h, well, it is of a much hardness to speak," sighed Iggy.

"Well, there's no fault to be found with your _fighting_, that's
sure!" declared Roger. "Put her there, old pal!" and he clasped hands
with his foreign "Brother."

"How's everything here?" asked Jimmy, when the five had taken such
easy positions as were available in the narrow trench.

"We're all ready for the zero hour," replied Bob. "Everybody's on
their tiptoes. I wish it was over--I mean here. This waiting is worse
than fighting."

"It sure is," commented Franz. "But it won't be long now."

"What time do you make it?" asked Bob.

"Must be quite some after three," said Jimmy in a low voice. "It was
nearly three when we got our orders to come here."

Roger took out a tiny pocket flash lamp, and, placing one finger over
the bulb so that no rays would escape, held the dim glow over his
wrist-watch.

"Quarter to four," he announced.

"Fifteen minutes more," sighed Dal.

"They'll seem like fifteen years, though, Bob," commented Jimmy.

A reaction, in the shape of silence, came upon the Khaki Boys--"five
Brothers" as they called themselves, for they had become that since
their participation in the World War. Tensely and quietly they waited
in the trench for the hands of time to move to the hour of four. This
was the "zero" period, when in a wave of men and steel, or lead and
high explosives, the Americans would go over the top, in an endeavor
to dislodge the Germans from a strong position.

Only a few hours before, after each had written a letter home, the
missives having been sent back of the lines to be posted, the five
lads had solemnly shaken hands at parting. The two sergeants--James
Blaise and Roger Barlow--went to a distant part of the intricate
trench system, while the two corporals, Robert Dalton and Ignace
Pulinski and Sergeant Franz Schnitzel were together in a ditch near
the middle of the barbed wire entanglements. And now, by a strange
turn of fate, they were all together again, waiting for the final word
that might send then all into eternity, or cause them to live horribly
misshapen.

Something of this seemed to be felt by the five Khaki Boys as they
stood in the mud and darkness waiting. For it had rained and the
trench was slimy on the bottom in spite of the "duck boards."

"I wonder where we'll be this time to-morrow," mused Bob in a low
voice.

"Oh, cut out the 'sob sister' stuff!" said Jimmy, a bit sharply.
"Isn't it gloomy e