WITH THE TANKS
"Dead!" exclaimed Frank"s comrades in voices that shook with surprise and horror.
"That"s what I said," replied Frank. "Touch him and see for yourselves."
All did so and found that the body was rigid. How long the horse had borne his lifeless burden they could not tell. The legs were set stiffly in the stirrups and the hands had a death grip on the reins.
The boys had seen death in many forms. Scarcely a day had pa.s.sed since their arrival at the front without that sad experience. But it had never seemed so ghastly or uncanny as at this moment. That silent, colossal figure, seated bolt upright, worked fearfully on their imaginations and seemed far more formidable than any living enemy would have seemed.
"One of those bullets that the sentries sent after him must have reached him," said Bart in an awed voice.
"I suppose so," replied Frank. "But it doesn"t matter now. Our search is over."
"What are we going to do with the body?" asked Billy soberly.
"I guess we can"t do anything just now," replied Frank. "I don"t think we could get those reins out of his hands anyway, and I for one don"t want to try. Besides, this is the proof for the officers that the prisoner hasn"t escaped. They"re anxious, because they don"t know what information he might have been carrying back to the German lines. The only thing to do is for one of us to lead the horse--with its rider-- back to camp."
This seemed to the others the solution of the problem, although the task was a gruesome one and they would have gladly evaded it if they could.
It made chills run down the spine to trudge along leading the horse with that huge figure towering behind them in the darkness, mocking at them because he had escaped to the silent land from which they could never bring him back.
But there was comfort in numbers, and what no one of them could perhaps have done singly they finally accomplished by taking turns, keeping close together all the while as the ghostly cavalcade wound its way through the woods.
It was with a sigh of heartfelt relief that they finally drew up before the friendly lights of the regimental headquarters that had never before seemed so welcome.
Their coming caused a great sensation, and there was soon a dense crowd around them, for the uncanny circ.u.mstances of their return spread through the camp like wildfire. The reins were cut from the dead hands and the body lifted to the ground. Then after making a full report the boys went to their quarters. They were besieged with inquiries by curious comrades, but they shook them off as soon as possible. Their experience had been one that they were only too anxious to forget.
"I don"t think I want any supper, after all," remarked Tom to his friends.
"Same here," responded Bart. "I don"t feel as though I"d ever be hungry again."
"All I want to do is to get to sleep and forget it," said Billy. "That is, if I _can_ get to sleep."
"You"ll sleep all right," observed Frank, "but I wouldn"t guarantee you against nightmare."
But harrowed as their nerves had been, they were too young and healthy to stand out against the sleep they needed, and when they woke the next morning both their spirits and their appet.i.tes were as good as usual.
Life at the front was too full of work and rush for any one experience to leave its imprint long.
Their first inquiry after breakfast was for Rabig.
"How"s Rabig getting along?" Frank asked of Fred Anderson.
"Oh, he"s all right, I guess," answered Fred carelessly. "When the doctors came to examine him they found that the wound didn"t amount to much. Said he"d be all right in a day or two."
"Is he under arrest?" asked Tom.
"Why, yes, I suppose he is," answered Fred. "But I guess it"s a mere form. The fact that the prisoner didn"t finally get away will count in his favor. It"s like baseball. An error is an error, but if the man who ought to be out at first gets put out when he tries to steal second the error is harmless. It"s no credit to Rabig that a bullet got the man he let escape, but it"s lucky for him just the same."
It was evident that Anderson had no suspicion that Rabig had been guilty of anything but carelessness, and the boys carefully refrained from saying anything about what they had gathered from their observation the day before. But when they were alone together they had no hesitation about speaking their minds.
"Some fellows could commit murder and get away with it," grumbled Tom.
"Cheer up, you old grouch," chaffed Billy. "At any rate the prisoner didn"t escape, and so there"s no harm done."
"And if Rabig is guilty he"s got nothing from it but a sore head," put in Bart.
"I don"t feel dead sure that Rabig helped him," said Frank, "and yet the more I think it over, the more I"m inclined to think that Tom is right about it. Still, Rabig"s ent.i.tled to the benefit of the doubt. I know how the Scotch jury felt when they brought in the verdict: "Not guilty, but don"t do it again.""
"That"s just what I"m afraid Rabig will do," said Tom. "This time luckily it didn"t matter. The prisoner didn"t escape. But if Rabig is a traitor, how do we know but what the next time he might do something that might cause a defeat?"
"It does make one uneasy," agreed Bart. "Nick in the regiment is like a splinter in the finger. It makes you sore. But we"ll keep our eyes open and the very next crooked move he makes it will be curtains for him."
"Or taps," added Billy.
The fighting now had lost the first intensity that had signalized the day of the mine explosion. The Germans had been strongly reinforced, and had held their third line, which had now become their first.
"And they"ve got plenty of other lines behind that one," commented Tom, as he sat on a trench step cleaning and oiling his rifle.
"Slathers of them," a.s.sented Billy. "I suppose they stretch all the way back to the Rhine."
"It will be some job to root them out of them if we have to storm each one of them in turn," remarked Bart.
"We don"t have to count on that," said Frank confidently. "The Allies gained twenty-five miles at a clip when they drove Hindenburg back from the Somme. The Huns may stand out a long while, but when the time comes they may collapse all at once like the deacon"s "one-hoss shay.""
The Americans in the meantime had thoroughly reorganized the captured positions and had held them against a number of strong counter-attacks.
But these became fewer as they failed to produce results, and although the artillery still kept on growling and barking, the wearied infantry had a chance to get some of the rest they so sorely needed after their herculean efforts.
"Nothing to do till to-morrow," yawned Billy, as after performing their turn of trench duty they found themselves with an hour or two on their hands.
"Let"s take a little hike back of the lines and see what"s doing,"
suggested Bart.
"I think there"s something in the wind connected with the tanks,"
remarked Frank. "They say there"s a bunch of them coming up from all parts of the front and getting together just back of our division."
"They"re hot playthings, all right," commented Tom. "They certainly keep the Huns on the jump. If we only had enough of them we might roll right into Berlin."
They pa.s.sed some of the field batteries where the men, stripped to the waist, were serving the guns, running the sh.e.l.ls in and discharging their weapons with marvelous smoothness, speed and precision.
"This is the life," chaffed Tom. "You fellows have a picnic here away back of the lines, while we chaps in the front line do all the work and stop all the bullets."
"G"wan, you doughboys," retorted a gunner good-naturedly. "If we"re alive here after eight days, the orders are to shoot us for loafing."
A little further on, they came upon a myriad of tanks of all descriptions. There were "baby" tanks, "whippets," "male" and "female,"
all with different functions to perform during a battle. Just as in the navy there are vessels of all sizes from a light scout to a super-dreadnought, so already this arm of the service was developing various grades, each to do some special work for which the others were not so well adapted.
"See how they"re hidden," said Frank, as he pointed to a very forest of bushes and branches that extended above the array of tanks.