CHAPTER PAGE

I BLOWN BACK 1

II TO THE RESCUE 11

III SENT TO THE REAR 19

IV A DOUBLE LOSS 28

V WHAT'S TO BE DONE 38

VI GOOD NEWS 44

VII UNDER FIERCE FIRE 52

VIII THE OLD MILL 61

IX TRAPPED 70

X FALLING WALLS 78

XI A STRANGE RESCUE 88

XII MUCH WONDERING 98

XIII A PERILOUS JOURNEY 105

XIV THE SENTRY 113

XV IN THE BATTLE AGAIN 122

XVI HELD UP 133

XVII A BATTLE OF THE AIR 139

XVIII CAPTURED 146

XIX THREE PRISONERS 156

XX THE CAPTAIN AGAIN 163

XXI BACK WITH FRIENDS 176

XXII FIERCE FIGHTING 185

XXIII THE LONELY HUT 192

XXIV A GLORIOUS VICTORY 199

[Illustration: [Transcriber's note: original truncated] 'INTO THE MIDST OF THE']

CHAPTER I

BLOWN BACK

"What's that, Schnitz?"

"What's what!"

"That noise. Sounds like a party coming along the communication trench!"

The talk was in tense whispers, and the listening was now of the same tenseness. Two khaki-clad Sammies stood on the alert in the muddy ditch, dignified by the title, "trench," and tried to pierce the darkness that was like a pall of black velvet over everything.

"Hear it?" inquired he who had first spoken.

"I somedings hears, too," spoke a guttural voice, with a foreign accent. "Might not it perhaps be—"

"Cut that talk, Iggy!" sharply commanded the first speaker. "Do you want the lieutenant dropping in on us!" And Corporal Robert Dalton cautiously moved nearer his fellow non-com., Sergeant Franz Schnitzel.

"Yes, not so loud," advised Schnitzel, who, in spite of his Teutonic name, was a thorough American, speaking with no trace of German accent. "Don't forget that the Boches may have listening parties out right in front of this trench, even though they may have information that we're going to rush 'em just before dawn."

"But what is that noise?" went on Bob. "It sounds like the relief coming, and yet we can't be going to be relieved so near the zero hour. It's impossible."

"Him one big word is," sighed Iggy, trying to adjust his Polish tongue to the strange language called English. "But thinks me nothing is like him in dis war!"

"Nothing is like what?" asked Schnitzel, the talk now being reduced to whispers on the part of all three.

"Him wot you said—repossible," said the Polish lad.

"Hush!" quickly exclaimed Bob, or Dal, as he was variously called by his comrades. "There is some one coming along the trench. If it's the Boches—"

This was enough to cause all three to grip their rifles more tightly. The sound of advancing footsteps, cautious as they were, was now more audible. Then came a whispered, but sharp:

"Halt! Who goes there!"

"Our lieut's on the job!" commented Bob.

Tensely the three who stood shoulder to shoulder in the darkness of the foremost trench, waiting, listened for the answer. It came, also in a whisper, but it carried to their ears.

"Sergeant Blaise and Sergeant Barlow, ordered to report here to you, sir."

"Oh golly! It's Blazes und Ruddy!" gasped Iggy.

"Cheese it!" cautioned Dal, for the Polish lad, in his enthusiasm, had spoken above a whisper, and even slight sounds carried far on this dark, still night.

"Advance, Sergeant Blaise to be recognized," came the order from the sentry, evidently acting on advice from the lieutenant in command of this part of the American trench.

There was a period of silent waiting on the part of the three who stood so close together, and then they heard their immediate commanding officer say:

"Pass on. You'll find your friends just beyond here."

A moment later the two newcomers were grasping hands in the dark with the three waiting ones.

"The five Brothers are united again," said Roger Barlow in a low voice.

"Sooner than I expected," commented Jimmy Blaise. "Now we can go over the top together."

"Over the top, may we all go together, in the wind and the rain or in damp, foggy weather," was Bob Dalton's contribution. He sometimes "perpetrated verse," as he dubbed it—a reminder of his cub reporter days.

"But say, Jimmy, how did you manage to get here?" asked Franz.

"Walked," was Jimmy Blaise's laconic answer. "They haven't had to carry me on a stretcher—at least not lately."

"Oh, you know what I mean," said Franz. "I mean, did you ask to be transferred from your station to this trench?"

"No, and that's the funny part of it," said Roger Barlow. "You know after we wrote our letters to-night—or, rather last night, for it's past twelve now—Blazes and I went back to our station."

"Yes, and we came here to wait for the zero signal," interpolated Dal.

"Well, we hadn't been out in our trench very long before we were relieved, and told to report to Lieutenant Dobson here," resumed Jimmy. "And when we remembered that this was where you three were stationed, say, maybe we weren't glad!"

"We are of a gladness also much!" whispered the Polish lad, and there was rather a pathetic note in his voice. "It is a goodness gracious to have you here!"

"Say, you can do more things to the English language than the Boches can on an air raid," chuckled Jimmy.

"Oh, well, it is of a much hardness to speak," sighed Iggy.

"Well, there's no fault to be found with your fighting, that's sure!" declared Roger. "Put her there, old pal!" and he clasped hands with his foreign "Brother."

"How's everything here?" asked Jimmy, when the five had taken such easy positions as were available in the narrow trench.

"We're all ready for the zero hour," replied Bob. "Everybody's on their tiptoes. I wish it was over—I mean here. This waiting is worse than fighting."

"It sure is," commented Franz. "But it won't be long now."

"What time do you make it?" asked Bob.

"Must be quite some after three," said Jimmy in a low voice. "It was nearly three when we got our orders to come here."

Roger took out a tiny pocket flash lamp, and, placing one finger over the bulb so that no rays would escape, held the dim glow over his wrist-watch.

"Quarter to four," he announced.

"Fifteen minutes more," sighed Dal.

"They'll seem like fifteen years, though, Bob," commented Jimmy.

A reaction, in the shape of silence, came upon the Khaki Boys—"five Brothers" as they called themselves, for they had become that since their participation in the World War. Tensely and quietly they waited in the trench for the hands of time to move to the hour of four. This was the "zero" period, when in a wave of men and steel, or lead and high explosives, the Americans would go over the top, in an endeavor to dislodge the Germans from a strong position.

Only a few hours before, after each had written a letter home, the missives having been sent back of the lines to be posted, the five lads had solemnly shaken hands at parting. The two sergeants—James Blaise and Roger Barlow—went to a distant part of the intricate trench system, while the two corporals, Robert Dalton and Ignace Pulinski and Sergeant Franz Schnitzel were together in a ditch near the middle of the barbed wire entanglements. And now, by a strange turn of fate, they were all together again, waiting for the final word that might send then all into eternity, or cause them to live horribly misshapen.

Something of this seemed to be felt by the five Khaki Boys as they stood in the mud and darkness waiting. For it had rained and the trench was slimy on the bottom in spite of the "duck boards."

"I wonder where we'll be this time to-morrow," mused Bob in a low voice.

"Oh, cut out the 'sob sister' stuff!" said Jimmy, a bit sharply. "Isn't it gloomy enough here without that?"

They talked in the lowest whispers, and there were the murmurs of whispers on either side of them, for their comrades up and down the trenches felt the same strain, and relieved it by talking cautiously.

"I think we'll all be together again," said Roger, trying to speak cheerfully. "Somehow I've got a feeling that we'll come out of this all right."

"Me, I hat a dream," slowly remarked Iggy. "Of my dream I now know only one cling—und dot is my face was all bloody!"

"Oh, for the love of Mike! Don't croak!" exclaimed Jimmy.

"Silence down there!" came a sharp command. Jimmy had spoken too loudly, and the listening lieutenant had heard him.

Slowly the minutes dragged. Once again Roger carefully looked at his watch.

"What time is it?" whispered Franz.

"Five minutes of."

"Great Scott! Is it only ten minutes since you looked before! It seems like a lifetime. Whew! I'm all in a sweat!"

And yet the night was cool.

It was now as silent as death in the trench, and all about it. Earlier in the night there had been distant shelling, but this had ceased some time since.

Roger, unable to stand the strain longer, was about to flash his little pocket electric torch again when suddenly the stillness of the night was broken by a loud, shrill whistle.

"The signal!" cried Jimmy.

"The zero hour at last!" shrilled Roger in his tense excitement.

"Over the top!" yelled Bob. "Over the top!"

And just as the first streaks of the gray light of dawn began to pierce the blackness, the five Brothers, and their comrades up and down the trenches, leaped from their places of waiting with savage yells, and started for the German lines.

"I am glad! I am glad!" sang Iggy. "Now I can of the fight have a piece!"

He and Franz sprang out of the trench together. Side by side they raced over the rough ground, through the gaps cut in the barbed wire. A little in advance were Jimmy, Roger and Bob.

And now the big guns began their chorus. With boom and roar, roar and boom they sang their anthem of death. The rattle of rifles came in as a response, and all this was punctured by fiendish yells.

Then, too, from the German lines, came the answering song of the big guns. Though the attack had taken them by surprise, they were not slow in responding. With all that we think of the Boches we must give them credit for being savage, if unfair, fighters. They seldom declined a challenge, at least on the front lines.

"Come on! Come on!" yelled Jimmy.

"Up and at 'em! Up and at 'em!" snapped Roger.

"Wow! This is going to be some fight!" exulted Bob.

It was fast growing light, and the disappearing darkness was further illuminated by the flashes from hundreds of guns. Lines of khaki-clad Sammies were pouring from the American trenches now, in a mad rush for the Hun positions.

"Well, we're together yet, anyhow," mused Jimmy, as, looking back, he saw Bob, the Polish lad, and Franz coming on with a rush.

"Yes, we're together—yet," added Roger. They both had been firing madly at the distant gray lines of German soldiers in front of them. They had to yell into each other's ears to be heard above the din.

Suddenly the very earth seemed to drop away from under their feet. They felt the shock of rushing air. A big, high-explosive shell had dropped near them.

"That's bad!" shouted Jimmy, as the concussion died away. He looked behind him and saw, with horror, Iggy, the Polish Brother, literally being blown back through the air. Whether this was the effect of the big shell that had exploded, or whether it was caused by a smaller one going off a moment later, Jimmy could not tell. But he saw Iggy hurtling through the air, and the face of the Polish lad was covered with blood, as he himself had said it had been in his dream.

CHAPTER II

TO THE RESCUE

"Go on! Don't stop! Slam at 'em!"

It was the sharp command of the lieutenant in immediate charge of the detachment including Jimmy Blaise and his comrades.

"Forward! Forward!" was yelled on every side.

The din continued—increased. It seemed as though there could be nothing left whole on earth again; in all that riot of noise and blood—as though everything must be rent to pieces.

"Are you all right!" cried Jimmy in the ear of Roger.

"Yes. Not scratched yet. How about—"

A loud explosion to one side cut off his words in a blast, but Jimmy knew what his chum wanted to say. When there was a momentary lull he answered:

"Iggy's gone!"

"Gone?"

"Yes. I had a glimpse of him being blown back—his face was all red—bloody."

Roger could not repress a shudder. But there was no time for any thoughts like these. He had a glimpse of Bob Dalton and Franz Schnitzel stumbling toward him and Jimmy. Then came a sharp command:

"Down! Down on your faces! Everyone! They're turning loose the machine-guns!"

The four remaining Khaki Boys fell flat, and only just in time. Over them swept a veritable hail of machine gun bullets.

"Dig in! Dig in!" commanded the lieutenant.

Frantically with their picks and shovels the Sammies began to make shallow ditches in which to lie. The upraised earth would offer some protection against the forward sweeping lead, though not very much against shrapnel which explodes in the air above and is driven downward.

And as the four Brothers were making shallow trenches they wondered, with sorrow in their hearts, if there was a chance that Iggy had been left alive.

"If we stay here long enough, I'll see if I can't get permission to go back and find out," mused Jimmy, as he frantically scraped the earth into a sort of long mound in front of his head. They were under a hot fire now. The American advance had been momentarily checked.

And while there is this period in the fighting may I not take advantage of it to make my new readers acquainted with the main characters of this story, and also tell something of the previous books in this series?

The initial volume is called "The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling," and in the pages of that you meet, for the first time, Jimmy, Roger, Bob and Iggy. To introduce them more formally I will say that Jimmy's correct name was James Sumner Blaise, and that he was the son of wealthy parents. He was about nineteen years old, and this was the average age of his comrades.

Roger Barlow was an orphan, and had been working in a munition factory when he decided to enlist. Robert Dalton had been a "cub" reporter on a newspaper, and, like Roger, was an orphan. Though Ignace was no orphan, possessing both father and mother and a number of sisters and brothers, his home life was not happy, and he was really glad to join the army.

These four lads soon became "bunkies" at Camp Sterling, where they had their training. Later they took into their friendship one Franz Schnitzel, who, though possessed of a German name, was, nevertheless, a loyal "United Stateser," as Iggy called it. Franz had a hard time, at first, convincing people of his loyalty, and once he was accused of a black crime, but later he was proved innocent.

After having been trained at the camp, and cementing their friendship in many ways, the "five Brothers" as they called themselves, were sent across. In the second book of the series, "The Khaki Boys On the Way," we find our youthful heroes sailing for France after a series of adventures, one a startling one, at Camp Marvin. This adventure had to do with the blowing up of a bridge, and Jimmy Blaise had a fight with a spy—a fight that came near being Jimmy's last.

In this second book will also be found an account of the trip of the Khaki Boys to the coast, where they boarded a transport for France. If they expected to get across safely, as many thousands did, they were disappointed, for they were attacked by a U-Boat. Many on board the transport Columbia perished, but the five Brothers were saved, and, after a time spent in a rest camp in England, they crossed the channel to France.

The third volume, called "The Khaki Boys at the Front," tells in detail some of their exciting experiences. The quintette were given leave to go from their camp to Paris, and in that beautiful city they met some other friends, the Twinkle Twins, otherwise John and Gerald Twinkleton, who had joined the aviation branch of the service. This was natural, since their cousin, Emile Voissard, was one of the most daring of the airmen, meriting the name "Flying Terror of France."

In that book, too, you may read of how Franz Schnitzel, by his knowledge of the German tongue, was able to give advance notice of a raid he overheard the Huns planning. The raid was a failure from the German standpoint, but during it some of our Khaki Boys were wounded.

Adventure followed adventure, but in one "grand" one, as a Frenchman would call it, Jimmy, on guard when Voissard's aëroplane was on the ground, temporarily disabled, stood off an attack of Germans and among others he killed Adolph von Kreitzen, known as the "tiger man." On his head the French government had set a price of five thousand francs, or about a thousand dollars, and of course Jimmy won this.

So now, in the opening of this present story, we find our five Khaki Boys still together after many strenuous happenings. They had been wounded but were now recovered and they had fought valiantly.

In the last chapter of the book immediately preceding this, if you recall, the lads had written letters home—letters which might be their last, they thought, for they had orders to take their places in the front line trenches to await the zero hour. Two of the Brothers had been separated from their chums, but all were reunited as we have seen.

Then had come the command to go over the top, and there had followed the fierce rush in the gray dawn of the morning—a rush punctuated by fire, smoke and death.

"Dig in! Dig in!" commanded the lieutenant in command of the particular squad of the 509th infantry to which our friends were attached. "This is only a temporary check. We're laying down a curtain of fire, and we'll go forward again in a moment!"

He had to yell to be heard above the din, but all near him understood what he meant. The American gunners were sending over a barrage fire—a veritable rain of bullets that would keep the Germans from advancing, and which would also cause them to abandon their machine-guns. It was the machine-gun fire that was, temporarily, holding up the advance of Jimmy and his chums.

It did not take the Sammies long, working feverishly as they did, to raise a protecting mound of earth between them and the Huns. And then, for some reason or other, the savage fire of the Germans slacked at the particular section of the line where our heroes were stationed.

"Are you all right, Rodge?" called Jimmy to the chum on his left.

"So far, yes. How about you?"

"Oh, I was nicked in one ear—just a scratch. It's hardly bleeding. Can you see Bob?"

"Yes, he's got a swell place—in a shell hole, and Franz is with him. See anything of Iggy?"

"No," answered Jimmy. "I'm afraid he's done for. If I get a chance, I'm going back to see. Looks as if Fritz had had enough at this sector."

"Aren't we going forward?" some one called to the lieutenant in charge. "Come on! Lead us to the Boches!"

"Have to wait for orders," was the grim answer. "We were told to halt here. Can't go on without orders!"

There were murmurs of disapproval at this, but the discipline was strict.

"Anybody badly wounded?" asked the lieutenant. "If there is, now's your chance to get some first-aid treatment. Later you can't, perhaps."

There were one or two who were suffering badly, and these took advantage of the lull in the fighting to apply bandages to their hurts.

"Poor Iggy!" mused Jimmy, and then, as the lieutenant crawled near him—for no one was standing upright—the sergeant asked:

"May I crawl back, sir, and see what happened to Corporal Pulinski?"

"Did you see anything happen to him?"

"Yes, sir. I saw him blown backward when the big shell exploded, and he seemed to be falling toward some sort of shell crater. If we're going to be held here long, I'd like to go to his rescue—to see if he's still alive."

"Very well," assented the young commanding officer. "Ill take a chance and let you." He knew of the pact of friendship existing among the five Brothers. "Take some one with you. But crawl—don't try to walk."

"I won't, sir. May Sergeant Barlow come along?"

"Yes. But come back if we get the order to advance again."

"I will, yes, sir!"

Swinging around on his stomach, and calling to Roger, telling him of the permission received, Jimmy Blaise started toward the rear to rescue, if possible, the Polish lad.

"But I'm afraid we'll find him done for," confided Jimmy to Roger. "The shell must have landed right in front of him. It made a hole as big as a house."

"Poor Iggy!" murmured Roger.

CHAPTER III

SENT TO THE REAR