Fighting in France Part 7

A moment later the order came. The soldiers debouched from the trench and in long lines advanced down the hill. From the German positions the French formation gave more or less the impression of one man every fifty yards charging at them.

Almost immediately, however, their appearance was greeted by a storm of shot and sh.e.l.l. Guns of all caliber belched their deadly missiles at the charging French. The attackers quickened their pace and breaking into a run, raced down the hill.

At the bottom of the incline were numberless great pits blasted out of the ground by the prodigious explosions. Into these the attackers dove pell-mell and a halt was called for a few moments' rest.

Leon, Jacques and Earl found themselves in one of these, along with five other men of their company.

"Look at those two big howitzers," exclaimed Leon pointing to two big German guns lying half-imbedded in the earth.

"Where are the men to attend to them?" queried Earl.

"Ask our gunners," advised Jacques grimly. "Perhaps they can tell you."

"What do you mean?" demanded Earl somewhat puzzled by this remark.

"Simply this," said the young Frenchman. "One or two of our big sh.e.l.ls made direct hits on this battery and the gunners are not in existence anymore."

"I see," said Earl simply.

As these eight soldiers sat in the pit and waited, their spirits began to rise and they seemed to forget the horrors they had been through and their present danger. They even began to make jokes and laugh over certain incidents of the fight. The thing that amused them most was the recollection of the German prisoners shuffling off with their hands in their pockets to keep up their trousers. One of the men had even had time to pick one German's pocket of a package of cigarettes.

He pa.s.sed them around with great glee and soon every one was smoking except Earl, Leon and Jacques. They had never acquired the habit and knowing that they were better off without it had no desire to start.

Their main desire was to keep themselves in perfect physical trim.

As they sat there talking the sh.e.l.ls flew over their heads in a steady stream. In the great crater, however, they were comparatively safe unless some stray sh.e.l.l should chance to land directly in the hollow where they were seated.

"And if one ever does," exclaimed Jacques, "it's good-by to us."

"Why so?" demanded Earl. "In a hole as large as this we might get nothing worse than a spattering of dirt."

"Yes," said Jacques, "but don't you know that there are probably several thousand rounds of ammunition buried under here? If there should happen to be an explosion, what do you think would happen to us?"

"Well there wouldn't be enough to make much of a fuss over, I guess,"

remarked Leon with a grim smile.

A man suddenly appeared on the rim of the pit and slid over the edge.

"Ho, Coudert," one of the soldiers greeted him.

"Got orders?" asked another.

"Yes," said Coudert who acted as order-bearer in the battalion.

The men crowded about him, eager to learn what their next move was to be. Coudert spoke rapidly in French and Jacques translated his message to Earl and Leon. The two young Americans spoke that language fairly well but when it came to a question of orders they always had Jacques interpret them if possible, so that there should be no mistake.

"We are to leave here," said Jacques, "and go on down to the bottom of the hill where we are to dig shelters for ourselves. We cannot go forward until our artillery has had a chance to do a little more execution."

"Then we'll probably have to stay out all night," remarked Leon.

"I should not be surprised," said Jacques simply.

"That'll be nice," exclaimed Leon with a wry smile.

"Coudert says," continued Jacques, "that that trench we just left back there on the hill is half full of reinforcements for us."

"We can use them," said Earl shortly.

"Ready," came the order, and with a final adjustment of his equipment every man prepared himself for the dash that was to come.

The men scrambled up the sides of the giant crater. From the pits on both sides of them the other sections were doing the same thing.

"Spread out," was the order. "Advance in open formation."

With several feet between them the French dashed down the hill. The German machine-guns barked at them angrily and the spiteful crack of the rifles could be heard now and then above the din of the cannonade.

Two hundred yards from the enemy's positions they flung themselves down upon the ground and began digging furiously. Every man had a shovel in his equipment and he made the dirt fly.

In an incredibly short time a parapet a little over a foot high was thrown up and every man's knapsack was placed to keep the dirt in position so that they were fairly safe against infantry and machine-gun fire. This done, every soldier then began to dig a little individual ditch for himself. Three feet deep and two feet wide and long enough to lie down in they furnished excellent protection against anything but a direct hit by one of the enemy's sh.e.l.ls.

"h.e.l.lo, Jacques," called Leon. "How do you feel?"

"Fine. Do you know our section didn't lose a man on the way down the hill?"

"That so? Good for us."

"Where's Earl?"

"The other side of you, I think. Yell at him."

"Hey, Earl," called Jacques.

"h.e.l.lo," came the answer. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to know if you were all right."

"Surely. I don't see the point in these piles of dirt in between the ditches though. It seems to me that the dirt would do more good in front."

"We've got enough in front," said Jacques. "You'll see the use in that dirt in between us if a sh.e.l.l should ever land squarely in one of the ditches."

Scarcely had he spoken when a 105-millimeter sh.e.l.l dropped directly into the ditch next to Earl's. It was occupied by a man named Dumont and he, poor fellow, was blown to atoms. Earl, however, thanks to the "dirt" he despised so much was untouched.

"Their fire is slackening," remarked Jacques.

"Yes," agreed Leon. "There seems to be only one battery firing at us now."

"That shows how good our artillery is," said Jacques proudly. "That one battery that's left would have been silenced long ago too if it hadn't been hidden pretty well."

"How do you know it's hidden?"