Adventure Magazine Cover, June 20, 1925 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

18 Adventure been destroyed, they went forward in si- lence, listening, halting and looking care- fully about, and going forward again. From time to time Nell would hear whistles blown, two together, then two more blasts, and each time the corporal would hearken till he located the sound, and several times he changed the direction of the march. Nell decided that the whistle was the platoon’s commanders, and that he was blowing it to let the squads know the proper direction to take. Sometimes they heard distant firing, shouts, the crashing of gre- nades, but in front of them there was no resistance. They captured two pallid youths with a light machine-gun, and dragged a man from under a bush—what he was doing there was a mystery—but except for that they saw no enemy. | The woods grew thinner and finally ended on the edge of a small field, on the other side of which they began again. The sun was out now and blazing cheerfully. ‘“Hold up a minute for the rest of the gang,” directed the corporal. ‘‘We don’t want to start across this pasture all by our lonesome. There may be Boche in the farther woods.” “There they go,’ announced one of the other men suddenly, pointing to a line of men starting out from the woods. “Come on,” said the corporal, and they went out across the field, for all the world like a crowd of picnickers. Five steps they took, and a low moan wel- comed them, a moan that became a shriek, and as every man hit the ground, ended in a short sharp explosion. Nell raised his head. There was a cloud of black smoke drifting away and men getting up and moving for- ward again. ‘‘Good enough,” said the corporal, looking all around to see that his squad was intact. “Tf guess there’s no more machine-guns if they’ve begun to shell us.” ‘‘How do you suppose they see us?” asked Spagett. “I don’t see no balloon.” “T can give a guess,”’ said the corporal. He tipped his head back and shading his eyes with his hand, looked into the sky. “T thought so,” he muttered. the ——?” He pointed and Nell could see a tiny far away gleaming thing, no larger than a bird, a bird that wheeled and dipped and circled and hovered over them, very, very high. ‘See “That’s a plane,” said the corporal to Nell. “He’s directin’ the Boche artillery.” “Won't our guys drive him away?” asked Nell. All laughed harshly. ‘Let ’em try it,” said one scornfully. Another shell arrived and after flopping until it had burst, the line went forward again. ‘They don’t hit any one,” said Nell. “The bunch all get right up again.” “The guys that are hit don’t,” said the corporal. “See them stretcher bearers?” He pointed to a pair of men with a long pole-like affair over their shoulders. As Nell watched, these men put down their pole and knelt in the grass. “They’re right on the job,” observed Nell. | “Oh, it’s early in the day yet; they ain’t lost their courage,” said Spagett. “TI wonder would they have anything good for a boil?” said Goodrich. ‘I’ve a good mind to ask ’em.”’ . “Tll cure it for you,” said the corporal, pretending to unfix his bayonet. ‘Where is 1t?”’ 7 “Uh,” said Goodrich, “‘it ain’t no joke, believe me. I wish you had it on the end of your nose.”’ : Into more woods, where they were de- layed a while by some wire, but the wire had no defenders and after the stretch of wood had been crossed, the men came to a field, gleaming hot under the sun, and on the far side of the field could see a town. A road entered the town, its course marked by telephone poles with their porce- lain insulators glittering, and when one stepped a little to one side he could see a second town behind the first. A long blast of the whistle and the line lay down. Shells fell at irregular intervals, but there was no other firing, and the white houses of the town gleamed peacefully. ‘“There’s our meat,”’ said Spagett, ‘‘that town. I bet we’re goin’ to take it.”’ “If the Boche don’t want it,” grunted the corporal, “‘but I don’t guess we’ll have much trouble. Jerry don’t seem to have a whole lot of pep today.”’ “Say, what happened back there in the woods,” asked Nell, “‘when we were held up so long?” “Oh,” cried several at once, ‘“‘the Boche had chicken wire over their gun.” “Chicken wire?” COMIGEIOOKSEEO