The Big Push

Susan Nipper was talking very loud, very fast, and she had need. The Germans had started something toward the American lines and gun pits—a cloud of something bluish, greenish, whitish and altogether very ominous. It was a gas attack.

On the other side of the hill Susan's sister, and still farther beyond another one of the same capable family, were also talking loud and fast and very much to the purpose, so that wherever their well-timed shells reached the gas-emitting guns and machinery the terrible clouds, after a moment, ceased to flow out and the atmosphere and the sloping ground became clearer and clearer.

Then, all that the American boys had to do was to put on their gas masks for several hours and burn anti-gas fumes, the Boches having been put to a lot of trouble and much expense for very little gain; one or two careless fellows were for a time overcome. After that there was a wholesome contempt for the gas on the part of the boys from over the ocean.

But Susan kept right on speaking her mind. As the gas men retreated from the field in a terrible hurry they got all that was coming to them and many had come on that did not go off at all, unless upon litters.

Then, Susan paid her respects to aircraft of several kinds that had come over, not on scouting duty, but to drop their bombs here and there. There was a regular fleet of aircraft planes, or it might seem better to call a bunch of them a flotilla, or perhaps a flytilla. Anyway, they made an impressive sight, though not all coming near enough for Susan to reach.

Most of the enemy airplanes went on, despite the guns aimed at them from the earth, until, sighting a number of French machines coming out to do battle, they strategically fell back over the German lines, thus to gain an advantage if they or their enemies were forced to come to the ground.

The Americans had not before witnessed such a battle in the air as that. The birdmen turned, twisted, dived, mounted, maneuvered to gain advantage, French and German being much mixed up and now and then spitting red tongues of flame, singly or in rapid succession, at each other.

Two machines were injured and came to earth, one German, that descended slowly; the other French, that tumbled over and over, straight down. Then two other German planes were forced to descend, and, finally, others coming from far behind the lines, the French retreated, being much outnumbered; they had to be outnumbered to retreat from the hated Boches. And the Boches did not follow them up.

This had all happened soon after daylight, the different incidents following each other rapidly. It was hardly eight o'clock when Susan Nipper let fly her last shell at the airplane. Before noon a messenger arrived at the pit, and Corporal Whitcomb was sent for.

"My boy, they must be aware of you back there at headquarters. You know you have been mentioned in dispatches a number of times as resourceful, altogether fearless, capable in leadership and——"

"I don't know how to thank you sufficiently—" Herbert began, but the lieutenant shut him off.

"Don't try it, then! Merely justice, fair dealing, appreciation, recognition of worth. We aim toward that in the army; military standards, you know. Well, as I was going to say, there is a general advance ordered, in conjunction with our Allies. We want to push the Huns out of their trenches and make them dig in farther on, somewhere. If the attempt is successful, the engineers will place Susan in a new pit somewhere ahead. But the main thing you want to know is what your duty will be."

The lieutenant settled back with a half smile; half an expression of deep concern.

"They expect us fighting men in the army, and in the navy, too, I suppose, to have or to show not one whit of sentiment. We are expected to be no more subject to such things than the cog-wheels of a machine. But they can no more teach us that than they can teach us not to be hungry, or to want sleep. I have begun to think, of late, that they don't expect us to sleep, either.

"Well, my boy, if you would like to see an example of military brevity I will show it to you. Ahem! Corporal, report to-night to regimental headquarters, with your company; Captain Leighton, Advanced Barracks. By order of Colonel Walling.

"But hold on! Here's a little of the absence of military brevity. It appears that they so admire your record back there at headquarters that they have picked you out for almost—no doubt you think me pessimistic, or a calamity howler—for almost certain injury or death. My boy, I wanted you to stay here with me until we are relieved, which will be soon, but now they are going to take you away from me. An old man like me—I am getting on toward fifty—gets to have a lot of feeling in such matters. He likes to think of his military family, of his boys, and becomes more than usually attached to some of them. But let that pass.

"They're going, I am told, to put you on special scouting duty before the drive. Of course, you'll go and glory in it, but, my boy—Well, good luck to you; good luck! If you get out all right, look me up when we are all relieved. Look us all up; the men will all wish it."

Herbert's leave taking of the pit platoon and the squads in the adjoining trench, that night, was one that was more fitting for a lot of school cronies than hardened soldiers bent upon the business of killing. But human nature is human all the world over and under pretty much all conditions.

That night, in the half light of a moon darkened by thick clouds, and in a cold, steady rain, Corporal Whitcomb journeyed with a patrol and on an empty ammunition lorry back again toward the rear, though not far. After bunking in the one empty cot in the barracks of a former National Guard battalion and messing with same, he reported to Captain Leighton, of his own company. He was received with a more than cordial handshake.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Whitcomb, especially after what we have heard concerning you. And you are the last man of your squad; the one survivor! Well, I learn that was not because you tried to save your skin. We have lost a good many men; sniping is one of the very hazardous things. The plan now is to form new squads as fast as we can get the men in from the trenches and they will be assigned to new points, mostly. You will be given eight other men, but we want you for special duty. The British have sent us a tank; one of these new-fangled forts on wheels, or belts, or whatever they call them, and it is to blaze a certain trail, to be followed by an armored motor car in which your squad will travel right into the enemy's lines. The car has trench bridges to lay down anywhere. Reaching an advanced spot, hereafter to be indicated and where a mine is to be laid, you will guard this from attack until a counter-drive; then fall back and set the mine off at a signal."

"Are we to carry any other weapons but——"

"Only your rifles and pistols, and, of course, gas masks. No packs. There will be tools to dig you in and the car will carry all supplies. Perhaps the spot will not be attacked at all; perhaps it will be overwhelmed at once. In the latter case you are to use your own judgment about the setting off of the mine. You want to hold the enemy back until a large number attack you."

The general drive was ordered. The Allied armies were to attack almost simultaneously and over the frozen ground of winter, rain or shine, snow or blow. The firing of big guns and smaller guns from the Cambrai sector to the Aisne indicated to friend and foe alike what must be the plan. After some hours of this, when half of those in the German trenches had been made nearly crazy by the incessant hammering and many had been killed, the great push was on.

But the Germans were wise to the purpose. There had been other mighty drives launched against them, some to force them back a few miles and to win their first, second and even third line trenches; some to win nothing at all; some to be pushed back a little here and there, in turn, showing what a deadlock it is for armies of great nations to battle with those of others long and splendidly prepared.

But this was a new thing in drives; it was fully simultaneous; it was launched in the early part of winter when the ground was frozen hard to a depth of several inches, to be broken up by the tramp of men over certain spots, the dragging of heavy ordnance, the armored cars, tanks and motor trucks, until in spots there was a sea of mud, holding back the advance to some extent, but still bravely overcome by pluck and persistence.

And there were several new schemes launched, largely the result of American strategy and suggestion.

Herbert knew all of the men in his new squad; they had all qualified as snipers at Camp Wheeler and otherwise he approved of them. A bunch of athletic chaps, skilled with rifles and revolvers and having already known the baptism of fire, were to be relied on in any emergency.

Not one of them ever forgot that motor-truck ride. They forged along over rough and rocky ground, through muddy and oozy ground, even through bits of swamp and, following the great, lumbering tank a hundred yards ahead, they plowed through once prosperous farmyards, along the street of a ruined and deserted village, seeing only a cat scamper into a lone cellar, through orchards, that had once blossomed and fruited, but with every tree now cut down by the dastardly Boches.

Finally, still following the iron monster that was now spitting flame, they crossed the empty trenches of their Allies, putting into use the grooved bridge planking on which their wheels ran as over a track, and then came to the first line trenches of the enemy. Whereupon things began to get interesting.

On either side was orderly pandemonium; a concentrated Hades with motive, its machinery of death carried out with precision, method, exactness of detail, except where some equally methodical work of the enemy overthrew the plans for a time.

Long lines of infantry in open formation were running forward, pitching headlong to lie flat and fire, then up again and breaking into trenches, shooting, stabbing with bayonets, throwing grenades and after being half lost to sight in the depths of the earth for a time, emerging again beyond, perhaps fewer in numbers, but still sweeping on.

Here and there were machine-gun squads struggling along to place their deadly weapons and then raking the retreating or the standing enemy with thousands of deadly missiles, sometimes themselves becoming the victims of a like annihilating effort or the bursting of a well-directed enemy shell.

Herbert rode with the driver; and before them and all around them the heavy sheet-iron sides and top of the armored truck protected them from small gun fire.

It was a risky thing to peep out of the gun holes in the armor to witness the battle, but this most of the boys did, the driver by the necessity of picking his way, and Herbert's eyes were at the four-inch aperture constantly.

Just behind him Private Joe Neely knelt at a side porthole, and next to him came young Pyle and Bill Neely, brother of the before-mentioned Joe. Cartright, Appenzeller, and Wood occupied the other side, back of the driver. Finley and Siebold lay on the straw in the center and hugged the water keg and the boxes of explosives and food to keep them from dancing around at too lively a rate on their comrades' feet.

The going was as rough as anything that a motor truck had probably ever tackled, especially a weighty vehicle of this kind. It was well that the car had an engine of great power, an unbreakable transmission and a driver that knew his business.

On swept the great push, seemingly as irresistible, for a time, as the waves of the ocean, but presently to cease on the shore of human endurance; and the battle, so called, came to an end almost as quickly as it had begun five hours before.

Over the ground won the Americans and the Allies generally were digging in anew, or utilizing and refortifying the conquered German trenches. Once again were the great armies to face each other across a new No Man's Land the old area having been reclaimed.

But the active fight was not over, for then came the enemy's counter-thrusts here and there, which, as important as winning the battle proper, must be checked by every means possible. It was the plan of the American commander and his staff to teach the Boches a lesson in more ways than one.

Along the British sector the tanks, as formerly, had done wonderful work; the one tank with the American troops had also fulfilled its mission. It had ridden, roughshod, over every obstacle, crushing down barbed wire entanglements, pushing its way across trenches, its many guns dealing death to the foe on every side. In its wake and not far behind it the armored truck had followed faithfully the trail thus blazed by the tank.

At one spot, in line with a bend of the first line trench, a Hun machine-gun had let go first at the tank and then at the truck, doing no damage to the former. The boys in the latter hardly knew at first what to make of the direct hitting and glancing bullets that pattered on the iron sides, but they took quick notice of one that came through a port-hole and rebounded from the inside. It caused some commotion.

"Hey there, you chump! You don't need to dodge now; it's done for!" shouted Appenzeller, addressing young Pyle.

"Sho! Ye might think it was a hoop snake come in here 'stead o' nothin' but a old piece o' lead," remarked Cartright, and there was a general laugh.

"What's the matter with Joe? Here, man, do you feel sick? Say, Corporal, reckon he's got it!" called Finley, with one hand trying to hold Neely from falling backward, the fellow also trying to hold himself up.

Herbert swung round; Bill Neely was beside his brother and talking to him:

"Say, Joe, are you hurt? How, Joe? When? Just now? Blast them devils! Mebbe you ain't bad, Joe; you only think so. Lots do."

"Stop the car, driver! Here's where we leave the track of the tank, anyway, I take it," ordered Herbert, getting down to business. "Where are you hurt, Neely?"

For answer the poor fellow placed his hand on his back; then suddenly fell limp in his brother's arms. Bill began to mumble over him.

"He isn't dead, Bill; he's just fainted," said Herbert. "We must get him back, Joe, somehow, to a hospital. But there are no ambulances following us this closely. And we must go on, whatever happens; those are our orders."

"Corporal, let me take him back!" Bill Neely made the request pleadingly. "I'll get him there somehow and then I'll come back and find you. I'll find you. I've got to put some lead into them Huns to get square for Joe, if he dies! Will you, Corporal?"

"Go ahead, then, Bill. Slide that bolt and push that door open, Wood, and help get Joe down. Poor fellow! I hope he isn't badly hurt. Go straight for that bunch of pines, Bill, and you'll be pretty safe. If you come back bear off to the right a little from here and you'll find us pretty soon. So long, old man!"

Bill Neely with his brother humped over his shoulder, started back, as directed; the great armored car went on. Herbert told Wood to peep out back and watch Bill's progress, if he could, and the car progressed, as indicated by his orders. He had reached what he believed was a proper place, hardly two hundred yards from where they had stopped; he was ordering all out, the supplies unloaded and the driver to return, when Wood called to him:

"They're both gone! Wiped out! Shell! It hit right at Bill Neely's feet! I couldn't see anything but legs and arms and things."

"Killed?"

"Done for."

"Poor chaps! The only two boys in the family, too. Their poor old mother'll miss them."

"Know them, Pyle?"

"Sure; since we were kids. Just across the street."

"Well, men; it's terrible, as we all know, but we've got to hustle if we don't all want to suffer the same fate. Get out those trench tools, Appenzeller, and give me a pick! We've got to dig in quick!"