The Hosts of the Air | Page 9

German faces and stalwart German
figures standing out vividly. Officers, reckless of death, waving their
swords and shouting the word of command, led them on.
The French field guns behind their trenches opened, sending showers of

missiles over their heads and into the charging ranks, and the trenches
themselves blazed with the fire of the rifles.
"A surprise that isn't a surprise?" shouted Carstairs. "They thought to
catch us napping in the night and the snow!"
The battle spread with astonishing rapidity over a front of more than a
mile, and in the driving snow and white gloom it assumed a frightful
character. The German guns fired for a little while over their troops at
the French artillery beyond, but soon ceased lest they pour shells into
their own men, and the heavy French batteries ceased also, lest they,
too, mow down friend as well as foe. But the light machine guns posted
in the trenches kept up a rapid and terrible crackle. The front lines of
the Germans were cut down again and again, always to be replaced by
fresh men, who unflinchingly exposed their bodies to the deadly hail.
"The massed attack!" exclaimed Wharton. "What courage! Nobody was
ever more willing to die for victory than these Germans!"
Even in the moment of danger and utmost excitement he could not
refuse tribute to the enemy. Nevertheless he snatched up a rifle and was
firing as fast as he could into the gray ranks. John and Carstairs were
doing the same and the trench held by the Strangers was a continuous
red blaze. There was so much fire and smoke and so much whirling
snow that John could not see clearly. He was a prey to illusions. Now
the Germans were apparently at the very edge of the trench, and then
they were further away than he had first seen them. The white gloom
was shot with a red haze, and the shouts of soldiers, the commands of
officers and groans of wounded were mingled in a terrible turmoil of
sound. But John knew that the Germans would be driven tack. Only
surprise could have enabled them to win, and the vigilance of the
French scouts had put their commanders on guard.
Captain Colton walked up and down the trench, his face ghastly white,
although it was the flare of the searchlight and not any retreat of the
blood that made it so. Now and then under the frightful crash of the
rifles and machine guns he addressed brief words of warning and
encouragement to his men:

"Don't raise your heads too high! Keep cool! Aim at something! Here
they come again! Fire low!"
All of John's pulses were throbbing hard with excitement. He wished
the Germans would go back, and his wish was prompted--less by the
desire of victory than the sickening of his soul at so much slaughter.
Why would their leaders continue to hurl these simple and honest
peasants upon that invincible line of rifles and machine guns? The dead
and wounded were piling up fast in the driving snow, but the willing
servants of an emperor came on as steadily as ever to be killed. So
much slaughter for so little purpose! The height of battle, excitement
and danger, could not keep him from thinking of it.
Occasionally a man fell in the trench and lay in the mud and snow, but
the others never ceased for a moment to send bullets into the gray
masses which fell back only to come on again. Nothing but modern
weapons, machine guns from which missiles fairly flowed in an
unending stream, and rifles which a man fired as fast as he could pull
the trigger could check them. "Why don't they stop! Why don't they
stop!" John was shouting to himself through burned lips, and again he
shuddered with sick horror, when he saw a whole line of men blown
away, as if they had been grain swept by a tornado.
Once they came to the very edge of the trench to be slain there, and the
body of a German fell in at John's very feet. He never knew how many
times they charged, but human flesh and blood must yield, in the end,
before unyielding steel, and at last through the crash and confusion the
notes of trumpets sounded. Then the German masses melted away and
the heavy white gloom once more enveloped the ground before the
trenches from which came faint cries. The wounded lay thickly there
with the dead, but neither side dared to go for them. An upright human
figure would draw at once a hail of bullets.
Several machine guns still purred and crackled, but no reply came.
Presently they, too, ceased, and the silence in front was complete, save
for the faint