The Khaki Boys over the Top Part 3

"What's the matter--hit?" cried Roger anxiously. And this well might have been the case, since, though there was a lull in the fighting immediately in front of Company E, there were plenty of stray bullets, not to mention pieces of shrapnel and bits of high explosive sh.e.l.ls, that might have reached the crawling lad.

"Hit? No, not yet," answered Jimmy. "I'm going to try, if it's safe, to make a little better progress than this, though. This is too slow.

Poor Iggy may be dead before we get to him."

"Probably is," commented Roger.

"Oh, can the gloomy stuff!" snapped Jimmy. Afterward he admitted that his nerves were pretty well strained. In fact that was the condition of all of them. "You're almost as bad as Franz," went on Jimmy.

"Well, I don't want to be too hopeful," returned Roger. "But what are you going to do, anyhow?"

"This," answered his chum. He drew his rifle up close beside him, took off his tin hat, stuck it on the end of his bayonet, and cautiously raised it well above the ground. It received no bullets, as might have been expected.

"Come on, we can run for it!" cried Jimmy.

"What makes you think so?" asked his chum. "Didn't the lieutenant tell us to lie on our faces?"

"Yes, but that was before the fighting ceased in front of us. Fritz is having all he can attend to on either wing of our advance, and, for the time being we're not being molested. If the Huns were in any strength directly ahead of us, or to our rear as we are now, that tin helmet would look like a sieve by this time. It's safe enough to get up and run for it. And we've got to hustle if we want to save Iggy."

"All right, just as you say!" murmured Roger, as he began to rise.

It was not without a natural feeling of timidity that he cautiously elevated himself first to his knees and then to his feet. As for Jimmy, he had impulsively stood upright.

"Come on!" he yelled above the din of battle. "Come on!"

He started on a run over the sh.e.l.l-torn ground, with what remained of the barbed wire entanglements here and there.

"I'm coming!" answered Roger.

He expected any moment to receive a bullet, or to be utterly blasted from the earth by some terrible sh.e.l.l explosion. And Jimmy confessed, later, that he felt the same fear. But these fears did not hold back the Khaki Boys from continuing on to the rescue of their comrade--if he was in a condition to be rescued.

"Where's the place?" cried Roger to his chum, when they had covered several yards in a hasty rush toward the rear.

"Must be somewhere around here," answered Jimmy, looking about him. That part of No Man's Land where they then were, seemingly was deserted by all save the dead. If there had been any injured they had been taken well back behind the lines by stretcher bearers.

For a time Roger and Jimmy feared they might be considered deserters, coming toward the rear as they were doing, and away from the fighting, and aside from mere scratches neither of them showing any wounds.

Though if they had been hurt that would have been an excuse for making a retreat.

But no one observed the two--there was no one to observe them, in fact. They were some distance from their own trenches, and immediately back of them--toward the German lines--there had been a division in the fighting, so that the battle waged on either wing, as it were.

"Look in all the sh.e.l.l holes!" directed Jimmy. "The sh.e.l.l burst right in front, or to one side of poor Iggy. He was blown into a sh.e.l.l hole, of that I'm pretty sure."

"There's a hole--a big one, too," said Roger. "But there's no one in it--only dead!" and he turned away, for some of those dead were comrades who, the night before, had been in the trenches with him and his chums.

But the Khaki Boys were hardened to scenes like this now. Too many times had they seen the dead and dying. There was no time to nurse one's feelings.

"Come on! Come on!" cried Jimmy feverishly. "We've got to be quick!

Iggy may bleed to death if he's hurt anything like I think he is."

"Yes, and this place may be a regular lead hail storm, soon," added Roger. "I can't see why our company was held up! Why couldn't we keep on giving the Huns what they deserve?"

"Orders are orders, my boy, we learned that long ago. And when the lieut. wouldn't let us go on, there must be some reason for it. I'm just as anxious to give Fritz his medicine as anyone. h.e.l.lo, there!

Did you hear that queer noise!"

"Yes. Sounded like a groan. Listen!"

The tide of battle was away from them now, and they were able, above the distant roar, to hear ordinary sounds, which had not been the case when the attack started. The sun was well up now, and the day gave promise of being a fine one--hot, too. And on such a scene the sun shone! Death and devastation brought on by human beasts!

"There it is again!" cried Roger, "It sure was a groan."

"Somebody around here is alive, at any rate," said Jimmy.

There were a number of terribly mangled bodies near them, and it was hardly believable that the groan came from any of those poor forms of what had once been living men.

"Over here!" cried Roger suddenly. "The sound came from down in that sh.e.l.l hole!"

He pointed to one, on the sides of which was fresh earth, showing that the explosive had recently fallen.

"There's no one down in that hole," declared Roger, taking a look.

"Yes there is!" a.s.serted Jimmy. "See that shoe sticking out!"

He pointed to what seemed but a mound of dirt and stones in the very bottom of the sh.e.l.l crater. And Roger observed that the dirt did not altogether cover a leg and foot. An army shoe was sticking out.

"Come on!" cried Jimmy, and the next moment he was sliding down the side of the sh.e.l.l hole. Roger followed, and the two began to roll aside the larger stones that had fallen on the body. The Khaki Boys leaned their rifles against the side of the crater, and took off their gas masks, from where they lining ready for use, in order to work more freely.

"The wind isn't right for a gas attack," murmured Roger, as he temporarily deprived himself of this necessary protection.

As the boys feverishly worked to uncover the form they heard another loud groan coming from beneath the dirt.

"It doesn't seem possible anyone can be alive--like this," panted Roger as he labored at a heavy stone.

"Don't talk--work!" snapped Jimmy. "If he's alive, whoever it is, he needs help quick."

"Wonder if it's Iggy?" went on Roger.

Jimmy's hands flew as do the legs of a dog when he is digging out a buried bone, nor was Roger behind his comrade. They labored at that part of the pile of earth and stones which covered the face and head of the unfortunate soldier.

"There--he can breathe if he's alive still!" gasped Jimmy as he straightened up after having lifted aside a board that had fallen over the face of the Sammie they were trying to rescue. And it was this board that undoubtedly saved the unfortunate from dying by suffocation.

For the piece of plank had fallen in such a way, being supported on either end by resting on two stones on either side of the man's head, that it kept the dirt and stones away from the face.

And that it was a face which they had uncovered, was not at all certain to Roger and Jimmy at first. For so covered with blood, streaks of dirt and powder stains was the countenance that it resembled nothing human.

"He's alive--whoever he is!" declared Jimmy, for the unfortunate was observed to breathe--and breathe deeply as the air came in more abundantly to the parted lips.

Roger began digging in the dirt again, working down to the man's hands. And when he had brushed aside the dirt and stones he lifted up a limp wrist. One look at the identification tag chained around it, and he cried:

"It's Iggy! We've found him all right!"

"Sure enough--it _is_ Iggy!" cried Jimmy, as he, too, looked at the metal disk.