Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 179: what you’re looking at

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

Tub Tobin Repeats “So far, so good,” came Stokes’ cheery whisper. For fully a quarter of an hour they lay at full length in the muck. All they could hear, save the sweep of the breeze, was their own heavy breathing which gradually les- sened as second wind came to them. Their eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Now, the site of Le Petit Casino stood out sharply against the grayer sky line. All of a sudden a battery of sixty-pound- ers opened up behind them. Express trains rushed and roared overhead. Stokes took advantage of the roar to wriggle to Tobin’s side. “Might as well get it over with,” he whispered. ‘‘We’ll go round the thing. You to the right. Ill take the other side. Be sure you don’t stick me coming round.” “A’right,” said Tobin, and he drew back his rifle, getting ready to spring. He was rubbing against a brick wall when his alert ears heard a cough. “Stokes!” thought Tub. “S’at you?” he asked in a muffled tone. No reply. “S’at youP” he impatiently reiterated. This time he had his answer. Shadowy forms leaped upon him, from out of no- where, it seemed. He lunged out despe- rately with his rifle. Impact! A _ grind. A gasp. The tallowed bayonet had gone home. Tobin side-stepped as hot breath fanned his face. Hard hands closed on his legs. A heavy object took him a glancing blow on his tin lid. He sprawled suddenly on the ground. Sammy Stokes, scout officer, had heard the clatter in the brickpile. “Fritzies,” he guessed immediately, and went into action on high gear. He hit Tobin’s assailants like a hurricane loosed. To the first rap from his automatic one heinie doubled up with a long-drawn ‘‘Uh!”’ from his thick lips. A second shot zoomed skyward—a clean miss. The third crashed into the skull of Fritzie number two, flop- ping that customer in a senseless heap across a machine gun whose nozzled barrel, poked through an aperture in the wall, commanded the road up which the Cana- dians had crawled. Stokes’ gun went empty. A split, red ate swished up twenty yards away. More heinies there, by thunder! A stick-bomb whirred through the night 169 and landed at the back of the Casino ruin. Fine particles of brick sprayed up from the explosion. ‘They brought trickles of blood to Stokes’ face. A second flare, much closer, illumined the scene. It revealed to Stokes’ eyes another hun, stooping over Tobin’s huddled form. One jump carried him across the intervening space. A nicely timed kick sent the machine-gunning enemy rolling over and over. In a _ twinkling Stokes had gathered up Tobin’s body, had jerked it to his back, and had straddled the wall. ‘““Wowf!”’ The cylindrical stick had detonated on the brick a few yards away. Another wowf in the same place. Stokes went down. Tobin’s body was heaved from his shoul- ders. Hunks of brick splattered about. Stokes, dazed but unhurt, lay motionless till the ridge resumed its normal quiet. Then cautiously he felt around him. Not a trace of his right-bower. ’em,”’ he spat through his teeth, “they’ve bumped Tub off.”’ It was after midnight when Stokes clumped into the C. O.’s pill box. He was fighting mad and even the sight of young Jamieson from brigade, drinking with the C. O., failed to restrain his impetuosity. ‘‘Now do you see?” he fairly screamed, having expounded his night’s adventure. “No! Ido not,” returned young Jamie- son who, recently elevated to the office of brigade intelligence head, was inclined to logger-head with any and all presuming to question his judgment. s ! man,” raged Stokes, right at the edge of that smashed-up town— not a hundred yards from our line.” “T prefer to believe what our map reads. Maps don’t lie.”’ “Qh, don’t they?” “Drop that attitude, Stokes,” cut in the domineering Jamieson. ‘Your colonel and I have been discussing this matter. The map stands—as it Is.’ “Oh, ”» mumbled the conscientious Stokes, “our barrage will wet-blanket our front line.” “Forget it,” advised the C. O., who up to now had not put in his oar. Stokes moved over to a desk, sat down, and whipped out his message book. He started to write. Presently the C. O. in- quired— “What are you up to, Stokes?” MICLOOOLK “Fritz is - © in