Читать книгу Over There with the Marines at Chateau Thierry - G. Harvey Ralphson - Страница 9

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Early the next morning a squadron of aeroplanes flew over the American lines dropping bombs and doing considerable damage. But it was not long before they were met by a score of Allied planes, which poured into them such a fusillade of machine-gun bullets that two of them dived to the ground with a crash and the others were driven back behind their own lines.

The cannonading from the German big guns during the night did little damage to the Americans, for most of the shells dropped far to the rear. Moreover, the Yankee field artillery replied with much better marksmanship than that of the boches, as was reported in the morning by scout aviators and balloon observers. But it was not necessary to wait for these reports to get an idea of the devastation effected by the Americans’ cannonading. The timber that had shielded the enemy forces, whose attack had been camouflaged by a spitting of machine guns “at the stars,” was now a scene of arboreal ruin. The boys decided that they had never seen quite so abundant an assortment of splintered kindling wood in their lives.

In the course of the day the American lines were advanced to the farther edge of the belt of timber in which the battle of the night had been fought. It seemed that this belt had been entirely cleared of the enemy. Beyond the waste of splintered and contorted forestry was a narrow open stretch of lowland, and beyond this was another woods undoubtedly peopled with outpost of sharpshooters and machine-gun nests. The Yanks did not have to wait long for a verification of this suspicion. Scarcely had they taken up their positions near the edge of the area of green kindling wood when there came a vicious spitting of machine guns and sharpshooters’ rifles.

It was exceedingly difficult to bring up the artillery through the shell-and-shrapnel-torn timber for the purpose of raking the opposite woods in a similar manner. There was considerable work for the engineers before this could be done. Meanwhile, however, the commander of the Marines decided not to wait in idleness. Machine-gun corps were stationed behind uprooted trees and splintered stumps and huge boulders and in yawning shell holes and deep gullies and were presently spitting away into the opposite timber wherever a nest could be located.

At last several cannon were brought up and a storm of shell and shrapnel was poured into the woods beyond the clearing. This proved to be effective to a considerable extent, for many of the machine guns of the enemy were silenced, as were also a battery or two located behind the enemy’s front line.

But certain nests of sharpshooters and machine guns proved to be exceedingly difficult to dislodge and orders were given to take those positions at as little cost as possible, but take them. Accordingly a body of Marines were selected for this duty, including the company to which Phil and Tim belonged.

It was a dangerous task, for it meant a charge across an open stretch into another timber in which an uncertain number of the enemy were concealed waiting to receive them with all the advantage of position and concealment on their side. They did not make the fatal error of massed attack that so often characterized the death plunges of the boches. Rather, they scattered out and dashed forward with more or less individual independence and bravery almost unknown among the usually kamerad-encouraged enemy.

“I’m going to try Tim’s method of generating self-confidence,” Phil told himself as he dashed with his fellow Marines across the open. “Here it is: I’m going to come out of this without a scratch and I’m going to kill, kill, kill.”

He saw several Marines in front and on each side of him fall victims of the accurate shooting of the concealed enemy, but this did not feaze him in the least. He knew he was going to dash through successfully and he knew he was going to find a hidden machine-gun nest and whip it single handed if necessary.

And he was not mistaken. He reached the opposite timber without receiving a scratch. Then followed a more careful procedure to hunt out the pests that were doing everything in their power to make things uncomfortable for the Marines. The latter were armed with rifles and hand grenades, and the timber was soon ringing with evidence of their discoveries.

Phil had charge of a squad that worked as a unit in the scouring of the woods, and Tim was a member of this squad. Alternately they were in hiding in thickets of saplings and bushes or racing ahead to make a swift surprise attack on a machine-gun nest located by the sound of firing or the creeping cunning of a camouflaged spy. This handful of Marines cleaned out two nests without the loss of a man, and then, it appearing that there were no others within the sweep of their advance, they separated in parties of two or three each to hunt for snipers after agreeing on a place of meeting and a call by which Phil might summon them together again whenever he desired.

Phil and Tim, perhaps by force of habit, continued together without other company. The Marines were now driving a considerable rear guard of the enemy ahead of them, principally snipers and machine gunners, who were trailing behind the main body of the defeated boches to facilitate the latter’s retreat. Realizing that the remnant of this rear guard was moving more rapidly in its haste to get out of the way of the terrible American butt-or-muzzle riflemen and hand-grenade throwers, Phil and Tim put as much speed to their advance as the character of the terrain would permit, hoping to overtake some of the fugitive snipers.

A few minutes after the squad had spread out to cover a larger territory, the two friends arrived at the meadow-like opening into a wooded ravine which appeared to grow deeper and deeper in the direction taken by the fleeing boches. With little hesitation they dashed into the ravine, becoming more cautious, however, as they entered the timber-shaded lowland with its tangle of ferns and shrubbery.

It was really a dangerous undertaking, but these boys were in a dangerous business. The ravine was lined with many ideal places for concealment of snipers and the route taken by the venturesome pair along the bottom was an ideal place to get sniped. But Phil and Tim felt that the place ought to be explored, and as a call to summon the other boys of the squad would serve only to alarm any hidden bodies in the vicinity, they decided to take the burden of the investigation on their own shoulders.

They advanced a hundred yards into the ravine without seeing another living creature, except a few squirrels and hundreds of birds which chattered and chirped away as if the carnage of a world war was the farthest possible from their thoughts.

The boom of cannon was confined now to distant portions of the indeterminate battle line, and the discharge of smaller firearms also had ceased in the immediate vicinity. It seemed to the two boys that they and the squirrels and the birds had the ravine all to themselves, but they were destined presently to be disillusioned.

Suddenly—of course, for all explosions are sudden,—Phil was startled by the discharge of two rifles from behind a thicket twenty feet ahead. “Ping!” sung a bullet past his left ear. Tim was not startled. He did not know what hit him. Over he went, and Phil sprang behind a tree, as a true American, to meet the enemy Indian fashion.