"Is Cantigny near here?" Tom asked.
"Just across the ditches."
"Are we going to try to take it?"
"_Try_ to? We"re going to wrap it up and bring it home."
Tom was going to ask the soldier if he thought there would be any chance for _him_, though he knew well enough that his business was behind the lines and that the most he could hope for was to carry the good news (if such it proved to be) still farther back, away from the fighting.
"This is going to be the first offensive of your old Uncle Samuel and if we don"t get the whole front page in the New York papers we"ll be peeved," Tom"s neighbor condescended to inform him.
Whatever Uncle Samuel was up to he was certainly very busy about it and very quiet. On the little village green which the cottage faced groups of officers talked earnestly.
An enormous spool on wheels, which in the darkness seemed a mile high, was rolled silently from somewhere or other, the wheels staked and bound to the ground, and braces were erected against it. Very little sound was made and there were no lights save in the houses, which seemed all to be swarming with soldiers. Not a civilian was to be seen. Several soldiers walked away from the big wheel and it moved around slowly like one of those gigantic pa.s.senger-carrying wheels in an amus.e.m.e.nt resort.
Presently some one remarked that Collie was in and there was a hurrying away--toward the rear of the village, as it seemed to Tom.
"Who"s Collie?" he ventured to ask.
"Collie? Oh, he"s the Stormy Petrel; he"s been piking around over the Fritzies" heads, I s"pose."
Evidently Collie, or the Stormy Petrel, was an aviator who had alighted somewhere about the village with some sort of a report.
"Collie can"t see in the daylight," his neighbor added; "he and the Jersey Snipe have got Fritzie vexed. You going to run between here and the coast?"
"I don"t know what I"m going to do," said Tom. "I don"t suppose I"ll go over the top, I"d like to go to Cantigny."
"Never mind, they"ll bring it back to you. Did you know the old gent is here?"
"Pershing?"
"Yup. Going to run the show himself."
"Are you going?"
"Not as far as I know. I was in the orchestra--front row--last week. Got a touch of trench fever."
"D"you mean the front line trenches?" Tom asked.
"Yup. Oh, look at Bricky!" he added suddenly. "You carrying wire, Bricky? There"s a target for a sniper for you--hair as red as----"
"Just stick around at the other end of it," interrupted "Bricky" as he pa.s.sed, "and listen to what you hear."
"Here come the tanks," said Tom"s neighbor, "and there"s the Jersey Snipe perched on the one over at the other end. Good-_night_, Fritzie!"
The whole scene reminded Tom vaguely of the hasty, quiet picking up and departure of the circus in the night which, as a little boy, he had sat up to watch. There were the tanks, half a dozen of them (and he knew there were more elsewhere), covered with soldiers and waiting in the darkness like elephants. Troops were constantly departing, for the front trenches he supposed.
Though he had never yet been before the lines, his experience as a rider and his close touch with the fighting men had given him a pretty good military sense in the matter of geography--that is, he understood now without being told the geographical relation of one place to another in the immediate neighborhood. Dispatch-riders acquire this sort of extra sense very quickly and they come to have a knowledge of the lay of the land infinitely more accurate than that of the average private soldier.
Tom knew that this village, which was now the scene of hurried preparation and mysterious comings and goings, was directly behind the trench area. He knew that somewhere back of the village was the artillery, and he believed that the village of Cantigny stood in the same relation to the German trenches that this billet village stood to the Allied trenches; that is, that it was just behind the German lines and that the German artillery was still farther back. He had heard enough talk about trench warfare to know how the Americans intended to conduct this operation.
But he had never seen an offensive in preparation, either large or small, for there had been no American offensives--only raids, and of course he had not partic.i.p.ated in these. It seemed to him that now, at last, he was drawn to the very threshold of active warfare only to be compelled to sit silent and gaze upon a scene every detail of which aroused his longing for action. The hurried consultation of officers, the rapid falling in line in the darkness, the clear brisk words of command, the quick mechanical response, the departure of one group after another, the thought of that aviator alighting behind the village, the sight of the great, ugly tanks and the big spool aroused his patriotism and his craving for adventure as nothing else had in all the months of his service. He was nearer to the trenches than ever before.
"If you"re riding to Clermont," he heard a soldier say, apparently to him, "you"d better take the south road; turn out when you get to Airian.
The other"s full of sh.e.l.l holes from the old trench line."
"Best way is to go down through Estrees and follow the road back across the old trench line," said another.
Tom listened absently. He knew he could find the best way, that was his business, but he did not want to go to Clermont. It seemed to him that he was always going away from the war while others were going toward it.
While these boys were rushing forward he would be rushing backward. That was always the way.
"There"s a lot of skeletons in those old trenches. You can follow the ditches almost down to Paris."
"They won"t send him farther than Creil," another said. "The wires are up all the way from Creil down."
"You never can tell whether they"ll stay up or not--not with this seventy-five mile bean-shooter Fritzie"s playing with. Ever been to Paris, kid?"
"No, but I s"pose I"ll be sent there now--maybe," Tom answered.
"They"ll keep you moving up this way, all right. You were picked for this sector--d"you know that?"
"I don"t know why."
"Don"t get rattled easy--that"s what I heard."
This was gratifying if it was true. Tom had not known why he had been sent so far and he had wondered.
Presently a Signal Corps captain came out of Headquarters, spoke briefly with two officers who were near the big wire spool, and then turned toward the bench on which Tom was sitting. His neighbors arose and saluted and he did the same.
"Never been under fire, I suppose?" said the captain, addressing Tom to his great surprise.
"Not before the lines, I haven"t. The machine I had before this one was knocked all out of shape by a sh.e.l.l. I was riding from Toul to----"
"All right," interrupted the captain somewhat impatiently. Tom was used to being interrupted in the midst of his sometimes rambling answers. He could never learn the good military rule of being brief and explicit.
"How do you feel about going over the top? You don"t have to."
"It"s just what I was thinking about," said Tom eagerly. "If you"d be willing, I"d like to."
"Of course you"d be under fire. Care to volunteer? Emergency work."
"Often I wished----"
"Care to volunteer?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
"All right; go inside and get some sleep. They"ll wake you up in about an hour. Machine in good shape?"
This was nothing less than an insult. "I always keep it in good shape,"