Free Triplanetary by E. E. (Doc) Smith

throw a column in here as soon as it gets dark, and to advance Eight and Sixty, so as to consolidate this whole area. Got it?"
    "Yes, Sir."
    "Got a compass?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Pick up a tin hat and get going. A hair north of due west, about a kilometer and a half. Keep cover, because the going will be tough. Then you'll come to a road. It's a mess, but it's ours—or was, at last accounts—so the worst of it will be over. On that road, which goes south-west, about two kilometers further, you'll find a Post—you'll know it by the motorcycles and such. Phone from there. Luck!"
    Bullets began to whine and the general dropped to the ground and crawled toward a coppice, bellowing orders as he went. Kinnison crawled, too, straight west, availing himself of all possible cover, until he encountered a sergeant-major reclining against the south side of a great tree.
    "Cigarette, buddy?" that wright demanded.
    "Sure. Take the pack. I've got another that'll last me—maybe more. But what the hell goes on here? Who ever heard of a major general getting far enough up front to get shot in the leg, and he talks as though he were figuring on licking the whole German army. Is the old bird nuts, or what?"
    "Not so you would notice it. Didn'cha ever hear of 'Hell-andamnation' Slayton? You will, buddy, you will. If Pershing doesn't give him three stars after this, he's crazier than hell. He ain't supposed to be on combat at all—he's from GHQ and can make or break anybody in the AEF. Out here on a look-see trip and couldn't get back. But you got to hand it to him—he's getting things organized in great shape. I came in with him—I'm about all that's left of them that did—just waiting for this breeze to die down, but its getting worse. We'd better duck-over there!"
    Bullets whistled and stormed, breaking more twigs and branches from the already shattered, practically denuded trees. The two slid precipitately into the indicated shell-hole, into stinking mud. Wells' guns burst into action.
    "Damn! I hated to do this," the sergeant grumbled, "On accounts, I just got half dry."
    "Wise me up," Kinnison directed. "The more I know about things, the more apt I am to get through."
    "This is what is left of two battalions, and a lot of casuals. They made objective, but it turns out the outfits on their right and left couldn't, leaving their flanks right out in the open air. Orders come in by blinker to rectify the line by falling back, but by then it couldn't be done. Under observation."
    Kinnison nodded. He knew what a barrage would have done to a force trying to cross such open ground in daylight.
    "One man could prob'ly make it, though, if he was careful and kept his eyes wide open," the sergeant-major continued. "But you ain't got no binoculars, have you?"
    "No."
    "Get a pair easy enough. You saw them boots without any hobnails in 'em, sticking out from under some blankets?'
    "Yes. I get you." Kinnison knew that combat officers did nor wear hobnails, and usually carried binoculars. "How come so many at once?"
    "Just about all the officers that got this far. Conniving, my guess is, behind old Slayton's back. Anyway, a kraut aviator spots 'em and dives. Our machine-guns got him, but not until after he heaved a bomb. Dead center. Christ, what a mess! But there's six—seven good glasses in there. I'd grab one myself, but the general would see it—he can see right through the lid of a mess-kit. Well, the boys have shut those krauts up, so I'll hunt the old man up and tell him what I found out. Damn this mud!"
    Kinnison emerged sinuously and snaked his way to a row of blanket covered forms. He lifted a blanket and gasped: then vomited up everything, it seemed, that he had eaten for days. But he had to have the binoculars.
    He got them.
    Then, still retching, white and shaken, he crept westward; availing himself of every possible item of cover.
    For some time, from a point somewhere north of his route, a machine-gun had been intermittently at work. It was