Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 180: what you’re looking at

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

170 Adventure “Nothing,” returned Stokes. ‘I’m just going over your heads, that’s all, sending my report on tonight’s patrol direct to old Birdseed.”’ Jamieson looked daggers but said nothing. Stokes correctly interpreted those dag- gers. He knew the penalty for insubordina- tion was nasty but he was thinking, couldn’t help thinking of the wet blanket and what it might mean. At daybreak, heinie “‘boxed’’ the left front company; tried, it appeared, to wipe it off the face of the earth. Shelling was awful. Fearing an attack, the kid com- pany commander burned his papers and fired his golden rain rocket appeal for re- taliation. He got it, he and his men—in the neck. Retaliation came down like the wet blanket of Stokes’ misgivings full upon that sagging sunken road, where men held their heads and groaned in terror. They now got it coming and going. The road became a road no longer. Men—white- faced, haunted things—scurried for cover like rabbits and failed to find it. There was no cover left. Back in the pill box headquarters, the C. O., crouched alongside his own latrine— for that was the sort of a C. O. he was— listened to the hammering of Canadian guns. He was deathly afraid, now, that Stokes had been right. With the sudden tumbling through the door of a disheveled runner his worst fears were verified. A piece of shrapnel, the size of a plum, stuck out of the runner’s neck. He spun like a dervish and collapsed at the colonel’s feet but ere the death rattle sounded from his throat he made his entreaty heard: “Por ’s sake, sir, turn off the guns. The batt’s bein’ blown to en The C. O. went limp. Terror-stricken he sprang to the phone. “Get out, all of you,” he curtly ordered the H. Q. crowd and indicated the pill-box door. ‘They filed out quickly. The C. O. buzzed wildly on the phone. Thank ! The wires were up. There was no need bothering with Artillery, he realized, for the strafe was letting down. It was Jamieson he wanted. “Tt’s happened,” he hurriedly said when connection had been established. ‘‘What’s happened?e”’ “What we were warned of — Stokes’ warning.” “You don’t say?” Along pause. “Well, we mustn’t worry about it. Stokes’ mes- sage to the Brigadier never reached him. Understand?”’ “Ves—b-b-but.”’ “But what?” “He has the duplicate of that message in his possession.”’ ‘‘Well—that’s up to you. get it.” Yes! It was up to him, the C. O. realized. He hung up the phone. Division was sure to get wise to the mess—men would talk—and would come poking around en- deavoring to fix the responsibility for the blunder on some one’s shoulders. That some one, the C. O. argued to himself, had to be Stokes. It was Stokes’ prescribed duty to correct mistakes in line disposition, to set things right. Stokes, if asked, would undoubtedly tell division of his warning message to brigade. But if he couldn’t produce that message, either original or copy, he’d be the goat. That was it. Stokes had to be the goat. “Precisely,” remarked the C. O. to him- self, and he got to his feet. ‘Where the — was the fellow’s equipment, anyway?”’ And Stokes—well, Stokes was up front ministering to maimed men who cried like babies and shook their fists at the hazy back-country where their own guns were letting down. gee BACK-COUNTRY, at the Beau- Mivws rains pump-house, Sammy Stokes = met up with the ghost. Stokes had been made the goat. He had taken his divisional medicine without a whimper, had packed his belongings, and had left his unit—an undesirable. They hadn’t called him that exactly but loss of his job and the fact that he was being returned to England inferred as much. He had gone back at night with the ration limbers. His eyes smarted occasionally but the smarting wasn’t attributable to the dust raised by the wheels of the cart behind which he trailed. Disgrace pricks good men deeply and Sammy Stokes was no exception to the rule. : At Beaurains, the ruin in the wood, he had stopped to rest. Thirst got him. He asked several transport drivers for a drink but they were shy. “Try that old pump-house,” one coun- seled. ‘‘We’ve filled up there several times.”’ Stokes tried. The building was badly You'd. better ) CoOMmiclbooks nn)