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Updated: September 26, 2025
The sun was setting, and soon, in great measure, at least, hostilities would be suspended for the night. Their work completed, Lieutenant Mackinson and his men were on their way back to make their report when they met Slim, who had been relieved for the night at headquarters. "What time did Jerry come down?" Joe asked, after they had passed remarks about the various thrills of the day.
It was a happy circumstance for the three lads that they had had such close association with Lieutenant Mackinson, for, without question, he already had gained an enviable reputation, and when he was ordered to emergency service, and told he might choose the five men who were to be under his direction, his three assistants on the trip across were the first ones named.
Lieutenant Mackinson and his aides, Joe, Jerry, Slim and Frank Hoskins, were to get their signaling location as near to an enemy listening post as possible! In other words, they were to court discovery in an effort to get just a few feet nearer the enemy than they otherwise would.
When Joe came back to consciousness it was with his head pounding terribly, and Lieutenant Mackinson bending over him, swathing his face with a cool wet cloth, while Jerry and Slim, whom the lieutenant had wakened, were standing nearby, one holding a basin of water, the other a bottle containing a liniment or lotion.
They had not long to wait for one of the great sky torches to come sailing over the side of the German trench, but from a considerable distance ahead of them. "Did you notice anything?" Hoskins asked. "I didn't," whispered the lieutenant. "Did you?" "I thought I saw half a dozen men," said Joe. "We'll wait, then, and see," said Lieutenant Mackinson.
In low commands the lieutenant then directed affairs, and in exactly the way that he had been carried out of the hold of the Everett on the verge of suffocation, so they carried poor Tom Rawle back to their own lines. And when he had been placed upon a cot in the first emergency hospital, Lieutenant Mackinson hurried off to make his report, in the honor of which all shared.
Lieutenant Mackinson had asked, as Joe brought the party to a stop. "Just a moment and you will see," Joe had responded. And, first in wonder and then with a dawning understanding, the other three read off his flashed message: "Signal Corps men, and whole party safe." During the week that followed, the lads were confined almost entirely to regular routine work, with nothing particularly exciting.
While this conversation was going on, Lieutenant Mackinson was boring a hole about two inches in from each of the four comers of one of the planks taken from the floor of the truck. "This ought to do for a seat," he said, as he began running pieces of the heavy copper wire, of equal length, through each of the holes.
But each time he was up and off again almost upon the instant, thinking of his own safety only as that of his three friends depended upon it. And what of those inside? Even the courageous Lieutenant Mackinson was beginning to show the anxiety he felt, while Jerry and Slim, despite their bravest efforts, gave way to occasional expressions of the horror of the thing.
One of Frank's well-aimed missiles caught Slim squarely in the mouth, just as he was calling out some challenging remark, and from the window of his post Lieutenant Mackinson laughingly shouted: "Strike one!" Slim, spitting and blowing out the icy pastry, gathered all his strength to hurl a ball back at Frank.
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