Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 189, No. 4 — page 85: what you’re looking at

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

KING’S constantly on the alert. You’ve explained to them that no man is to remove any part of his equipment nor leave his rifle out of his hand asleep or awake the whole time, sergeant?” “Yes, sir,” Narley lied readily. As a matter of fact, he had forgotten that im- portant detail. Steele nodded and they disappeared around a curve in the line. Presently word was passed along to “Stand down,” and the nightly work com- menced—parties detailed to go back to the reserve line and bring up the rations and water, working parties detailed to carry on the never-ending labor of filling sandbags to strengthen the collapsing walls, sentries posted in each bay in couples to guard against trench raids by the enemy—while up and down the line, here and there, Ger- man and British machine guns poured their fitful bursts of lead into the dark, firing de- sultorily at nothing in the hope of hitting something. Harmon, in the act of shoving a spade- ful of clinging clay into a sack paused and gazed over the top of the parapet. Even from his lowly position barely above the top of the ground, it was a spec- tacle, that once seen, was never to be for- gotten. On either side of him, the lines of the famous salient, thrust like a spear-point into the heart of the enemy country, bent back toward Ypres, curving again outward and running southward for two hundred miles over hill and valley, and as far as he could see—miles of *country—it was a line of fire brilliant with the flashes of rifle and gun and trench-mortar colorful with many lights, red and green signal-rockets, daz- KHAKI, 5d0 zling, white, floating starlights that drifted across the lines lighting up the devastated country with a noonday glare. As he watched a raindrop splashed on his cheek and a flash in the sky—a flash not manufactured by man—creased a crooked path across the blackness. “Aye,” Bowels snorted blasphemously, “send it down, Davy! We ain’t got troubles enough with them blasted sand- bags. But we can beat yer bloomin’ whizz- bangs right down ’ere, when we get started!” The rain poured down, irrespective of Bowles’s contempt, and the lightning shot across the heavens, even if the thunder was drowned in manmade noises. The men struggled into their rain-capes, reversing the rifles they carried slung across their shoul- ders, so that the barrels would not be wet. Harmon’s helmet cascaded the water down his back and he was wet through within a few moments. On the firing-step the sen- tries strained their eyes to see through the curtain of rain that draped No Man’s Land. ‘ Beautiful, isn’t it?” Tremanner shout- ed in Harmon’s ear, as a streak of bright light cut across the sky. ‘ Magnificent!” ‘Maybe it is,” grumbled Harmon. “You're certainly a glutton for beauty Pi—” In a sudden lull a man’s voice called out sharply on the right and with the words came the sharp smack of a rifle. Then a quick fusillade of shots, men’s voices, drowned in the blast of exploding bombs and something passed close to Harmon’s head and burst against the wall of the trench, singing his hair with its flame. “Stand to!” Bowles roared. “ They’re on top of us!” TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK U ey< Foo ey: u u Pel-F TY By JACK BECHDOLT is our next week’s Complete Novelette, describing what happens when a wife is employed in the same concern as her husband and shoots faster to the top, acquiring the privilege of hiring and firing. Both married and unmarried readers will find it equally absorbing. — 4 7 (€(0) ooo) s< (E@)