Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line Part 11

Meanwhile, all along the line in the sector where the American troops were stationed hard fighting was going on. On either flank were French and English forces, but the boys of Uncle Sam were holding up their end of the work exceedingly well.

"When can we get into it?" sighed Ned one evening, when reports came in of heavy fighting, during which certain American units had won distinction.

"Very soon, so I hear," returned Jerry. "Our intensive training is nearly over. We may be moved up to the front any day now."

"The sooner the quicker," cried Bob. "Maybe the eats won't be so good farther front, but we'll see some action!"

Of course, there had been "action" in plenty at camp, but it was of the safe variety, and this did not appeal to the boys.

Then their chance came. One morning after drill emotion, like electricity, seemed to run through the camp.

"What's up?" came the queries from all sides.

"We're ordered to the firing line!" was the answer.

And then came cheers! Cheers that showed of what stuff America's fighters were made.

The news proved true. That evening, under the cover of darkness, so that no lurking Hun planes might detect the movement, a considerable body of troops from the training camp was sent up toward the front, to relieve some battle-scarred units.

At first, as the three chums and their comrades marched along, there was joking and laughing. Then this died away. The seriousness of the situation began to be comprehended. It was not that any one was afraid. The boys were realizing the gravity of the occasion, that was all.

"Hark! what's that?" asked Bob, as he marched along with Ned, Jerry, as corporal, being file leader. "Is it thunder?"

They stepped lightly so as to listen more intently.

"The guns!" explained a lieutenant hurrying past. "Those are the guns on the firing line you hear. There must be a night attack."

The guns of the front! Fighting was actually very near, for, though the boys in camp had often heard a distant rumble when there was a big bombardment on, this was the first time they had heard so plainly the hostile guns. It gave them a thrill, even as they felt the ground tremble beneath them.

And so, in the darkness, they moved up to their new camp--a camp on the very edge of the fighting; and from where they came to a halt, to wait for morning before being a.s.signed to the trenches, they could see the lurid fires that flared across No Man's Land.

Tired and weary, but with an eagerness nothing could subdue, the chums and their comrades awoke the next morning as the bugle called them. At first they could not realize where they were, and then with a rush it came to them.

"On the firing line!" cried Jerry. "Just where we wanted to be! Now for some action!"

Hardly had he spoken when there sounded a terrific explosion, and the boys were fairly blown off their feet, toppling to the ground.

There was action for them!

CHAPTER X

IN THE TRENCHES

Stunned and bruised, the three chums and several of their comrades around them were incapable of action for a little while. Then, as Jerry raised himself from the ground, he heard Bob ask:

"What hit us, anyway? Are the Germans attacking?"

"Gee!" was Bob's muttered protest.

"Get up!" some one cried. "You're all right. It was a bomb from a Hun plane, but it missed its mark."

"Seems to have hit me all right," observed Ned, whose face was bleeding, though only from scratches.

"You were knocked down by the concussion," explained the officer who had told them to get up. "It was a close call all right, but no one is hurt. Fall in for roll call!"

Ned, Bob, Jerry, and some of the other soldiers scrambled to their feet. They had been on the point of answering roll call when the explosion came, and now that the danger was over, at least for the time being, they had a chance to see what had caused it.

The aeroplane from which the bomb had been dropped was not now in sight, but this is what had happened. One of the German machines pa.s.sing over the front line, as they often did, had escaped the Allied craft, and had also managed to pa.s.s through the firing of the anti-aircraft guns. Whether the machine had gone some distance back, hoping to drop bombs on an ammunition dump, or whether it came over merely to take a pot shot at the American trenches, was never known.

But the aviator had dropped a large explosive bomb, which, luckily for the Motor Boys and their comrades, had fallen into an open s.p.a.ce, though not far from one of the camouflaged stations where the soldiers were quartered before being taken up to the front-line trenches. The explosion had blown a big hole in the ground and damaged some food stores, but that was all, except that when the Americans were about to answer roll call they were knocked down by the concussion, and some, like Ned, were scratched and cut by flying dirt and stones, or perhaps by fragments of the bursting bomb.

"See, no one is hurt," went on the officer, as if to rea.s.sure those who were soon to take their places in the front-line trenches. "Good luck was with you that time."

"I hope it keeps up," murmured Bob. "It's a mean trick to shoot a man before he has his breakfast," and then he wondered why the others laughed.

They all looked curiously, and it may be said, thankfully, at the big hole made by the bomb. As the officer had said, only good luck had prevented some of the boys from filling that hole.

After this Jerry was silent and thoughtful.

"Well, what's next?" asked Ned, after an examination had shown that his wounds were merely scratches, for which he refused to go to the hospital, or even a dressing station.

"Breakfast, I hope," said Bob, and this it proved to be.

The excitement caused by the dropping of the bomb soon died away, though Ned, Bob, Jerry, and some of the other soldiers who had not yet been under hostile fire, felt their nerves a bit unsteady for some time.

But the veterans, of whom there were many, appeared to take it as a matter of course. It had happened before, they said, and probably would again.

"But that's what we came here for--war," remarked Jerry, as he and his chums finished their breakfast--no very elaborate meal, and one to which little time was given. "We've got to take our chances."

Up and down the line, on either side of the sector where the three chums were to receive their baptism of fire, already begun, could be heard dull booming. It was the firing of heavy guns, and might indicate an attack in progress or one being repelled by either side.

Here the Allied and German lines were close together, in some places the front-line trenches being less than six hundred feet apart.

Between was the famed and terrible No Man's Land.

"I wonder if Professor Snodgra.s.s will ever get up as far as this,"

mused Ned, as they prepared to go back to their quarters and begin the day's business.

"The firing wouldn't keep him away, if he thought he could find some bugs," answered Jerry. "And if he wants to ascertain the effect of noises on crickets all he has to do is to bring the crickets here. We can supply the noise."

"I should say so!" agreed Bob. "It's getting worse, too! Listen to that!"

Indeed, with the broadening of day the noise of the big and small guns increased. Whether a great battle was impending or merely local engagements, the boys had no means of knowing.

The position to which they had been brought, and where they would spend about a week, holding the front and supporting line trenches, until relieved by a new command, ran up and over a little wooded hill.

From this vantage point, which had more than once been stormed in vain by the Germans, could be seen the country beyond No Man's Land--a portion of France held by the enemy. And in the brief glimpse the Motor Boys had of it, smoke-covered and stabbed with flashes of fire here and there as it was, they saw something of what war meant.