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Page 36
At four o'clock that afternoon the sky was softly blue and the
air was unwontedly clear. By five o'clock a gentle India-summer
haze blurred the world's sharper outlines. By six a blanket-fog
rolled in, and the air was wetly unbreatheable. The fog lay so
thick over the soggy earth that objects ten feet away were
invisible.
"This," commented Sergeant Mahan, "is one of the times I was
talking about this morning--when eyes are no use. This is sure
the country for fogs, in war-time. The cockneys tell me the
London fogs aren't a patch on 'em."
The "Here-We-Comes" were encamped, for the while, at the edge of
a sector from whence all military importance had recently been
removed by a convulsive twist of a hundred-mile battle-front. In
this dull hole-in-a-corner the new-arrived rivets were in process
of welding into the more veteran structure of the mixed regiment.
Not a quarter-mile away--across No Man's Land and athwart two
barriers of barbed wire--lay a series of German trenches. Now, in
all probability, and from all outward signs, the occupants of
this boche position consisted only of a regiment or two which had
been so badly cut up, in a foiled drive, as to need a month of
non-exciting routine before going back into more perilous
service.
Yet the commander of the division to which the "Here-We-Comes"
were attached did not trust to probabilities nor to outward
signs. He had been at the front long enough to realize that the
only thing likely to happen was the thing which seemed
unlikeliest. And he felt a morbid curiosity to learn more about
the personnel of those dormant German trenches.
Wherefore he had sent an order that a handful of the "Here-We-
Comes" go forth into No Man's Land, on the first favorable night,
and try to pick up a boche prisoner or two for questioning-
purposes. A scouring of the doubly wired area between the hostile
lines might readily harvest some solitary sentinel or some other
man on special duty, or even the occupants of a listening-post.
And the division commander earnestly desired to question such
prisoner or prisoners. The fog furnished an ideal night for such
an expedition.
Thus it was that a very young lieutenant and Sergeant Mahan and
ten privates--the lanky Missourian among them--were detailed for
the prisoner-seeking job. At eleven o'clock, they crept over the
top, single file.
It was a night wherein a hundred searchlights and a million star-
flares would not have made more impression on the density of the
fog than would the striking of a safety match. Yet the twelve
reconnoiterers were instructed to proceed in the cautious manner
customary to such nocturnal expeditions into No Man's Land. They
moved forward at the lieutenant's order, tiptoeing abreast, some
twenty feet apart from one another, and advancing in three-foot
strides. At every thirty steps the entire line was required to
halt and to reestablish contact--in other words, to "dress" on
the lieutenant, who was at the extreme right.
This maneuver was more time-wasting and less simple than its
recital would imply. For in the dark, unaccustomed legs are
liable to miscalculation in the matter of length of stride, even
when shell-holes and other inequalities of ground do not
complicate the calculations still further. And it is hard to
maintain a perfectly straight line when moving forward through
choking fog and over scores of obstacles.
The halts for realignment consumed much time and caused no little
confusion. Nervousness began to encompass the Missouri recruit.
He was as brave as the next man. But there is something creepy
about walking with measured tread through an invisible space,
with no sound but the stealthy pad-pad-pad of equally hesitant
footsteps twenty feet away on either side. The Missourian was
grateful for the intervals that brought the men into mutual
contact, as the eerie march continued.
The first line of barbed wire was cut and passed. Then followed
an endless groping progress across No Man's Land, and several
delays, as one man or another had trouble in finding contact with
his neighbor.
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