CHAPTER XI

THE STORM BREAKS

“I wonder how long they’re going to keep up these fireworks?” Joe shouted close to Blake’s ear. “If one of those shells happens to come our way----”

“Then there’d be a few less movie operators in the world,” remarked Blake, with an assumption of coolness and indifference that he was quite far from feeling.

“I wonder how the world would get along without such experts as we are,” grinned Joe.

“Say, I bet the Huns are getting ready to charge,” interrupted Charlie. “The bombardment’s slackening up. Listen!”

Then suddenly, without warning, the deafening uproar stopped and in its place a silence so intense that the boys could hear the beating of their own hearts.

It was the silence that precedes the storm. The furious bombardment had begun the work and now it was up to the infantry to finish it.

Hardly daring to breathe, the moving picture boys waited. Then fiercely across the open space, the gray flood leaped at them. On, on they came, while grim boys in khaki waited, bayonets poised, waited for the word of command that would hurl them, unleashed hounds, into the fray.

Down upon them rushed the German hordes until it seemed that human nature could stand the terrific strain no longer. Then--the tension snapped.

Up over the sides of the trench, like an avenging fate, swarmed our boys, yelling, shouting, racing, on, on to meet the helmeted figures in gray, the fighting blood of their ancestors carrying them inevitably to victory.

“Go it, you fellows, go it!” Blake was yelling, beside himself with fierce joy--all the time automatically taking pictures.

“They can’t stop you!” Joe was yelling, equally demented.

“Get to them, give it to ’em, wallop ’em!” Macaroni added, almost weeping in his excitement. “Gee, fellows, I wish somebody’d give me a bayonet. I’ve got to stick one of those fat Heinie’s--Gosh, look at ’em--they’ve got ’em on the run----”

“They’re doing it! They’re doing it!” yelled Blake. “They’re pushing them back----”

“On to Berlin!” shouted Joe, madly cranking the machine. “Only a few hundred miles, boys, and only Germans to stop you. You can’t miss it----”

“Now look at them,” Blake interrupted. “The Huns are breaking----”

“They’re broke,” agreed Macaroni, ungrammatically but joyfully. “Gee, fellows, these are going to be some pictures we’re taking----”

“But we’ve got to follow ’em up,” Blake interrupted. “We can’t let them get away from us, fellows. Think of the picture----”

“But we don’t want to take any chances with the films we’ve already got,” cautioned Joe. “If we should lose them----”

“Never mind that,” answered Blake. “This is too good a chance to lose. We’ll make it a case of double or quits. We’ve started this job and let’s put it through to a finish.”

“There’s something in what Joe says, though,” put in Macaroni. “There’s no use risking what we’ve got----”

But Blake and Joe were already out in No Man’s Land and racing after the victorious army, and Macaroni had nothing to do but follow.

“Gee, I wish they’d leave well enough alone,” he grumbled as he ran.

It was no easy progress that they made over that wire-entangled, shell-tortured earth, burdened with their moving picture paraphernalia, and more than once two of the boys had to stop to rescue a companion from a mud hole or extricate him from some barbed wire that had fastened upon his uniform. It was like the tugging of nameless things and shapes in a nightmare. But their blood was up and it would have taken much more than things like these to divert them from their purpose.

“Gee, those Germans went fast when they went,” muttered Joe, as they struggled on foot by foot.

“Yes, by the time we catch up to them the fun will all be over,” grumbled Macaroni. “And we’ll have collected a few hundred scratches and several pounds of mud to show for it.”

“Oh, brace up,” said Blake cheerily. “There’s no use sounding like a funeral when we ought to be hanging out the flags. Gee, just wait till Mr. Hadley sees these films. The finest ever.”

“If he ever does,” gloomed Mac.

“Say, what’ll we do to it?” queried Joe, with returning good humor. “If you don’t slip your grouch in about two minutes, Mac, we’ll put you in a shell hole and sit on you till you’re dead.”

“Gee, I’ve been sat on all my life and I’m not dead yet,” grinned Mac. “Go as far as you like.”

The boys answered this feeble attempt at a joke in kind, then Blake broke in with a sudden exclamation.

“Say, fellows, it looks to me as though there were a mighty big storm on the way,” he said, glancing up at the sky a little anxiously. “Of course it doesn’t make much difference to us, but I’d like to have these films stowed away in some safe place.”

“Yes,” Joe agreed worriedly, “and we don’t seem to be any nearer our destination than when we started. I wish we could make out our position.”

“Probably been traveling in circles,” said Macaroni, relapsing into his former gloom. “Now, we’re lost and anything may happen to the films before we get back in our lines again. We seem to have got into a blind alley some way. We’ve lost touch with the rest of the bunch.”

For once the moving picture boys failed to rally him upon his gloomy misgivings, for they themselves were a little uneasy. Evidently they had gone further than they meant and in their struggles with the bad going had gotten away from the direction of the main attack.

What if they were really lost and a bad storm threatening? It would be a trying situation, and before they got through they might find that they were inside the German lines.

Blake straightened up with sudden decision.

“There’s only one thing to do now,” he said. “We’ve got to find some sort of shelter and wait until the storm blows over. Then it will be comparatively easy to find our way to the Allied lines.”

“Maybe----” Mac was beginning, when Joe interrupted him.

“I felt a drop,” he cried. “Whatever we do we’ve got to do in a hurry. Forward march!”

With no real expectation of success, they rushed from place to place, looking for some sort of refuge. But the storm had fairly broken before Joe uttered a cry of triumph.

“Here’s just the place!” he yelled. “Come on in, fellows--it may not be exactly luxurious, but at least it’s dry.”

What he had found seemed to be a deserted dugout almost hidden in the foliage of the surrounding woods. It was dirty and dark and not very sweet-smelling, but to the boys it seemed a very haven of refuge.

“The storm can’t last very long,” said Blake as they settled themselves to wait with what patience they could summon. “And at least we’ve still got hold of the films.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” said Mac with increasing pessimism. “How do we know we haven’t wandered around until we’ve gotten inside the German lines? Then some Heinie comes snooping around, finds us and the films--presto! Nothingness, where once were we.”

The two boys glared at the despondent Charlie.

“I say, Macaroni, old thing,” said Joe, assuming an elaborate drawl. “You might not suppose it, but you are really wearing on my nerves; you

## act like a second edition of old C. C.”

Blake chuckled, and in the darkness Macaroni allowed himself a feeble grin.

Outside the rain came down in torrents, a slashing, drenching, ugly rain that tested their powers of cheerfulness and made sitting still a torture.

After a rather long interval of silence, Blake broke out impatiently:

“Gee, what an ending to a great fight like that!” “It’s all my fault, too,” he grumbled. “If I hadn’t wanted to follow up the thing and dragged you fellows along, we’d be eating chow now--big, juicy mouthfuls of it----”

“Hey, cut it out, will you?” groaned Joe miserably. “It’s like burying a man up to his neck and then putting chicken pie just beyond his reach. Gee, I’ll eat those films if we don’t get out of this pretty soon. My, how it pours!”

“I’m going to take a look,” added Macaroni, rising groaningly from his cramped position. “This sort of thing can’t keep up forever.”

“It doesn’t have to,” put in Joe disconsolately. “They say it only takes four days for a man to die of starvation.”

“It won’t be quite as bad as that, you know,” Blake reminded him. “I guess even Mr. Hadley wouldn’t want us to go that far for the sake of the profession. How about it?” This to Charlie as he came slowly back from the dugout entrance.

“Not a thing in sight but rain,” he answered dismally. “And I’m getting emptier and emptier by the minute. If it wasn’t so black outside I’d make a dive for it and take a chance of being potted full of holes. Anything’s better than this.”

“You’re getting worse than C. C., Macaroni,” Joe protested. “You’re taking it for granted that we have sallied within the German lines and will get our pass to Kingdom Come if we stick our noses into the open. That puts us between the old Nick and the deep, deep sea.”

“Listen!” cried Blake suddenly, springing to his feet. “What’s that?”

Somewhere, close to them, came the deafening report of a cannon. Another and another report followed, swelling to a maddening, discordant roar.

“The Germans!” cried Blake.

“A counter-attack,” gasped Mac.

“I guess,” said Joe, slowly and grimly, “there can be no doubt but what--we’re in for it!”

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