Victor Appleton - The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front

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"It's hard to say. Here comes an orderly now. Maybe he has some
instructions."

This proved to be the case, the messenger bearing a note from Captain
Black, requesting the moving picture boys to get some scenes around the
camp when the soldiers were served with their daily rations.

Some German propaganda was being circulated in the United States,
Captain Black explained, to the effect that the soldiers in France were
being underfed and were most unhappy. It was said that large losses had
taken place in their ranks through starvation.

"We want to nail that lie to the mast!" said the captain; "and I can't
imagine a better way than by making some films showing the boys at their
meals."

"And they are some meals, too!" exclaimed Blake, as he and his chum made
ready for the task set them. "If every soldier in this war had as good
grub as our boys, they'd want to keep on fighting."

Though Blake and Joe were resting at that particular time, it must not
be assumed that they did much of that sort of thing. Of course they were
not always on duty. Moreover, unlike the soldiers, they could do nothing
after dark, during which period many raids were made on both sides. The
moving picture business of taking films depended on daylight for its
success. But when they were not filming peaceful scenes in and about the
trenches the boys were getting views of tanks, of men drilling, of their
games and sports, and now they were to get some pictures of the meals.

As Blake and Joe had remarked, they had neither heard nor seen anything
of Secor or Labenstein since they came from England. The men might have
been arrested, but this was hardly likely.

"Even if they were we wouldn't hear of it," said Blake. "But I hope, if
they are under arrest, they'll hold them until we can tell what we know
of them."

"Same here," agreed Joe. "But I guess we'll never see them again."

Before long, however, his words were recalled to him in a strange manner
and under grim circumstances.

"Well, Buddy, coming to get yours?" called Private Drew, as Blake and
Joe, their cameras over their shoulders, walked toward the cook wagons
from which came fragrant odors.

"Haven't heard any invitations yet," returned Blake, grinning.

"Come in with us!"

"Over this way!"

"Here you are for the big feed!"

The cries came from a number of different groups of Uncle Sam's soldiers
who were fighting in France. For Blake, Joe and Charlie were generally
liked, and though they were not supposed to mess with the soldiers, they
did so frequently, and had many a good meal in consequence.

"We're going to get records of your appetites to show the folks back
home," observed Blake, as he and Joe set up the machines. "There's a
report that you're gradually wasting away from lack of pie and cake."

"Watch me waste!" cried a vigorous specimen of American manhood. "Just
watch me waste!" And he held aloft a big plate heaped high with good and
substantial food, while, laughing, Blake and Joe made ready to get the
views.

There was much fun and merriment, even though a few miles away there was
war in its grimmest aspect But if one thought of that all the while, as
Captain Black said, none would have the nerve and mental poise to face
the guns and finally overcome the Huns.

Following the taking of the scenes around the mess hall, others were
made showing the boys in khaki at bayonet practice, at the throwing of
hand grenades, and other forms of war exercises.

"I guess these will do for peaceful scenes," said Captain Black, when
Joe and Blake reported to him what they had accomplished. "And now do
you feel equal to a little more strenuous work?"

"Yes, sir. In what way?" returned Blake.

"On the firing line again. I know you'll keep it to yourselves, but we
are going to have a big engagement in a day or so. We are all primed for
it and it will be on a big scale. The Government wants some films of it,
if you can get them, films not so much to be shown in public as to be
official records of the War Department. Do you boys feel equal to the
task?"

"That's what we're here for!" exclaimed Blake.

"How about you, Duncan?" asked the captain of Joe. "Is your side all
right?"

"Oh, yes! I'd never know I'd been hurt. I'm game, all right!"

"Well, it will be in a day or so. None of us knows exactly when, as
those higher up don't let us into all of their secrets. Too many leaks,
you know. We want to surprise Fritz if we can."

This gave the moving picture boys something further to think about and
to plan for, and when they had taken the reels of exposed film, showing
the dinner scenes, from their cameras, they made the machines ready for
more strenuous work.

"I think I'll put an extra covering of thin sheet steel on the film
boxes," said Charlie, talking the matter over with his two chums. "A
stray bit of shrapnel might go through them now and make a whole reel
light-struck."

"I suppose it would be a good idea," agreed Blake. "Go to it, Mac, and
we'll be ready when you are."

Four days of anxious waiting followed, with the men keyed up to concert
pitch, so to speak, and eager for the word to come that would send them
out of the trenches and against the ranks of the Germans.

But for a long time no word came from the higher command to prepare for
the assault, though many knew it was pending. Perhaps the Germans knew
it, too, and that was what caused the delay. None could say.

Blake, Joe and Charlie were in readiness. They had their cameras
adjusted, had plenty of fresh film, and but awaited the word that would
send them from their comparatively comfortable house with the French
family into the deadly trenches.

Finally the word came. Once more in the gray dawn the boys took their
places with their cameras in the communicating trench, while ahead of
them crouched the soldiers eager to be unleashed at the Germans.

And then they went through it all over again. There was the curtain of
fire, the artillery opening up along a five-mile front with a din the
boys had never heard equalled.

Waiting for the light to improve a little, the boys set up their cameras
in a little grove of trees where they would be somewhat protected and
began to make the pictures.

The battle was one of the worst of the war. There were many killed and
wounded, and through it all--through the storm of firing--the moving
picture boys took reel after reel of film.

"Some fight!" cried Blake, as a screaming shell burst over their heads,
some scattering fragments falling uncomfortably close to them.

"I should say yes!" agreed Joe. "But look, here comes Drew on the run. I
wonder what's happened."

They saw their friend the private rushing toward them, and waving his
hands. He was shouting, but what he said they could not hear.

And then, so suddenly that it was like a burst of fire, Blake, Joe and
Charles experienced a strange feeling! Some powerful odor overpowered
them! Gasping and choking, they fell to the ground, dimly hearing Drew
shouting:

"Gassed! Gassed! Put on your masks!"

CHAPTER XX

"GONE!"

Rolling down upon the American and French battlelines, coming out of the
German trenches, where it had been generated as soon as it was noted
that the wind was right, drifted a cloud of greenish yellow, choking
chlorine gas.

Chlorine gas is made by the action of sulphuric acid and manganese
dioxide on common salt. It has a peculiar corrosive effect on the nose,
throat and lungs, and is most deadly in its effect. It is a heavy gas,
and instead of rising, as does hydrogen, one of the lightest of gases,
it falls to the ground, thus making it dangerously effective for the
Huns. They can depend on the wind to blow it to the enemy's trenches and
fill them as would a stream of water.

Knowing as he did the deadly nature of the gas from his own experience
and that of his comrades, some of whom had been killed by it, Private
Drew lost no time in sounding his warning to the moving picture boys.
He had taken part in the raid on the Germans, had seen and engaged in
some hard fighting, and had been sent to the rear with an order from his
officer. And it was as he started that he saw, from one section of the
Hun lines, the deadly gas rolling out.

He knew from the direction and strength of the wind just where it would
reach to, and, seeing the moving picture boys in its path, he called to
them.

"Put on your masks! Put on your masks!" cried the soldier. At the same
time, as he ran, he loosed his from where it hung at his belt and began
to don it.

The gas masks used in the trenches are simple affairs. They consist of a
cloth helmet which is saturated with a chemical that neutralizes the
action of the chlorine. There are two celluloid eye holes and a rubber
tube, which is taken into the mouth and through which the air breathed
is expelled. All air breathed, mixed as it is with the deadly chlorine,
passes through the chemical-saturated cloth of the helmet and is thus
rendered harmless. But it is a great strain on those who wear the masks,
for nothing like the right kind of breathing can be done. In fact, a
diver at the bottom of the sea has better and more pure air to breathe
than a soldier in the open wearing a gas mask.

It was the first experience of Blake and his chums with the German gas,
though they had heard much about it, and it needed but the first whiff
to make them realize their danger.

Even as Private Drew called to them, and as they saw him running toward
them and trying to adjust his own mask, they were overcome. As though
shot, they fell to the ground, their eyes smarting and burning, their
throats and nostrils seeming to be pinched in giant fingers, and their
hearts laboring.

One moment they had been operating their cameras. The next they were
bowled over.

"Put on your----" began Blake; and then he could say no more. He tried
not to breathe as he fumbled at his belt to loosen his mask. He buried
his nose deep in the cool earth, but such is the nature of this gas that
it seeks the lowest level. There is no getting away from it save by
going up.

In a smoke-filled room a fireman may find a stratum of cool, and
comparatively fresh, air at the bottom near the floor. This is because
cold air is heavier than the hot and smoke-filled atmosphere. But this
does not hold with the German gas.

And so, before Blake could slip over his head the chemical-impregnated
cloth, he lost consciousness. In another moment his two companions were
also unconscious. Private Drew, struggling against the terrible
pressure on his lungs, managed to get his helmet over his head, and then
he gave his attention to his friends.

He knew that to save their lives he must get their helmets on; for a few
breaths of the gas will not kill. But they will disable a person for
some time, and a little longer breathing of it means a horrible death.

And so, working at top speed, the soldier, now himself protected from
the fumes, though he had breathed more of them than he liked, labored to
save his friends.

Suddenly a new terror developed, for, wearing their own helmets which
made them look like horrible monsters out of a nightmare, the Germans
charged against the French and Americans, whom they hoped to find
disabled by the gas.

"Here they come with blood in their eyes if I could only see it!" mused
Private Drew, as he finished fastening the helmet on Charles Anderson,
having already thus protected Joe and Blake. All three boys were now
unconscious, and what the outcome would be the soldier could only guess.

"But there won't be any guesswork if I leave 'em here for the Huns," he
reasoned. "I've got to help 'em back--but how?"

The Germans, in a counter-offensive, were striving to regain some of the
lost ground, and, for the moment, were driving before them the French
and American forces. Back rushed the advance lines to their supporting
columns, and Drew, seeing some of his own messmates, signaled to them,
for he could not talk with the helmet on.

Fortunately his chums of the trenches understood, and while some of them
caught up the unconscious boys and started with them to the rear, others
saved the moving picture machines.

And then, just as it seemed that the Germans would overtake them and
dispose of the whole party, there came a rush of helmet-protected
Americans who speedily dispersed those making the counter-attack,
pursuing them back to the very trenches which they had left not long
before.

The fight went on in that gas-infested territory, a grim fight,
desperate and bloody, but in which the Allies were at last successful,
though Blake and his two chums saw nothing of it.

"They're in a bad way," the surgeon said, when he examined them soon
after Drew and his friends brought them in. "I don't know whether we can
save them."

But prompt action, coupled with American ingenuity and the knowledge
that had been gained from the experience of French and British surgeons
in treating cases of gas poisoning, eventually brought the moving
picture boys back to the life they had so nearly left.

It was several days, though, before they were out of danger, and by that
time the French and Americans had consolidated the gains it cost them so
much to make, so that the place where the three boys had been overcome
was now well within the Allied lines.

"Well, what happened to us?" asked Joe, when he and his chums were able
to leave the hospital.

"You were gassed," explained Private Drew, who had had a slight attack
himself. "Didn't you hear me yelling at you to put on your helmets?"

"Yes, and we started to do it," said Blake. "But that stuff works like
lightning."

"Glad you found that out, anyhow," grimly observed the soldier. "The
next time you hear the warning, 'Gas!' don't stop to think, just grab
your helmet. And don't wait longer than to feel a funny tickling in your
nose, as if you wanted to sneeze but couldn't. Most likely that'll be
gas, too. Cover your head when you feel that."

"Thanks!" murmured Blake, for he and his chums understood that the
soldier and his mates had saved their lives.

Now that the moving picture boys were out of danger and could take some
stock of themselves and their surroundings, their first thoughts,
naturally, were of their apparatus.

"Did they get our machines?" asked Joe.

"No; we saved the cameras for you," answered Drew.

"What about the boxes of exposed film--the ones the War Office is so
anxious to get?" asked Blake.

"I didn't see anything of them," said the soldier. "We were too anxious
to get you out of the gas and save the cameras to think of anything
else. I didn't see any boxes of films, but I'll ask some of the boys who
helped me."

Blake and his chums waited for this information anxiously, and when it
came it was a disappointment, for no one knew anything of the valuable
reels.

"Though they may be there yet," said Drew. "There was some fierce
fighting around that shell crater where we carried you from, but it's
within our lines now, and maybe the boxes are there yet. Better go and
take a look."

This Blake, Joe and Charlie lost no time in doing. After a little
search, for the character of the ground had so changed by reason of the
shell fire they hardly knew it, the boys located the place where they
had so nearly succumbed. They found the spot where their cameras had
been set up, for they were marked by little piles of stones to steady
the tripods. But there were no boxes of films.

"Gone!" exclaimed Blake disconsolately, as he looked about. "And we'll
perhaps never get another chance to make such pictures again!"

"It surely is tough luck!" exclaimed Joe.

They saw a sentry on guard, for this place was far enough from the lines
of both forces to obviate the use of trenches.

"What are you looking for, Buddies?" asked the soldier, who knew the
moving picture boys.

"Some valuable army films," explained Blake, giving the details.
"They're very rare, and we'll probably never get any others like them."

"Did you leave them here?"

"Right around here," answered Joe. "I think just near this pile of
rocks," and he indicated the spot he meant.

"Say, now," exclaimed the American private, "I wouldn't be surprised but
what those two fellows took 'em!"

"What two fellows?" cried Blake.

"Why, just as I was coming on duty here I saw two fellows, one dressed
as a German soldier and the other in a blue uniform, walking around
here. I thought they were up to no good, so I took a couple of shots at
'em. I don't believe I hit either of 'em, but I came so near that I made
'em jump. And then, just before they ran away, across No Man's Land, I
saw them stoop down and pick up something that looked like boxes. I
thought they might be something they had lost in the fight the other
day, for the scrap went back and forth over this section. But now, come
to think of it, they might have been boxes of your films."

"I believe they were!" cried Blake.

"What two fellows were they you saw?" asked Joe.

The soldier explained, giving as many details as he could remember, and
Charlie cried:

"Lieutenant Secor for one--the chap in the blue. A French traitor!"

"He did have a uniform something like the French," admitted the private.
"The other was a Fritz, though."

"Labenstein!" murmured Joe. "I wonder if it is possible that they are
with the Hun army and have learned through spies that we are on this
front. If they have, they would know at once that those were boxes of
films, and that's why they stole them! Do you think it possible, Blake?"

CHAPTER XXI

ACROSS NO MAN'S LAND

Blake Stewart did not answer at once. He appeared to be considering what
the soldier had told him. And then Blake looked across No Man's
Land--that debatable ground between the two hostile forces--as though to
pierce what lay beyond, back of the trenches which were held by the
Germans, though, at this point, the enemy was not in sight.

"Could it, by any chance, have been Secor and Labenstein who got our
films?" asked Joe.

"Very possible," agreed Blake. "Labenstein, of course, would be with the
German forces, and since Secor is a traitor he would be there also. Of
course it may not have been those fellows, but some other two men who
had learned through their spies that we were here taking pictures and
wanted them for their own purposes."

"The question is, can we get them back?" put in Charlie, scowling in
the direction of the Germans.

"That's only one of the questions," observed Blake. "The main one is,
where are the films now, and where did those fellows go with them?"

"Maybe I can help you out there," put in the soldier. "I saw those two
fellows heading that way, down in that depression, and they certainly
carried some sort of flat, square boxes under their arms."

"What's down in there?" asked Joe eagerly.

"Well, it _was_ a machine-gun station, and old Fritz certainly played
hob on our boys with it," answered the sentry. "But we wiped that out
the other day, though I guess the dugout is there yet, or whatever is
left of what they used to house their barker in. The two fellows I saw
were heading for that spot."

"Is that between the lines?" asked Joe.

"Just about, yes, though there aren't any of our trenches, or theirs
either, near there now. What trenches there were have been knocked into
smithereens. That's No Man's Land down there. It belongs to whoever can
keep it, but just now nobody seems to want it. I'm here to report if
there's any movement on the part of Fritz to take up his station there
again."

"As it is now, could we go down there?" asked Joe eagerly.

"Well, if you wanted to take a chance, I s'pose you could," answered the
sentry slowly. "I wouldn't stop you. You don't belong to the army,
anyhow, and we've been instructed that you're sort of privileged
characters. All the same, it might be a bit dangerous. But don't let me
stop you."

"Come on!" exclaimed Joe, starting down the slope that led across the
bullet-scarred and shell-pitted ground.

"Where are you going?" asked Charles Anderson.

"Across No Man's Land," answered Joe grimly. "I'm going to see if we can
get back those stolen army films. If they were ours, I wouldn't be so
anxious about them. But they belong to Uncle Sam. He hired us to take
them, and it was our fault they were lost."

"Not exactly our fault," put in Blake. "We couldn't help being gassed."

"No, but excuses in war don't go. We've got to get back those films!"

"That's right!" exclaimed Charlie. "I'm with you!"

"Oh, for the matter of fact, so am I," said Blake quickly. "I feel, as
you do, Joe, that it's up to us to do all we can to get back those
films. I'm only trying to think out the best plan for getting them."

"Go right down there and make that traitor Secor, and that submarine
Dutchman, give 'em back!" cried Charlie.

"Yes, and perhaps make such a row that there'll be a general
engagement," said Blake. "No; we've got to go at this a little
differently from that. I'm in favor of getting the films away from those
fellows, if they have them, but I think we'd better try to sneak up
there first and see what the situation is. If we march down there in the
open we'll probably be fired on--or gassed, and that's worse."

"Now you've said it, Buddy!" exclaimed the sentry. "I've had both happen
to me, and getting shot, say in a soft place, ain't half as bad as the
gas. Whew! I don't want any more! So, if I was you, I'd wait until after
dark to make a trip across No Man's Land. You'll stand a better chance
then of coming back alive."

"That's what I think," returned Blake, and though Joe and Charlie were
eager for action, they admitted that their chum's plan was best.

"We'll have to make some preparations," Blake went on; "though I don't
know that we need say anything to Captain Black about what we are going
to do."

"He might stop us," said Charlie.

"Oh, no, he wouldn't do that," Joe assured their assistant.

"I'll tell you what to do," counseled the sentry: "I'm going to be on
duty here until late this afternoon. I'll keep my eyes peeled for
anything that may happen down there where that dugout used to be, and
I'll let you know.

"Meanwhile, you can be getting ready to take a little excursion there
after dark. You'd better take your gas masks with you, and also your
automatics, for you may run into a party of Fritzes out to get the night
air."

"That's what we'll do," decided Blake, and his chums agreed with him.
And then they began to make their preparations for the perilous trip
across No Man's Land that night.

They were not asked to make any pictures that day, for which they were
thankful, as they still felt some of the effects of the gas, though they
were rapidly improving.

Following the fight in which the boys so nearly lost their lives and in
which there were severe losses on both sides, though with a net gain of
territory in favor of the Allies, there was a period of comparative calm
in the American ranks. The soldiers took advantage of this to rest and
repair their damaged uniforms, arms and equipment. And it was on one of
these days, when discipline was somewhat relaxed, that the moving
picture boys made their preparations.

As they were left pretty much to themselves when they were not called
on to be making pictures, it was rather easy for them, without exciting
any comment, to get ready. This consisted in seeing that their automatic
pistols were in good working order. They also applied for new gas masks,
with a fresh impregnation of chemicals. When they received these, and
with a supply of lampblack, they were ready, waiting only for the fall
of darkness.

The lampblack was to be put on their hands and faces so that their
whiteness would not be revealed in case the Germans played their
searchlights on the ground the boys hoped to cover, or sent up star
clusters to give light for raiding parties sent out to kill the French
and American wounded, such being one of the pleasant ways in which Fritz
makes war.

Late in the afternoon they paid a visit to their friend the sentry,
asking if he had seen anything of the two men that they suspected might
have the films--Secor and Labenstein.

"I wouldn't know 'em by those names even if I saw 'em," said the
soldier, "and, as a matter of fact, I didn't see the same two chaps I
saw before. But I have seen figures moving about down in that hollow,
where we wiped out the machine gun squad, and I wouldn't be surprised
but what there was something doing there."

"I only hope our films are there," said Joe.

"Don't build too much on it, Buddy," advised the sentry. "As I say, I
saw some figures I took to be Germans down in that valley, but they may
be getting ready for a raid on our lines, and may have nothing to do
with your pictures."

"Well, we'll take a chance," decided Blake.

"That's what!" chimed in Joe.

Being accredited representatives of a certain branch of the army, though
non-combatants, the boys were allowed to pass through the sentry lines,
except in certain restricted places. They were given the countersign
each night in case they desired to leave their quarters and go about.

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