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The Boy Allies In The Trenches
Midst Shot and Shell along the Aisne
By CLAIR W. HAYES
AUTHOR OF "The Boy Allies At Liège" "The Boy Allies On the Firing Line"
"The Boy Allies With the Cossacks"
1915
"Well! Well! Well! If it isn't Lieutenant Paine and Lieutenant Crawford!"
The speaker, none other than Field Marshal Sir John French,commander-in-chief of the British forces sent to help France hurl backthe legions of the German invader, was greatly surprised by theappearance of the two lads before him.
"I thought surely you had been killed," continued General French.
"We are not to be killed so easily, sir," replied Hal Paine.
"And where have you been?" demanded the General.
"In Russia, sir," replied Chester Crawford, "where we were attached to a
Cossack regiment, and where we saw considerable fighting."
General French uttered an exclamation of astonishment.
"How did you get there?" he asked. "And how did you return?"
"Airship," was Hal's brief response, and he related their adventuressince they had last seen their commander.
Hal then tendered the General a despatch he carried from the Grand DukeNicholas, commander-in-chief of all the Russian armies operating againstthe Germans in the eastern theater of war.
"You shall serve on my staff," said General French finally.
He summoned another officer and ordered that quarters be prepared for thetwo lads immediately.
And while the two boys are getting themselves comfortably fixed it willbe a good time to introduce the lads to such readers as have not madetheir acquaintance before.
Hal Paine and Chester Crawford, two American lads, their ages being about18 and 19, had seen considerable service in the great European war—thegreatest war of all time. They had been in Berlin when Germany haddeclared war upon Russia and France and with Hal's mother had attemptedto make their way from that country. The mother had been successful; butHal and Chester got into trouble and had been left behind.
Fortunately, however, two young officers, Major Raoul Derevaux, aFrenchman, and Captain Harry Anderson, an Englishman, had come to theirassistance—reciprocating a good turn done them by the two lads a daybefore—and together, after some difficulties, they succeeded inreaching Liège, Belgium, just in time to take part in its heroic defenseagainst the first German hordes that violated the neutrality of thelittle buffer country.
Both had distinguished themselves by their coolness and bravery underfire, and had found favor in the eyes of the Belgian commander, asrelated in "The Boy Allies at Liège." Later they had rendered themselvesinvaluable in carrying dispatches.
Following their adventures in this campaign they saw service with theBritish forces on the continent, as told in "The Boy Allies on the FiringLine." In this campaign they had been instrumental in foiling awell-planned German coup, which would have resulted in a severe blow tothe British had it been put through.
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