Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 61: what you’re looking at

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

A Sergeant The men of Nell’s battalion had been without sleep for two nights, and had been fighting hard since daybreak. A soldier gets tired as well as any other man. Their wet clothes were uncomfortable, and they had drunk up all their water. The Boche had given them a rub a few minutes ago, but they were too tired to run very far. Hence they stayed in the shell holes into which they had fled. The next shove, the enemy would carry them to the river, and that would end the battalion. Nell had a pull at his canteen. was just a trickle of water left in it. ‘‘____? he muttered, ‘I don’t remember drinking ail that water!’ It was gone, though, and he thought that the rest of the outfit must be just as dry as he. ‘“What’ll we do now?” companion. ‘‘We can stay in the hole,” said the hard- boiled man, “‘an’ get killed when the Boche jump us, or we can go along tellin’ these guys that there’s a party bein’ planned, and be killed right now.”’ “I know something better than that,” said Nell. ‘Let’s yell and tell ’em to pass it along!” “Try it!” Nell cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled: “Counter attack in five minutes! it along!” He listened to see if any one repeated what he said. No sound, save the faint yelling of the Boche non-coms, distant shells grunting, and the yapping of guns in the town. He called again, without suc- cess. “Youan’ me yell together,” he said to the hard-boiled man, so they both yelled and this time, like an echo, they heard someone call: There he asked his Pass “Counter attack in five minutes! Pass it along!’ The two listened to hear it passed, but they were disappointed. “Let’s yell again,” took a deep breath. Wheeeee! Wheeeee! ‘The whistle!” gasped Nell. Then he and the hard-boiled man jumped to their feet and went out of the shell hole. ‘Come on!” Everybody up! suggested Nell and they cried. “Let’s go! {>> Come outta your hole! of Cavalry 43 THERE was about. as’ much enthusiasm as there would have been at a temperance meeting with these same soldiers being caliortetl to step up and sign the pledge. There are about a thousand men in a bat- talion and there should have been between. three and four hundred of them left to spring to their feet with a ringing cheer, but after fourteen hours of fighting, a man neither springs nor cheers. Nell’s startled eye saw that not over fifteen men were following him and the hard- boiled man, and that on the left where the officer was supposed to be, there was no one. A man jumped from shell hole to shell hole, blowing a whistle, and they could see his foot swinging, but a kick in the stern is not half so bad as a machine-gun bullet in the bow, and the men refused to come out. “It’s too late to go back now,” thought Nell, “‘we’re as dead as geese!” He continued to run forward. A _ Ger- man stood up and aimed a pistol at him. Nell threw up his hand and discovered that he had in it a machine-gun ammunition carrier, a large thin box. Where had he picked that up? He forgot the German and looked about for a rifle. No sign of one. Behind him he heard grunts. His supporters were do- ing up the Germans. Nell’s breath came pantingly now. Where were those Boche? He dodged between shell holes and jumped over bodies. What would he do without a rifle when he reached the enemy? He had not made up his mind when he reached them, and so there was nothing to do but to shatter the ammunition box over the head of one man and drive his fist into another man’s nose. Then the third, fourth and fifth men went down in a heap with Nell on the bottom. It did not seem that he had hit the ground before he was up again and unencumbered. His twenty men were still with him and they had all jumped into that same shell hole. “Out we go,” cried the hard-boiled man, and away they went. There is this disadvantage to a terrain full of shell holes. A force gets into them, and the tendency is to keep the head down. thus preventing the reception of signals or commands. Such a condition is at its worst among a soldiery like the German army, where the individual is not supposed to do any thinking for himself. COMIGDIOOKSEEO