The Boy Allies in the Trenches | Page 3

their
disposal.

A troop of cavalry is composed of one hundred men. It is usually
commanded by a captain.
Now it is very unusual for a commanding officer to have two
lieutenants on his staff, as had General French in the persons of Hal and
Chester; but the General had commissioned them as such on the spur of
the moment, and when they took command of the troop they
consequently, for the time, superseded the captain in command--for
they were the personal representatives of the General himself.
The two lads placed themselves at the head of the troop and rode
forward at a rapid trot. Past dense masses of infantry, battery after
battery of heavy artillery and troop upon troop of cavalry they rode
toward the northeast.
They were not yet at the front of the long battle line, for General French
had his headquarters well back, but still close enough to be in constant
danger from the enemy's artillery fire.
From a trot the troop broke into a gallop, and soon were beyond the
farthest trenches. Skirting this at the extreme north--close to the
sea--they progressed still further toward the enemy. It was the boys'
duty, if possible, to find out the position of the German forces at this
point and to determine their numbers; also the strategic positions that
could be used by either army.
Now an order was given for the troop to spread out, and, leaving the
road, the two lads led their men into the woods, where they could
advance with less danger of being seen. They had not been ordered
forward to give battle, and there would be no fighting unless it became
necessary in order that their mission might be successful.
But, as in most missions upon which the lads had been dispatched,
there was to be fighting; and these British were not the men to turn
their backs upon the enemy without giving them a warm reception.
From the shelter of the sand dunes there came suddenly a fusillade.
Two British troopers reeled in their saddles and tumbled to the ground.

CHAPTER II.
A BIT OF HISTORY.
While Hal and Chester and their troop of British cavalry are preparing
to meet this unexpected attack, it will be well to introduce here a few
words relating to the positions of the gigantic armies battling in France
and Belgium.
The war had now been in progress for five months. From the time that
the Allies had braced and checked the Germans in their rapid advance
upon Paris, and had assumed the offensive themselves, they had
progressed consistently, if slowly.
The Germans contested every inch of the ground, and all along the
great battle line, stretching out for almost four hundred miles, the
fighting had been terrific. Day after day, week after week, month after
month the terrible struggle had raged incessantly. The losses of all four
armies, German, British, French and Belgian, had been enormous,
although, up to date, it was admitted that the Germans had suffered the
worst.
The conflict raged with advantage first to one side and then to the other.
Assaults and counter-assaults were the order of the day. From Ostend,
on the North Sea, now in the hands of the Germans, to the southern
extremity of Alsace-Lorraine, the mighty hosts were locked in a death
grapple; but, in spite of the fearful execution of the weapons of modern
warfare, there had been no really decisive engagement. Neither side
had suffered a severe blow.
In the North the Allies were being given powerful aid by a strong
British fleet, which hurled its shells upon the Germans infesting that
region, thus checking at the same time the threatened advance of the
Kaiser's legions upon Nieuport and Dunkirk, which the Germans
planned to use as naval bases for air raids on England.

The mighty siege and field guns of the Germans--which had been used
with such telling effect upon Liège, Brussels, Antwerp and Ostend,
battering the fortifications there to bits in practically no time at
all--while immense in their power of destruction, were still not a match
for the longer range guns mounted by the British battleships.
Consequently, long-range artillery duels in the north had been all in
favor of British arms.
Terrific charges of the British troops, of whom there were now less
than half a million--Scotch, Irish, Canadians and Indians included--on
the continent, had driven the Germans from Dixmude, Ypres and
Armentières, captured earlier in the war. Ostend had been shelled by
the British fleet, and a show of force had been made in that vicinity,
causing the Germans to believe that the Allies would attempt to
reoccupy this important seaport.
Farther south the French also had met with some success. From within
striking distance of Paris the invaders had been driven back to