Over There with the Canadians at Vimy Ridge
CHAPTER I
SHELLS AND MINNENWERFER
"Look out! There she comes."
These words were whispered, for it would have been a serious military offense if the speaker had lifted his voice to a resonant tone in addressing his companion. Both were in khaki uniform, and had helmets on their heads. They had been crouching in a camouflaged pit out in No Man's Land in the Vimy Ridge sector of the western battle front in Prance.
It was dusk of evening, a mist-laden dusk, quite as serviceable for secret movements as the darkness under a clear sky. One could not see an object as large as a man twenty yards away because of the fog.
All day it had been raining, just a slow drizzle, but nevertheless, a good deal of water had fallen, and the chief characteristic of the trenches was mud. "Second Looie" George Tourtelle and Private Irving Ellis had been sent out through the communication trench to the listening post, in which they were crouched when Irving whispered the words "Look out! There she comes!"
There was really no need of his offering any such warning to his companion, for the latter could hear the whistle of the approaching shell just as well as he, but there was also no call for the punishment that the second lieutenant administered. The shell passed harmlessly over their heads and exploded behind the front line trenches of the Canadian company, of which the occupants of the spy pit were members, and almost simultaneously with the explosion, Lieut. Tourtelle struck Irving a sharp blow in the face with the back of his hand.
"There!" he said viciously, with apparently no effort to subdue the tone of his voice in accord with the strict precautionary rules of such positions. "See that you keep your thoughts to yourself hereafter or I'll send you back to report to the captain."
Irving was astonished, as well as angered at this treatment. He was sure there was no call even for a reprimand, whereas the officer had spoken in tones quite loud enough for the enemy to hear fifty, or possibly a hundred, yards away. In fact, he was sure that if the "second looie" had any reflection in him at all, he must have experienced a thrill of apprehension very soon afterward lest the sound of his voice had been heard by some of his superior officers in the front trenches. If so, an inquiry into its meaning most certainly would follow.
Of course, – Irving resented the uncalled-for exhibition of brutality just exhibited by Lieut. Tourtelle, but he had too much military sense to show his resentment by look or act. Instead, he decided to take his punishment and the accompanying rebuke as provocative of a little self-discipline and to profit from the experience, in spite of the injustice that went with it.
"I never did like that fellow from the first day I met him," Private Ellis told himself, grinding his teeth with rage under the first impulse of revenge. "Now I know him to be the very sort I thought he was. Nobody but a coward would do what he did. He knows he'd never dare to meet me on even terms. I'd clean him up so thoroughly there wouldn't be anything for a minnenwerfer to smell if one came along and dropped onto the spot where he ought to be. Goodness! there's one now."
The "minnie" referred to in Irving's soliloquy lighted right in the communication trench not more than 200 feet from the outlook pit in which the officer and the private were stationed. The explosion threw up a mass of earth, several bucketfuls of which came down into the pit as if from a giant pepper-box. One stone about the size of two fists struck Irving on his left shoulder, and for several minutes the boy feared some of the bones were broken or the joint dislocated.
But it proved to be only a bruiser and presently the young soldier was using his arm confidently, although with considerable pain. In the excitement that followed almost immediately after the explosion of this shell, he forgot the injury, although under ordinary circumstances, every movement of his left arm must have been more or less painful.
There was no shriek of warning preceding the next explosion fifty feet to the right, such as had called forth the whispered "look out" from Private Ellis that was rebuked with a blow of the hand and an equally unmilitary reprimand from the second lieutenant. But it was much more mighty in force and sound. It tore up the ground almost, it seemed, to the very edge of the pit in which the outpost was located. Strange enough, too, not nearly as much of the upheaved earth fell back into the pit as had fallen there after the explosion of the first shell. Irving felt that he knew the reason.
"That was a minnie dead sure," he told himself with a shudder. "I like the others much better. You know when they're coming and maybe can dodge 'em. But a minnie never gives any warning. They've spotted this outpost and the next one'll probably wipe us out. We'll never know what hit us."
Evidently something of this sort was going on in the mind of Lieut. Tourtelle, for suddenly he darted back through the communication trench toward the front line.
"That's funny," Irving muttered under his breath. "He's ducked without giving any order to me. What'll I do-stick? I feel like sticking just to show him that I'm made of different stuff. But no, I guess I hadn't better. He's just mean enough to report that he ordered me back, but I disobeyed his order."
CHAPTER II
IRVING'S IDEA
Private Ellis had not been back in the front line trench long before he had good cause to congratulate himself for resisting the temptation to offer himself as an example of bravery in the face of the cowardly actions of the second lieutenant. A second minnenwerfer dropped unannounced right into the pit they had just left and the size of the bowl-shaped listening post was increased many times.
"Now, if I were an officer and in position to make suggestions, I'd advise that that pit be remanned in about half an hour," Irving mused. "The boches, no doubt, have a report of the success of their last shot, and will naturally assume that the place has been put out of commission as a lookout, and the occupants reduced to their original elements. I believe that hole in the ground is just as serviceable as it ever was to play peek-a-boo at Heinie."
Lieut. Tourtelle was in the trench within a few feet of Irving and the latter would have made an effort to get the proposition to him if it had not been for the experience he had had with the insufferable nature of the officer in the listening pit.
"I wish it weren't against orders to whisper in the front trenches-that is, when you have something of importance to communicate to the higher-up," the boy continued to himself. "I'd really like to go out there and try it again."
At this moment someone took hold of his arm-the sore one, as the pain in his shoulder reminded him-and gave it a pull. This was as much as to say, "Follow me." He obeyed, and soon reached the communication trench that connected the first and second line trenches. His leader, a first lieutenant named Osborne, led the way through this trench back to the second line. During the passage, Irving became conscious of the fact that others were following along behind. What was up, young Ellis wondered. It was not time for him to be relieved, for he had been in the trenches only about fifteen hours.
He was not long kept in doubt. Immediately on their arrival at the second line, Lieut. Osborne gathered them together-one officer and five privates-and gave the following instructions in low tones:
"I want you boys to go out beyond the barbed wire and see what you can find out. Remember your stock instructions. Don't get into any fights. If you meet anybody, retreat. We want to find the location of any patrols of theirs out in No Man's Land. Look out for evidences of their work laying mines, repairing barbed wire, sinking listening pits, or anything of the sort. Then get back as soon as possible, keeping your bearings and the locations of your discoveries well in mind. If any 'very lights' go up, you must lie or stand still, or remain unwaveringly in your positions and attitudes until they go out, unless the light is directly between you and our trenches. In that case, you must duck and make the best of your way back under a hail of bullets, for you'll be seen. You will be armed only with pistols, hand grenades, and trench knives. Use the bombs or pistols only to save yourselves from death or capture. Remember it is information we want from you, not scalps. You will be under charge of Second Lieutenant Tourtelle."
Irving's heart went "way down" in his hob-nailed shoes at this latter announcement. He had had no idea who his companions during this patrol