Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 28: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

00) Adventure Nell thought this was gunfire, but the noise usually followed a lightning flash, so that he decided that it was thunder. The lightning would show the dripping column on one side of the road and on the other a line of trucks, moving steadily along, seemingly endless. The rain came down in torrents. It was like standing under a waterfall. The water ran down the men’s faces and so under the collars of the slickers. It ran in between ‘the hooks in front, it dripped from the bot- tom, and soaked down inside the puttee. Their shoes were full of water, not from the outside, but from this internal seepage. Nell, feeling a mysterious bulge, discov- ered that his slicker pocket was full of water. This he emptied, and swore feelingly. Once the man ahead of him broke away from his hold and Nell had to grope wildly for a half minute or so, with all the help- lessness and panic of a drowning man, be- fore he could find him. Then it was only because a lightning flash showed him his man, about a yard ahead. “Come on,” cried Nell, “leggo my belt, you fool. How can I catch up with my man if you hang on to me hike that?” “There’s fifty guys got hold of me,” pro- tested Goodrich. ‘“‘Well, tell °em to take up the trot!” This was passed back and the men moy- ing out faster, Goodrich moaning because of his boil, Nell finally found a pack within the grasp of his hand once more. At the .same time he received a sharp blow upon that portion of him where a kick would be most apt to land. “Hey!” he cried. ‘‘Who the kicked me? Any of you birds want an argument? I won’t stand for any rough stuff, and you might as well find it out now as later. I can knock any man for a gool that kicks me!”’ He turned sharply around, still. keeping hold of the pack in front, and as he did so, Goodrich cried out. “Ow! Leggo that rifle! rifle, you ! Where the think you’re goin’?” “Fresh truck drivers!” cried several voices at once, and howls from the line of trucks showed that missiles were being hurled by the infantry. There was a glitter of lightning and Nell saw what had hit him. There was an am- munition cart drawn by a limber just be- side him. Some part of the limber had Gimme that do you struck him in passing. Now the cart had a brake, a long thing that stuck up in the air like a lance and was worked from the limber by a rope. This brake arm had caught Goodrich’s slung rifle and was very nearly tearing it off his shoulder. The flash went out and a chorus of jeers and cries went up from the column. ‘“Where’s he goin’ with that thing?” cried Nell, but his words were lost in a sharp clap of thunder. _ On the heels of the clap came such a cry as men hear in their dreams, but rarely dur- ing waking moments. Another clap, nearer and sharper—BLAM/ Another shout, more hike a shriek. The column halted in con- sternation. Lightning again, the sky as bright as day, but there was a great blot of shadow on the column, on the man in front of Nell, on the trucks, and the ammunition cart. Darkness again, a roar of sound, and a great red light. “Hey! Hey! A plane! A bombin’ plane!’ “Lay off those bombs; we’re Yanks!” “Git off the road!” _ “Under cover!” “Stay on the road, it’s one of our planes!” ‘“‘Boche plane! Boche plane!” There was another bomb and another wild cry to the man overhead that the sol- diers on the road were Yanks. There was a sound as of a rushing torrent, the rustling of hundreds of slickers, the sucking of hun- dreds of feet in the muddy ditch. The bat- talion had taken to the fields. In the first second of horror and confus- ion, Colburn went with them, but as he jumped across the ditch the thought oc- curred to him that if this was a panic he might obtain some measure of gratitude from his new officers by helping to stop it. However, the officers and non-coms had ne idea of letting the men get out of hand. “Steady, G Company,” he could hear them call, and as the men halted, he heard his own corporal commanding: “Fourth squad, stick around! Spread out, but don’t run no more! Fourth squad all right, any one hit? Sound off your names!” = THE men began to call out their = names, answering from here and there in the darkness. They were all present. The same thing was going on all around them, corporals assem- bling squads, and sergeants helping lieu- tenants to re-form shattered platoons. COMIGDIOOKSEEO