THE BOY ALLIES WITH HAIG IN FLANDERS

CHAPTER I

A NEW USE FOR A DICTAPHONE

The rain fell in torrents over the great battlefield, as Hal Paine and
Chester Crawford, taking advantage of the inky blackness of the night,
crept from the shelter of the American trenches that faced the enemy
across "No Man's Land."

In the trenches themselves all was silence. To a spectator it would
have seemed that the occupants were, either dead or asleep; yet such
was not the case.

It is true that most of the men had "turned in" for the night, sleeping
on their arms, for there was no means of telling at what moment the
enemy might issue from his trenches in another of the night raids that
had marked this particular sector for the last few weeks; but the ever
vigilant sentinels stood watch over the sleeping men. They would sound
an alarm, should occasion demand, in ample time to arouse the sleepers
if an enemy's head appeared in the darkness.

Hal and Chester, of course, left the American trenches with full
knowledge of these sentinels; otherwise they might have been shot.

Once beyond the protecting walls of earth, they moved swiftly and
silently toward the German trenches less than a hundred feet away --
just the distance from the home plate to first base on a baseball
diamond, as Hal put it -- ninety feet.

These two lads, who now advanced directly toward the foe, were
lieutenants in the first American expeditionary force to reach France
to lend a hand in driving back the legions of the German Emperor, who
still clung tenaciously to territory he had conquered in the early
stages of the great war. These boys had, at one time, been captains in
the British army, and had had three years of strenuous times and
exciting adventures in the greatest of all wars.

Their captaincies they'd won through gallant action upon the field of
battle. American lads, they had been left in Berlin at the outbreak of
hostilities, when they were separated from Hal's mother. They made
their way to Belgium, where, for a time, they saw service, with King
Albert's troops. Later they fought under the tricolor, with the
Russians and the British and Canadians.