basin as the continued sound of firing came slowly nearer and nearer.