nough here without that?"

They talked in the lowest whispers, and there were the murmurs of
whispers on either side of them, for their comrades up and down the
trenches felt the same strain, and relieved it by talking cautiously.

"I think we'll all be together again," said Roger, trying to speak
cheerfully. "Somehow I've got a feeling that we'll come out of this
all right."

"Me, I hat a dream," slowly remarked Iggy. "Of my dream I now know
only one cling--und dot is my face was all bloody!"

"Oh, for the love of Mike! Don't croak!" exclaimed Jimmy.

"Silence down there!" came a sharp command. Jimmy had spoken too
loudly, and the listening lieutenant had heard him.

Slowly the minutes dragged. Once again Roger carefully looked at his
watch.

"What time is it?" whispered Franz.

"Five minutes of."

"Great Scott! Is it only ten minutes since you looked before! It seems
like a lifetime. Whew! I'm all in a sweat!"

And yet the night was cool.

It was now as silent as death in the trench, and all about it. Earlier
in the night there had been distant shelling, but this had ceased some
time since.

Roger, unable to stand the strain longer, was about to flash his
little pocket electric torch again when suddenly the stillness of the
night was broken by a loud, shrill whistle.

"The signal!" cried Jimmy.

"The zero hour at last!" shrilled Roger in his tense excitement.

"Over the top!" yelled Bob. "Over the top!"

And just as the first streaks of the gray light of dawn began to
pierce the blackness, the five Brothers, and their comrades up and
down the trenches, leaped from their places of waiting with savage
yells, and started for the German lines.

"I am glad! I am glad!" sang Iggy. "Now I can of the fight have a
piece!"

He and Franz sprang out of the trench together. Side by side they
raced over the rough ground, through the gaps cut in the barbed wire.
A little in advance were Jimmy, Roger and Bob.

And now the big guns began their chorus. With boom and roar, roar and
boom they sang their anthem of death. The rattle of rifles came in as
a response, and all this was punctured by fiendish yells.

Then, too, from the German lines, came the answering song of the big
guns. Though the attack had taken them by surprise, they were not slow
in responding. With all that we think of the Boches we must give them
credit for being savage, if unfair, fighters. They seldom declined a
challenge, at least on the f