The Hosts of the Air | Page 8

to happen in our happy lives."
They saw the faint glimmer of the torch held low, and an orderly
arrived with a message from Captain Colton, commanding them to
wake everybody and to stand to their arms. Then the orderly passed
quickly on with similar orders for others.
"Old Never Sleep," said Carstairs, referring to Colton, "thinks we get
too much rest. Why couldn't he let us tuck ourselves away in our mud
on a night like this?"
"I fancy it's not restlessness," said John. "The order doubtless comes
from a further and higher source. Good old Papa Vaugirard is not more
than a quarter of a mile away."
"I hear they had to enlarge the trench for him," grumbled Carstairs.
"He's always bound to keep us stirring."
"But he watches over us like a father. They say his troops are in the
best condition of all."
The three young men traveled about the vast burrow along the main
trenches, the side trenches and those connecting. The order to be on
guard was given everywhere, and the men dragged themselves from
their sodden beds. Then they took their rifles and were ready. But it
was dark save for the glimmer of the little pocket electrics.
The task finished, the three returned to their usual position. John did
not know what to expect. It might be a device of Papa Vaugirard to
drag them out of a dangerous lethargy, but he did not think so. A kind
heart dwelled in the body of the huge general, and he would not try
them needlessly on a wild and sullen night. But whatever the
emergency might be the men were ready and on the right of the

Strangers was that Paris regiment under Bougainville. What a
wonderful man Bougainville had proved himself to be! Fiery and yet
discreet, able to read the mind of the enemy, liked by his men whom
nevertheless he led where the danger was greatest. John was glad that
the Paris regiment lay so close.
"Nothing is going to happen," said Carstairs. "Why can't I lay me down
on my little muddy shelf and go to sleep? Nobody would send a dog
out on such a night!"
"Man will often go where a dog won't," said Wharton, sententiously.
"And the night is growing worse," continued Carstairs. "Hear that wind
howl! Why, it's driving the snow before it in sheets! The trenches won't
dry out in a week!"
"You might be worth hearing if you'd only quit talking and say
something, Carstairs," said Wharton.
"If you obeyed that rule, Wharton, you'd be known as the dumb man."
John stood up straight and looked over the trench toward the German
lines, where he saw nothing. The night filled with so much driving
snow had become a kind of white gloom, less penetrable than the
darkness.
Only that shifting white wall met his gaze, and listen as he would, he
could hear nothing. The feeling of something sinister and uncanny,
something vast and mighty returned. Man had made war for ages, but
never before on so huge a scale.
"Well, Sister Anna, otherwise John Scott, make your report," said
Carstairs lightly. "What do you see?"
"Only a veil of snow so thick that my eyes can't penetrate it."
"And that's all you will see. Papa Vaugirard is a good man and he cares
for his many children, but he's making a mistake tonight."

"I think not," said John, dropping suddenly back into the trench. A
blinding white glare, cutting through the gloom of the snow, had
dazzled him for a moment.
"The searchlight again!" exclaimed Wharton.
"And it means something," said John.
The blaze, whiter and more intense than usual, played for a few
minutes over the French trenches, sweeping to right and left and back
again and then dying away at a far distant point. After it came the same
white gloom and deep silence.
"Just a way of greeting," said Carstairs.
"I think not," said John. "Papa Vaugirard makes few mistakes. To my
mind the intensity of the silence is sinister. Often we hear the Germans
singing in their trenches, but now we hear nothing."
Another half-hour of the long and trying waiting followed. Then the
white light flared again for a moment, and powerful lights behind the
French lines flared back, but did not go out. The great beams, shooting
through the white gloom, disclosed masses of men in gray uniforms
and spiked helmets rushing forward.
CHAPTER II
THE YOUNG AUSTRIAN
It seemed to John that the heavy German masses were almost upon
them, when they were revealed in the glare of the searchlights,
sweeping forward in solid masses, and uttering a tremendous hurrah.
But the French lights continued to throw an intense vivid white blaze
over the advancing columns, broad