“There won’t be any smoking or any matches lighted after dark to-night, fellows. We are only about a mile from the German front line. As near as I can make out they are advancing and it is our job to stop them. We’ll probably move forward some time after dark, so have your stuff by your side.” “When do we eat? Won’t we get any chow all night?” “The galley is in the town back of us. They are cooking up some slum, and it ought to be brought up here pretty soon.” He walked away. “There’s nothing like a good kick in the face to make you forget your little troubles.” Bullis summed up the feeling of the platoon. Kahl, industriously, was working the bolt of his rifle back and forth, pouring drops of oil in the chamber and upon the lock. He leaned toward Hicks and remarked in an undertone: “Hicks, old fellow, if Kitty Kahl doesn’t earn a Croix de Guerre to-morrow his mother will be without a son.” “What do you want one of those things for, Kahl? You can buy ’em for five francs.” “But you can’t earn one of them with five francs.” “But what do you want with one of them? What good are they?” Hicks, perhaps, was insincere. One might want a decoration and be delighted to have it, but intentionally to go after it appealed to him in the light of absurdity. As Lieutenant Bedford departed, each man drew inside himself. Merely to observe them, one would have believed that they were concerned with profound thoughts. A Y. M. C. A. secretary would have told himself that the men were thinking of their homes and families, praying to God, and the Y. M. C. A. General Pershing would have charged them with possessing a fierce, burning desire to exterminate the Germans. The regimental chaplain—he had come to the regiment from an Episcopal pulpit—would have said that they were capitulating their sins and supplicating God for mercy. While it was yet light Sergeants Harriman and Ryan and Lieutenant Bedford discussed aloud the plans that had been tentatively given them for the night, but as objects in their line of vision lost their distinctness and became vague, mysterious figures, they lowered their voices to a whisper. Lieutenant Bedford peered at his wrist-watch. “It’s time to go. Better break out the men, Harriman.” Sergeant Harriman crept along the road to the clump of woods where the platoon was huddled. “All right, men,” he whispered hoarsely; “it’s time to shove off. Has everybody got his trench tools?” “I’ve lost my shovel.” “I didn’t mean you, Gillespie. You’d lose your head if it wasn’t fastened on. Is any one missing any of their equipment?” There was no answer. “All right. Form in a column of twos and follow me.” Sergeant Harriman started off, and the men, who had risen, fell in behind him. Until this time all had been quiet, but now the machine-guns, unmistakably Maxims, began an intermittent fire. It seemed to be a signal for the rifles, for now and again one of them would crack pungently somewhere in the dark.