Hal’s calculation was a bit off. The shell came whistling in, like the weird cry of a hungry beast, and exploded in the hollow below the funk holes in which Hal and Chester found themselves, throwing up a geyser of earth and rocks that did no harm to anyone.
"That guy’s as wild as a hawk," came a cry from a nearby hole. "I could do better than that myself, and I ain’t no artilleryman, either."
"You talk like you wanted him to shoot closer," Hal called back. "That was plenty close enough for me."
The next shell broke on the brow of the hill. Then came a whole shower of them, each one singing its own little tune that struck terror to the hearts of the bravest.
Chester squirmed down into his funk hole until he could see the dial of his wrist watch. It was 10.35. In twenty-five minutes more the war would be over.
A moment later American batteries behind them began sending over reprisal fire. The 75’s passing over their heads whined savagely, but not so savagely as those boche shells coming in.
(It is a well-known fact that a shell going out has a different whine than a shell coming in, also a different effect on one’s nerves.)
Twenty-five minutes is a long time when a man is hiding from death. To know that in twenty-five minutes, providing you are alive at the end of that time, death’s shadow will have ceased to follow in your footsteps, is a great inducement to live.
They were back with their own command again after the trying days they had spent with Marshal Foch and the German envoys whom they had accompanied to and from their own lines and back again.
After leaving Stubbs in Soissons, following the little man’s triumph in flashing first word of the signing of the armistice to his paper in America, they had reported to General Pershing in Rheims.
The American commander-in-chief had, of course, been informed some time before that the armistice had been signed. So, in fact, had all other officers in the allied armies. This had been necessary in order that there would be no doubt as to the hour upon which the armistice would become effective.
General Pershing expressed his pleasure at seeing the boys again, and his gladness that they had been so fortunate as to be present at the signing of the armistice.