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."