As darkness fell the combat lessened, and finally ceased altogether, as far as infantry attacks were concerned, although all through the night the artillery kept up a fire of greater or less intensity.
The boys of the regiment to which the Camport boys belonged were in rather a sober mood when they gathered around their field kitchens that night and partook of the food that was served out to them. They had not lost a gun, but they had yielded ground, and a great many of their comrades would never again answer the roll call. But their fighting spirit was at as high a pitch as ever, and they could scarcely wait till the morrow to get their revenge.
Frank and his chums had come through the day unscathed, except for the injury to Frank"s hand and a mark across Billy"s temple where a bullet had ridged the skin. Perhaps it was due to the fortune that is said to attend the brave, for they had borne themselves like heroes and had been stationed at one of the most fiercely battered portions of the line.
"I suppose they"re gloating over this in Berlin to-night," said Tom gloomily, as they sat at the roots of a great tree whose bark and branches had been stripped from it by a storm of sh.e.l.ls.
"And groaning over it in New York," added Billy.
"He laughs best who laughs last," said Bart. "To-morrow"s a new day.
Just watch our smoke."
"We"ll eat "em alive," prophesied Frank confidently, as he nursed his wounded hand. "Like John Paul Jones, we"ve just begun to fight."
"Do you fellows remember what General Corse said one time when Sherman asked him if he could hold out?" asked Bart.
"What was it?" asked Billy.
"He said: "I"ve lost one eye and a piece of an ear, but I can lick a brigade or two yet,"" answered Bart.
"Good old scout," approved Billy, while the boys laughed.
"Well, we"re not as badly off as that yet," said Frank, "although this hand of mine is smarting to beat the band."
"And my head is aching ready to split," added Billy. "One inch to the left and it would have been all up with your uncle Billy."
The fighting was resumed at dawn, and again it was the Germans who attacked. They had counted on their advantage of the day before to break the morale of their enemies and hoped by pressure to turn the withdrawal into a rout.
But like so many German calculations since the beginning of the war, they had figured badly. The Allies, stung by their discomfiture of the day before, fought like tigers. They beat the Germans back and took the offensive in their own hands.
The Germans retreated, though staunchly contesting every foot of ground.
In the front of Frank"s company the enemy had established a machine gun nest that was particularly effective. Again and again the Americans sought to clean them out, but were met with such a galling fire that they lost heavily, and at last the captain decided that the guns were not worth the price he was paying to get possession of them. Yet the position would be of so much advantage, if captured, that he hesitated at changing his course and choosing another line of advance.
In the litter and wreck of the field, Frank"s keen eye had caught sight of two big barrels filled with clothing for the troops. The barrels had been dropped from a wrecked motor lorry of a supply train. Like a flash an inspiration came to him.
He consulted a moment with Bart, whose eye lighted up as he nodded a.s.sent. Then he stepped up to his captain and saluted.
CHAPTER XXV
STORMING THE RIDGE
"What is it, Sheldon?"
"I think I can silence those guns, sir," Frank said.
A light came into the captain"s eyes.
"How?" he asked.
In a few brief words Frank described his plan.
"But it"s suicide," protested the captain. "There isn"t one chance in a thousand that you"ll come out alive."
"I know," said Frank. "But Raymond and I are willing to risk it if you give the word."
The captain pondered for a moment. It was a forlorn hope, but forlorn hopes sometimes won out.
"Go ahead," he said.
Frank nodded to Bart, and in a twinkling they had turned the big barrels over on their sides.
Then each lay on the ground behind his barrel and began to push it toward the enemy.
The men of their company had watched them wonderingly while they made their preparations, and when they realized what the boys had in mind they raised a thundering cheer that rose above the din of battle.
The crews of the two enemy machine guns looked with stupefaction at the big barrels coming toward them. Then they woke from their trance and a storm of bullets beat upon the barrels.
If they had been empty the bullets would have gone through and killed the boys behind them. But they were filled with woolen clothing, which while light enough to enable the boys to push the barrels with comparative ease was just the thing to stop the bullets. The whizzing missiles thudded into the clothing and there they stopped. It was on the same basis as the sandbag which stops a cannon ball that would go through an iron plate.
Steadily the boys kept on, pushing the barrels before them. They did not go on hands and knees, for then they would be exposed to the enemy bullets. It was a caterpillar motion, drawing their bodies along the ground, and was a tremendous tax on their muscles, for they could get no purchase.
One thing in their favor was that the ground sloped a trifle toward the enemy position and this made the barrels roll more easily.
By this time the enemy was growing frantic at this novel method of attack. They could not see their enemy, and they could not kill him. And the sight of those barrels coming toward them, as inexorably as fate, got on their nerves, already tense with the fury of the combat.
Nearer and nearer came the barrels to the guns until they were not more than twenty feet away. Then they stopped.
The German gunners drew fresh hope from this. Had their bullets found their mark in the bodies of their daring enemies?
But there were two very live boys behind those motionless barrels.
Frank and Bart had drawn a handful of grenades from their sacks. At a given signal they drew back their arms and hurled them over the barrels in quick succession.
They fell right in the midst of the machine guns. There was a tremendous explosion that killed some of the gunners and threw the rest into wild confusion.
"Now!" shouted Frank, and he and Bart leaped to their feet and rushed toward the guns.
There was a wild melee for a moment, and then the surviving Germans turned and ran in panic down the slope.
The boys slued the captured guns around and sent a stream of bullets after their wildly fleeing enemies.
The rout was complete, and the next minute the whole company, that had charged the instant the grenades were thrown, came tearing up, and there was a scene of hilarity and enthusiasm that pa.s.sed description.
"The finest thing I ever saw!" declared the captain. "You boys are the stuff of which heroes are made."