Buttons | Page 4

of it would have taken the heart out of gallant but
more sensitive men. The bomber is a peculiar type, nerveless, reckless,

and absolutely fatalistic.
Cottingham's boldness was of another sort. It was all he could do to
restrain himself from jumping up and dashing forward. There was a
thrill to "going over" in the light of the sun and with chaps shouting all
about one and shells bursting everywhere, but this--cursed sneaking,
he'd call it, and it rattled a fellow, you know.
After an age of stealthy crawling the raiders lay at the foot of the little
knoll at the top of which was the fortified bit of trench that was their
objective. They were literally under the enemy's guns, and in the
stillness they could hear the night watch moving about. Occasionally
the Fritzies' voices could be heard, and once one of them laughed out,
and the clearness of his laughter pierced the silence as would the
scream of a shell.
One might have heard the breathing of the bombers below as they
relaxed from the rigid tenseness which the sudden sound had struck
into them. Wet through and through, and covered with mud, they lay
there waiting the sergeant's word.
The slightest sound and the machine guns above would have swept the
little slope with a sheet of fire through which no living thing could have
passed.
The sergeant was too old at this business to keep his men long under
such a strain. "Now, men!" he said in a low voice, and at the word the
twenty-nine raiders dashed forward. They mounted the rise and flung
themselves into the black pit with a suddenness that must have
stupefied the handful of defenders.
Not gunshot was fired. The muffled cursing and scuffle of the brief
hand-to-hand combat, and the terrible thuds of heavy blows dealt in the
dark, and then, almost at the same instant--silence again. But there were
two heavy-handed bombers waiting at the end of the trench section to
welcome any unlucky Fritz who might happen along, and that
unscrupulous lieutenant had climbed off the Hun who had been the
recipient of his personal attentions and was looking for the entrance of

a certain dugout in which there were such things as Gottliebs and
buttons.
He was not long in finding it. Just a few paces down the trench from
where the brief melee had occurred and behind a high point where the
parapet was conveniently high, Cottingham's flashlight discovered a
heavy little sheet-iron door in the trench wall.
That Fritz back there must have been very hungry, indeed, to have told
the truth in this unusual fashion. But he had not told the whole truth. He
had said nothing about Gottlieb's being a nightowl. Yet here was light
streaming out of a tiny chink at the bottom of the door, and much did
that tiny point of light disconcert the unscrupulous lieutenant who had
expected to find his host tucked in for the night.
It required a thorough recollection of every detail of that Emilie's
loveliness and fitness to become Mrs. Cottingham to convince the
lieutenant that it was necessary to open that door.
First he gave it a bit of a push, but it wasn't that kind of a door. It had to
be dragged, and the first drag opened it only about an inch and a half,
but through that inch and a half the lieutenant took one penetrating
peek.
Around the little table in the center of the room sat three officer Fritzies
playing cards. Over their heads hung an electric light, and over in front
of the mirror a fourth Fritz brushed his bristles with a real hairbrush.
There were two entrancing bunks, one legitimate chair, several framed
photographs on the walls, and numerous magazines strewn about. The
only thing that dugout lacked was period furniture.
Cottingham turned his attention again to the card players. He presumed
they were playing skat, but he began to doubt this when one of them
showed his hand and said, "Drei Koenigen. Was habst du?" The man
opposite said, "Alle blau." According to Cottingham's feeble German,
one player had announced three kings and the other had said that his
cards were all blue. This sounded very much like the game they had
taught him in the States, wherein his Yank instructor had said, "all

blue," and on the strength of it had demanded eight pounds. Silly game
it was, but the lieutenant did not have time to reflect about it, because
the disgruntled loser, who from Emilie's description must have been
Gottlieb, pushed across the table a little heap of--buttons.
The sight of them was enough to banish caution. Cottingham jerked
open the door and put his automatic in the faces of the astounded
officer Fritzies. They