Over There with the Marines at Chateau Thierry

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Title: Over There with the Marines at Chateau Thierry
Author: Ralphson, Capt. George H.
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Over There with the Marines at Chateau Thierry" ***

OVER THERE SERIES

THE MARINES AT CHATEAU THIERRY
THE CANADIANS AT VIMY RIDGE
THE DOUGHBOYS AT ST. MIHIEL
PERSHING’S HEROES AT CANTIGNY
THE ENGINEERS AT CAMBRAI
THE YANKS IN THE ARGONNE FOREST

[Illustration:

THE GERMANS GAVE WAY UNDER THE TERRIBLE FIRE OF THE TANKS.

[The Marines at Chateau Thierry]
]

OVER THERE
WITH
THE MARINES
AT
CHATEAU THIERRY

_By_
CAPT. GEORGE H. RALPHSON
Author of
OVER THERE WITH THE DOUGHBOYS AT ST. MIHIEL, OVER THERE WITH THE
CANADIANS AT VIMY RIDGE, OVER THERE WITH PERSHING’S HEROES AT CANTIGNY

[Illustration]

M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
CHICAGO NEW YORK

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I PHIL AND TIM 7
II FOUR KILOS ON HOBNAILS 11
III DIGGING IN 17
IV GAS MASKS 22
V A MACHINE-GUN BARRAGE 27
VI THE BOCHES CHARGE 32
VII TIMBER FIGHTING 37
VIII AID FROM THE AIR 44
IX “KILL, KILL, KILL” 48
X A NOVEL DISARMAMENT 52
XI PHIL A PRISONER 57
XII A BARBED WIRE PRISON 62
XIII MR. BOACONSTRICTOR 69
XIV A NEW PRISON 75
XV A LIGHT WITHOUT MATCHES 81
XVI PLANS FOR ESCAPE 87
XVII TUNNELING 92
XVIII THE PRISONERS TAKE A PRISONER 96
XIX OVERHEARD IN A SANDPIT 102
XX ESCAPE 107
XXI THE PLOT 112
XXII GOOD-BY 118
XXIII THE FIGHT IN THE CELLAR 122
XXIV ANOTHER CAPTURE 127
XXV A CHAPTER OF WIND 131
XXVI TURNING THE TABLES 135
XXVII FOOD FOR PROHIBITION 141
XXVIII THE PRISONERS FLEE 145
XXIX IN HIDING 150
XXX AN AUDACIOUS SCHEME 155
XXXI PHIL’S STRATEGY 159
XXXII MR. BOA AGAIN 164
XXXIII TANKS AND “WATER CURE” 170
XXXIV FROM TANK TO LIMOUSINE 178
XXXV IN A TIGHT PLACE 183
XXXVI SUGGESTIVE FLATTERY 188
XXXVII A USELESS ARGUMENT 193
XXXVIII WHAT THE LIGHTNING REVEALED 199
XXXIX “THE CASTLE OF THE HUMAN SNAKE” 204
XL A ROOM OF TORTURE 209
XLI THE “SUBTERRENE” 215
XLII RESCUED 220

Over There with the Marines

Chateau Thierry

CHAPTER I
PHIL AND TIM

Top Sergeant Phil Speed did not know exactly where he was when the long
train of trucks bearing hundreds of khaki-clad American Marines stopped
at a small town within easy gun-roar of the battle front in France. They
were making little demonstration now. For weeks they had been cheering
and been cheered until their throats became sore and well
again—calloused, as it were. So spontaneous and so nearly universal had
been the enthusiastic reception extended to them everywhere that it
seemed as if every person who didn’t yell his head off must be
pro-kaiser.

With the noise of battle becoming more and made distinct through the
rumble, roar, and rattle of trucks and ordnance racing toward the scene
of conflict into which they themselves were about to plunge, the hearts
of these messengers of liberty were not so gay as they had been for
weeks, aye, months, before. Everywhere, among all sorts and conditions
of men, even among fighting patriots, there are bound to be a few
“smart” ones who forget the proprieties sometimes as their bright ideas
go skyrocketing. And this sort of gay wight was not lacking even among
the pick of America’s young manhood; but for once the gayest of them
were serious and sober minded.

The person who would joke in the face of death, or with a messenger of
eternity lurking in the vicinity must be a philosopher “to get away with
it.” Phil had no idea of putting the thing in such language, but if
somebody had stepped up close to him and whispered the conceit in his
ear, he probably would have responded, “That fits the situation
exactly.” Still a considerable period of time elapsed before he was able
to dispel all doubt as to the occasion of such unwonted sobriety.

“I wonder if we’re not all cowards, and if that isn’t the reason we’ve
all stopped our noise,” he mused. “I hope we don’t turn tail and run
lickety-cut when we see a big bunch o’ boches swinging over the top at
us.”

As if in reply to his musing, Timothy Turner, a training-camp chum, who
stood at his elbow in the midst of the throng of soldiers waiting for
orders to move along, spoke thus rather grimly:

“We’re quite a solemn bunch, aren’t we, Phil? I guess what we need is
the explosion of a few bombs in our midst to get us good and mad.”

“Maybe,” Phil replied, regarding his friend meditatively. “Well, it
won’t be very long before we’ll have a chance to find out. Do you think
an explosion a few feet away from you would make you mad, Tim?”

“Yes, I do,” the latter replied unhesitatingly. “I believe it would make
me want to telescope with the next shell that came whistling along.”

Tim was a kind of bullet-headed Yank, “built on the ground,” his
school-boy friends used to say. Really he looked as if he might be
accepted as a personification of that irresistible force which would
create “the most powerful standstill” if it struck an immovable object.
But in spite of his bullet-headness, Tim was anything but dull. Both
officers and fellow soldiers regarded him hopefully as one of the
prospective star fighters of the regiment because of his mental keenness
as well as his physical prowess.

Phil was built along different lines. He was strong and athletic, but he
would hardly have been expected to be able to push over a stone wall.
Whether or not he was more intelligent than Tim may be a matter for
debate. It may be admitted, perhaps, that he was not so shrewd, but if
they had both lived in the middle ages, Phil undoubtedly would have
listened with interest to the first declaration that the world was
round, while Tim would just as surely have repelled it with derision.
But in business Phil might have fallen a comparatively easy victim to
the wiles of a trickster, where as the cleverest “con man” would have
had to get up very early in the morning to catch Tim napping.

So here we have a double-barreled standard for measuring intelligence
among men and among boys. Shall we call Phil more intelligent than Tim,
or vice versa? Let us dismiss the debatable question without answer,
while we admit that they were both intelligent, but different; and in
spite of their difference—some would say “in consequence of their
difference”—they were very good friends.

CHAPTER II
FOUR KILOS ON HOBNAILS

“Battalion!” called out the major.

“Company!” the captain followed, as it were, with the next breath.

“Attention!” continued the battalion commander.

The line was quickly formed, two deep, officers in position, the major
in attitude of review.

“At ease!” was the next order which indicated “something coming.”

“Men,” he said with an incisiveness of tone indicating that his words
would be brief, “word has just reached me that the officers of the enemy
division that you are soon to meet welcome you with expressions of
contempt. They say you are soft and will melt before the Hun armies like
wax over white heat. Will you show them you can go through fire hot
enough to melt steel?”

The yell that greeted this question set at rest all doubt that may have
inspired the “wonder” which came to Phil’s mind a few minutes before as
to their courage. And nobody yelled louder or more fiercely than Phil
did. After it was over he heaved a sigh of relief.

“That’s what we needed,” he muttered.

“What did we need?” asked Tim, who heard the remark.

Phil had no opportunity to reply. The major was giving orders again.

“Attention!”

“Squads, right!” the superior officer added, and immediately there was a
swinging half-about along the line, and a column of American Marines,
four abreast, was marching up the street that led away from the
detrucking point.

Then followed a hike of four kilometers (two and a half miles) along the
Paris-Metz road. After journeying on hobnailed soles this distance, the
order was given to fix bayonets.

Phil and Tim were good enough soldiers by this time to accept everything
as it came and not to look for too much that was not in evidence. They
had had try-out experience at Verdun and, along with other rapidly
seasoning warriors of their regiment, had given a good account of
themselves. And yet, in spite of all this curiosity-crushing experience,
they could not help looking just a little expectantly for a camouflaged
line of “bloomin’ boches” upon whom to use their one-tined pitchforks
when the order was given to “fix bayonets.”

“Does it mean charge?” both of them longed to ask somebody, and after
this question they realized must follow another equally important:

Where was the mysterious enemy?

It proved, however, to be only a precautionary move to guard against
surprise while advancing through a wheatfield. There might be a score or
two of machine-gun nests in that field, Phil reasoned. But then, he
wondered how that could very well be, as it must mean that the gunners
had made their way undiscovered through the front line, which was a mile
farther on. However, the surmise proved to be in error, for nothing of
livelier nature than a flock of hens and turkeys was encountered.
Presently a halt was ordered at a group of deserted farm buildings,
where quarters were established pending the development of further
plans.

Meanwhile there were other battalions following, and the country round
about was rapidly becoming a concentration camp of reserves, who were
sent forward in sections to take positions in the front line as rapidly
as way was prepared for them, the French moving out to take positions in
other sections. Phil and Tim were pleased when it became apparent that
they would not be ordered ahead before the next day, for they were weary
from exertion and loss of sleep and longed as much as anything else to
be in vigorous, fresh condition when it came their time to meet the
merciless, unscrupulous foe in battle.

There was nothing radically new in this experience to any of the Marines
billeted at this place less than two kilometers from the front line,
which was being pressed hard, by the enemy. All of them had seen a very
real kind of practice service along with the French at Verdun, and so
there was little to arouse their wonder in the sights and sounds of
rumbling camions, tanks and artillery as they were rushed hither and
thither, the shouts of officers and drivers, aeroplanes soaring
overhead, and the whistle of an occasional shell fired with apparent
random purpose and exploding far beyond the range of serious mischief.
These sights and sounds were fast merging into the obscurity and quiet
of darkness and inaction as Phil and Tim lay down under a large apple
tree, resolved to get as much rest as possible before the next daybreak.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you a question ever since we detrucked from
those lorries four kilos up the road,” said Tim after the two boys had
lodged themselves in the privacy of a “ten-foot sector” of the orchard.
As he spoke, he picked up a full-grown apple from the ground and sunk
his teeth into it.

“This apple isn’t very ripe,” he observed, indicating by his digression
that the question on his mind was not as vital as the importance of
appeasing his appetite or of winning the war. “But the juice is sweet
and pungent and I’m going to make a cider press of my jaws and squeeze
the beverage down my throat.”

“If you haven’t forgotten your question, you may put it to me,” Phil
returned more to the point.

“I was wondering what you meant when you remarked, ‘That’s what we
needed,’ after the major made his little speech to us and we yelled our
throats hoarse to prove we weren’t soft,” said Tim. “Were you afraid we
really were soft?”

“No, not exactly,” Phil replied. “But I just had a kind o’ longing for
proof that we weren’t.”

“But we’d proved ourselves at Verdun, hadn’t we?” Tim reasoned.

“Yes and no,” answered Phil. “At Verdun we fought all right, but we had
a lot o’ French vets right at our elbows to ginger our nerve. Here, I
understand, they’re going to give us a front all our own, ten or fifteen
miles. I was talking to Corporal Ross about it. He’s been doing
messenger service at the major’s headquarters and picked up a good deal
of information. He says we’re bound for a place called Belleau Wood. The
French call it Bois de Belleau. The Huns, you know, have been pressing
the French pretty hard all the way from Rheims to Soissons, and we’ve
been sent to relieve the French at this point so that they can stop the
enemy at other points. But I’ve got a suspicion that a lot more American
boys will be thrown in about here and we’re going to have a chance to
make ourselves famous in the next few days.”

“It’s up to us to make good,” declared Tim with characteristic
bullet-headed doggedness. “The Marines have been criticised a good deal
lately. Some say we ought to be eliminated from the service.”

“We’ve got to make good,” Phil echoed emphatically. “The reputation of
the Marines is at stake.”

CHAPTER III
DIGGING IN

Sergeant Phil was a year older than Corporal Tim. The latter, unbeknown
to anybody except himself and his parents, had entered the Marine
Service in not the most regular manner, but it was real patriotism that
had caused him to misrepresent his age, which was the only bar to his
eligibility. A wait of eight months longer would have put him “over the
top” in this respect but he decided not to wait. He looked 18 years old,
and boldly declared this to be his age, and, as some of his slangy boy
friends would have said, he got away with it. When his Philadelphia
father learned of his enlistment, the bullet-headed youngster was
already on his way for probation at the Paris Island, South Carolina,
recruit depot.

Then Mr. Turner thought twice and decided not to interfere. He was
thoroughly patriotic and concluded that if his son had put over anything
on anybody it was on the kaiser.

Phil was a more regular sort of fellow in such matters. He would never
have misrepresented his age in order to gain admittance into Uncle Sam’s
fighting force. If he had not been able to pass all the tests on merit,
he would have sought to aid the government in some other branch of
service. This is not intended, by contrast, as a serious reflection on
Tim. The latter was different. He saw no particular harm in adding a
year on his age if thereby he might help to shorten the reign of the
Prussian despot.

Tim kept his secret religiously, fearing lest he be sent home or
assigned to disgrace service if it should come to the knowledge of his
superior officers.

Phil and Tim were disappointed in their expectation that they would move
early in the morning following their arrival at the deserted farm to a
position in the front line. But they were not disappointed in their
anticipation of thrilling activities before the close of the day. Until
late in the afternoon the entire battalion was busy perfecting
arrangements for relieving the Frenchies in this sector.

The excitement of the day came at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The
firing at the front was heavy, but not of intensity such as they had
witnessed at Verdun. But it seemed to grow hotter and nearer, so that
the only conclusion the Americans could draw was that the boches were
driving the French back through the woods.

Suddenly the company to which Phil and Tim belonged was thrown into
confusion by the bursting of a shell on the roof of the barn in which
they had sought shelter. This would have been a poor place for them if
they had been under constant fire from the enemy. But it had served well
enough against injury from shrapnel, and still better from flying debris
heaved in all directions by the explosion of bombs dropped from hostile
aeroplanes. That the wrecking of the roof of the barn was effected by
the bursting of a cannon shell was evidenced by the shriek that
immediately preceded the explosion.

None of those in the barn was killed or injured so severely that he had
to be taken to the rear for surgical treatment, but the lieutenant was
severely cut on his right arm. Phil sprang to his assistance and helped
him to bandage the limb; then they rushed out after the rest of the
company. The wounded officer now gave order for all to take to the woods
and dig in.

The Marines thus deprived of a shelter rushed back into the roofless
building, grabbed up a supply of entrenching tools and then made a dash
for the woods. Most of them had snatched up their guns before making
their hurried exit. About halfway between the barn and the woods another
shell burst in their midst, killing five and severely wounding a score
of others. Almost as if by magic a corps of stretcher-bearers were on
the scene. The uninjured scarcely hesitated, and almost in less time
than is required to tell it the order to “dig in” was being obeyed with
the skill and speed of long practiced teamwork.

The digging-in process was a simple though strenuous task. All of the
members of the company not seriously injured by the bursting of the
shell were presently spading in the earth for dear life a short distance
within the timber. They worked as if according to a systematic,
prearranged schedule. If they had been going through a drill
performance, under instruction from manual and teacher, their work could
hardly have been more nearly true to military form.

Each of these Marines quickly scratched off a rectangular plot about
three by five feet and then began to dig. Phil and Tim, who always
endeavored to keep as near together as possible in all emergencies where
they might be able to aid each other, “dug in” a few feet apart. After
they had cut roots and scooped the dirt out to a depth of three or four
feet, they dashed about here and there in the immediate vicinity and
gathered dead limbs and brushwood with which each built a shelter at one
end of his funk hole, or “stub trench.” These shelters were rendered
more stable and impervious to rain by heaping on them mounds of loose
earth that had been shoveled out of the trenches.

But the disastrous explosion of the two shells seemed to have served as
a false alarm as to what ought to be expected for some time thereafter.
The fact of the matter is, “nothing happened.” Three days they remained
“dug in” and not another shell or bomb struck within two hundred yards
of any point of the sheltered “stub trenches” of the recently bombarded
regiment.

On the evening of the third day they received an order to make a quick
march to a shell-shattered village on the front line.

“Now we’re going to see some real fighting,” Tim prophesied to his
friend, as they prepared to obey the order.

He was not mistaken.

CHAPTER IV
GAS MASKS

Phil and Tim had made good use of their time while in training at Paris
Island, so that when they were ordered on board a transport to steam for
“somewhere in France,” they could boast of being “Jacks of all trades
and masters of all” in the hyperbolic parlance of Sea Soldier
excellence. They could do pretty nearly everything from the fitting of
gun gear to the operation of a wireless outfit or a portable
searchlight. Moreover, they were both well qualified to handle machine
guns, and Phil was drawing an extra $3 a month as a rifle sharpshooter.

The company to which Phil and Tim belonged was stationed just outside
the village. They reached this position at about 2 p. m. and had little
more than completed their digging-in operations, when the word was
passed along that they would “go over the top” at 4:30.

But this announcement was presently countered from headquarters, coupled
with a “man-to-man message” that scouting aeroplanes and observation
balloons had communicated to headquarters the information that the
boches were evidently planning to “come over” at the Yanks. A hurried
conference among the officers of the Marines decided then that it would
be better strategy to let the enemy come on and get their fill and then
counter their decimated forces with a good strong bayonet and
hand-grenade drive.

Phil and Tim were near enough to each other to carry on a conversation
in ordinary tones, and when the word reached them that they must wait
for the enemy to attack them they expressed their disappointment
vigorously.

“I hate this waiting business,” Phil declared. “We’ll never reach Berlin
at this rate.”

“So do I,” responded Tim. “I wonder what those minions of the kaiser
think they’re going to do. To my mind it’s a sign of weakness on their
part, making a drive this time o’ the day.”

“Why?” Phil inquired. “I don’t see why it should be a sign of weakness
on their part any more than our plan to go over the top at 4:30 is a
sign of weakness.”

“Maybe not from their point of view. But we know what we’ve got behind
us—millions of men and billions of money. We know, too, that we’ve got
vastly more of these than the boches have. So you see, I have something
more than suspicion to base my theory on that they like to make an
attack late in the day so that if they fail they will have the darkness
to cover their retreat. I bet that when our record is summed up you’ll
find that we made most of our dashes against the enemy’s lines at 4 or 5
o’clock in the morning.”

“I hope I’m spared to contemplate such a record,” said Phil soberly.

“You don’t doubt it, do you?” Tim asked, for he was surprised and
disappointed to hear his friend speak so diffidently.

“I was just wondering,” Phil replied meditatively.

“See here, Phil,” Tim said, shaking his hand toward his soldier comrade;
“you’re making a big mistake. You’re meditating. Do you realize that a
soldier should never meditate? He should never even think twice. He’s
got to do his best thinking the first time.”

“What’s that got to do with my wondering whether I’m going to come out
o’ this alive?” Phil inquired.

“It’s got this to do with it: It’s as bad as writing poetry in a trench.
I think you’ll agree with me that anybody that does that is a nut. Now,
I don’t believe I’m going to have my head blown off. Notice that I don’t
say, ‘I don’t let myself think I’m going to be killed.’ I’m _dead sure_
I’m not going to be killed. Get me?—_dead sure_; not sure dead.”

“Sure thing I get you,” Phil answered enthusiastically; “that’s a peach
of an idea. It’s too bad all the other soldiers of the Allies haven’t
got the same idea.”

“How do you know they haven’t?” Tim demanded quickly.

“I don’t know it,” Phil admitted with a smile, for he saw what was
coming next.

“A fellow must get this pretty much by himself to make the best kind of
soldier,” Tim said, speaking with the convincing manner of a veteran.
“I’ve heard young fellows talk about going into battle with the
expectation of being killed, but that’s before the bullets begin to fly
and the shells begin to burst. The real soldier is never desperate. The
minute you get desperate, that minute you are rattled. The soldier who
goes into battle expecting to be killed, goes into battle desperate and
is soon rattled. Don’t go into battle expecting to be killed; go into
battle expecting to kill, kill, kill, and keep on killing.”

“Hooray!” said Phil jocularly. “That’s what I call war philosophy. Get
me? War Phil-osophy for a fighting Phil of Philadelphia.”

“Philosophy nothing,” Tim snapped back. “You make me ashamed of your
name with your jesting pun. I thought you understood me better than
that, Phil. Wartime is no time for philosophy. That’s what got a lot of
pacifists into trouble and some of them in prison. They weren’t
philosophers enough to realize that you can’t stop to philosophize when
somebody is punching you in the nose.”

“Gas masks!” yelled Phil suddenly, and similar cries came from others
along the timber-sheltered line.

But the warning was not needed by Tim.

Even as he uttered the last word of his soldier’s common-sense lecture,
he caught a faint whiff of mustard. Instinctively he held his breath,
and eight seconds later he was inhaling the pure, safe lung-fuel,
“canned oxygen,” contained in the reservoir of his mask.

CHAPTER V
A MACHINE-GUN BARRAGE

That settled it in Phil’s mind. There would be no “over the top” from
the enemy lines that night. Probably, after all, he was mistaken in
assuming that the boches, conscious of their own insufficiency of
reserves, would hesitate to make a morning attack. They were planning to
harass the Yanks all night with gas and a hurricane of shells, and in
the morning make a charge that would sweep everything before it.

With the putting on of the masks, the conversation between Phil and Tim
stopped. It really seemed that the former’s soliloquy following this
operation was better reasoning than his earlier conjectures had been.
The cannonade that followed the “gas wave” was terrific and it seemed
that such a barrage must mean something in the nature of a sequence, but
they would hardly charge right into the gas they had shelled into the
Yank’s lines.

But again Phil was privileged to change his mind, and that very
suddenly. The bombardment continued until after dark and many shells
exploded perilously near the Pershing forces—a few did fatal damage
right in the midst of the waiting Americans at the edge of the woods.

At about 9:30 o’clock this bombardment ceased as suddenly as it had
begun. Neither Phil nor Tim had taken part in or witnessed a night
attack, except in the nature of a cannonading, since their first
experience on the Verdun front, and they were greatly astonished at what
came next.

But they were not without warning, for the signal service was on the qui
vive constantly, as were also the advance sentries, and about two
minutes before there was any sign of the approach of the enemy, word
went along the line to be on the lookout for an attack.

“So my first surmise was right, after all,” Phil mused. “They’re going
to attack under cover of the darkness so that they may retreat more
successfully if their attack fails.”

Another surprise was coming not only to Phil and Tim, but to many other
“dug-in” Marines along the American front. It had to do with the
character of the attack.

Suddenly the American lines were swept with a sharp, snappy, vicious
machine-gun fire. The boches had crept up under cover of the darkness
and succeeded in planting a score or more of machine guns at various
places in the timber a hundred yards ahead and started pumping a
murderous storm of bullets at the doughboys.

But fortunately it was murderous in sight and sound chiefly, for very
few of the Yanks were hit. In the first place, it was almost a random
attack, for the muzzles of the guns were elevated a degree or more too
high to rake the edges of the funk holes in which the Americans were
crouching. Moreover, the intervening trees intercepted many of the
bullets, as was evident from the tattoo thuds that could be heard even
amid the noisy spitting of the machine guns.

Just what the enemy hoped to accomplish by this method of attack it was
difficult at first to determine, although the Yanks were destined to
discover very shortly that it was a clever sort of camouflage.

But the cunning boches were destined to discover something, too, and to
Phil was due the credit for this rather startling enlightenment of the
enemy.

“Tim,” he called out to his friend, “I believe that is nothing but a
machine-gun barrage intended to throw us off our guard. They’re planning
a surprise attack.”

A “machine-gun barrage” was a new one to Tim, but he listened
respectfully for further explanation.

“We can expect them to come over any minute,” Phil continued rapidly.
“I’ve got an idea of how they’re going to do it. By the way, I’m going
to make a dive over to Lieutenant Stone and tell him what I’ve got in
mind. He’s only a few jumps away. He’ll probably reprimand me, if he
doesn’t report me to headquarters, but the suspicion I’ve got seems to
me so important that I’ll risk any punishment this side of the firing
squad.”

The thunder of the cannonade and the sharper rattle of the machine guns
were so intense that Phil found it necessary to scream his message to
his next-trench neighbor to insure being heard.

“Well, if it’s so very important, don’t stop to tell me about it, but
hurry up and get it where it will do most good,” Tim yelled back. “They
won’t take me by surprise.”

A moment later Phil was dashing over the underbrush and among the trees
in momentary danger of butting his head against a very solid and
substantial interference or of sprawling violently on the ground. But he
had surveyed the vicinity carefully before the shadows of evening
thickened in the woods and knew pretty accurately where the lieutenant
had dug in. He had to move just as carefully also as if he were stealing
along an enemy line of trenches, for some of the American soldiers were
likely to discover him and shoot him as a spy.

He succeeded in making his way within a few feet of the lieutenant’s
trench and, crouching low, began to signal to him by calling his name in
graduated rising tones. Presently the officer replied and Phil informed
him who he was.

In a few words the sergeant communicated his self-imposed message to his
superior officer.

“That is probably the best suggestion that has come from any source on
this front since the American Marines were stationed here,” remarked
Lieutenant Stone. “Now, you get back to your post as fast as ever you
can, or I’ll order you sent back behind the lines under guard.”

Phil darted back gleefully along the rear of the American line and
toward his empty funk hole, which he reached with very good caution as
well as expedition.

CHAPTER VI
THE BOCHE CHARGE

Before Phil got back to his funk hole, the intelligence he had
communicated to Lieutenant Stone had been transmitted over the trench
telephone to every camouflaged station, and rapidly thereafter by
runners to every man in the line. The message thus delivered was this:

“Look out for an attack while the machine guns are going full blast.
They may elevate the muzzles of their machine guns and send their men
over the top when it seems impossible for them to leave their trenches
without being mowed down with their own fire.”

Phil’s prediction was fulfilled. Indeed, the preliminary, which
constituted, in effect, a signal for the charge, was exceedingly obvious
to all the Marines in the front line after they had been advised as to
what to expect. It is quite possible that many of them would not have
observed the elevation of the streams of machine-gun fire to an angle of
forty-five degrees if they had not received Phil’s warning; and most of
those who might have observed this seemingly reckless waste of “powder
and pills” undoubtedly would have been puzzled, if not confused, by so
strange a phenomenon.

As it was, the Yanks were able to time the attack with remarkable
accuracy and met the boches with volleys from their rifles so nearly
simultaneous that those of the enemy who were not taken off their feet
by the deadly hail of steel-jacketed bullets must almost have been taken
off their feet with astonishment. At any rate, the attack failed
utterly, not a few of the Marines leaping out of their “trenchettes” and
engaging the panic-stricken boches with bayonets or clubbed guns.

It was impossible to get any idea of the number slain in the fight, for
although the sky was clear and the stars shone brightly, the moon had
not risen and the woods was almost as dark as a pocket. The Americans
kept a sharp lookout for the appearance of shadowy forms a few feet away
from their intrenchments, and as soon as they saw them creeping
cautiously forward they blazed away with good execution.

The Marines were bothered with no more “over the top” from the boches
that night, although there was a heavy bombardment from their larger
guns located beyond the opposite edge of the woods. When this began, Tim
called out to his friend:

“That means they’ve gone back a respectful distance. We’re surely safe
from another attack as long as that keeps up. By the way, they’re pretty
bum marksmen, aren’t they? Those shells are dropping far behind us.”

“Yes; but we have other lines back there, and they’ll get a taste of
what is probably meant for us,” Phil replied. “Say, there’s a wounded
fellow lying only a few feet away from me. Somebody else shot him. I was
just drawing a bead on him when some good friend tipped him over for me.
It wasn’t you, was it, Tim?”

“Yep, I’m the fellow,” Tim answered modestly. “I’d disposed of the
baboon that was coming in my direction and saw the one that was makin’
for your hole in the ground, and I said, says I, to myself: ‘Phil’s well
able to take care o’ himself, but I don’t think he’ll be offended if I
relieve his soul of the burden of slayin’ a man.’ So I pulled my
trigger, and over went the villainous gink.”

“Good work,” Phil commended. “I won’t criticise you for failing to kill
him, for you did far better than I did as it was. You’ve put at least
two serfs of the kaiser out of business, and I didn’t even fire my gun
at one.”

“What’ll we do with ’im?” asked Tim. “Pull ’im back behind the lines to
wait till the Red Cross comes along?”

“No, we won’t pull him,” Phil returned more compassionately. “We’ll pick
him up and carry ’im.”

“He doesn’t deserve any such gentle handling,” Tim objected stubbornly.

“It isn’t a question of what he deserves, but the kind of record we
Americans want to leave behind us,” Phil replied earnestly. “You know
how horrified we were by the sinking of the Lusitania and the atrocities
in Belgium and northern France. Because of those atrocities we called
the whole group of central allies Huns. Do we want to deserve the same
title of reproach? Besides, the boches aren’t more than half
responsible. They were brought up that way. A man can get in the habit
of thinking anything that’s popular if he drifts with the current.”

“Now, you’re doing the very thing I warned you against,” Tim protested
vigorously. “I told you that wartime was no time for any philosophy
business.”

“And I agreed with you,” Phil responded. “You win. Come on and we’ll get
that fallen foe and hustle ’im back behind the lines. We’ll take him any
way you say.”

The two boys leaped out of their shallow “trenchettes” and picked up the
boche and carried him almost gently ten or fifteen feet to the rear.
Just then two relief men dashed up, laid the wounded man on a stretcher
and hustled him away.

“Bloodthirsty Tim listened to reason that time,” Phil told himself.

“I drove some common sense into Phil’s head,” Timothy mused. “I hope he
keeps it and he’ll make a better soldier.”

CHAPTER VII
TIMBER FIGHTING

Early the next morning a squadron of aeroplanes flew over the American
lines dropping bombs and doing considerable damage. But it was not long
before they were met by a score of Allied planes, which poured into them
such a fusillade of machine-gun bullets that two of them dived to the
ground with a crash and the others were driven back behind their own
lines.

The cannonading from the German big guns during the night did little
damage to the Americans, for most of the shells dropped far to the rear.
Moreover, the Yankee field artillery replied with much better
marksmanship than that of the boches, as was reported in the morning by
scout aviators and balloon observers. But it was not necessary to wait
for these reports to get an idea of the devastation effected by the
Americans’ cannonading. The timber that had shielded the enemy forces,
whose attack had been camouflaged by a spitting of machine guns “at the
stars,” was now a scene of arboreal ruin. The boys decided that they had
never seen quite so abundant an assortment of splintered kindling wood
in their lives.

In the course of the day the American lines were advanced to the farther
edge of the belt of timber in which the battle of the night had been
fought. It seemed that this belt had been entirely cleared of the enemy.
Beyond the waste of splintered and contorted forestry was a narrow open
stretch of lowland, and beyond this was another woods undoubtedly
peopled with outpost of sharpshooters and machine-gun nests. The Yanks
did not have to wait long for a verification of this suspicion. Scarcely
had they taken up their positions near the edge of the area of green
kindling wood when there came a vicious spitting of machine guns and
sharpshooters’ rifles.

It was exceedingly difficult to bring up the artillery through the
shell-and-shrapnel-torn timber for the purpose of raking the opposite
woods in a similar manner. There was considerable work for the engineers
before this could be done. Meanwhile, however, the commander of the
Marines decided not to wait in idleness. Machine-gun corps were
stationed behind uprooted trees and splintered stumps and huge boulders
and in yawning shell holes and deep gullies and were presently spitting
away into the opposite timber wherever a nest could be located.

At last several cannon were brought up and a storm of shell and shrapnel
was poured into the woods beyond the clearing. This proved to be
effective to a considerable extent, for many of the machine guns of the
enemy were silenced, as were also a battery or two located behind the
enemy’s front line.

But certain nests of sharpshooters and machine guns proved to be
exceedingly difficult to dislodge and orders were given to take those
positions at as little cost as possible, _but take them_. Accordingly a
body of Marines were selected for this duty, including the company to
which Phil and Tim belonged.

It was a dangerous task, for it meant a charge across an open stretch
into another timber in which an uncertain number of the enemy were
concealed waiting to receive them with all the advantage of position and
concealment on their side. They did not make the fatal error of massed
attack that so often characterized the death plunges of the boches.
Rather, they scattered out and dashed forward with more or less
individual independence and bravery almost unknown among the usually
kamerad-encouraged enemy.

“I’m going to try Tim’s method of generating self-confidence,” Phil told
himself as he dashed with his fellow Marines across the open. “Here it
is: I’m going to come out of this without a scratch and I’m going to
kill, kill, kill.”

He saw several Marines in front and on each side of him fall victims of
the accurate shooting of the concealed enemy, but this did not feaze him
in the least. He _knew_ he was going to dash through successfully and he
_knew_ he was going to find a hidden machine-gun nest and whip it single
handed if necessary.

And he was not mistaken. He reached the opposite timber without
receiving a scratch. Then followed a more careful procedure to hunt out
the pests that were doing everything in their power to make things
uncomfortable for the Marines. The latter were armed with rifles and
hand grenades, and the timber was soon ringing with evidence of their
discoveries.

Phil had charge of a squad that worked as a unit in the scouring of the
woods, and Tim was a member of this squad. Alternately they were in
hiding in thickets of saplings and bushes or racing ahead to make a
swift surprise attack on a machine-gun nest located by the sound of
firing or the creeping cunning of a camouflaged spy. This handful of
Marines cleaned out two nests without the loss of a man, and then, it
appearing that there were no others within the sweep of their advance,
they separated in parties of two or three each to hunt for snipers after
agreeing on a place of meeting and a call by which Phil might summon
them together again whenever he desired.

Phil and Tim, perhaps by force of habit, continued together without
other company. The Marines were now driving a considerable rear guard of
the enemy ahead of them, principally snipers and machine gunners, who
were trailing behind the main body of the defeated boches to facilitate
the latter’s retreat. Realizing that the remnant of this rear guard was
moving more rapidly in its haste to get out of the way of the terrible
American butt-or-muzzle riflemen and hand-grenade throwers, Phil and Tim
put as much speed to their advance as the character of the terrain would
permit, hoping to overtake some of the fugitive snipers.

A few minutes after the squad had spread out to cover a larger
territory, the two friends arrived at the meadow-like opening into a
wooded ravine which appeared to grow deeper and deeper in the direction
taken by the fleeing boches. With little hesitation they dashed into the
ravine, becoming more cautious, however, as they entered the
timber-shaded lowland with its tangle of ferns and shrubbery.

It was really a dangerous undertaking, but these boys were in a
dangerous business. The ravine was lined with many ideal places for
concealment of snipers and the route taken by the venturesome pair along
the bottom was an ideal place to get sniped. But Phil and Tim felt that
the place ought to be explored, and as a call to summon the other boys
of the squad would serve only to alarm any hidden bodies in the
vicinity, they decided to take the burden of the investigation on their
own shoulders.

They advanced a hundred yards into the ravine without seeing another
living creature, except a few squirrels and hundreds of birds which
chattered and chirped away as if the carnage of a world war was the
farthest possible from their thoughts.

The boom of cannon was confined now to distant portions of the
indeterminate battle line, and the discharge of smaller firearms also
had ceased in the immediate vicinity. It seemed to the two boys that
they and the squirrels and the birds had the ravine all to themselves,
but they were destined presently to be disillusioned.

Suddenly—of course, for all explosions are sudden,—Phil was startled by
the discharge of two rifles from behind a thicket twenty feet ahead.
“Ping!” sung a bullet past his left ear. Tim was not startled. He did
not know what hit him. Over he went, and Phil sprang behind a tree, as a
true American, to meet the enemy Indian fashion.

CHAPTER VIII
AID FROM THE AIR

A bullet through his own body would not have given Phil as intense a
pain as the one that struck Tim and apparently ended his career. But he
was too good a soldier to let even so distressing an incident delay him
in the duty of speedy self preservation.

And yet, swift though he was in springing behind a tree and bringing his
rifle into position for firing, there were others just as speedy as he.
Six men in gray uniforms, but decidedly un-uniform as to size and grace
of physique, were standing out in full view with guns leveled at him.

Instinctively Phil’s hand moved an inch or two toward his hand-grenade
sack. But it stopped almost with the impulse. He had used the last of
his grenades half an hour before in the squad’s last fight that resulted
in the extermination of one of the most obstinate of all the machine-gun
nests in the woods. How he wished he had been more mindful of his supply
while hurling those missiles at the enemy. Two of them, he recalled
distinctly, had gone wide of their marks and represented a sheer waste
of powder and shell. Oh, if he had only one of those grenades! With it
he could produce such execution in that group of snipers that he could
easily capture or finish with his rifle those not slain by the explosion
of the hand missile. He was sure he could hurl a grenade accurately and
at the same time keep his head and body fairly well protected from the
enemy’s rifles behind the hole of the tree.

But there was no use now of mourning over spilled milk or exploded
shells, and an attempt to engage in battle, alone, with six
Hohenzollernites, all of whom had the drop on him, could mean nothing
more hopeful than death.

One of the snipers called out an order in German, but Phil did not
understand it, although he had studied the language one year at school.
Then all six men advanced toward him with their guns ready to fire the
instant the Marine showed a disposition to fight.

The boy was on the verge of offering to surrender when a new
interruption of proceedings produced one of those spectacular thrills
that relieve the carnage of battle of some of its dreadfulness. Almost
without warning, save for a heavy, momentary rushing sound in the
atmosphere, there was an explosion and upheaval of earth midway between
the boches and the American Marines.

Phil did not see what occurred. For the moment he could see nothing but
confusion. His first thought was that the explosion was caused by a
shell from either American or boche artillery. But this could hardly be.
He had heard no shrill scream that always heralds the approach of such
missiles. Sound travels more rapidly than even a cannon projectile, and
soldiers often comment with grim amusement on their acquired skill at
“dodging” shells whose approach is announced by their own shrieks
piercing the air ahead of them.

Suddenly Phil recalled that, in the midst of the excitement attending
his and Tim’s excursion into the ravine, he had heard faintly a familiar
noise in the upper atmosphere—caused by the powerful gyrations of an
aeroplane. As the echoes of the explosion of the shell died away, he
heard the super-sonorous buzz of the “great mechanical bee” again and
looked upward.

It was a French aeroplane, from which the bomb had fallen. Apparently
the flyer had seen the unequal combat going on below and dropped an
explosive in the hope of incapacitating the opponents of the boy in
khaki to do him any harm. The overhead foliage was not heavy at this
point and it was not inconceivable that the aviator might have seen even
more of the activities of the six snipers than Phil and Tim had seen.

None of the advancing enemy was killed, although it seemed well-nigh
miraculous that all of them were not at least fatally injured. However,
Phil saw two of them picking themselves up after the cloud of flying
earth, stones, and sticks had fallen back to earth. Blood was trickling
from the face of each of these and all of the others were nursing severe
cuts or bruises.

Phil saw his opportunity. Every one of the boches had dropped his gun in
order the better to pet his smarting wounds. The boy, protected by the
hole of the large tree which he was endeavoring to keep between himself
and the enemy’s bullets, had not been touched by even the smallest of
the flying stones, sticks, bits of earth or pieces of shell. Springing
out from behind the tree he ran toward the panic-stricken sextette, with
rifle ready to be brought to his shoulder at a moment’s warning.

“Halt!” he cried; “Halt, or I’ll shoot!”

CHAPTER IX
KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL!

Whether or not the boches could understand this much, or this little,
English was a matter of no importance. They evidently knew what the
Marine in khaki meant, and they obeyed, several of them yelling
“Kamerad!” in tones of panic.

Phil had not forgotten all his school German vocabulary. The next order
that left his lips slipped out with very good Prussian accent:

“Kom her! Hande ueber Kopf.”

The now timid Teutons advanced with hands over their heads toward their
youthful captor, in strict obedience to the order.

Phil was relieved that his prisoners did not laugh at his German. They
came forward with all due respect for the order given—or was it for the
bullets in the boy’s gun? He did not know. Under ordinary civil
circumstances he would have hesitated to engage in conversation with a
German in the latter’s native tongue for fear lest he show his ignorance
of the idioms of the language. “Hande ueber Kopf” was a literal
translation of “hands over (your) head.” It might be very good German,
and then again it might be very poor.

Relieved at the failure of his prisoners to give him the laugh, he
decided to continue to give orders in their language whenever he could
recall words that seemed to carry the intended meaning. But he found it
difficult sometimes to keep from laughing at himself, for he knew
unmistakably that some of the German he was using was at least unique.
Still his prisoners regarded him with profound respect—or, again, was it
the bullets in his gun?

Phil was puzzled what to do with his prisoners, whose condition of
captivity was, after all, rather uncertain. He dared not take his eyes
off them for a moment. Possibly some or all of them carried small
firearms, which they would bring into action at a moment’s opportunity.
The boy dared not attempt to search them, nor dared he attempt to march
them back through the woods toward the American rear line. They were
almost certain, if they carried such weapons, to find an opportunity, by
springing behind large trees, to whip out their pistols and turn the
tables on him.

There were evidently only three courses open for Phil to pursue. One was
to stand where he was and compel his prisoners to remain in their
present positions, with hands over their heads until help came. Another
was to shoot the six men down in their tracks as rapidly as he was able
to discharge his repeater accurately. The other was to turn and flee
with all his well practiced fleetness of foot.

The last he could not consider for an instant. The second was contrary
to American principles opposed to unnecessary frightfulness in war. The
first was impracticable in view of the fact that the sun was setting and
darkness would soon cover the ravine.

It occurred to the young sergeant that he might also compel his
doubtfully secured captives to divest themselves of their uniforms in
order to make certain that they had no concealed firearms, but such a
course would not guarantee his ability to prevent them from escaping in
the woods after dark. It might, however, be the means eventually of
saving his life if the men should escape from him, and Phil decided to
adopt it as a precautionary measure.

But at the same time he cast about him in a vague hope that help of some
kind might be at hand. He glanced quickly up to see if perchance the
French flyer was not about to offer him further assistance, but that
very thoughtful air-fighter was now engaged in a skirmish with an enemy
plane, which was taking them farther and farther away from the
precarious scene in the ravine. Then the young officer bethought him of
his fallen companion, and with almost hysterical hopefulness he cast a
quick glance toward the spot where the corporal had dropped without a
groan. As he did so, it seemed that he must behold his friend rising on
his hands and knees in a determination to lend his much needed
assistance.

Phil shuddered as he saw the bullet-headed boy lying as still as any
corpse on a battlefield.

“Poor Tim,” he muttered. “He was sure he wouldn’t be killed. Well, so am
I,” the doubtful captor of six doubtful prisoners added. “I’m not going
to be killed—I _know_ it. I’m going to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill,
kill, as Tim said I should do. There, I said ‘kill’ six times. That
means that these six prisoners have to die as rapidly as this repeater
can repeat. Fortunately, I’m a sharpshooter and can do the job before
the last one of them can much more than shudder and look pale. Well,
here goes, converting my army rifle into a machine-gun.”

CHAPTER X
A NOVEL DISARMAMENT

“No, I can’t do it. I’m no Hun.”

That sentiment, which flashed revulsively through Phil’s brain, probably
saved the lives of those six boches, but it also must be held
responsible for certain subsequent misfortunes and hardships that
rendered Sergeant Speed’s army experiences worthy of a many-chaptered
record. Meanwhile there was nothing in the boy’s manner or actions that
indicated what was going on in his mind. None of them knew how narrowly
they escaped execution at the hands of a “firing squad of one.”

Phil’s next order to his captives was such a mongrel admixture of
English, poor French and worse German that he has asked that it be not
recorded against him. But it was thoroughly understood, being in several
short sentences intended to carry something of an explanation of his
purpose, and was obeyed.

One of the men with hands over their heads was directed to step forward
and remove his “roch und beinkleider.” This he did expeditiously, having
a great respect for the khaki boy’s gun, and presently appeared in the
very amusing combination of—beginning at the feet, surveying upward—a
pair of coarse heavy shoes, a suit of union underwear and a steel
helmet.

It had occurred to Phil several times since the dropping of the bomb
from the aeroplane that he could best serve his own interests in the
present predicament by sending forth the call agreed upon for
reassembling the members of his squad, except for one grave possibility.
The sounding of such a call might be taken by his six prisoners as
indicating panic on his part and serve as a signal for a desperate move
by them. He decided, therefore, to make certain that they were stripped
of all firearms, before issuing any such summons.

So he continued the de-uniforming program already begun, and soon six
much humiliated boches stood before him in “union-suit uniforms,” the
“complexion” of which indicated that the laundry business was not
thriving among the minions of the war lords of central Europe.

Then Phil ordered his prisoners to move a considerable distance away
from the litter of uniforms strewn over the ground. When he was
satisfied as to their position and arrangement, he issued a few more
orders with his ingenious, but hardly idiomatic adaptation of first-year
school German, which were obeyed with, as much respect as if delivered
by a Heidelberg graduate with military authority.

The prisoners, who no longer were required to keep their hands over
their heads, were standing near the apparently lifeless form of Corporal
Tim; and Phil now, with the aid of expressive motions of his hands and
nodding of his head, communicated to them that he desired an examination
made of his friend to determine if he were yet alive. The officer in
charge, a fellow of surprisingly large girth for a soldier, and another
boche of ungainly physique complied with apparent alacrity, and after a
seemingly diligent inspection straightened up with looks of sadness on
their faces that would have been comical indeed if it had not been for
the seriousness of the situation. With voluble expressions of condolence
and deprecating shrugs of their shoulders, they gave the young American
soldier to understand that they regretted profoundly that his companion
lying on the ground was dead.

“You’re a pretty pair of liars,” Phil said to them with a “happy scowl.”
He made no effort, however, to express himself in German, for his
utterance was intended more as an outburst of feeling than a
communication. “That boy is alive, or I don’t know anything about the
early stiffening of a corpse. When you lifted that body up it hung as
limp and limber as a wet rag.”

Whether any of the six captives understood what Sergeant Phil said could
not be determined from the expression, or lack of expression, on their
faces. However, that question mattered little to Phil now. He must do
something quickly to secure his prisoners against escape and also to
effect freedom for himself, in order that he might render much needed
first aid to his unconscious friend.

In his early school days, Phil had been the envy of all his boy friends
because of one achievement that every boy longs to attain. He could
pucker his tongue against his teeth and expel a gust of breath through
the straitened avenue thus formed in such manner as to vie in shrillness
a miniature fire alarm siren. He was not much good at whistling a tune,
but he surely could wake the echoes with a piercing air blast through
his teeth, and this he proceeded now to do.

It was his agreed signal to the other members of his squad to assemble
and it surely startled the six boches, as was evident from the fact that
their faces no longer were expressionless. There was no doubt in the
boy’s mind now that their minds had been secretly busy over something
that they did not wish communicated to him and that his shrill signal
was not in the least pleasing to them.

However, although Phil never had all the facts and circumstances before
him to aid him in determining the truth, he is of the opinion now that
his call was the one thing needed by his prisoners to bring about the
very result for which they longed most deeply. But the startled look on
their faces indicated that they did not know it.

Phil waited a minute for an answer from other members of his squad, but
received none. Then he was about to repeat the call, when something
occurred that rendered another shrill whistle through his teeth
virtually impossible.

Suddenly a heavy weight landed on him from behind. A pair of powerful
arms were thrown about his neck, and he was borne to the ground by the
impetus of the onset.

CHAPTER XI
PHIL A PRISONER

Although this overpowering attack from behind was doubtless almost as
much a surprise to Phil’s six prisoners as it was to the boy himself, it
did not take them long to recover and seize advantage of the situation.
Like a football team they rushed forward to tackle their recent captor,
but their assistance was scarcely needed, for the fellow who had leaped
on Phil’s back was a powerful 200-pounder, and the shock that resulted
when earth and the boy came together half stunned the latter.

But it was not enough to deprive him entirely of his senses, and as he
was being jerked to his feet, he had the hazy gratification of hearing
an answering whistle to his own “siren shriek.” The boches evidently
were alarmed by the same sound, for they put greater energy and speed in
their actions in order to get out of the ravine as soon as possible.

First they raced about and gathered up their guns, which lay strewn
around the crater-like hole made by the explosion of the bomb dropped
from the aeroplane. Then they gathered up their uniforms, but did not
stop to put them on, and darted into the thick of the timber in the
direction of the retreating boche lines, two of them half carrying, half
dragging their boy prisoner between them.

But Phil was not the kind of lad who would attempt to hinder the
progress of his captors by hanging back and pretending to be unable to
keep pace with them. He preferred to conduct himself as thoroughly
able-bodied as soon as he had recovered from the shock that attended his
capture. In a few minutes he won just a slight manifestation of
good-will from the two who had hold of his arms by “going them one
better” and actually leading them slightly in the race through the
timber.

In a short time the dusk was so heavy in the woods that it was difficult
for them to make progress at more than a slow walk. Efforts to push
ahead rapidly were sure to result in trouble with tripping underbrush,
scratching branches, and bruising boles of trees.

Phil realized that it was next to vain to hope that they would be
overtaken by the comrade Marines of his squad; for although answering
calls from them had reached his ears, indicating that they had almost
arrived at the scene of his capture, there was small likelihood, indeed,
that they would be able to hit the trail of the fleeing boches and
overtake them and rescue him. He was tempted several times to repeat his
whistle and yell out information as to his predicament, but vicious
threats from the officer of big girth in charge of the squad now in
“underclothing uniform,” accompanied by a significant pressing of a
rifle muzzle now and then against his head, advised him convincingly
against any such proceeding.

Sergeant Speed’s one hope of rescue was that they might run into a body
of Americans who had advanced farther into the timber in their search
for retreating snipers and machine gunners. But this hope was only
remotely reasonable, for the instruction from the commanding officer had
been that the entire raiding force return by nightfall. Undoubtedly he
and Corporal Tim, and perhaps the other members of the squad as well,
were being reckoned among the missing. It was hardly probable that the
latter had yet given up their efforts to rejoin him after hearing and
answering his siren whistle. Possibly they had discovered Tim lying on
the ground and even now were doing their best to revive him or were
bearing him back toward the American lines.

Phil and his captors had by this time advanced some distance into this
wooded battle ground, most of which had until recently been occupied by
the enemy. But the heavy shell fire and attacks by the air fleet of the
allies had driven the main boche division back a considerable distance,
and after the Marines had routed out the nests of machine guns and
sharpshooters that were concealed in the woods and rendered perilous any
further attempt on the part of the enemy to hold these positions, the
captured timber terrain was a desolate waste indeed.

No doubt there would be no attempt on the part of the Marines to move
much farther toward the enemy’s lines that night. In the morning
probably the commanding officer would order another advance unless the
enemy anticipated him with a counter attack.

The effects of the shelling of the woods by the American artillery was
evident to some extent almost to the very front of the boche new
positions. In spite of the darkness, Phil could see with the aid of the
stars that peeped down through the foliage, torn, twisted and splintered
branches and tree trunks, while every now and then they stumbled into or
narrowly avoided a jagged shell-hole in the ground.

But at last they reached the objective of the young non-com’s captors,
which was a position of safety behind their own lines, and Phil found
himself confronted with the prospect of remaining a prisoner in the
hands of the enemy for the duration of the rest of the war.

CHAPTER XII
A BARBED WIRE PRISON

A short distance out in No Man’s Land from the German lines, Phil’s
captors stopped long enough to put on their outer clothing and thus
cover the comical evidence of their humiliation by the young American
who subsequently became their prisoner only through a surprise rear
attack. Doubtless they had not stopped sooner for this purpose because
they feared the possible consequences of any delay, with a swarm of
Yankee “devil dogs” scouring the timber for boches.

Phil was rushed to the rear where he was placed under guard with a dozen
other American prisoners who had been brought in from various quarters.
Half an hour later, it appearing that no more prisoners would be brought
in that night, they were hustled back several miles over a rough road to
a physically wrecked village, deserted by its civilian population, and
there corralled in a barbed wire inclosure already occupied by more than
200 captured Americans and Frenchmen. There each prisoner was stripped
of his helmet and every other superfluous article of use or treasure.

It was a wretched place, from all dim appearances in the darkness. There
was not a glimmer of light within the barbed wire prison, and only a few
outside. The patrol of guards that paced about outside the inclosure
were ghostly looking shadows against the various background of empty
darkness or debris of shell-shattered buildings. The other prisoners did
not pay much attention as the newly captured Marines were driven into
the place like so many cattle. This apparent indifference doubtless was
due to the darkness of the night and the weariness of all the prisoners.

The young Marine sergeant at once sought a resting place for the night.
He knew better than to expect any courtesies in the way of food, water,
or couch for the night from men of the brutal type that characterized
most of the boches with whom he had come into contact thus far.

Phil was tired and fell asleep “as soon as his head touched his pillow,”
which consisted of his arm curled up under his head. Later when this
became uncomfortable for the “pillow,” he rolled over in his sleep, and
his only headrest was the uncushioned earth.

The boy awoke at sunup and looked around him with a kind of eager
curiosity, rendered possible by his refreshed condition following a very
good night’s rest. A soldier does not need a hair mattress to insure
slumber in comfort. Sometimes he would be thankful for a dry six feet of
earth on which to rest his weary form. Phil congratulated himself as he
lay down to sleep on his first night as a prisoner of war not only that
he had a dry resting place in the open air, but that the weather was
warm.

About two-thirds of the prisoners in this inclosure were French, as
nearly as Phil was able to estimate after the dawn of day rendered it
possible for him to get a clear view of his surroundings. The invading
army had selected what appeared to have been a small village park and
fenced it in with barbed wire stapled to the rows of trees that marked
the marginal border line. The young Marine “non-com” soon picked out the
“colony” of Americans in the place and discovered among them two young
fellows, Dan Fentress and Emmet Harding, whose acquaintance he had made
at the last billeting place before the Yanks were given the Belleau and
Bouresches sector. The three were soon engaged in an animated
conversation on the events of the last few days. All expressed
themselves as deeply disappointed because it appeared probable that they
had struck their last blow for world freedom and must in all probability
labor as slaves for the mailed-fisted kaiserites until their more
fortunate fellow crusaders drove home the last blow which would make the
entire Hohenzollern host throw up their hands and yell “Kamerad!”

“What makes me sorest in my hardest-to-hurt spot,” said Dan, grinding
his teeth with impotent rage, “is the fact that I can’t go back home and
say that I know I killed a Hun. Not that I wanted to brag about it. I
might not even tell anybody about it if I had shot holes through a dozen
slayers of women and children. But I’d just like to be able to say I’d
made a record to be proud of and—and—then—keep the secret to myself if I
liked modesty as well as I’d like real American roast beef in a Hun
prison camp.”

“Maybe you’re just playing modest now,” suggested Emmet Harding with a
shrewd smile. “Maybe you’ve actually wiped out a score of Huns and are
just practicing, to feel how it seems to deny you’re a hero.”

“No, I don’t believe he’s doing any such thing,” interposed Phil almost
eagerly. “At least I hope he isn’t, for I want company right now. I’m in
the same boat he says he’s in. I don’t know that I’ve even smashed a
cootie on a Hun’s hide, although I had a chance to shoot down half a
dozen apostles of frightfulness like so many ten-pins, but didn’t do it;
and that, very probably, is the reason I’m here now.”

“What!” exclaimed Dan in tones of contemptuous astonishment. “What sort
of animal are you—a pacifist? You’d better keep that story under your
hat when you get back home.”

“I don’t know whether I’ll be able to,” Phil returned with a forlorn
smile. “You see, there’s no person I’d rather tell a joke on than
myself, and this is surely a joke on me. At first it looked like a joke
on the Huns—”

“Whoever heard of turning the biggest and most bloody war this world has
ever known into humor?” Dan interrupted almost angrily.

“I respect your impatience under the circumstances,” Phil returned
quietly. “But hear me through before you judge me too harshly. I’m the
sort of fellow that wouldn’t be guilty of a Lusitania sinking or of a
violation of a Belgian treaty. Neither would I shoot enemy soldiers
after they’ve thrown up their hands.”

“Did those six Huns throw up their hands?”

“Yes.”

“And you had a gun pointed at them?”

“Yes.”

“And did they yell ‘Kamerad?’”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. You’re a fool. But where’s the humor in that situation?”

“The first joke, I suppose, came when I ordered them to strip off their
uniforms one after another and had them standing before me in brogans,
underwear and steel helmets.”

“A comical sight, indeed,” declared Phil’s critic sarcastically. “But
what did you do that for?”

“To be sure they had no firearms on their person,” interposed Emmet.

“Well, what did you mean to do after that?” inquired Dan as Phil nodded
assent to Emmet’s interpretation.

“March them back to our lines.”

“And why didn’t you?”

“You’re admitting by your line of questions now that there may have been
a little intelligence in my method,” Phil observed as a prelude to his
answer.

“Intelligent enough if you had succeeded,” retorted Dan grimly.

“I get your argument and am inclined to agree with you in a way,” the
severely grilled Marine returned. “Well, I’m going to tell you why I
didn’t take my prisoners back to our lines in triumph. A 200-pound boche
sneaked up from behind and jumped on my back and—”

“That’s enough; you got what was coming to you,” declared Dan with a
finality of opinion that admitted of no further discussion. “If you care
for my judgment in the matter, I’ll say it’s up to you to use your wits
as you never used ’em before and whip the kaiser internally in order to
retrieve your honor. Get me? You’re on the inside now and you must do
something to help win the war from this side of the boche lines. But
here’s the call to breakfast and some guards coming this way. Methinks
they’re curious to know what’s the nature of this warm discussion of
ours. Everybody shut up and look hungry—for something a dog can hardly
eat.”

CHAPTER XIII
MR. BOACONSTRICTOR

“Something we can hardly swallow” proved to be a true characterization
of the meat-and-vegetable stew that was served to the prisoners in tin
bowls, which looked as if they had seen service in the Franco-Prussian
war. The meat was in small bits, which were few in number and so tough
or gristly as to be hardly edible. The vegetables were principally
potatoes and onions. This combination would have been fairly well
calculated to sustain life if it had been well seasoned and if it had
not tasted and smelled as if it had been warmed several times over a low
fire insufficient to bring it to the boiling point. A piece of stale
brown bread was served to each prisoner with this stew.

In order to prevent any of the prisoners from getting double portions of
this mess, the men were lined up next to the barbed wire fence, along
which several boys and men, the latter too old for military service,
passed, carrying kettles of stew and buckets of sliced bread and handing
out dippersful and slices through the fence to the hungry Americans and
Frenchmen.

Meanwhile two guards, also of the superannuated post-military class
entered the inclosure and advanced to the spot where the animated
discussion was going on among the three comrade Marines. The latter, as
has been observed, noticed their approach and so camouflaged their
further words and actions that the evident suspicion of the guards was
effectually dispelled.

There was a good deal of comment among the prisoners concerning the
quality of food served to them and other conveniences—or
inconveniences—with which they were provided. The general opinion among
them was that the enemy was approaching dangerously near the limit of
their resources, which might mean an ending of the war in the not far
distant future. Indeed, Phil was sure that he could detect signs of
spitefulness in the manner and actions of both commissioned officers and
non-coms toward the prisoners, and he was equally certain that the
reason for this spitefulness was an undisguisable consciousness of their
shortage of resources and equipment.

“This war isn’t going to last very much longer,” Phil remarked to his
two friends as he forced down the last spoonful of stew. He was
ravenously hungry, having had nothing to eat since early the preceding
day, and in spite of the fact that the food served was most unpalatable,
he deemed it wise not to waste any of the scanty portion served to him.

“That’s what lots of soldiers are saying principally because of stories
of experiences similar to ours that find their way across No Man’s
Land,” said Dan. “But there’s one thing that gets me in this connection
more than anything else, and that is that the more defeat you cram down
these boches’ throats, the more arrogant and overbearing they become.
Just look at that human boaconstrictor strutting around as if utterly
unconscious of the fact that he ought to be going to sleep.”

“I don’t get you,” said Emmet with an expression of challenging
curiosity. “If we were campaigning with the British among the pyramids
of Egypt, it might be appropriate for you to talk like a Sphinx.”

“I get him,” announced Phil. “He means that boche officer has such an
ungainly girth that he looks like a boa that has swallowed a pig and
ought to be taking an after-dinner nap. But I have something to add to
Dan’s observation. That fellow is one of the six kaiserites whom I
forced to strip to their underclothes and who turned the tables on me
and recaptured their pants et cetera, and brought me here as an honored
guest.”

“Better keep out of his sight then,” Emmet advised. “If he sets eyes on
you, he’s likely not to rest until he gets his revenge. And you know
what revenge means in wartime. He’ll probably find some way of blowin’
you to atoms to feed the molecules.”

“You do him too great a chemical honor by presenting the matter in such
light,” Phil objected, screwing up one side of his face to indicate his
skepticism. “He looks to me like an ordinary butcher, and I don’t think
he’d attempt to do anything more than make mincemeat of me.”

“Have it your own way,” Emmet returned with a shrug. “But look out for
him at any event. He seems to be recognized as having a good deal of
authority around here.”

“He’s only a second lieutenant,” was Phil’s reminder.

“That doesn’t make any difference,” Emmet insisted. “This fellow’s in
right with the higher-ups. It may be easier, you know, to use an officer
of low rank for all sorts of jobs than one of higher rank. He can work
more quietly—won’t attract so much attention sometimes.”

Phil decided to take his companion’s advice, and keep as much in the
background as possible in order that “Mr. Boaconstrictor” might not fall
into revengeful temptation at the sight of him. And before long he was
congratulating himself on this decision. Half an hour after the early
“feed,” as he was pleased to designate the morning stew and bread, the
order was given for everybody in the inclosure to get ready to move.
This was succeeded by another order ten minutes later for all to file
out through the gate and follow two soldiers who would lead the way.

Mechanically Phil glanced toward the two soldiers referred to by the
prison guard who made the announcement. Dan and Emmet, who were still
near him, did likewise.

“It seems impossible for you to shake your friend, Boche Boa,” observed
Emmet. “He’s going to be one of the leaders of the grand march to some
munitions factory, where, undoubtedly, we will be set at work making big
shells to shoot at the Allies.”

“Let’s hang back and fall in at the rear end of the line of march,” Dan
suggested. “He may have forgotten all about his experience with Phil,
and the sight of the fellow who dragged his dignity in the dust may make
him show his fangs.”

This seemed to be good advice, and was followed as nearly as possible,
although they were forced into the line several paces ahead of the rear
end by the guards who herded the prisoners out of the inclosure without
regard for the wish or convenience of anybody.

CHAPTER XIV
A NEW PRISON

There were few incidents of special interest during the first day of the
march of these 250 prisoners toward the German border. Of course to
persons unaccustomed to the sights and scenes in the blasted war zone,
everything along the route must have been interesting. But to these men
of several months’ experience, a landscape of unmarred beauty and order
must have been a novelty worthy of observation.

Every town, village or hamlet that they passed through was partly or
completely wrecked by shell explosions or fire. Most of the French
inhabitants had fled, although here and there were a few who had been
caught in the advancing wave of the invading army. Much of the open
country was disfigured with shell holes and trenches, and many of the
farm houses had been converted, wantonly it appeared, into heaps of
charred woodwork, black masonry and ashes.

An hour before the dusk of evening they arrived at a small town that was
in better condition of physical preservation than any of the others they
had passed through. Apparently it was used as a sort of way-station in
the line of communications between the fighting front and the Rhine
frontier.

There was no barbed wire inclosure for keeping the prisoners over night
in this place, and so they were housed in buildings that showed no
serious effects of recent bombardment. Phil and his two friends managed
to keep close together during the march and were much gratified with the
result of their efforts when they found themselves lodged in the same
building for the night. They were given their unvarying
breakfast-dinner-supper stew and stale bread shortly before dusk and
then, together with a dozen others, were locked in a small house that
undoubtedly, before the last big drive of the enemy, had been occupied
by a French family of not more than three or four.

The house was bare. Every article of furniture had been removed. Not
even a lamp with which to dispel the gloom of the place was to be found.

“There isn’t a bit of ventilation in this house,” declared one of the
prisoners, whose name, it soon developed, was Arthur Evans.

“And we don’t dare try to open a window for fear one of the guards may
try his marksmanship at us,” said another who had been addressed in
Phil’s hearing as Jerry Carey.

“It’s almost as big a menace as being gassed,” muttered another Marine,
who answered to the name of Burns.

“I don’t suppose we fifteen men would exactly die in these tightly
closed rooms in one night,” said Phil meditatively; “but I’m afraid we’d
almost have to be carried out by morning. We’d better get our wits
together and contrive some kind of vent that will make possible a
current of air up through the chimney.”

“I’m in favor of smashing one of the windows with a shoe,” Burns
announced. “We can all drop down flat on the floor and escape a volley
from the guards if they fire in here.”

“Let’s try something else,” Phil proposed. “Here’s a trapdoor. Maybe it
opens into a basement or cellar. Let’s see if we can’t get some air
through that.”

There was no ring or handle of any kind with which to lift the door. So
Phil hunted around until he found a small stick with which he was able
to get a slight purchase and lifted the door until he was able to get
hold of it with his fingers. A moment later the entire group of
prisoners were gazing down into a dark hole in which the only visible
object was the upper part of a rude flight of steps.

“There’s no air in that place,” declared one of the Marines, sniffing in
disgust at the scent of mold and must of the atmosphere in the cellar.

“I wish I had a light and I’d go down and explore it,” said Phil. “Who
knows what we might find in it?”

“Some rotten apples and potatoes and a lot of mice and vermin, more’n
likely,” prophesied Dan Fentress pessimistically.

“Oh, I agree with you there, and I agree also that it is hardly probable
that I’d find anything worth while,” Phil replied. “Still, just to be
doing something, I’d like to explore that hole in the ground. Remember,
fellows, this is pretty nearly on the other side of the world from where
we live. Consequently, everything we see and hear around, about, within
and among these our approximate antipodes ought to interest us.”

“Nobody could say you nay after such poetic persuasion as that,” avowed
one of the imprisoned Marines who thus far had been conspicuous
principally because of his silence.

“I left a hard-headed friend unconscious back in Belleau Woods yesterday
who had no use for poets in war,” Phil returned quickly. “He regarded
them as worse than enemy spies, and I don’t know but that I agree with
him. So, you see, you haven’t complimented me very much.”

“There seems to be a little light down there,” said Evans, who had been
peering into the cellarway while the others were engaged in what he
regarded as profitless palaver. “There must be a window in the cellar
wall, and as it isn’t dark yet, probably a wee bit of daylight is
filtering through.”

“I’m going down and feel about with my hands,” Phil announced, placing
one foot on the top step. “If there’s any light at all down there, I’ll
get the benefit of it after my eyes have got accustomed to conditions.
So here’s hoping that I’ll find something of more value than rotten
apples.”

“I hope you’ll find a keg o’ cider,” said Evans, smacking his lips.

Phil had descended no more than half a dozen steps when he stopped with
a low exclamation of interest.

“What’s up?” asked Emmet Harding.

“There’s a shelf here right beside the stairway and several things on
it. I’ll hand them up to you, and you see what they are.”

The first article that Phil laid, his hands on was a short housewife’s
paring knife. As he had been deprived of his own jackknife when searched
behind the boche lines, he decided to appropriate this valuable kitchen
tool to his own use and put it into a pocket of his coat. The next was a
small wooden box, which the finder passed up to one of the fellows who
reached down to receive it.

“Candles!” announced the latter eagerly, for there was no lid on it and
the contents were plainly visible in the twilight.

“You don’t say!” exclaimed Phil, returning to the top of the stairway
eagerly.

“You bet I do,” answered the other, holding up one of the sticks of
molded wax. “There must be a dozen here.”

“What good will they do unless somebody has a match?” inquired Evans
skeptically. “I bet there isn’t a match in this crowd.”

A hurried search by everybody present confirmed this bit of pessimism.

“Never mind,” said Phil quietly; “I’m going to light one of those
candles without a match.”

CHAPTER XV
A LIGHT WITHOUT MATCHES

Phil’s proposition to light without a match one of the candles
discovered in the cellarway of the probable former residence of a family
of French refugees interested every one of his imprisoned companions.
None of them was incredulous. All were sufficiently experienced in human
resourcefulness to give attention to even a seemingly impossible scheme
when it came from an intelligent young man under circumstances of urgent
necessity. Indeed, one of them, suspecting at once the nature of
Sergeant Speed’s plan, inquired quickly:

“How are you going to do it—rub sticks?”

“You’ve hit it about right,” answered Phil. “But it’s getting dark, and
we’ve got to hustle if we’re going to be able to do anything. Any of you
fellows got a knife?”

There was not a pocketknife among them. All had been thoroughly searched
after being brought back behind the enemy lines.

“Well, never mind,” said Phil. “I found a strong paring knife in the
cellarway and it seems to be pretty sharp. Now, here is what I want:
Several of you fellows hunt about over the floor and woodwork and see if
you can find a loose board. If you can get hold of a loose end of a
board rip it up.”

“You don’t need to rip up any boards,” called out one of the fellows
from an adjoining room. “Here’s half a dozen short pieces—probably meant
as kindling for the fireplace.”

“Good!” exclaimed the volunteer fire-maker. “Bring them here near the
window.”

The comrade did as requested. A few moments later Phil had selected one
of the short boards and split it on his knee.

“I’m going to make a bow out of this,” he announced, as he began to
whittle. “Some of you fellows take these shavings and shred them against
something. I’ll need some punk to catch the sparks in.”

“There’s a brick fireplace in the next room,” said Dan. “Some of the
bricks are loose and we can pull out a couple and shred the whittlings
between them.”

“Good again,” pronounced the leader of the enterprise. “Now one of you
can help a whole lot by tying two or three shoestrings together for a
string of the bow I am preparing. Make the knots as small as you can.”

“That isn’t necessary,” a young fellow named Barber interposed. “I have
a stout cord five or six feet long that will suit your purpose fine. I
picked it up in camp a few days ago and put it in my pocket, thinking it
might come handy sometime.”

Phil received the string offered to him by the last speaker, and then
offered this suggestion by way of general advice on an important
subject:

“We ought to be careful not to pitch our voices too loud. Of course
there’s nothing in what has been said that could do us any particular
harm if it had been overheard by one of the guards. Still, there’s no
telling when we’ll discover something or concoct a scheme that it would
be advisable to keep to ourselves. We’d better tone our voices down so
that we have to lean forward to hear each other; then we’ll be on the
safe side.”

Several of the prisoners expressed their approval of this suggestion,
and the succeeding conversations were in lower tones.

The work progressed rapidly, considering the insufficiency of light in
the house. In a remarkably short time Phil and his assistants had
produced a rude bow two and a half feet long, a fireboard with a small
cone-shaped drill-socket, or pit, in one side, and a V-shaped trough
leading from the pit to the edge of the board; a “thunder-bird,” or
small block of wood with a cone-shaped socket in the center; a drill, or
a rounded piece of wood about fifteen inches long and sharpened at both
ends; and a handful of shredded shavings.

“There!” exclaimed Phil in subdued tone, as he surveyed the completed
task in the dusk now so heavy that he was sure the work could not have
progressed successfully many minutes longer. “I’m glad that’s done. By
the way, it’s fortunate that there are curtain shades still on the
windows. Let’s pull them down and then light one of the candles. We can
shade the light with our bodies so that there won’t be much danger of
its being seen outside. Be careful not to let the guards see you pulling
the shades down. It’s so dark now that they won’t notice what we’ve done
after they’re down.”

The shades were drawn down cautiously, and fourteen Marine prisoners of
war gathered around Phil to watch the hoped-for success of making fire
in the Old World after the manner developed and perfected by the
aborigines of the New.

But they did little actual watching before the first spark appeared.
Immediately after the drawing of the shades there was scarcely a glimmer
of light in the room, and Phil had to depend on his sense of feeling to
enable him to operate his fire-making contrivance.

“Now, all of you crowd around in as close a circle as you can without
hindering my movements,” he directed as he fitted the sharpened ends of
the drill into the pit of the fireboard, which he had laid on the floor,
and the pit of the “thunder-bird,” which he held in his left hand. Then
he began a sawing motion with the bow, the string of which was looped
around the drill.

A moment later all were listening eagerly to the merry hum of the drill
as it whirled around in its perpendicular position, the revolving motion
being produced by the drawing back and forth of the bow string looped
about it.

“Keep close together,” Phil warned. “Don’t let any light get through.
It’s coming. Smell the burning of the wood?”

Suddenly there was a tiny glow at the base of the drill.

“Quick with the punk,” said Phil eagerly.

Nobody could see the move, but nevertheless Dan dropped a pinch of the
dry shredded wood on the tiny brilliance.

The bright spot grew larger, the drill whirled more rapidly, a few more
pinches of punk were applied, and the glow burst into a flame.

“Now, the candle,” Phil directed, but even as he spoke the wick of one
of the illuminants was being applied to the burning punk.

Phil seized the lighted candle and started for the open trap-doorway.

“I’m going downstairs and see what I can find,” he announced, holding
his coat lapel over the flame. “All of you stand close together and help
keep any rays of this candle from getting to any of the windows.”

“How about the basement windows?” asked one of the men. “How’re you
going to keep the light from shining through them?”

“I’ll have to run a little risk on that account,” Phil replied; “but
I’ll shield the light all I can with my coat and when I get down there
I’ll set it in a corner where it can’t be seen through the window or
windows, if possible.”

The boy descended slowly, and the others, or such of them as could
obtain a view at once through the opening in the floor, gazed eagerly
after him. They were unable to see much, however, for he covered the
light with the lapel of his coat so carefully that the entire
illumination fell directly in front of him.

Phil’s first trip into the cellar was a short one. In less than five
minutes he returned to the head of the stairs without the light and
offered this startling announcement in low but clear tones:

“Fellows, I’ve made a great discovery. If you’re game, there’s a good
chance for us to escape.”

CHAPTER XVI
PLANS FOR ESCAPE

Everybody was eager to hear of Phil’s discovery, and a chorus of
low-toned demands for an explanation followed his announcement.

“It isn’t a very romantic discovery,” the explorer of the cellar
replied. “In fact, it’s very ordinary and points toward some hard work
for us.”

“We’re used to that,” returned one of the prisoners quickly. “Out with
it. Don’t keep us guessing.”

“There’s a regular outfit of excavating tools down there,” the boy
sergeant explained. “They were concealed behind some boxes, and I
suppose that’s the reason the boche invaders never found them. There’s a
spade, shovel, pick and hoe there—all in good condition.”

“Do you mean to suggest that we dig our way out of this place?” asked
Phil’s last inquisitor.

“Sure—why not?” was the reply.

“We’d have to tunnel out—clear to the other side of their outposts.”

“And that’s just what I propose to do,” said Phil deliberately.

There being no light in the room, nobody could see anybody else’s
expression of countenance, but the chilly silence that followed this
announcement indicated something of what was going on in the minds of
those who heard it. One of the latter whispered into another’s ear:

“He’s gone clean daft—insane. We’d better amuse him.”

But Phil’s sharp ear caught enough of these words to enable him to
understand their purport. He realized, too, that it was a very natural
conclusion, although he had not intended to provoke it. Any such
self-amusement as this would have been exceedingly out of place. Still,
he was tempted just a little to see if someone of his prison-associates
would perceive the feasibility of his plan. None of them did, however,
until he supplemented his last assertion, as follows:

“It isn’t so crazy an idea after all, when you consider that we have
only about fifteen feet to dig.”

“By crackey, that’s so!” exclaimed Dan Fentress excitedly. Then
moderating his tone of voice in mindfulness of their recent agreement on
the subject, he added: “Didn’t you fellows notice that there’s an old
stonequarry or something of the kind just south o’ this house? We can
dig right into that and slip down and away. It’s hardly likely we’ll
find anybody watching from that quarter.”

“That’s a brilliant idea, and we’re a lot o’ mutts for not getting it
sooner,” Evans declared. “Let’s get busy at once.”

“There’s just one window in the basement wall, and that’s on the south
side,” Phil continued. “We’ll have to blind that up some way before we
do much work. Probably there’s nobody watching on that side, but we
don’t want to run any risk.”

“We’ll take off our coats and jam ’em up in the window if the frame is
deep enough,” Emmet Harding proposed. “Is it?” he inquired, addressing
Phil.

“Yes, it’s six or eight inches deep,” the latter replied. “I propped the
candle up with several brickbats on the floor a few feet from the
window. Nobody’d be likely to see a light from that side unless he were
inspecting very closely for one.”

“Let’s go down and begin work at once,” Evans proposed. “The sooner we
get away the better our chances of escape will be.”

“We’ll need about eight or ten coats to blind the window with,” said
Phil. “Here’s mine. Some of you pass over yours and I’ll go down and
take care of that matter.”

A minute later the prison tunnel engineer had as big a load of coats on
his arm as he wished to carry while descending into the cellar, and he
was about to return below when Dan startled him a little by saying:

“We haven’t got the ventilation yet that we started out to get. And this
place is growing stuffy already. How about it? We can’t work very long
in such atmosphere as this, and the worst of it will settle into the
cellar, where we’ll have to do all our hard work.”

“That’s so,” said Phil. “We can’t open that cellar window any easier
probably than one of the windows up here, and if we could, we wouldn’t
dare use it for ventilating while working down there with a light. Let’s
go around and try the windows up here and see if we can’t get one of
them open without making any noise.”

“Let’s try to open one on the north side,” Emmet suggested. “If the
guards hear us, we’ll explain that we’ve got to have some fresh air.
Then, too, they’ll probably watch that end of the house more closely and
maybe neglect the south end if they know one of the north windows is
open.”

This plan was adopted and Emmet was delegated to try the north windows.
The general suspense was greatly relieved when he turned and whispered
that he had raised the lower sash of the first window he tried and
propped it up with a short piece of board. He had not made a sound
audible to his companions while doing this.

“Now, nobody must talk above a whisper, and that as little as possible,
while the window is open,” he cautioned.

Phil took this as a cue for him to descend into the cellar and blind the
foundation window with his load of coats. In a few minutes, after
accomplishing this, he returned and selected two aids, with whom he went
below again to begin work on the proposed escape tunnel into the
excavation to the south.

CHAPTER XVII
TUNNELING

“We’ll have to conserve our candles,” was Phil’s first remark after he
and his two assistants, Dan Fentress and Donald Winslow, reached the
foot of the stairway. “I haven’t any candlestick yet, but we can make
one with some stiff clay as soon as we get to digging.”

“What kind of masonwork do we have to cut through?” asked Dan, stepping
over to the south wall and proceeding to find an answer to the question
for himself.

“It’s brick and cement,” Phil replied, anticipating the questioner’s
move to answer himself. “Ordinarily it would be difficult to break even
with a crowbar and a sledge hammer; but observe that large frost-crack
running down from one corner of the window. Several of the bricks there
are almost loose. We can start a hole in the wall by picking out those
bricks. Then the work of enlarging the opening ought to be comparatively
easy with the aid of this pick.”

As he spoke Phil took up the tool referred to, which he had stood up
against the wall, together with the spade, shovel and hoe discovered by
him on his first inspection of the cellar. It was by no means a delicate
looking pick, and all three of the Marines who examined it agreed that
it ought to withstand an extremely heavy leverage in the work before
them.

“I figure that the man who lived here worked in that quarry, and that is
the explanation of these tools,” Phil continued after his companions had
examined the articles in question and satisfied themselves as to their
serviceability.

“They are not exactly stonequarry tools, or at least they constitute a
decidedly incomplete kit,” Dan remarked critically. “This isn’t much
more than an ordinary garden outfit.”

“Well, anyway, they’re here for us to use,” Winslow put in; “so let’s
get busy, for this candle is nearly half gone already, and we’re liable
to run out of light if we don’t hustle. Here goes for a starter.”

He seized the pick and was about to transform his manifestation of
energy into action, when Phil stayed him with this caution:

“Be careful, Winslow; no hard blows. Remember, there are guards within a
few rods of this house, and any noises, even though they are muffled by
cellar walls and masses of earth, are pretty certain to be
investigated.”

“Very wisely said,” returned the young Marine with the pick. “I’m
altogether too impulsive for a general. That’s the reason I’m a private
and always will be. What shall I do, sergeant, begin a toothpick
operation on the wall?”

“Yes, something o’ the sort,” Phil replied, smiling. “Jab the pick into
that crack there and see if you can’t pry some of those bricks loose.”

Winslow did as directed, and was astonished on discovering with what
ease half a dozen of the bricks came out.

“Fine!” exclaimed Phil gleefully. “Now, try some of that solid wall.”

Winslow did as directed. He was a powerful fellow—Phil had selected him
as an aid for this reason. The pick stood the test and the wall fell
away in bits. In less than an hour—estimated—a section of the wall three
feet wide and nearly six feet high had been broken away, and the first
candle was still burning.

“Everything’s going great,” said the young engineer of the enterprise.
“The candles are going to last longer than I thought.”

“Shan’t we light two of them?” Dan suggested. “We can work faster,
maybe.”

“No, not yet,” Sergeant Speed replied quickly. “We’ll have two or three
of them going after we get the tunnel started a few feet.”

“Stick ’em on our hats?” inquired Winslow.

“No, we haven’t any way that I know of to fasten them to our hats. We’ll
cut niches in the wall and set the candles in there. By the way, I’m
going upstairs and get a couple more fellows down here to help.”

“We’ll have to have some fresh air before long,” said Dan. “First thing
we know we’ll be asphyxiated—carbon-dioxidized, as it were. That fresh
air upstairs won’t come down here unless forced down with a fan, or we
manage to effect some kind of open-air vent through these walls.”

“I’ve been thinking of that,” said Phil; “and I have a scheme that I
think will work first rate. After we get ahead with the tunnel a few
feet, we’ll cut a hole straight up to the surface next to the
foundation. We’ll keep the lights away from that hole, and stop our
talking, too.”

Phil now left his two companions hard at work and ascended the stairway
to report progress to his waiting companions and select two or three
more assistants to help speed up the work in the cellar.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE PRISONERS TAKE A PRISONER

The work of digging the tunnel progressed rapidly. At first Phil feared
that the job would prove exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, of
performance in the seven or eight hours they had before them for labor
before the next daybreak. He based this fear on the proximity of the
supposed stonequarry just south of the house.

The earth was not even solidly packed at every place where they struck
with spade, shovel and pick. In fact, much of it was so loose that to
use the pick would have been a waste of time. Generally the spade served
the purpose best in the tunnel, the one who wielded that tool pitching
the diggings back as far as he could, while others threw or dragged them
still farther back against the opposite wall with the shovel and hoe.

Before long it became evident to all the workers why the earth was so
easy to spade. There was considerable sand mixed with the clay and the
loam constituting the earth’s crust at this point. They concluded,
therefore, that the stonequarry must be of the sand variety, and that
the rocky substratum in this section of the country was covered with a
sandy admixture of supersoil.

But they struck so much of this loosening element that it presently
began to appear as a menace rather than an advantage. If a vein of sand
should be struck overhead or in the upper part of the excavation, a
cave-in might result in the suffocation of the tunneler before he could
be rescued. Phil then suggested that thereafter the continuation of the
tunnel be elevated a foot or two in order to lessen the possibility of
such disaster. However, they were careful also not to cut too close to
the surface of the ground for fear lest a guard, passing that way, might
step through and be precipitated into the passage.

But that is the very thing that happened, and it came near bringing the
enterprise of the energetic Marines to an unhappy conclusion.
Nevertheless, perhaps, it was fortunate that things turned out as they
did, for the guard who stepped through into the subterranean avenue was
so overwhelmed by the mass of sand and earth which closed in upon him,
that his wits, his voice and his power of self-help deserted him.

Phil was taking his turn with the spade in the tunnel when this thing
occurred. Fortunately, he had stepped back several feet in order to
bring the candle forward to a new niche he had just cut in the wall and
was not covered by the avalanche of earth. As it was, he started back
several feet, fearing that the whole roof of the tunnel was about to
fall in, but was presently reassured by an appearance of the cause of
the sudden interruption of his work.

A pair of coarse-broganned feet protruded from the heap of earth in the
wrecked passageway and apprised him of the fact that someone—certainly
not an American Marine—had been caught in a very effective trap, which
had been intended for anything but a trap. Moreover, it was likely to
prove a death trap in short order unless steps were taken to release the
victim with all possible speed.

Phil took hold of the protruding brogans and pulled, but with no
favorable result. He pulled again—the buried form moved slightly, and
more earth slid down into the trench. The boy now realized that the
situation was desperate—for the victim was no doubt a boche soldier; but
the young Marine felt it a human duty to rescue him, nevertheless.

Just then he felt the presence of someone behind him, and as he turned
to see who it was, Dan Fentress took hold of one of the protruding legs
and whispered:

“Here, we’ll pull together. It’ll be tough on him, but not so tough as
leaving him there until we can shovel ’im out. He has some chance this
way.”

It was close quarters for two to work in side by side, but one strong
pull together was effectual. A badly scared boche, hatless and with his
face considerably the worse for rough dragging through a mass of earth
and sharp stones, emerged, puffing with exhaustion and certainly not in
condition to exclaim, “Thank you for saving my life!”

“Here’s his gun,” said Dan, reaching forward and pulling forth a Mauser
from the loose earth that had almost buried it.

“And here’s his pistol,” said Phil, drawing a murderous looking weapon
from the fellow’s holster. “He must be a general handy man for all kinds
of service.”

The prisoners’ prisoner, who was rapidly recovering from the effects of
his mishap and violent handling, sat up presently and looked about him
with astonishment. Evidently he did not know what to make of the
situation.

“See here, my good enemy friend,” Dan warned, pointing the Mauser at his
head; “no noise out o’ you, or I’ll send you to the place where Kultur
gets all the reward comin’ to it. We’re Marines, not submarines; and we
hit _above_ water.”

“Every word of that is lost on him,” said Phil, noting the blank
expression on the boche’s countenance. “He’s not a very intelligent
fellow—the better for us right now. He’s one of those old fellows
they’ve dragged into the army to perform duties of secondary importance.
We’d better get him back in the cellar and let some o’ the other boys
take care of ’im.”

The unfortunate guard proved to be able to get on his feet and walk back
to where the other Marines were waiting anxiously for an explanation of
the disturbances that had reached their ears. Phil told the story in a
few words and then said:

“You fellows stay here and take care of this prisoner, and I’ll go out
and reconnoiter. I want to see the lay o’ the land. Maybe we’ve done all
the digging necessary. With this guard out of the way, the coast may be
clear to the south. We want to know where we’re going before we start.”

“Let me go along,” Dan requested. “I’ve got a notion that two spies
working together can do better than one.”

“Come on, then,” Phil responded. “Is that satisfactory to you fellows?”

The speaker by this time was acknowledged by all as their leader. Half a
dozen were now in the basement giving their assistance in shifts in the
preparations for escape. They nodded assent to this latest suggestion.

A minute later Phil and Dan had crawled up over the pile of earth at the
end of the tunnel and were creeping over the ground toward the supposed
stonequarry.

CHAPTER XIX
OVERHEARD IN A SANDPIT

Carefully the boys peered in every direction for signs of the presence
of guards in the vicinity, but apparently the boche whom they had
captured had been the only one stationed south of the house. They
reached the edge of the large excavation without an alarm to themselves
or the enemy, and then began an examination of the descent for an avenue
of departure for themselves and their waiting companions in the house.

The night was clear, but there was no moon; and it was difficult, with
the aid of only the stars, to get a satisfactory view any considerable
distance ahead of them. However, it is well known that one can accustom
his eyes to ordinary darkness of night to such an extent that he is able
to discern distant objects with a clearness that at first would seem
impossible.

And so it was that after lying several minutes at the edge of what at
first seemed to be a steep bluff, they found that they could make out
the edge of a deep pit directly to the south and a hill-like descent
that curved along to the left gradually to the southward. Bushes grew
here and there along this winding hill-path, so that it was evident that
they must make their inspection rod by rod, if not yard by yard, in
order to determine of what value it was to them.

“Let’s go down there and see what it looks like,” Phil whispered in his
companion’s ear.

Dan nodded his willingness, and soon they were creeping along the course
indicated. After they had left a considerable screen of bushes behind,
they stood erect and looked carefully about them; then continued their
descent. They stopped, however, several times on the way, looking about
and listening intently for evidence of the presence of enemy soldiers.
In one of these precautionary halts, Phil said to his companion scout:

“I don’t believe this is a stonequarry at all. It’s a big sandpit,
according to my notion. And this is a path used by the workmen who live
up on the higher ground. I bet it leads right down to the entrance of
the pit.”

“I believe you’re right,” Dan returned. “There’s so all-fired much sand
around here, it can’t be otherwise. How far do you think we’d better go?
Everything looks clear in this direction.”

“Let’s go down to the foot of this hill and see how things look there
before we go back,” Phil proposed in reply.

They continued to the bottom of the hill and found themselves at the
wide entrance of a huge sandpit with bushes growing in abundance along
the border nearest their approach. Here they stood close to a clump of
bushes, listening and peering cautiously in all directions for warning
sounds or signs indicating the presence of enemy soldiers in the
vicinity.

The warning came almost immediately. The sound of voices in conversation
only a few feet from them caused the boys to stand as still almost as
the ground on which they stood. They held their breath, as it were, and
listened eagerly to catch the words being exchanged by two men on the
opposite side of the thicket.

Apparently the conference was very secret, for the principals had sought
a dark and out-of-the-way place to “put their heads together,” and the
eagerness of their tones indicated the degree of importance they placed
on the purpose of the interview. But it was in German, and although both
of the listeners had studied that language at school, they were unable
to form a clear idea as to the main purpose of the conversation.

It did not take Phil long, however, to identify one of the men. His
high-pitched voice and tripping utterance, little short of a stutter,
could hardly have been duplicated by another. Without a doubt he was the
oddly proportioned commissioned officer who had been in charge of the
squad of boches that Phil had captured at Belleau Woods and who later,
with the assistance of another, had turned the tables on him.

“It’s my boaconstrictor evil genius,” Phil mused, although not very
apprehensively. “How I wish I could make out what they are talking
about.”

He did, however, catch a few words that intensified his curiosity,
although they carried to his mind little or no enlightenment.
Considerable was said about an aeroplane and “the Americans” and bombs.
Phil and Dan both strained their ears and their imagination to put these
and other single-word ideas together and uncover the meaning of the
interview, but in vain. Both had studied “literary German” at school,
but their knowledge of conversational Prussian was exceedingly limited.

Ten or fifteen minutes after Phil and Dan arrived at the mouth of the
sandpit, the conversation ended and the two men departed, starting up
the path by which the escaped prisoners had descended. The latter waited
a minute or two for them to get a good start, and were about to follow
them and, if possible, prevent them from giving the alarm if they
discovered the wrecked tunnel leading from their prison, when a new
surprise of startling nature added another thrill to the adventures of
the night.

“Phil!”

This utterance of Sergeant Speed’s given name was scarcely above a
whisper, but distinct. The latter shivered as if a ghost had touched him
on the shoulder. Then concluding with a desperate denial of his “sense
of sound location,” that it must have been his companion that spoke to
him, he turned to Dan to ask him what he wanted. But the latter was
looking about curiously to learn the source of the familiar address.

A moment later both of them beheld a third human form standing a few
feet away and instinctively assumed an attitude of defense, prepared to
change it into one of attack, when the supposed stranger spoke thus in
low tones:

“Don’t be alarmed, Phil. I am Tim Turner whom you left for dead in
Belleau Woods.”

CHAPTER XX
ESCAPE

“Well, of all the most wonderful things that ever happened this is out
of the ordinary!”

One of the characteristics that made Phil a good soldier was the fact
that it was almost impossible to astound him. A fellow Marine commented
on this fact once, and he replied:

“Sure. If a Hun plane should drop a bomb on the end of my nose in the
middle of the night, I shouldn’t be the least bit surprised.”

His first impulse when Tim Turner presented himself to him and Dan
Fentress in the middle of the night at the entrance of the French
sandpit was to say something ridiculous. So he popped an anticlimax,
which amounted to serving notice on himself and his two friends that
this was no place for astonishment. The situation was therefore cleared
up for the benefit of all three with two sentences:

“I came to just as you and your captors were leaving and followed to
help you, but was captured, put to work on the soup truck, and escaped
tonight,” said Tim.

“We tunneled out of our prison, came here to see if the coast was clear,
and are going back now to get a bunch of prisoners who are waiting for
our report,” said Phil.

“Go on, and I’ll wait till you get back this way,” Tim proposed.

“All right,” Phil assented. “We must hustle along to see if those two
boches stumble into our tunnel. It caved in before we finished it.”

That ended the conversation, and the two prisoner-scouts hastened up the
hill after the two enemy soldiers, whose mysterious conference, held
under appearances of the most careful secrecy, caused Phil and Dan to
wonder more and more as they puzzled over the few words they had been
able to understand. Halfway up the incline they caught sight of the
worthy pair, walking leisurely and almost arm-in-arm, totally
unsuspicious, it appeared, of the proximity of any unfriendly humans at
large.

Near the top of the hill they turned to the right and soon were moving
along a highway that led into the heart of the town. The two scouts were
greatly relieved by this, as it virtually precluded any possibility of
their discovering the escape tunnel leading from the cellar of the
prison and overlooking the sandpit. The shorter route for them would
have been across the unfenced yard into which the tunnel had been cut.

A minute later Phil and Dan were back again in the basement and
reporting the success of their scouting expedition. The prisoner of the
prisoners had been bound and gagged and lay like a mummy in one corner,
scowling weirdly in the dim candle light. After inspecting his bonds and
gag to make certain that he was not likely to work loose or raise an
alarm with his voice, Phil announced that all was ready for a departure.
This announcement was communicated to the prisoners upstairs and
presently all were assembled in the cellar and ready to file out through
the tunnel.

Phil desired very much to talk over plans with the other escaping
prisoners, but the presence of the captured boche advised him that it
was not well to run the risk of his being able to understand English. So
they filed out with only a “follow the leader” understanding.

Phil and Dan led the way down the hill to the point where Corporal Tim
waited for their reappearance. Then they selected a sequestered nook,
partly shielded with a growth of high bushes near the mouth of the
sandpit and there held a conference.

“It seems to me that this is a case of every man for himself,” Evans
remarked after several of the boys, with less constitutional initiative,
had put, or seconded, the question, “What shall we do next?”

“Yes,” Phil agreed; “I don’t believe there’s any argument to be made
against that. If we keep together, we’re bound to attract attention. If
we travel singly, or in twos, we can hide better in the daytime. We’ll
be hampered, too, with these uniforms. If we separate, traveling by
night and hiding in the daytime, perhaps some of us may be able to
exchange them in some of these French villages for something less
convicting. We may find some old work clothes that the boches overlooked
or rejected with contempt, or we may find some French inhabitants caught
in the big drive of the enemy, who will bend an effort to help us
camouflage our American looks.”

“Before we separate, I want to make an announcement.”

Everybody turned questioningly toward the speaker.

“Who are you?” asked one of the escaped prisoners who stood near the boy
that volunteered this interposition and looked curiously into his face.
Evidently the inquisitor had spotted him as a stranger.

“He’s all right,” said Phil, coming to the support of his friend. “Boys,
this is Tim Turner who was with us at Belleau Woods. After I was
captured, he followed in the dusk, hoping to be able to come to my
relief. But he also was taken prisoner and escaped today. Dan Fentress
and I found him down here, or, rather, he found us, and he’s been
waiting for our return with you boys. What is it, Tim? What announcement
do you want to make?”

“This,” the bullet-headed corporal answered. “I don’t believe you and
Dan caught the significance of what those two Huns were talking about
down here, did you?”

“No, we’ll have to confess that we didn’t,” Phil replied. “We flunked
bad in our German test.”

“Well, I got it,” Tim continued impressively. “I never studied German at
school, but I worked for a German farmer two years and got so I could
carry on a conversation with him and his family without any trouble.
Those two Huns were planning one of the most fiendish plots you ever
heard of—dastardly, just about as bad as sinking the Lusitania or
torturing Belgian women and children. They were planning to kill most,
or all, of the prisoners in this place and make it appear that an
American did the deed.”

CHAPTER XXI
THE PLOT

“I understood almost every word they uttered and the plot is as clear as
day,” Tim declared excitedly. “It’s simply dastardly and as treacherous
as the violation of the Belgian treaty. Incidentally I learned something
more, too, that will interest you considerably.

“One of those boche plotters is connected way high up, a distant
relative of the kaiser himself, as I got it. He’s the fellow with the
big girth—one of the bunch that captured you and brought you back behind
their lines. It was plain that the other fellow held him in a good deal
of awe, if he was only a second lieutenant.

“This other fellow is an aviator, I wasn’t long finding out. There’s an
aviation field a short distance from here, and the ‘taube chauffeur’
flies from that field. The kaiser’s umpty-umpth nephew cooked the scheme
up in his own cranium and called the flyer to the conference in the
sandpit. He called the aviator Hertz, and Hertz addressed him mostly as
Count, once or twice Count Topoff, and once referred to him as ‘a
general in disguise.’

“Well, the plot they cooked up was this—or rather it seemed to be cooked
up in the brain of ‘the count’ and was dished out to Hertz to swallow
willy-nilly: The bunch of prisoners are to continue their march toward
the Rhine tomorrow—or today. Is it past midnight yet? And Hertz is to
come along in his aeroplane loaded with bombs. The officers are to
announce that it’s an American plane on a bombing expedition and are to
keep the prisoners bunched together with threats to shoot them if they
try to get away.

“‘He’s arter us,’ the guards will tell the prisoners; ‘and the only way
we can save our lives from his bombs and machine-gun is to keep our guns
trained on you, and we’ll have to stand off at a distance to keep you
from rushing us. Now, if you behave yourselves and obey orders, you’ll
save not only your own lives but ours, too. But if you make trouble for
us, we’ll kill as many of you as we can before he gets us, and he’ll
have to treat each of us as a separate target, for we’re all scattered
out around you.’

“Well, along will come the supposed American plane from the west and
it’s figured that the prisoners will drink in the boches’ warning and
huddle together like a lot o’ barnyard fowl in a cold rain. Hertz will
then proceed to drop a dozen or more bombs on them, while the guards
stand off at a distance and watch the fun.”

“But what’s the purpose in such a program as that?” someone inquired.
“Why shouldn’t they go ahead and commit their wholesale murder in cold
blood and admit they’re responsible for the whole business? They haven’t
anything to be afraid of.”

“They’ve two reasons for doing it the way they planned,” Tim replied.
“Those reasons were expressed very clearly in the course of their
conversation. First, some o’ the boche leaders are pretty sore because
of the reputation they’ve got for committing frightful cruelties, and a
kind of chicken-hearted warning has gone out from some high source to
put on the soft pedal. Still, it seems to be in the make-up of some of
those scoundrels to do the most fiendish things they can think of. If
they can satisfy their lust for curdled blood and throw the blame on
somebody else, they can also flatter their vanity for putting the thing
over with very smooth cunning. Then again, it would key up the morale of
the boche soldiers to a high pitch if the story could be circulated that
the Americans were such dummies that they are likely to commit such
blunders as this fake affair will seem to be. You see, Hertz is going to
fly in a captured French machine and will be dressed in the uniform of
an American prisoner.”

“Can you beat that for sheer rascality?” Evans exclaimed. “Do you know,
fellows, I don’t feel like trying to escape and leaving all those other
boys to die like rats in a trap when a word from us passed among them
might at least give them a chance to make some of those fiends pay the
penalty of their dastardly plot when it’s put into effect. There are
only about a score of guards in charge of this bunch of prisoners and I
believe they could be overpowered if a concerted rush were made at the
right time.”

“I confess that I feel the same way,” said Sergeant Phil vengefully.
“But really, boys, it isn’t necessary for all of us to go back. One of
us would be enough. He could pretend to be in sympathy with the boche
cause and tell them he refused to go with the rest. That probably would
get him considerable favor with them and enable him to do some effective
work.”

“Who’s going to be the one to go back?” asked Evans, thereby propounding
a question not at all easy to answer. Undoubtedly all of the sixteen
escaped prisoners were not equally well fitted to handle the matter with
like promise of success. Phil realized this, and, without intending to
arrogate superior qualities to himself, replied:

“I will, unless someone else can show good reason why he could do the
job better than I can.”

“I’m conceited enough to believe that I can do it just as well,” said
Evans. “Unless you can show good reason why you can do it better than I
can, I demand that you match coins with me to determine who shall go.”

“Where are the coins?”

“Hold on,” interposed Dan Fentress. “You two aren’t going to have a
monopoly on this business. I want to come in on it.”

“All right,” said Evans; “you ought to be able to outwit a score of
pie-faced boches with those squint eyes o’ yours. But I think we’d
better close the nominations now, hadn’t we?”

“Not till I get in on it, if you’ll admit an outsider,” Tim protested
eagerly. “I don’t exactly belong to your bunch, for the boches sort o’
took me over as chief cook an’ bottle washer, but I don’t object to
being traitor to my new alliance if you don’t.”

“We’ll let you in on it, nobody objecting,” Evans ruled. “But unless
somebody speaks up quick, the nominations are closed. One, two,
three—they’re closed. Now, how shall we vote? Anybody got a coin to
flip?”

Nobody had.

“Let’s settle it among us four candidates,” Phil proposed. “Nobody shall
vote for himself. Everybody decide whom he will vote for and as soon as
you’re all ready I’ll say ‘one, two,’ and instead of ‘three’ I’ll call
out my vote. You do likewise.”

This was agreed upon. Presently all announced that they were ready and
Phil began, “One, two—”

“Evans.”

“Fentress.”

“Speed.”

Phil was elected.

CHAPTER XXII
GOOD-BY

The ceremony of good-bys was short following Phil’s election to return
as a messenger of warning to the other prisoners concerning the fiendish
plot for their destruction. Pew words of advice were exchanged as to
what each escaping prisoner should do. It was a case of everybody for
himself with no sure promise of success for anybody. Nobody knew any
more than anybody else concerning the country through which they must
pass or how they might hope to conceal themselves in the daytime, or how
obtain food for their already hungry stomachs. Everybody must work his
wits to the limit.

This, in fact, seemed to be the general understanding, for each of the
escaping prisoners apparently took it for granted that the
responsibility for his own success or failure in this most important
venture rested entirely on himself. No questions were asked. Everybody
seemed to desire to strike out for himself as soon as possible. A few
went in pairs, but most of them set out alone.

Tim said good-by to Phil last. The bullet-headed corporal, who had
proved himself a boy of no mean intelligence by the manner in which he
had got evidence of the wholesale-murder plot of “Count Topoff” and
Aviator Hertz and reported it to his friends, was evidently much
disappointed because he had not been elected to return to the prison
camp of his comrade Marines and Frenchmen and warn them against the
menace that would soon be upon them.

“I’m sorry I’m not going with you,” he said to his friend. “I envy you
very much, old man, for while the rest of us are running away, you are
going back to fight. That’s what it means, Phil, a very hard fight, and
a lot of credit to you for preventing a wholesale and cowardly
slaughter.”

“You evidently expect us to come out victorious,” Phil observed.

“Of course. Why not?” Tim returned with something of a challenge in his
tone of voice. “Don’t you?”

“No, Tim, I can’t say that I do. Frankly, I am disposed to say good-by
to you right now for the last time.”

“You’re not enough of an optimist for a venture of this kind,” Tim
declared regretfully. “Don’t you expect to be able to communicate the
warning to the other fellows? If you don’t, you’d better let me take
your place, for I’m dead sure I can do it.”

“I admire your self-confidence,” Phil replied deliberatively; “and if I
didn’t feel that I could perform the duty commissioned to me as well as
you could, I’d do as you suggest. Moreover, you’d be at a disadvantage
because you’d have to return to the job you left or the boches ’u’d
discover the transfer and want to know the meaning of it.”

“I wouldn’t care for that,” Tim said quickly. “All I’d care for would be
to get my story started among the boys and let them take care o’ the
rest.”

“But I’m planning to be right on the job and do some o’ the fighting,”
Phil announced eagerly. “You see, I have the pistol I took from the
boche that fell into our tunnel. I can do some good work with that right
at the beginning.”

“You don’t talk as if you expected to be licked,” Tim interrupted.

“Oh, I’m not going into the fight like a coward,” Phil answered
reassuringly. “Up to the time when we actually mix, I suppose I shall
expect to lose everything under my hat, but when I once get into the
fight, I can easily imagine myself believing that I was going to lick
the whole boche army single-handed. I’m sure I can feel that way if I
can only fill my stomach with something substantial in the way of food.
Well, good-by, Tim. I must be moving along now, and so must you. I
haven’t much idea what time it is, but I should judge from the feeling
of my empty stomach that it’s almost breakfast time. I want to get back
into some place, if I can, where I won’t be suspected of having anything
to do with the night’s escapade.”

“Good-by,” said Tim, squeezing his friend’s hand. “Good-by and good
luck. All things considered, I believe now that it’s fortunate you were
picked for this job. At first I had an idea I was the only one who could
do it right. But I have come around to the view that you’re going to
make good in a way that I might not be able to. Hope to meet you on the
other side of No Man’s Land in a few days.”

Phil started up the hill again while his friend stole away in the
opposite direction, taken generally by the other escaping Marines.

CHAPTER XXIII
THE FIGHT IN THE CELLAR

Phil returned at once to the prison from which he and his companions had
just escaped. He had one purpose in this move. The excitement of their
departure had caused him to forget one very important thing that he had
planned to do before leaving the place. That was to transfer the guard’s
pistol cartridges to his own person. While engaged in his good-by
conversation with Tim, he placed his hand on the pocket containing the
weapon he had taken from the captured guard, and this reminded him of
his neglect to take possession of the available supply of ammunition.

The candles had been snuffed out just before the prisoners stole away
through the tunnel and down the path by the sandpit. Phil was not
exactly certain whether he was pleased or displeased with this fact. If
the bound and gagged boche guard still lay in the south-east corner of
the cellar where he had been left, the returning Marine would have no
trouble finding him; but if he had rolled away in his efforts to
liberate himself, undoubtedly a light would be a very desirable aid in
locating him.

Phil crept back through the tunnel cautiously; not that he anticipated
trouble from any source just now, but his every act under present
circumstances must of necessity be stealthy and careful. And so, in
spite of his caution, he was totally unprepared for what took place as
he reentered the cellar.

He scarcely realized what happened, too, for the blow that fell on him
half stunned him. It was a vicious blow, and if it had not glanced from
the side of his head, it must surely have knocked him out. As it was,
the spade, or shovel, which was the weapon in the hands of his
assailant, bounded from his head to his shoulder and thence with a dull
metallic clang on the clayey floor.

Phil staggered, but struggled desperately to keep from falling, and then
made a dive for the dark form whose outlines he could faintly
distinguish by the starlight that came in through the window from which
several of the prisoners had removed their coats before departing. But
the fellow undoubtedly expected this move and, having, under the
circumstances, better control of his wits, got a better hold on the
returning Marine and quickly threw him on his back.

The latter, meanwhile was rapidly recovering from the effects of the
blow on his head, and realizing that his enemy would fasten his fingers
on the throat of his victim as soon as possible, pressed his chin hard
against his chest, threw his left arm over his face for protection and
passed his right hand down to his right hip pocket.

He was thankful now that it was dark for there was no possibility of the
boche’s seeing what he was doing. Meanwhile, Phil affected to be trying
to throw off his assailant, while in fact he was merely elevating his
right hip in order that he might draw the pistol that he had taken from
the captured guard less than an hour before.

The ruse was successful. In a few moments the muzzle of the weapon was
pressed against the side of the boche, who was struggling hard to get
his fingers around Phil’s throat. The boy sergeant set his teeth as he
had never set them before and pulled the trigger.

The explosion was well muffled by the burying of the muzzle in the
clothing of the desperately vicious fellow, who probably was bent on
having a full revenge for the treatment he had received at the hands of
the Yank prisoners. Doubtless none of the other guards in the vicinity
could hear the sound of the discharge of the weapon, in spite of the
vent afforded by the tunnel. Phil felt not the least uneasiness on this
score after hearing the dull thud against the body of the man on top of
him.

The latter collapsed with scarcely a groan. Phil rolled him off and got
up, returning the firearm to his pocket and saying to himself:

“Awful sorry for you, boche, but I couldn’t help it. Maybe you weren’t
so much to blame after the kind of training you fellows ’ave had. I
wonder what Tim would say about me now—would he think I’m a mollycoddle?
Really I’m beginning to believe that he was right when he predicted that
I’d be successful in my mission. I feel at this moment as if I could
lick the whole boche army all alone.

“But I mustn’t stop to philosophize or Tim ’u’d call me a worse fool
than ever. First I must have that belt o’ yours. It probably holds
pistol cartridges for me and gun cartridges for Tim. Yes, there it is
and off it comes—and—around me it goes. Now, what next? I wonder if I
ought to take it. Yes, I believe I will. He’s a bigger fellow than I am
and his uniform’ll go over mine very snugly. That’ll camouflage me for
immediate purposes, and when I don’t want it any longer I can skin it
off. So here goes.”

Twenty minutes later Phil was creeping out of the cellar again
“super-clad” with the guard’s uniform which he had removed from the
apparently lifeless form and transferred over his own khaki.

“I wonder how he ever freed himself of those bonds,” the boy muttered as
he moved crouchingly toward the bushes at the head of the descending
pathway. “I suppose we didn’t tie his wrists as securely as we thought
we did and he worked loose. Anyway, I don’t believe he’ll ‘work loose’
again. But I’m sorry for him and hope he’s only wounded enough to keep
him helpless till he can’t do us any more harm. Say, wouldn’t it be
glorious if everybody shot in this war were only wounded and would get
well again after it’s all over? But war ’u’d be only a game o’ ten pins
then, wouldn’t it?

“Gee! I’m a bum soldier. If I confessed such a sentiment as that to Tim,
he’d shoot me on the spot for a Prussian propagandist.”

CHAPTER XXIV
ANOTHER CAPTURE

“Now, what next?”

Phil stopped a minute or two and considered. First, he must find out
where some of the other prisoners had been housed or corralled. Then he
must devise means of access into their presence without being challenged
by the guards.

He decided finally that any course that he might adopt must be preceded
by a little preliminary scouting at random. So he started out with this
in view, advancing toward a large building which he had observed
casually the evening before but had been unable to determine whether it
was a church or a village hall. Perhaps some of his comrades were housed
in there.

The prisoners had been lodged for the night in several sections after
being fed in as many divisions from a like number of soup and
stale-bread services, and Phil had not seen where any of them, aside
from those in his own party, were put. Right now, however, he found
himself wondering why the church-or-village-hall edifice hadn’t been
selected as a way-prison for all the captured French and Americans, if
indeed it had not been chosen for that purpose.

He decided to inspect this place first of all. It was next door to the
house in which he had spent an eventful half-night as a prisoner of war,
but there was no window in that house on the side next to the large
building, so that he had been unable to observe what might have taken
place near the latter structure during his imprisonment. The rear yard
of the premises bordered on a bush-and-sapling wildwood tangle that
extended over the hill bordering the big sandpit, and Phil advanced
cautiously through this thicket to the edge about sixty feet from the
rear end of the building.

There he halted and stood for several minutes surveying the faint
outlines of everything perceptible. At first the scene appeared to be a
sort of silhouetted picture of desertion. Not a sound reached his ears
save the slight rustling of leaves in the breeze, the faint boom of
cannon in the distance, and the rumbling of supply trucks on the nearest
army thoroughfare, and nothing out of the ordinary in the dim objects in
his immediate vicinity at first attracted his special attention.

But presently a dark form, which at first his passing notice had
interested him about as much as a log of wood might have done, moved
slightly. Phil started, scarcely willing to believe his eyes. If it was
a guard, he was lying down. But possibly it was a dog sleeping. The boy
was scarcely willing to believe this, however, although he had no good
reason for his skepticism. Nevertheless, it was sustained presently in a
substantial manner when the living thing sat up and looked about him a
few moments. There could be no doubt now that it was a man.

Phil strained his eyes eagerly for further manifestation as to the
character of the fellow not more than twenty feet away from him.
Presently his sitting form seemed to waver and he lay down again so
suddenly that the watcher’s irresistible first impression was that he
fell.

“That’s funny,” thought the boy. “What’s the matter with him?—asleep at
his post? If I had a couple of fellows with me, I think I’d tap him on
the head and take his gun away from him. Why didn’t we think of
something o’ the kind? I really believe that half a dozen unarmed men
could turn the tables in this camp tonight by using their wits a little.
These boches are as careless as can be. They seem to think that because
they’re behind their own lines they’re perfectly safe and their
prisoners wouldn’t dare start anything rough.”

Just then Phil was thrilled at the sight of two dimly outlined human
forms stealing out of the thicket fifteen or twenty feet to his right
and advancing cautiously toward the reclining figure. Then suddenly they
pounced upon him, one of them evidently seizing him by the throat, for,
although he struggled desperately he was unable to make an outcry.

“My goodness!” was the unvocalized exclamation of the watcher. “Who are
they? Are some of the other prisoners out and attempting the very thing
that just occurred to me? I’ll have to find out and take a hand in
this.”

Presently it appeared that the victim of the surprise attack had been
choked into unconsciousness, for his captors picked him up and carried
him back into the thicket and laid him down not more than six feet from
the spot where Phil stood. The latter dared not move, for fear lest he
be discovered, for he was not certain yet whether he was in the presence
of friends or enemies. All doubt on this score was removed the next
instant, however, when he heard one of the captors address the other in
tones scarcely above a whisper:

“There, Tim, our first strike was a bloomin’ good success. If we can
keep this up half a dozen more times, we can go back home as chesty as a
hunchback and get away with it.”

CHAPTER XXV
A CHAPTER OF WIND

If he had not been afraid of creating noises that would reach the ears
of other enemy guards in the vicinity, Phil undoubtedly would have
rushed toward his two friends, who had appeared so unexpectedly on the
scene, and have welcomed them as if separated from him for years,
instead of an hour, more or less. Tim’s companion was none other than
Arthur Evans, one of the most interesting and capable of all the young
sergeant’s comrades captured by the boches.

As it was, Phil merely advanced a pace or two and said in cautious
tones:

“Hello, Tim, Evans. This is Phil Speed. What are you fellows up to?”

The two Marines thus addressed turned quickly, first to resist, then to
welcome, the intruder.

“We’re attacking the enemy in the rear while our friends at Belleau
Woods meet him in front,” replied Evans. “By the way, how have you
succeeded thus far?”

“I don’t think I ought to answer that question,” Phil replied with mock
severity. “Evidently you haven’t enough confidence in me to let me carry
out my mission. You are decidedly weak in your judgment, to say the
least. Suppose you had made a blunder and spoiled all my plans.”

“But we didn’t,” Evans returned; “and, as matters stand, I have a sort
of conceit that we’ve helped matters along. Isn’t it so?”

“Yes, I guess it is.”

“Well, what’re you kicking about?”

“I’m kicking right at this instant because we’re doing entirely too much
talking to no purpose and running great risk of being overheard by
dangerous ears. What are you trying to do?”

“Evans and I bumped into each other after you and I separated,” said
Tim, taking on himself the task of explaining. “He’s the one that lost
confidence in you—not I. Or rather, he was very much concerned, being
afraid you would walk right into a death trap. So he persuaded me to
come back and watch around and see if we could be of some assistance if
you got into trouble.

“Well, we got back, which was only a short distance, and what do you
think we discovered? You could never guess, unless you have found it out
for yourself. I won’t keep you guessing for this is no place for
trifling. We discovered that every last one of the guards around this
place is drunk.”

Phil’s little gasp of astonishment was enough to settle any doubt his
friends may have had as to his previous information on the subject of
the bibulous laxity of the guards.

“I suppose they must ’ave found a French wine cellar or something o’ the
kind,” Tim continued. “You saw this fellow rouse up and topple over just
before we jumped on him, I presume. Well, he was as drunk as a lord, and
we gave him a choking that will keep him asleep until a Chicago police
pulmotor arrives to pump oxygen into his lungs.”

“Why Chicago and not Philadelphia?” inquired Phil who hailed originally
from the latter metropolis.

“Because Chicago is the ‘Windy City,’ and we shut off this fellow’s
wind, which was not an act of brotherly love,—Philadelphia,—if you
please.”

“Very good,” returned Phil quietly. “But we’ve expended enough wind over
this subject already and had better get busy. I had some lively
experience also since I left you, but my story will hold for future
telling. What shall we do now?—go around and tap the other guards on the
head or shut off their wind?”

“No, I don’t think we’ll have to do much more than disarm them and keep
them quiet until we liberate the prisoners,” Evans answered. “We have
two guns now—took one from this fellow. I don’t think we’ll have much
trouble with them.”

Evans held forward the weapon referred to as he spoke.

“I have a pistol, too, that belonged to the guard who fell into our
tunnel,” Phil remarked by way of reminder.

“That’s so,” said Evans. “I forgot about that. We’re well armed. Come
on, and we’ll have our game all bagged before the Crown Prince can say
papa twice.”

CHAPTER XXVI
TURNING THE TABLES

Evans and Turner, who were making a circumambulating inspection of the
prison quarters while Phil engaged in desperate combat with a boche
soldier in a dark pocket of the earth, led the way to another sentry
post on the east side of the large building and there found a second
guard decidedly under the influence of liquor. He was seated on a low
concrete fence that marked the dividing line between yard and the
cul-de-sac, or little used stub of a street, that ran up to the edge of
the thicket which covered the hill adjoining the big sandpit.

The guard was no longer a guard. His gun was lying on the ground and his
head hung almost between his knees. He was snoring.

“No need o’ disturbing him,” said Evans, as he picked up the rifle and
handed it to Phil. “He’s dreamin’ about the iron cross the kaiser’s
about to bestow on him for faithful service.”

They passed on to the next post, but there found a more lively minion of
the Prussian War Lord. He was evidently “under the influence,” but not
so much so that he was unable to spring to his feet in alarm as he heard
footsteps near him. The next instant he was looking into the muzzles of
three rifles and three very determined faces which must have resembled,
in his startled imagination, the weapons and merciless countenances of a
trio of highwaymen.

“You keep him right where he is,” said Evans, addressing Tim, while the
latter took charge of the fellow’s gun and cartridge belt.

Tim did as directed and his companions continued their rounds. They
found one more guard dead drunk and still another in a condition similar
to that of Tim’s prisoner. They took possession of their guns and then
returned with another staggering prisoner to the place where the young
corporal stood guard over Semi-Drunk Number 1. The two captives were
also relieved of their cartridge belts.

“Now where are the rest of the guards?” Phil inquired.

“They’re lodged snugly in that hotel down on the corner a block over
there,” replied Tim, indicating the direction with his hand. “And
they’ve got some comfortable quarters, too, believe me. That hotel was
hardly scratched when the bodies drove through this place. Everything
was left, apparently, in the best of order by the fleeing French, and
our prison guards are living like kings there. They’ve found a big store
of wine in the basement and tapped several casks.”

“What’s their condition now?” asked Phil.

“About the same as these fellows out here. Tim and I looked in through a
window and saw them.”

“Where are their guns?”

“Standing up in a corner right near the door,” said Tim. “We can open
the door, seize the weapons and have ’em at our mercy.”

“How about the other prisoners?”

“They’re all in this building, according to my notion,” said Evans. “My
guess is that they planned to put us all in there, but it got too full,
and, our bunch being the overflow, they put us in the first place
available.”

“Let’s go and get several of those fellows to help us,” Phil proposed.
“We may not need them, but it isn’t going to do any harm to play safe.
You boys wait here while I go and announce what we’ve done and bring
some ‘moral reinforcements.’”

“Go ahead,” Evans assented. “Bring ’em all, if you want to. The more
that come, the greater will be the moral effect, even if they haven’t
any guns. But tell ’em to be mighty quiet.”

Phil hastened to the entrance of the building, which opened onto a small
pillared portico at the head of half a dozen steps. There was a stout
bar across the door holding it firmly in place, and this he lifted away
and found that there was no further obstacle to his entering.

It was so dark inside that he could not, at first, see his hand before
him. So he closed the door and called out:

“Hello.”

A few moments’ silence followed this greeting; then an echoing response
came from a point several feet away:

“Hello.”

“We’ve made prisoners of all the guards around this building and the
others are all dead drunk waiting for us to walk in and take their
guns,” Phil announced. “There’s a plot on foot to wipe us all out
tomorrow by dropping bombs on us from an aeroplane. Some of us overheard
the plot. Three of us have handled the job thus far, but we want to play
safe. So if a dozen of you fellows will come along we’ll soon make it
impossible for those villains to carry out their dastardly plot.”

As this speech was delivered in English, it was not understood by the
French prisoners, and only Americans responded to the call. But before
they filed out through the entrance, Phil addressed to the other
Americans a request that they remain quietly in the building until
notified that the coast was clear, and delegated to several of his
compatriots who could speak French the task of explaining the situation
to their companion poilus in prison.

Outside, three men were left in charge of the two boche prisoners who
had not yielded quite all their senses to intoxication. Then the rest of
the party proceeded to the inn where the “bunch of off-duty convivials”
seemed to have transferred their interest in the outcome of the war into
several casks of “concentrated thirst.” They were lying in all attitudes
and aspects of alcoholic abandon. Evidently the last man who had taken a
drink was so lost to everything but his last swallow that, after filling
the tin cup which all appeared to have used for tipping the fiery liquid
into their stomachs, left the cock open and the rest of the liquid in
the cask ran out over the floor.

After the soldiers’ guns had been secured and passed around among the
men, Evans, who was possessed of a rather ghastly sense of humor,
remarked:

“Fellows, I’ve got a scheme for putting these beastly boches into a
state of mind and body that will render them harmless so far as we are
concerned for a day of two. They’ve drunk all they can pour into
themselves; I propose to finish the job by waking them up and filling
them full to the guards.”

“But we won’t have time for that,” Phil objected. “We ought to be
getting away from here as quickly as possible. It’ll be daylight before
very long.”

“We’ll settle that question in a jiffy,” said Evans, lifting a
wristwatch of one of the drunken soldiers toward the candle light
nearest him. Two of half a dozen candles, which had lighted the latter
portion of the thirst orgies, were still burning when the escaping Yanks
entered the place.

“It’s only two-fifteen,” Evans continued. “We’ve got time enough at
least to make sure that these besotted fools have done a good job of
this thing. I insist that we make of this affair the best argument for
prohibition in the world. You know prohibition is about the biggest war
issue at home today. Why, do you know, when they get wind of this story
at home, there’ll be a constant demand for us as Chautauqua speakers
until the demon Rum has been put where we’re going to put the kaiser.”

CHAPTER XXVII
FOOD FOR PROHIBITION

Such an argument as this could hardly be controverted and Evans had his
way. This mischievous Marine of vengeful imagination opened another cask
of wine, which stood ready to be tapped, and “treated” those who had
less than their capacity to the “amount they had cheated themselves out
of.”

The boches who had “stood” guard outside were all carried or conducted
in and given the “third degree test.” At this Evans proved himself a
master. If there was any “wake” in them, he discovered it. He behaved
like a sailor on a lark in a nest of cornered and cowed pirates, and
most of the other fellows caught the spirit and took a hand in the
sport. By the time the job was finished most of the cask just tapped had
been poured down the throats of six or eight rousable “soaks” and they
rolled over actually “running over at the brim.”

“Now come on, fellows,” said Evans enthusiastically. “We’ve done our
deed well. We’re off now for home, after a little more fighting, and the
Chautauqua platform. But I want the testimony of every one of you that
not one of us drunk a drop. Am I right?”

“Right,” was the chorused response.

There was no need of further delay. The boys had taken possession of
twenty Mauser rifles, a dozen pistols, and a good supply of cartridges
for all these weapons. If they had felt it would be of any advantage to
them to do so, they would have stripped the drunken guards of their
uniforms and passed them around among themselves. But these, it was
decided, were hardly likely to be of service to them, inasmuch as they
could not pass for Prussian soldiers unless they separated from the
other Americans and French who were unable to obtain uniforms. Phil was
the first one to advance this idea, at the same time doffing the suit
that he had stripped from the guard with whom he fought a deadly combat
and expressing the opinion that the entire body of escaping prisoners
ought to “stick together for common protection.”

“We have guns and pistols now for more than thirty of us, and a good
supply of ammunition,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair for those of us who
are armed to leave those who are unarmed.”

“You wouldn’t have us fight the whole German army in the rear, would
you?” one of the Marines inquired.

“We sha’n’t have to,” Phil replied. “In the first place, they’ll never
suspect that so many of us are armed. The main command of the German
forces will have a hard time getting a clear statement of our escape
from these drunken guards. They’re not going to admit that they were
drunk and they’ll dodge as long as possible every question that will
tend to show they were under the influence of liquor. Meanwhile we’ll
keep away from the main traveled highways over which the enemy truck
lines run between the armies and the supply stations. Evidently they
haven’t been able to repair the French railroads as fast as they
advanced. In a few days they probably will have them in running order
and that will make conditions better for us, for the better rail service
they have, the less they’ll have to use the highways, and the freer the
roads’ll be for us. To tell you the truth, everything is remarkably in
our favor, and all we have to do is keep out of sight in the daytime
and—and—work out our own salvation at night.”

“And forage for something to eat,” Tim added, slapping his middle
significantly.

“Oh, yes, that reminds me,” Phil said quickly. “While one of us goes and
invites our comrades in yonder prison to join us, the rest of us will
load ourselves with provender from the truck where Tim cooked stew for
us yesterday.”

“That’s just what I was goin’ to suggest,” the bullet-headed corporal
put in.

“All right,” Sergeant Speed continued, in a well satisfied tone of
voice. “You go ahead and engineer that business and I’ll bring out the
other prisoners.”

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE PRISONERS FLEE

The mess truck had been driven into the court of the hotel, and the
escaping prisoners soon relieved it of its burden of food, principally
hard-baked or canned. This was distributed as equally as possible among
them all, and then the departure from the town was begun.

They were only a short distance from a main highway over which the
noises of heavy and rapid traffic could be heard constantly. So their
chief caution was to avoid attracting attention to their unusual
proceedings from the soldiers and truckmen moving along this route.

It was quickly decided by the leaders of the escaping prisoners that
they had better make their departure by way of the path that led down
the hill near the sandpit, as it was well shielded for a quarter of a
mile or more with small trees and bushes from the top of the hill down
into a sort of ravine through which ran a small stream of water.
Moreover, all admitted without debate that it was far more important for
them to find a good place of concealment than to travel any considerable
distance toward the lines of battle before daylight.

Phil, Evans, Tim, and one or two others who had exhibited leadership
qualifications walked ahead of the column of Americans and Frenchmen and
held an almost incessant discussion of plans as they proceeded. The more
important of their conclusions were passed back among their comrades in
the rear to keep them informed and reassured that the leaders were
conducting the escape intelligently. One line of suggestions offered by
Phil and accepted by all with hopeful enthusiasm was as follows:

“We ought to work our way as close as we can to the rear line of the
boches with safety, moving forward at night and hiding in the daytime,
and wait for the time when the big drive of the Allies pushes the enemy
back. After they have been pushed back beyond our hiding place, we can
come out and rejoin our comrades and take a hand in the fight. I figure
that it’ll be principally open fighting with lots of rifle and
machine-gun action. The boches won’t be strongly intrenched, and if the
Allies come back at ’em as strong as I believe they will, their heavy
guns won’t have much to do; and if we find good hiding places, we ought
to be comparatively safe. There’ll be a lot o’ bombs dropped from the
air, but our chances of keeping out of their way will be much better
than our chances would be in the midst of a heavy bombardment from big
guns.

“The enemy’s advance over these grounds has been very rapid and no doubt
they have done little cleaning up after them. If we go along carefully,
we ought to pick up enough guns and ammunition to arm every last one of
us, and if we get in close quarters some time we’ll be able to give a
good account of ourselves. There’s little danger of our meeting a very
large body of the enemy miles behind their lines if we keep clear of
their routes of communication.”

“What’s your idea of a good hiding place for us?” asked Tim.

“A deserted village like the one we’ve just left,” Phil replied.
“Second-best place perhaps would be a group of farm houses.”

“How about food if the Allied drive holds off several weeks?” was Tim’s
next question.

“That’s a matter we’ve got to look out for without delay. It’ll probably
be hard picking, but if everybody keeps his eyes open. All the gardens
and fields no doubt have been pretty thoroughly devastated, and yet
there’s always bound to be some pickin’s left here and there. We may
find a few chickens, if we watch carefully, but we’ll have to knock ’em
over with clubs—no shooting, you know.”

These suggestions rendered Phil more popular than ever among the
escaping American and French prisoners, so that by the time all had
discussed them fully he was tacitly voted leader of the fugitive
expedition. From that time on all looked to him for advice whenever any
problem of common interest came up for solution.

The route taken was considerably of a “cross-country” character. They
avoided highways that appeared to have been much frequented, for fear
lest at any moment they run into an enemy patrol or expedition of some
sort that would demand an explanation of their wanderings. So across
fields and meadows and lowlands overgrown with weeds and bushes they
went, until finally Phil called a halt near a group of farmhouses and
said:

“It must be almost daybreak. Here are two or three houses and barns that
ought to conceal us very well until the sun goes down again. Let’s
investigate, and if there’s nobody on the premises we’ll file in and
take charge.”

Several scouts were sent ahead to ascertain, if possible, whether the
buildings were deserted. In a short time they reported that they were
unable to find evidence of anybody in possession, and the little army of
prisoners-at-large behind the enemy lines filed in and took refuge for a
day’s hiding.

CHAPTER XXIX
IN HIDING

The first day of freedom for the escaped prisoners of war in the land of
their captivity was spent midway between two lines of communication that
ran from the boche armies back to their bases of supply. One of these
routes lay about a mile to the north and the other about a mile to the
south of the group of farm houses in which the fugitive Americans and
French were concealed. At points in both of these routes they could see
numerous motor vehicles rushing in both directions, probably bearing
wounded and reserves as well as supplies. A little nearer to the north
also could be seen crews of men at work repairing a railroad bed and
tracks that undoubtedly had been blown up by the French in their
retreat.

It was agreed that the men should move about very little in their
quarters during the day. Lookouts were stationed at certain windows and
doors of the farm buildings, although these positions were camouflaged
as much as possible with articles of furniture, farm implements, straw,
et cetera, to prevent any chance betrayal of the hiding place of the
escaped prisoners.

These lookouts also inspected as best they could the harvest
possibilities of the agricultural vicinity, and it was estimated that
even in the dark a considerable supply of vegetables and nearly ripened
apples could be gathered. In a bin in one of the barns was discovered
several bushels of year-old barley.

In the course of the day, between sleeps, Phil, Tim and Evans, from the
loftiest viewpoint attainable in the cupola of one of the barns, made a
studied survey of the country to the west. They found that they had
approached to within a mile and a half of a small village directly in
their course of advance, and that perhaps not more than two miles beyond
this were the (probable) ruins of another French town. Phil had not been
in France long before he observed that the municipalities, large and
small, are situated much more closely together than are the cities and
towns of even the most thickly populated portions of America.

Phil and Tim also had opportunity during this day to recount in detail
their experiences to each other since their separation in Belleau Woods.
Phil also questioned his friend regarding the wound that had rendered
him unconscious for fifteen or twenty minutes on the scene of the novel
battle in the ravine. In reply, Tim pulled off his overseas cap and
disclosed a small crudely-made plaster-bandage, that was held in place
by the cap.

“It wasn’t a bad wound,” he explained; “but it might easily have
fractured my skull. The bullet hit the side of my head a good hard rap,
but glanced and cut a furrow in my scalp.

“I came to just as that funny looking bunch o’ boches were leading you
off through the timber. The sight o’ that put a thrill of life into me
and I staggered to my feet and started after you. The boches had left my
gun lying on the ground, thinking, I suppose, that I was dead and would
be unable to use it.

“I was just waiting until I could get control of myself before I opened
fire on those pesky Huns. If I’d not felt quite so shaky on my pins I’d
’a’ blazed away as soon as I waked up, for I figured the firing would
attract friends our way. But I guess that fellow that jumped onto your
back was the smartest one in their crowd, for he must ’a’ figured we
were likely to have comrades in the neighborhood and been on the lookout
for ’em. Anyway, before long he played the same game on me that he
played on you, sneaking around and jumpin’ on me from behind.

“Well, they took me along with you only a short distance behind, and you
never knew I was trailing along. I walked back behind with a couple of
boches and jollied them along the best I could. I guess I succeeded
pretty well, judging from results.

“It seems that this squad were part of a regular crew that made trips
with prisoners back behind the lines and took part in the fighting while
waiting for a bunch of prisoners large enough for a trip. At least,
that’s what I gathered from their conversation. You know I learned to
talk German pretty well while living with a German family in
Pennsylvania, and I made good use of it with these fellows. Camouflaging
my boasts with all the modesty I could put into words, I told ’em all
about my accomplishments. I guess I hit ’em about right when I told ’em
I could cook as well as any Pennsylvania-Dutch grandmother, and they set
me to work on a mess truck right away. That’s why you didn’t see me
during the trip, Phil. But I picked you out in the line.”

“I don’t admire your cooking very much,” his friend commented with a
smile. “Is that what you call Pennsylvania-Dutch cooking?”

Tim grinned ruefully.

“’Tisn’t my fault,” he said. “Those parsimonious Prussians stood over me
and told me how much oil I could burn to warm a barrel o’ stew. And if
the first match didn’t light the burner, you folks ’u’d have to eat your
meal cold, they said. Oh, they’ve got everything down to an efficiency
and conservation basis for winning the war, they have.”

“How did you get away from them?” Phil asked.

“Just walked away,” Tim replied in a matter-of-fact manner. “It was
really funny. I guess they were all interested in that wine cellar that
one o’ them discovered, but I didn’t know it at the time. Anyway, they
seemed to lose all interest in me, and several times I found myself all
alone. I was so astonished that I didn’t have sense to cut stick until I
concluded that I was an everlasting fool if I didn’t, and I don’t
believe they know I’m gone yet.”

“They’ll know about the time they’ve sobered up,” Phil returned with a
prophetic grin. “And by the time the whole truth of developments dawns
on them, there’ll be something doing, believe me.”

CHAPTER XXX
AN AUDACIOUS SCHEME

As soon as the dusk of evening was sufficient to obscure objects of any
considerable size at a distance of a hundred yards, several scouting and
foraging parties were sent out with instructions to report back in about
two hours. The foraging parties were directed to gather in whatever
vegetables and fruit they were able to discover in the darkness, and the
scouts were instructed to travel due west for several miles and
determine if the way were clear for a general advance toward the battle
area.

In the course of the day, Phil, Evans, Tim and several other leading
spirits had held half a dozen conferences and discussed plans for the
following night. It was during these conferences that the scouting and
foraging plans had been outlined. A bird-call code was also agreed upon
and practiced in the course of the day for the purpose of enabling the
scouts and foragers to locate one another or their hide-out in case any
of them should lose his way.

The latter precaution proved to be of considerable service, as did also
a check-up system adopted to determine when all who were sent out on
their several missions had reported back. By about ten o’clock
(estimated), therefore, the checking proved all to have returned with a
gratifying supply of raw food, including apples, vegetables, half a
dozen chickens and a young pig. The fowl had been captured alive, and it
was decided to carry these to their next stopping place, but the pig,
which one of the men had slain with a heavy club without the provocation
of a squeal, had to be left behind.

The scouts brought back information to the effect that there was a clear
field between them and the next town, and that a careful inspection
failed to disclose a sign of an occupant in the place. So far as they
were able to determine, the village was abandoned by both inhabitants
and invaders.

Accordingly a silent, ghost-like march was made to this place. On the
way they passed a score or more of bodies of dead soldiers and a like
number of guns were found lying near them. Most of these were boches, as
was later discovered by examination of their rifles and cartridge belts
by the Americans and French who took possession of them.

“The advance over this ground was so rapid that they didn’t have time
even to pick up the arms of their own dead,” Tim observed to Phil.

“So much the better for us,” the latter replied. “And I’ve a suspicion
that it will work to the benefit of the Allies in more ways than one.
This is a drive of desperation, or I miss my guess, and the boches are
going to find themselves in a trap. They can’t possibly have enough
reserves to maintain such an advance as this. I bet you’ll find in the
end that Marshal Foch is just leading them on.”

“I wish he’d have General Pershing throw in some of his troops at this
point,” said Tim eagerly. “They’d drive these fellows back, and we could
jump in and have some real fun as the Gray Coats came running past us.”

“I can hardly hope that things will turn out just the way our dreams
picture them,” said Phil dubiously. “But it surely would be great if we
could put over such a stunt as that. Anyway, when we pick our last
hiding place we’ll pick it with that in view.”

“We don’t want to advance too close to the enemy’s lines,” Tim argued;
“because they may take a notion to back up a little and establish some
kind of headquarters right where we are stationed.”

“Yes, that’s another thing we want to keep in mind. And we must also try
to pick buildings that are not likely to interest them for any purpose.”

These suggestions were communicated to the other escaped prisoners and
were received with such favor that they were observed carefully in the
selection of quarters not only for the following day, but for all the
succeeding days that they remained in hiding behind the enemy’s lines.
And these succeeding days were more than they at first reckoned on. They
had no way of knowing that the Marines had saved the day at Chateau
Thierry as well as at Belleau Wood, but there was not an American in
this company of escaped prisoners who did not firmly believe that the
advance of the enemy was cut short the instant the Yanks got into the
front line.

And so as they advanced day by day, or night by night, nearer to the
enemy’s lines, sometimes a mile, sometimes two or three miles, sometimes
half a mile, they expected at any moment to discover evidence of a rapid
boche retreat. However, more than five weeks elapsed before the
hoped-for evidence of Allied victory appeared; after which events moved
so rapidly that Phil felt like comparing his existence to life on the
tail of a comet flying through space.

CHAPTER XXXI
PHIL’S STRATEGY

Again we find Phil and Tim within easy gun-roar of the battle line. But
this time they are on the “other side of No Man’s Land.” And the roar is
becoming louder and louder. Early one morning it burst forth with great
volume. The hiding refugees had not realized they were so near the
fighting front until this noisy evidence of proximity burst upon them.

There had been comparative quiet for several weeks. The boches had made
their grand effort to break through the French line in the vicinity of
Chateau Thierry. At this place it had seemed as if they were about to
effect their purpose until two divisions of American Marines were
brought up to relieve the French. Then the enemy was forced to a
standstill, beyond which he was unable thereafter to advance a foot.

Of all this the fugitives knew nothing, and their knowledge of
succeeding developments was quite as limited, save for the indications
of sound or silence from the battle area. When finally the unmistakable
evidence of another big battle reached their ears, they were quartered
in several buildings in the business section of a town a few miles from
the boche rear lines. They had selected these buildings with a view to
their special serviceability because of facilities for concealment,
intercommunication and defense or escape in case of attack.

There was no need of a crier to announce the long awaited event when
finally it came. Everybody was on the alert almost in an instant. All
day the roar of battle continued without abatement, but the hidden
fugitives had no way to determine how it was going. At dusk several
scouts were sent on ahead to reconnoiter, but they were unable to obtain
any information of definite character except that, it appeared, the
enemy had launched a new drive against the Allies in the “great bend.”

The battle continued with unabating fury the next day and the next and
the next. Finally two French soldiers, who said they were well
acquainted with the vicinity and who spoke German fluently, donned enemy
uniforms that they had taken from the bodies of slain boches, and set
out under cover of the darkness to learn what was the situation.

“The battle of Chateau Thierry is being fought and it is being won by
American Marines,” they reported on their return after several hours’
absence.

“Marines!” was the exclamation uttered by every American that received
this message. They had not known that two divisions of fellow Sea
Soldiers had stopped the enemy advance on Paris at this point more than
a month before and, backed up with reinforcements, were now given the
task of driving back the enemy in a sector where other veteran allied
troops had failed.

For several days more they continued in hiding and fared pretty well
meanwhile, all things considered. They managed to gather food enough,
such as it was, to keep soul and body together without any “internal
quarrel,” and they also gathered in a good supply of arms from the
strewn battlefields of the vicinity; so that, emboldened by numbers and
reports of successes of their friends on the other side of No Man’s
Land, they felt like attacking a whole boche army in the rear.

Then at last came the announcement from scouts that the enemy was being
driven back, slowly, it is true, but surely, and after this information
reached them, it was not long before visual evidence of the retreat
loomed before them over the western horizon.

This was followed by a tense waiting of several hours; then the boche
soldiers began to pour into the ruined town.

“They’ll make a stand here, no doubt,” Phil remarked to several of his
comrades; “and that means we’ll have to begin to get busy before very
long. The Allies no doubt will train their heavy guns on this place, and
we’ll get our share of the shelling. What we want to do is to spring a
surprise on the enemy that will create consternation among them and make
them think an attacking army has dropped out of the clouds on top of
them.”

It was ticklish business, this waiting for the psychological moment
which might be wiped out of future possibility almost any instant by the
dropping of a few bombs that would heap masses of debris on top of them
and convert their refuge into a tomb. Then suddenly Phil hit on a scheme
that probably proved their salvation.

The two French scouts who had brought back information regarding the
success of the Americans at Chateau Thierry were sent out again after
they had volunteered for this second service planned by Sergeant Speed.
How they accomplished their mission is subject almost for another book,
for theirs was clever work, indeed. But they were aided materially by
the confusion of the boches resulting from their recent defeat and the
necessity for quick preparations for a new defense.

These two Frenchmen, Rene La Ferre and Pierre Balsot, made their way in
Prussian uniforms through the newly forming enemy front and offered
themselves as prisoners to a squad of Yanks who had just raided a
machine-gun nest and were about to return to their own lines. They were
hurried to headquarters, where they told their story. Their description
of the location of the hiding place of the fugitive was so accurate that
the American artillery was able to blow up the rest of the town without
materially damaging the refuge of the 240 United States Marines and
Frenchmen.

Still there remained a considerable force of the enemy machine gunners,
riflemen and bomb throwers behind breastworks afforded by the ruins, and
it was decided to dislodge these with a move planned by Phil and his
comrades and communicated to the American command through the two French
messengers.

After the village had been thoroughly wrecked by the artillery, the
bombardment ceased and a charge on the town was made by hundreds of
Marines, who ran forward in extended order to minimize the deadly
effects of the sweeping machine-gun fire of the enemy. This was a signal
for the escaped prisoners to dash forth from their places of
concealment.

CHAPTER XXXII
MR. BOA AGAIN

It was one of the most rapid motion-picture affairs ever staged in real
or cinematic life. What film enthusiast would not have given every other
opportunity he might hope for in after years for this one?

The Yanks and the poilus poured out of those buildings like an army—at
least so it must have seemed to their astonished foes. All of them were
armed with rifles, most of which had been picked up on the battlefield,
and were well drilled and officered, for Phil had looked after this
important factor while they were in hiding.

Far more rapidly than the narrative can be told, they charged in squads,
routing out stronghold after stronghold, gun nest after gun nest. The
boches did not know what to make of it, and their panic grew like a
prairie fire. They had no way to tell how many they had to face or from
what source they had sprung. The situation was almost ghostly in its
aspect of mystery. Consternation presently seized the entire enemy force
in this section and the helter-skelter race that followed in a mad
effort to escape from something like a phantom foe sprung suddenly out
of the ground was laughable in spite of the carnage with which it was
associated.

Near the end of the fight Phil found himself face to face with a
ponderous antagonist whom he was not slow to recognize. He cornered the
fellow in a street from which exit was blocked, or greatly impeded, by
heaps of debris. Mr. Boche then turned, at bay, with clubbed gun, missed
his swing, the weapon flew out of his hands and Phil had the late
commander of the “underwear squad” of Belleau Wood at his mercy. It was
“Mr. Boaconstrictor” of the large girth, “Count Topoff,” the so-called
“general in disguise,” who wore the insignia of a Prussian second
lieutenant.

“You’d better surrender,” Phil advised with a grim grin. “My bayonet
maybe wouldn’t reach clear through you, and your royal family would be
forever disgraced.”

Undoubtedly Phil would have succeeded in making a prisoner of his
antagonist if one of those fortunes, or misfortunes, of war that always
are beyond the control of even the most heroic had not intervened. A
pillar-like remnant of a brick wall about fifteen feet away, probably
shaken by some flying missile of the fight, toppled over, and a shower
of masonry struck Phil on the head.

If it had not been for the helmet he had picked up several days before
and preserved for such an occasion as this, he probably would have been
seriously, if not fatally, injured. But in spite of the protection, the
shock was sufficient to knock him over. Still he was not utterly
incapacitated for further action, and he staggered to his feet, gripping
his gun and attempting to recover his battling equilibrium.

But he was dazed, and his every effort was a wavering struggle. He saw
his recent antagonist bearing down upon him and tried his best to steel
himself for the meeting, but although armed and his assailant unarmed,
his chances were hopeless. He was like a drunken man attempting to stab
a piece of cheese with a table-fork.

“Mr. Boa,” the titled boche, brushed the bayonet aside like a reed in
his path and gripped the boy’s left arm with his powerful right hand. In
spite of his odd proportions, the fellow evidently had his share of
physical strength. Phil tried to twist himself loose, but his efforts
were of no avail. He must recover from the effects of the shock of the
fallen masonry before he could hope to resist an assailant of half his
ordinary strength.

“Count Topoff” held the boy with one hand, and with the other wrenched
away his gun. This was rendered the more easy of performance by a
feeling of nausea that seized Phil and took away most of his remaining
strength.

“Methinks that we have met before this time.”

If Phil had not been in his present condition of physical weakness,
undoubtedly he would have observed with interest this evidence of a
knowledge of English on the part of his captor. But it did occur to him
with a sort of hazy giddiness that undoubtedly the fellow had understood
his comment on the insufficient length of a bayonet to reach through the
diameter of his girth. He was in just the condition of mind on the
moment to face death with a sense of sickly humor.

“I suppose he’ll be taking a short cut measurement of my girth with a
bayonet pretty soon if I don’t come to pretty quick,” was one of the
ideas that whirled through the boy’s mind like a buzz-saw. “But he’s
disposed to play with me a little, I take it from the kind of English he
uses. Or is it because he got his knowledge of English by the study of
stilted poetry at Heidelberg?”

“You played a nice trick on me and some of my comrades at Belleau Wood,
didn’t you?” the boche of odd proportions continued. “Now what do you
think I ought to do with you?”

“You ought to be very careful what you do,” Phil replied with a fair
degree of energy, for the nausea was leaving him, although a severe
headache was setting in. “Remember that you are surrounded now by my
friends and if you take advantage of your temporary power over me,
they’ll see to it that I’m fully avenged.”

“Oh, that isn’t bothering me,” returned “Count Topoff” with a wave of
disgust. “What I’m thinking about is this: I can kill you very easily
right now with your own bayonet. But suppose I spare your life—will you
help me to escape?”

“How can I help you escape?” Phil inquired wonderingly. “I wouldn’t have
charge of you as a prisoner. I don’t want to promise to help you, and
then fall down on my promise.”

“Oh, I’ll figure out a way, never fear,” was the “count’s” answer. “All
I want is your promise—but, hello, maybe I won’t need your help if I can
hail this passing ship. Come on, I’m going to kidnap you on a tank.”

Before this speech was finished, Phil had observed the source of his
captor’s new interest. It was indeed a tank, a very large one, of a
design known to be peculiar to boche construction. It came crunching,
rattle-blasting, “caterpillaring” along right toward them.

Topoff led his prisoner directly in front of the huge engine of war and
stood there waving one hand as if signaling it to stop. Phil hardly
expected the hail to receive any response, even though it came from a
“kamerad” who was easily recognized by his uniform, but it did. The tank
stopped within a few feet of them, a side door was thrown open and a man
called out something in German to Phil’s captor.

The prisoner did not understand what was said, but it was evident that
the man in the tank recognized Topoff. Presently the latter said to his
prisoner:

“Go in there, quick, or I’ll run this bayonet through you. Hurry up now;
I won’t stand any fooling. My opportunity to escape and take you along
has arrived. Get in quick.”

Phil obeyed and the ponderous boche followed into the ponderous machine.
A moment or two later the tank was in motion again.

CHAPTER XXXIII
TANKS AND “WATER CURE”

Phil had never before seen the inside of a tank, and in spite of the
uncomfortable situation in which he now found himself, his first impulse
was to look about him and see what sort of affair a “land battleship”
might be.

But he was not given much opportunity for an undisturbed inspection of
the interior of the huge war engine at this time. Almost immediately
after the metal door was closed, events began to take place with much
greater volume and intensity than at any time during the machine guns
and infantry battle amid the ruins of the town. Apparently, this tank
had just arrived on the scene of the fight and, finding the battle going
hopelessly against the boches, turned and fled. But the reason for the
flight did not spring from any menace of infantry or machine guns. The
big war engine might have cleaned up a whole army of such comparative
pygmies and toys. It was the advance of half a dozen British tanks into
the fight that caused the crew of the “land battleship” to see the
unwisdom of tarrying on the field of the already lost battle and to turn
about and seek safety in flight.

Phil was unable to see much outside. All the portholes were occupied by
members of the crew who manned the guns or handled the driving and
steering apparatus. Now and then he was able to get a narrow peek
through one of these ports, but with little satisfaction. The evidence
of the new turn of events since his capture came to his ears from
without and to his eyes within the car.

The firing of what seemed to be a battery of heavy guns apprised him of
the approach of a “fleet” of British tanks. The din of the firing of the
guns of the huge war engine in which he was imprisoned and of the
attacking tanks was terrific. It seemed as if some of the shells that
struck the armor plate of the fleeing machine must surely pierce it
through and explode inside the car.

Up and down over the heaps of debris went the big “land ship,” and after
it came the pursuing “caterpillar batteries.” Phil watched the contest
with every sense of perception on the alert. The inside of the boche
tank was illuminated principally with electric bulbs, for little light
came in through the portholes. Five men, a driver, a mechanician, and
three gunners, constituted the crew. The driver sat on a low cushioned
seat in the forward part of the car. About him, and within easy reach,
were the controlling apparatus, directing lever, clutch and brake
pedals, gear lever and steering clutch. Behind him was the starting
crank, and behind this were the radiator, ventilator, fuel tank and
motor.

Every member of the crew was desperately busy with his own duties in
connection with the operation of the war engine and its battery. The
driver looked straight ahead as if he hoped to pull the tank along at
greater speed by fastening his gaze on a distant object; the gunners sat
in their hammock-like seats that swung easily back and forth and from
side to side to suit the will of the occupants as they loaded and fired;
and the mechanician was busy most of the time with an oil can, the
nozzle of which he poked into more holes and cups than a layman would
have imagined to exist in a machine several times the size of this one.

Phil had no technical knowledge of artillery, but he saw at once that
the battery of this tank was heavy and of very destructive character.
The three pieces sent forth their murderous messages almost as rapidly,
it seemed, as the fire of a machine-gun. One of the gunners sat up in a
revolving turret, while the other two were in swinging “half-turrets” at
both sides.

“Count Topoff” forced his prisoner into a sitting position on what
appeared to be a closed tool-chest near the starting crank and then sat
down beside him. There they waited and watched and listened, both strung
to the highest tension of eagerness, apprehension, expectancy.

Phil, of course, longed for victory to crown the efforts of the pursuing
tanks, and yet he had to admit to himself that probably his own safety
depended upon the escape of his captors. Their defeat could be effected
only by crippling the caterpillar tread, or “chain-feet,” or by
exploding shells in the machinery. The former was difficult to do
because of the peculiar construction of the treads with many slanting
surface-sections, and about the only kind of shell that could be thrown
into the machinery was an explosive bullet about two inches in diameter,
specially made to pierce armor plate.

Phil had no sure way of determining how near the British tanks
approached to the fleeing boche engine, but he inferred from the sound
of their guns that it would require a long and continued peppering away
to put the big enemy tank out of business. He suspected, too, that this
land-dreadnaught carried at least one anti-tank rifle capable of firing
high power explosives through the armor of the attacking “fleet.” He
gathered this suspicion from the one grim and gleeful remark that “the
count” screamed into his ear “between shots”:

“We’ve knocked two of them out already, and we’ll fix all the rest the
same way if they don’t keep a slanting front to that gimlet-twist up
there.”

Phil was unable to figure out how Topoff could determine the number of
British tanks that had been put out of commission, if indeed any had
suffered such disaster, but he now observed for the first time the
smaller gun alongside the heavy shell-piece in the revolving turret. He
also watched the gunner in the turret more closely and before long he
understood clearly that the fellow was constantly on the alert for an
opening for an effective shot with the smaller piece.

The battle continued thus for half an hour, but the British tanks seemed
to be unable to stop the big boche battler. At last the firing ceased.

“What’s happened?” Phil ventured to inquire of the boche of big
circumference.

“It’s all over and we’ve won, as we always will do,” was the latter’s
answer. “It was a stern chase for your British friends and we’ve sunk
half their fleet and peppered the sails of the rest of them so full of
holes that they won’t hold a cupful of wind.”

“I’ll admit you’ve got a good pair of sea legs and ran a good race for a
tank, but I’d like to know how you can tell what your gunners did
without being able to see much farther than the end of your nose,” Phil
returned skeptically.

“Ah,” said the other with an air of deep mystery; “that remark
demonstrates one of the great failings of you Americans. You can’t
understand the superior intelligence of the race you are foolishly
trying to whip. But you are going to wake up before long.”

“What is going to wake us up?” Phil inquired curiously. His curiosity,
however, was directed more at the personal puzzle in “the count” than
the information “the count” might be able to communicate.

“Water,” replied the “war prophet.”

Phil looked at his captor a little more keenly, wondering if, after all,
this supposed relative of the kaiser were not a little off in his
“turret.”

“Maybe he thinks he has an anti-tank gun in his head and has just fired
an explosive bullet into me,” the boy mused. “My! what a wise squint he
has in his eyes.”

“How is water going to wake us up?” Phil asked after a few moments’
silent contemplation of the strange fellow on the box beside him.

“How?” repeated the latter, looking his prisoner hard in the face.
“Don’t you know what’ll wake a sleeping man up quicker than anything
else?”

“No,” replied Phil calmly, but with a well-mimicked open-mouthed
ingenuousness. “What will wake a sleeping man up quicker than anything
else?”

“Throw a pail of water on him,” said Topoff.

“Well?” Phil queried with sustained simple-mindedness.

“Well!” roared “the count” with voluminous contempt; “I believe you’re
just fool enough to think that’s the way we’re going to wake you up.”

“Isn’t it?” Phil asked, provokingly.

“No!” the boche officer bellowed, and the boy began to fear he had
carried the matter too far. Perhaps even now an attack of insane
violence could not be averted.

“No,” repeated “the count,” his face becoming flushed with, crimson
hate; “we’re going to push you all, Americans, English, French,
Belgians, into the Atlantic Ocean; then you’ll wake up.”

CHAPTER XXXIV
FROM TANK TO LIMOUSINE

The big tank was still laboring along with the retreating boche army,
although no more shells were being hurled at her. The defeat and rout
effected by the dash and daring of the “devil-hound” Marines had been
complete and this powerful “dreadnaught,” although uninjured by the
score or more of shells that struck her, evidently was unfitted to fight
a finish fight with the “fleet of land cruisers” of the enemy, in the
opinion of her crew.

The engine made a good deal of noise as the huge war machine
“caterpillared” along, and Phil and “the count” had to lift their voices
to high pitch in order to be understood during their conversation.
Although the battle had resulted in disaster for the kaiser’s army,
still the “titled Topoff” appeared to gloat with satisfaction over such
phases of the engagement as could be shown to have an element of glory
for the boches. He seemed to have no eye, ear, taste, or smell of
appreciation for anything that suggested defeat for his soldier
comrades.

“He’s awfully conceited, but not such a fool as I thought he was,” Phil
mused during a lapse of the conversation. “That was a fairly clever joke
he put over on me about the water cure, but I don’t believe he saw the
joke himself. He seems to take himself seriously even when he says
something funny.”

Fifteen or twenty minutes after the finish of the battle, the tank came
to a standstill, and the door in the right side was opened. Topoff then
ordered his prisoner to get out and followed close at his heels. Outside
the tank, “the count” seized the boy’s arm with one hand and led him
along—whither, Phil was curious to know.

The defeated army had retreated to a new line and dropped into a series
of trenches undoubtedly occupied by them, or the French, during an
earlier stage of the big boche offensive. The most feverish activity
marked the scene, which extended north and south as far as eye could see
and east and west for a depth of about half a mile. The country
consisted of a succession of rolling hills, but Phil was able to command
a good view of proceedings from the eminence on which he stood. The
trenches had suffered considerably from shell explosions and rainy
weather since their last condition of serviceability, and consequently
there was much to do now to get them back into the most comfortable
shape possible.

All this Phil gleaned with little more than a sweep of the eye, for he
was not left in leisurely contemplation of the scene more than a minute
or two. He was suddenly aroused from his spell of enchantment by a new
order from “Mr. Boaconstrictor.”

“Come on,” said the latter; “no time to waste.”

Phil accompanied his captor to the foot of the hill behind the front
line trench, and there “the count” held a short consultation with a
superior officer. They conversed in German, and the prisoner was unable
to understand much that they said. However, he did glean this from
several disgruntled remarks: that very few prisoners had been taken in
the recent engagement, due, no doubt, to the boches’ heavy defeat, and
there seemed to be no others in the vicinity to corral with Phil.

“Am I the only prisoner in the hands of these badly defeated boches in
this sector?” the boy mused. “I feel very much honored, also
considerably ashamed of myself. Well, it’s some consolation to realize
that I wouldn’t be here if a side of a house hadn’t fallen on top o’
me.”

A peculiar circumstance in this interview struck Phil so forcibly that
the impression remained with him almost constantly as long as the
mystery surrounding “Count Boaconstrictor Topoff” was unexplained. This
was the manifest attention and deference shown the oddly shaped
lieutenant by the superior officer, whose insignia indicated that he
bore the rank of major.

“I can’t understand it,” Phil mused with a puzzled confusion. “From the
way everybody bows and scrapes before him, one might think he’s the
kaiser himself. The officers all seem to know him at sight, and if it
weren’t contrary to military form, I believe they’d bend before him in
the middle like jackknives. He must be something more than a count.
Maybe I ought to feel honored at being his prisoner.”

The interview developed remarkable characteristics more and more as it
progressed. “The count” became more and more demonstrative and finally
was giving unmistakable orders to the major, who apparently acquiesced
to everything the second lieutenant said. Finally the subservient
superior officer scribbled a few words on a bit of paper and delivered
it to an orderly with instruction as to what to do with it.

The orderly jumped onto a motorcycle and dashed away on his errand. Phil
did not watch him after his departure, as he would have done if he had
suspected that the note had any bearing on what was to be done with him
as a prisoner of war. He was considerably surprised when, a few minutes
later, the messenger returned, followed by an automobile driven by a
soldier in uniform. It was a large closed limousine, hardly the kind one
would expect to see on a battlefield.

“Pile in,” ordered Topoff, taking hold of his prisoner’s arm and half
dragging him toward the machine.

Phil obeyed the order literally. He was so astonished he could do
nothing with any degree of grace. He “piled into” the automobile and
stumbled and fell onto the rear seat. “Mr. Boa” also squeezed into the
car and sat down beside the boy, taking up so much room that he pushed
the Yank against the upholstered side hard enough to render breathing
difficult. Then he gave an order through a speaking tube to the driver,
and they were whirled away to the rear of the Prussian lines.

CHAPTER XXXV
IN A TIGHT PLACE

“Well, if this doesn’t beat any adventure ever had outside the Arabian
Nights, I’ll eat a Zeppelin alive,” Phil mused with all the pep of an
ejaculation. “If somebody doesn’t clear up the mystery of this amorphous
monster of a man pretty soon, I’ll bu’st.”

It surely was a confusing situation, with a puzzling personality to add
to the bewilderment. Phil would gladly have dismissed the subject from
his mind if such thing had been possible, but he soon found this out of
the question, so he attempted to quiet his nerves by venturing a
conversation with his captor. He decided to make this attempt by an
appeal to the unmistakable vanity of “the count.”

“May I ask you how it happens that you speak the American language so
well?” he inquired.

Topoff turned quickly toward the boy and fired back at him in his usual
high-pitched tone of voice:

“May I ask you why you call it the American language instead of the
English?”

“I suppose I may as well tell you the truth,” Phil answered, somewhat
crestfallen. “I thought I’d be more likely to get an answer out of you
if I steered clear of that word English. I understand you people hate
the English worse than anything else in the world.”

“Right you are, boy, right you are,” was the vehement reply of the big
boche. “I hate them worse than poison, as does every other true subject
of the kaiser. That was good diplomacy on your part, but it didn’t work
on me, did it? Did you see how quickly I called you for it?”

“Yes, I did, and I’m not going to try anything on you again. But may I
repeat my question? You speak the best of English, and your accent is
perfect. How did you do it?”

“That isn’t the only mystery about me that is puzzling you, is it?”
returned Topoff sharply.

“No, it isn’t,” Phil admitted frankly. “You’re by far the most
mysterious man I ever met. I could sit here and fire questions at you
all day, seeking an explanation of this and that.”

“Your first question is very simple,” answered the boche officer,
swelling with pride and almost crushing the boy against the side of the
car. “I studied in both England and America, also in France. I speak
French just as well as English.”

“I must admit that you studied well,” Phil observed genuinely enough,
yet with the view of winning the fellow’s favor by an appeal to his
vanity.

“I didn’t do much studying at all,” Topoff flashed back. “Learning
always came easy to me.”

He “swelled” his prisoner still harder against the well padded
upholstering, so that the latter was scarcely able to restrain an outcry
of pain. After the puff of pride had relaxed, the boy said to himself:

“This is the most monumental exhibition of conceit I ever saw in my
life. But I must keep him going, in spite of the habit he has of
swelling up like a gas bag every time I tickle his vanity. Maybe I can
get used to these tight quarters. I wonder how long this journey is
going to last.”

By this time they had passed the rear line trenches and were speeding
past a company of artillerymen who were busy emplacing and camouflaging
their field pieces in a bushy hollow. The automobile was tearing along
at high speed, and in a short time they had left behind the fighting
belt of trenches and ordnance and were traversing a broad territory of
supply stations and relief and reinforcement camps.

Phil now found himself almost forced to resort to methods that he did
not like, and, yet, the situation was in a considerable degree amusing.
In order to bring about a condition that might prove favorable to
himself, he saw that he must continue to play on his captor’s vanity.
But it was a problem how to do this successfully. This ungainly and
vainglorious anomaly of military officialdom was certainly a queer
offshoot of humanity, but not a fool in all respects, according to a
conclusion reached by Phil in more simple language.

“I don’t believe he’d fall for flat flattery,” the boy mused; “but I
believe I can get him going if I work it right. It makes me feel kind o’
small to engage in such business, but that’s one of the penalties of
war, and we all have to be victims of some sort. There’s one thing I’d
like to find out above everything else, and that is how he manages to
violate every principle of military authority and get away with it. If I
could get an answer to that question, perhaps I could find out what he’s
going to do with me and perhaps prevail on him to go slow on any rough
stuff he may have in mind. It’s just possible he’s bent on revenge for
the indignity I heaped on him at Belleau Wood. Well, here goes for a try
anyway at some—some—suggestive flattery; yes, that’s a good name for
it—suggestive flattery—to make him swell out so big, horizontally, that
I’ll be pushed—right—through—yes, right through—happy thought!—the side
of this limousine and escape. Oh!”

Phil did not, of course, utter this “exclamation” aloud, but he gave a
sudden start that aroused the curiosity of “the count” quite as
thoroughly as if he had expressed aloud the eagerness in his mind with
the interjection that he succeeded in holding behind his lips.

“It’s the very idea I’ve been waiting for ever since I fell into this
fellow’s hands,” Phil told himself, returning the curious look of his
captor with another of naive innocence. “If this doesn’t work, I may as
well jump into the first river we come to.”

CHAPTER XXXVI
SUGGESTIVE FLATTERY

“Do you know,” said Phil, with a manner of meditative musing, “you
remind me of something that has caused a good deal of comment all over
America on a number of occasions?”

The prisoner stopped to observe the effect of his question, but not with
the expectation of receiving an answer. The query was of a rhetorical
character hardly calling for more of a return than a manifestation of
interest. However, the effect on “Count Topoff’s” vanity moved him to
answer in as matter-of-fact a manner as if he were being quizzed on a
problem in arithmetic.

“No, indeed,” he said. “Is that so? How is it that I remind you of such
a thing?”

“Now, I’ve got to appeal to his intelligence as well as to his vanity,”
the flattery plotter mused. “I mustn’t fall down on this. I must handle
it so that he can’t help reading glory for himself between every two
words.”

He hesitated several moments, really for the purpose of phrasing his
ideas, although he attempted to resume an impressive attitude of
meditation. Then he said:

“Every now and then in America, we hear of a son of some
multi-millionaire starting at the bottom of some business in order to
learn it from the ground up. He sometimes dons overalls and enters the
shops of a foundry or other mechanical plant. He puts himself on a level
with the man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, in order that
when he reaches the top—maybe president of the company—there may be no
element of the business that he won’t understand.”

Phil paused for time to consider how next to proceed. He figured also
that his captor might interpose a remark of some sort that would aid him
in the development of his vanity trap. But the looked-for remark proved
to be more confusing than helpful.

“Boy,” said “the count,” with seeming irrelevance and casting a sharp
glance at his prisoner; “have you any idea whose car you’re riding in?”

“No,” Phil replied quickly; “unless it’s yours.”

“It belongs to the emperor of Germany,” was the rather startling
announcement.

The boy was silent for some moments. He was in doubt at first whether to
believe “the count’s” statement or to regard it as a bit of frivolous
fiction. Then he decided it was best to appear, at least, to accept it
as worthy of his credence.

“Is that so?” he said with affected eagerness of interest. “I’ll have
something big to tell my friends when I get back home—that I rode in the
kaiser’s car.”

“That is, if you ever get back home,” interposed “the count.”

“To be sure,” Phil agreed quickly. “The fortunes of war are very
uncertain.”

“Yes, in most wars; but in this war the fortunes and misfortunes are
absolutely fixed and have been fixed ever since it started,” said
Topoff, with unpleasant insinuation in his tone of voice. “I suppose you
know how this war is going to result.”

“No, I can’t say that I do. Can you tell me how it’s going to result?”

“Certainly. It’s going to result in complete victory for the central
allies. You ought to have been able to answer that question.”

“I suppose so,” Phil returned slowly. “But the question that now
interests me most is, what is going to become of me in the meantime?”

“What do you think ought to become of you?”

“It isn’t a question of oughtness. I imagine it’s a question of your own
disposition. I seem to be your personal prisoner.”

“We’ve been rambling a good deal in our conversation,” said Topoff.
“Let’s go back and pick up the broken threads and tie them together.
Now, did you understand why I told you who owned this car?”

“No,” Phil replied.

“The reason is very simple. You had been comparing me with the sons of
wealthy men who enter shops to learn, from the ground up, the business
they propose to follow. Well, you weren’t very far off in your
comparison. I’ve been doing the same thing in military life. That’s why
you’ve seen me fighting shoulder to shoulder with privates in the front
ranks, although I can give orders to captains, colonels, majors and
generals. If I can command the use of one of the emperor’s automobiles,
it’s reasonable to believe that I belong pretty high up, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” the Marine sergeant answered. “I would assume that you
must be related to the kaiser. Is it a fact that you are a cousin of his
and that you are known as Count Topoff?”

“Where did you ever learn that?” “the count” demanded, gazing sharply at
his youthful prisoner.

Phil shuddered apprehensively at the almost threatening manner of his
captor. Was he, indeed, in possession of a secret regarding “Mr.
Boaconstrictor’s” identity which was supposed to be known to only a
favored and responsible few?

“You’d better explain how you got that information,” declared “the
count” with menacing coldness; “and you’ll have to make your explanation
very clear and straightforward if you escape a firing squad. It looks
very much to me as if you are a spy.”

CHAPTER XXXVII
A USELESS ARGUMENT

“I’ve got to go the limit now in flattering this man’s vanity,” was the
conclusion that flashed through Phil’s mind as he listened to his
captor’s coldly worded spy-suspicion. “And I’ve got to work fast, too.”

Then he addressed the occupant of more than two-thirds of the seat as
follows:

“Let me subject myself to a test under your detective microscope, if you
please. I must tell my story rapidly, so that you cannot accuse me of
taking time to think it up. If I tell the truth so that you can’t
puncture it with any reasonable doubt, will you assume that I am not a
spy until there is some evidence tending to prove that I am one?”

“Of course,” replied Topoff with high-pitched, cutting tone peculiar to
him. Every time it rasped into Phil’s ear it gave him “apprehensive
creeps,” but the situation was desperate now, and the boy decided to
disregard it.

“You have recognized me, I take it, as the American soldier who engaged
in a rather spectacular contest with a squad under your command in
Belleau Wood a few weeks ago,” Phil continued.

Topoff nodded with another affirmative squeak.

“Did you know that I was in that bunch of prisoners that you started to
take back to your nearest railroad communication?—I presume that was
where you were taking us?”

“You bet I knew it,” “the count” answered with a nod of significance,
which indicated that the author of the “novel disarmament” of the boches
in the wooded ravine had not been forgotten.

“Well, I was one of the fellows that engineered our escape,” Phil
continued. “But I didn’t get the information myself about your identity.
One of the other fellows who understood German overheard your
conversation with Hertz down in the sandpit and told us all about it.
Naturally we didn’t want to be blown to atoms with bombs dropped from
Hertz’s aeroplane; so we decided to seek more healthful quarters. That’s
all there is to it. Now, have I proved to your satisfaction that I’m not
a spy?”

“No, you haven’t proved anything,” Topoff answered with a sneering look
at his prisoner, “until you explain how you managed to hide a company of
soldiers right in our midst ready to spring out and attack us in a
manner that nobody in the wide world would ever think possible. If it
hadn’t been for your little handful of men, we’d ’ave held the American
army and would now be driving them back. Can you guess now what I’m
going to do with you?”

“No,” Phil replied eagerly, but not without some apprehension.

“I’m going to put you through a ‘sweating’ process that will make the
worst ‘sweating’ given a suspected criminal in the Tower of London look
like a royal reception to the crown prince,” announced “Count Topoff”
with some more of his villainous sharpness of voice. “You’re going to
have an experience that will make you remember your uninvited visit to
Europe away beyond the River Jordan or the River Styx, wherever you go
after you give up the ghost.”

“But we were invited here,” Phil answered, with a chill of apprehension
that his vanity plot was doomed to failure.

“You invited yourselves here,” piped the big fellow, with an angry
swelling of his form decidedly uncomfortable to the boy beside him. “Any
other statement from you is a lie.”

Phil ached to give the blustering boche a sharp answer about submarines
and the torture of women and children, but he wisely restrained the
impulse.

“I think I can answer right now any questions you may put to me to
settle your suspicion about my being a spy,” he said resolutely. “You’d
better put the question to me now before I have time to think up a
story. If I hesitate, you’ll know you’ve caught me; if I tell a clear,
well-connected and rapid story, you ought to give me credit of telling
the truth.”

“No,” insisted “the count,” whose constitutional brutality seemed to be
showing itself more and more on the surface; “you had an opportunity to
go on with your story without waiting for any more questions. You’ve
been hesitating and talking about other things for several minutes in
order to take time to think up an answer to the last question I put to
you. When I told you you’d have to explain how you managed to hide a
company of soldiers right inside our lines and near the battle front
ready to spring out and throw our forces into confusion, why didn’t you
answer right away?”

“Because you stopped me by putting another question,” Phil replied
without hesitation. “You asked me if I could guess what you were going
to do with me.”

“And you took that as an excuse to delay answering the other question.
You think you’re very sharp, don’t you?”

“I can answer that question in a very reasonable way,” Phil insisted.
“It’s the only explanation any living man could give. You can’t, with
all your experience, conceive of another intelligent explanation. The
so-called company that I was with consisted of only the soldiers who
escaped from the guard under your command a few weeks ago. We hid in the
daytime and traveled at night, creeping nearer and nearer to the front.
At last we got as near as we thought safe and hid ourselves in dark
buildings and basements and waited for the American drive at Chateau
Thierry. When it came and your soldiers were pushed back to the point
where we were hidden, we jumped out and made our attack.”

“Too thin, too thin, my boy,” declared Topoff with a sneer. “I thought
you’d cook up some such story.”

“Keep up your ‘sweating’ process,” Phil insisted. “Don’t give me any
time to think up anything more. Fire your questions at me like a
machine-gun. Surely with your keenness of mind you can catch me if I’ve
been lying.”

“No, no, nothing more now,” returned Topoff with a doggedness of manner
and a glitter of hate in his eyes. “I haven’t begun to ‘sweat’ you yet.
You see, I didn’t bring any ‘sweating’ machinery along.”

His eyes fairly bulged with bestial cruelty as he made this announcement
with an implied promise of torture that caused a succession of shudders
to shake the boy’s frame in spite of his efforts to resist and control
the panic attack that he felt coming.

CHAPTER XXXVIII
WHAT THE LIGHTNING REVEALED

“Sweating machinery! What is it?”

This question rang in Phil’s brain during all the rest of the drive.
Under the play of his stimulated imagination it became a nightmare
transferred into an atmosphere of reality. There was no point in the
progress of the continuous tragic dread where he could say to himself,
even as one might say in his sleep: “Oh, this is only a dream.”

Who was this more-than-ever mysterious man? What was the explanation of
his anomalous position and his tyrannical manner?

That he was a man of power and authority could no longer be doubted.
Phil had at first been inclined to regard this blustering trip-voiced
misfit of a soldier as an unaccountable joke, but he was fully convinced
now that his judgment was decidedly in error in this respect.

On, on they went in a general north-easterly direction. They passed over
a crudely repaired bridge that spanned the River Aisne, though Phil did
not know at the time what stream it was. They dashed along deep rutted
thoroughfares, which engineering crews were trying vainly to keep in
smooth-surfaced repair; they passed miles of truck caravans and marching
soldiers, also numerous supply stations, around which were usually
camped large bodies of soldiers held in reserve to be placed here and
there on the battle front as needed. Before long, however, the long
lines of moving camions ceased to appear, and the boy concluded that
this was an indication that the captured French railroads had been put
back into operation up to this point.

Most of the towns that they passed through were in states of partial or
total ruin. The greater portion of the inhabitants of the entire country
apparently had moved ahead of the boche advance as refugees, or had been
transported into the enemy’s country to labor there, while men, women
and children of bocheland fought or prepared supplies for the fighters.

Much of this, however, Phil saw in the dusk of evening, for they had not
traveled more than two or three hours when the sun began to sink below
the western horizon. On, on, they went, through the gathering gloom,
then through the thickening darkness. Although they passed a number of
military stations where food might have been obtained for the asking,
they did not stop for supper. On, on, on, into the night they continued
their course, how late the prisoner could only conjecture from his own
weariness and hunger.

But at last the journey came to an end, as all journeys do. It had
produced a good many surprises for Phil, nor was the least of these the
one that met him at the finish.

Hardly an area of any considerable size in the course of the drive had
the prisoner observed that did not bear some evidence of battle
devastation. This condition was evident even in the latter part of the
journey, which was in the darkness of the early half of the night. They
passed close to the ruins of many houses and other buildings, and found
it necessary to drive slower after sunset in order to avoid “turning
turtle” in the numerous shell holes of the road, which had been repaired
with great haste and imperfection in those parts of the invaded country
where the railroads remained in operation.

Moreover, an hour or two before they reached the end of their journey,
the sky became heavily clouded and much rain fell. This made it
necessary to drive with even greater care, so that the rate at which
they covered the ground during this dark and rainy period was little
more than a creep, as compared with the speed maintained in the hours of
daylight.

Phil was able to see but little of his surroundings for a time, except
directly in front of the machine, as they neared their place of
destination. The storm had abated somewhat, but the sky had not cleared,
and the darkness was just as intense as ever. Then suddenly the storm
burst anew with a heavier downpour than at any time since the rain began
to fall, and the lightning, which had flashed with indifferent
illumination, blazed forth with great brilliance and frequency.

By the aid of this light, Phil saw that they were entering a drive that
ran through a woods of considerable size. Phil was interested as well as
awed by this new development. The surroundings were not at all cheerful,
especially in view of the circumstances, but the situation was decidedly
impressive nevertheless.

“If I were back in my fairy-story days, I’d imagine that I’m being
carried captive into an ogre’s den,” the boy half-muttered to himself
after they had ridden several minutes along the drive. “Hello!” he
almost exclaimed a minute later. “Here’s the ogre’s castle, all right.”

There was good cause for this play of grewsome imagination. It was
revealed by a specially brilliant flash of lightning that lighted the
surroundings like day. Before them in a comparatively small clearing was
a magnificent structure of mediaeval mass, lines and turrets. To a
tourist it would have been greeted with rapturous recollections of a
romantic past; to Phil it was a picture of apprehension of horror.

CHAPTER XXXIX
“THE CASTLE OF THE HUMAN SNAKE”

The driver had driven the car under a large and heavily pillared shelter
at one side of the chateau, and he now honked his horn, evidently as a
signal to someone inside. Presently a burly Prussian servant came out,
carrying a powerful hand searchlight, with which he supplemented the
front lights of the automobile. The rain continued to come down in
torrents and the lightning to flash and the thunder to clap heavily.
However, the travelers were well protected under the shelter, so that
there was no need to hurry inside.

Phil would have broken loose and made a dash into the uncomfortable
storm and the pitch-dark forest if there had been any opportunity for
him to do so. But, evidently, “the count” anticipated that he might
attempt such a move and kept a firm hold on one arm of his prisoner. The
servant also, well schooled in his duties, took hold of the other arm of
the boy, who was thus led through a massive entrance into the building.

It was a dingy looking place into which Phil was conducted. Undoubtedly
this appearance was a result of two principal conditions, for, with
quite as little doubt, this chateau had been kept in excellent condition
before the war. First, the light was poor, being supplied principally
with oil lamps and candles. The electric flash-light, in the hands of
the servant, when switched on, caused the other lights to fade into
insignificance. Second, the number of servants available for the
maintenance of so large an establishment must have been small indeed.

But an unmistakable atmosphere of luxury, in spite of its mustiness,
almost blew into Phil’s face as he entered. A breath of rich tapestries
and soft velvety rugs met in sharp contrast the gust of wet-woods wind
that forced itself in past the midnight arrivals. But for this contrast,
perhaps the neglected richness of the interior would not have impressed
itself so noticeably on the prisoner’s olfactory sense.

The room into which Phil was first inducted was a large reception hall,
which opened upon two other apartments, one to the left and one straight
ahead, through wide high-arched doorways, partly closed with heavy
portieres. The boy was led straight forward through the latter doorway
and into a large room whose rich decorations and furniture were only
vaguely discernible by the light of two or three candles on a deep
mantel over a great fireplace.

Here Topoff gave instructions in German to the servant and left the
latter alone to proceed with the prisoner. Phil next found himself being
conducted through a long hall and then down a flight of stairs to a
basement floor. There he was thrust into a dark room and the door was
closed and locked.

It was a most unceremonious proceeding, but Phil decided that he could
hardly expect anything else under the circumstances. He forgot for the
moment that he was wretchedly hungry, in his eagerness and anxiety to
learn the character of his quarters. He began his examination of the
place by getting down on his hands and knees. Then he realized for the
first time that he was on a floor of cold, hard clay, like that of a
deep cellar.

Suddenly his investigation was aided by a brilliant flash of lightning,
which afforded him a good view of the floor of his prison. There was
nothing of particular interest in it except a board platform at the
farther side of the room, probably built there as a dry elevation for
vegetables harvested from lands of the estate. No such articles of raw
food, however, were on it now.

“That’ll be a much better place for me to sleep on than this
pneumonia-and-rheumatism floor,” Phil muttered. “I think I’ll go over
there and try to sleep. I wonder if I can.”

He had good reason to doubt his ability to forget his physical and
mental distress in slumber, and the effort he made was therefore the
more courageous. As he lay down on his back, another flash of lightning
illuminated the room, so that he had now a fairly complete picture in
his mind as to the size and character of his prison.

It was circular, like a huge cistern, and deep. A curved wall of masonry
arose on all sides. Midway between floor and ceiling and far above his
reach were two long, narrow, deep windows. The diameter of the
cylindrical room was twenty-five or thirty feet.

“A regular donjon, or dungeon, of a mediaeval castle,” Phil said to
himself. He almost uttered the words aloud, just to satisfy his
curiosity as to how his voice would sound, but a dread of the awe-thrill
that would probably follow controlled the impulse.

“I’m going to do my best to go to sleep,” he resolved. “Goodness
knows, I need it bad enough, and maybe this place won’t seem so
dreadful in the morning. I wonder if they’ll give me anything to eat
then, or if starvation is a concomitant of that villain’s sweating
machinery. Concomitant is a good word under the circumstances, I
guess. It ought to go well with a donjon of a castle keep. Just to
think! the position ’u’d be reversed and I’d have that monster of big
circumference in limbo behind the Marine lines at Chateau Thierry if
that tall slim piece of a wall hadn’t toppled over on top o’ me. But
instead of his being under guard at Chateau Thierry, I’m in a cellar
tomb in Chateau—Chateau—what’ll I call it? Oh, yes, I’ll call it
Chateau Boaconstrictor, or the Castle of the Human Snake.”

His dread of what the near future might have in store for him being thus
mollified somewhat by his damp-dungeon serpentine wit, Phil dozed
several minutes over the grewsome idea and then fell hungrily asleep.

CHAPTER XL
A ROOM OF TORTURE

Phil was awakened in the morning by the creaking of his prison door, and
opened his eyes to behold the jailer of his midnight imprisonment
advancing toward him. He observed now, as he had not noticed when he
first saw him, that this fellow wore a military uniform.

With a few words in German and expressive movements of his hands, the
jailer indicated to the boy an order to come with him, and the prisoner
obeyed. Up the stairs they went and into a very strange room occupied by
that very strange man, “Count Topoff.” Strewn about in the apartment
were a dozen or more remarkable contrivances, a few of which indicated
the probable general character of all of them. One was plainly a pillory
with holes for the head and the hands, but within the hand holes
projected many sharp metal points, while on the stand for the
undoubtedly barefooted pilloried victim were a hundred or more sharp
metal points projecting upwards. There were also hanging on the wall
numerous straps and belts, some of them crossed and riveted here and
there until they bore the appearance of elaborate body-brace or harness,
while from various ends hung numerous sharp-toothed jaw-clasps.
Overhead, suspended on a pulley by a long rope, was what appeared to be
a head harness. The other end of the rope was caught around a cleat over
against the wall.

Phil shuddered at the sight. Here was cruelty apparatus of the most
fiendish ingenuity. And there could be no doubt that it was intended to
be used and that “Count Topoff” was the very fellow to use it with
frigid glee.

The prisoner was aroused from his secretly shrinking contemplation of
the prospect before him by the voice of “the count,” who addressed him
in English, thus:

“You see, most foolish American, what is in store for you unless you
give me a true explanation of what took place this side of Chateau
Thierry. Now, I’ll give you one more chance before the course of
persuasion begins. By telling me the truth, you can escape all that you
see before you.”

His voice was more repulsive than it had been at any time before in
Phil’s hearing. The high-pitched, tripping near-stutter, if the speaker
had spoken from a position of concealment, might have caused any hearer
to suspect that the utterances popped forth from the lips of a bully of
imp-land.

“But,” Phil protested, hopelessly, it is true, “I have already told you
the truth. You surely don’t want me to fabricate a yarn just to escape
your cruelty.”

“No,” thundered the big fellow. “I want the truth. If you lie, I’ll know
it at once and something worse will follow. Orderly, knee-splints,
toe-thumb.”

The direction was given in English, but it evidently was understood. The
orderly picked up two pieces of pine board, about three inches wide, an
inch thick and a little more than two feet long. These he proceeded to
strap to Phil’s legs, behind, so that the prisoner was unable to bend
his knees. Then he tied a string to each of the boy’s thumbs and with
the persuasive power of a strong pull drew those digits down against the
victim’s great toes and tied these two extremities together.

“There,” rattled the boche military ogre, as he viewed the plight of his
prisoner with evident enjoyment; “when you decide you’re ready to tell
the truth, send for me.”

“I don’t know what to tell you besides what I’ve already told,” replied
Phil desperately, for the pain of his cramped position was already
testing his endurance.

“Think, think hard!” advised “the count” as he left the room.

The orderly also departed, and the victim was left alone in his misery.
The latter twisted and squirmed into every possible position to relieve
his distress. The strain on his legs, back, thumbs and toes was so
uniformly painful that he only increased his misery when he added
tension at one point or portion to relieve the others.

Anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour after Topoff and the orderly
left, another man in coarse tattered civilian garments appeared, bearing
a tray of steaming food. As he set it down before the prisoner, he
startled the latter with the following speech, scarcely above a whisper:

“This is not intended for you to eat, only to look at. If you try to eat
it, you’ll find it full of the hottest of red pepper. By the way, I’m an
English spy and want to give you a little advice. Think up some kind of
plausible story and tell it to ‘the count’ in the place of the one he
refuses to believe. Grit your teeth, stick through your torment, for
help is on the way, I hope. As soon as you think up a story that you
think will stand a test of reason, yell to the orderly and tell him that
you’re ready to give in.”

“He can’t understand me, can he?” Phil returned.

“Oh, yes, he can understand a good deal, although he pretends to be
contemptuously ignorant of the hated English tongue. Good-by, now, I
must go, but I’ll keep my eyes open and will do everything that I can
for you.”

The spy glided swiftly out of the room, leaving the tray of food setting
on the floor.

Encouraged by the fact of the nearness of a friend and the assurance
that there was reasonable hope of rescue, Phil cudgeled his brain hard
for an inspiration to think up a plausible story to tell his tormentor.
The strain of pain and necessity helped him wonderfully, and in a short
time he was yelling at the top of his voice to the orderly. The latter
strolled in in leisurely manner after the boy yelled two or three
minutes.

“Tell ‘the count’ I’m ready to tell the truth,” Phil announced in
pleading tones, which were genuine enough, in spite of the fiction plot
behind them.

Without a word the orderly went out of the room and soon returned
accompanied by “Count Topoff.”

“Ready to tell me the truth?” snapped the latter, addressing the
suffering prisoner.

“Yes, yes,” cried Phil, designedly making no effort to conceal his
distress.

Topoff gave the orderly directions in German, and the latter proceeded
to cut the strings that bound the boy’s thumbs and great toes together.

CHAPTER XLI
THE “SUBTERRENE”

The first impression that struck Phil forcibly as “Count Topoff” entered
the room was the fact that he had been drinking. This reminded him of
the drink-fest that had incapacitated “the count” and his command of
guards, in a French inn a few weeks previously, to prevent the prisoners
in their charge from turning the tables on them.

“It’s probably lucky for me that he was too much under the influence to
remember the trick we played on them when we saw to it that every
‘drunk’ among them was super-drunk,” the boy mused after the strain of
his torture had been relieved by the cutting of his thumb-toe bonds.

Topoff wasted no time in the carrying out of the portion of his program
now due. Although plainly flushed with the liquor he had drunk recently,
there was nothing maudlin in his manner, and he had full command of his
usual wits.

“Well, go ahead with your yarn,” he ordered, sitting down in an armchair
ancient enough in appearance to have belonged to the days of
Charlemagne. “But hold on. Do you realize what is going to happen to you
if you lie? You’re going into that pillory, with your bare feet on those
sharp steel points. Now go ahead, but you’d better not talk at all if
you’re thinking of telling me another string of lies.”

Phil’s resolution was almost shattered at this prospect, and he was on
the verge of confessing the untruth of his purpose, when it occurred to
him that torture on the puncturing pillory could hardly be worse than
the agony he suffered in the unendurable attitude from which he had just
been released.

“If I have to die or torture, I don’t see that there’s much choice
between these two ways,” he concluded. “So here goes, hoping I’ll be
able to pull the wool over his eyes.”

“The truth is this,” he continued aloud with a camouflage of
desperation, “and may my native land never know of my traitorous act.
There’s really no need of my begging you to have mercy on me after
you’ve learned the truth from me, for I shall be so ashamed of my
cowardice that I shan’t be satisfied until I find a place where I can
hide my face from every other man on earth.”

As he spoke Phil covertly watched the countenance of Topoff and was
gratified with the evidence of growing and expectant interest that he
saw there.

“You people,” he continued, looking his captor straight in the eye,
“perfected the submarine and used it as a most destructive war engine.
America has just completed her invention of the subterrene, and will
soon be able with it to undermine any battle front you may be able to
establish.”

“What is the subterrene?” demanded “the count,” leaning forward eagerly.

“The word, I think, will explain itself to a man of your learning,”
replied the boy, recalling his flattery weapon. “It’s a machine that
bores a hole seven or eight feet in diameter right through the earth at
the rate of about a mile a day. It was through the first tunnel of the
first machine delivered at the battle front that I led a company of
soldiers into the basement of one of those buildings behind your lines
near Chateau Thierry.”

“And who invented that machine?” inquired the now excited and somewhat
bewildered Topoff.

“Thomas A. Edison,” Phil answered, uttering that magic name with a
swelling of hero worship and national pride.

The count meditated a few moments. It was evident that he was deeply
impressed with his prisoner’s story.

“How many of those machines has the American army?” he asked.

“Of course, I can’t say as to that,” Phil replied slowly. “But there’s
only one at the part of the front with which I’m familiar. However, I
understand they’re being made as rapidly as possible to be rushed all
along the American, English, and French fronts.”

Again Topoff lapsed into meditation. This time he was silent longer than
before. Then suddenly he looked up sharply at his “fabulizing informant”
and said:

“Here is an important question that needs more than any other to be
answered: What becomes of the excavated earth as the tunnel advances?”

This was surely a “stunner of a question” and tested Phil’s ingenuity to
the limit. When it first “hit” him it made the boy’s head swim, but he
clenched his fists and gritted his teeth with desperation and thought as
he had never thought before. An answer came, such as it was, and Phil
communicated it with all the aplomb that he could command.

“I’m not very familiar with the mechanical working of the contrivance,”
he said, “although I’ve seen it operate. The question you ask, of
course, involves the problem of the great principle of the invention.
The way I get it is this: It seems that Mr. Edison, in working out his
scheme, applied a new scientific discovery of his, electro-chemical,
they call it. By means of this new process they seem to be able to
convert the excavated earth into gas and a small amount of powdered
refuse. The gas is piped back through flexible tubes, and the refuse is
carted out in a low, narrow auto-truck.”

Phil had good cause, as he proceeded with this explanation, to
congratulate himself on the training he had received in a Philadelphia
technical school. But he never knew with what degree of credence the
latter part of his ingenious fabrication was received. He had scarcely
finished the statement last recorded, when sound of the hurried tramping
of many feet reached his ears. It reached the ears also of “Count
Topoff,” who sprang to his feet in bewildered alarm. Then the forms of
half a dozen armed men rushed into the room.

“Marines!” gasped Phil in amazement. “How in the world did they get
here?”

CHAPTER XLII
RESCUED

“Count Topoff” undoubtedly did not appreciate the situation, or he would
not have acted so rashly. He drew a pistol and fired point blank at the
soldier in the lead. This was a signal for the Americans to answer in a
business-like manner, which they did without ceremony, and “Mr.
Boaconstrictor” dropped dead with several bullets in his body. Two of
the Marines were wounded by the one shot fired by the mysterious
“relative of the kaiser,” but not seriously.

This was the extent of the battle. The soldiers had taken possession of
the chateau without other resistance. The British spy had prepared the
way for the raid, having managed to get information to the allies of
conditions at the century-old castle. He did this by means of Morse-code
signaling to a fleet of American aviators just returning from an air
raid over enemy territory, and it was answered with assurance that they
would return prepared to raid the place.

There were only six prisoners in the chateau, but three of them were
French and American spies with information of great importance. There
were also only half a dozen boche guards in the place, including the
orderly who had acted as Topoff’s personal servant. All but the latter
were men of advanced age, too old for military service, and, as the
fleet of aeroplanes that had arrived with a score of soldiers, could not
carry the released prisoners and the captured boches very well, the
latter were given their freedom as the raiders flew away, back behind
the American lines.

On the way Phil rode in a large machine with the British spy, whose
resourcefulness may have saved him from further untold torture and, it
may be, death, for Phil subsequently grew extremely doubtful of his
ability to make his “subterrene yarn stick.”

The spy’s name was Roscoe Chance. He proved to be an excellent type for
impersonating almost any Caucasian nationality, and as he had studied
German at college and spoke the language fluently he had been chosen as
specially gifted to handle the secret service work that was consummated
by the air raid which resulted in the rescue of Phil from the most
fiendish torture.

Before they started on their return to the American lines, Chance gave
Phil the following brief account of the history of the mysterious “Count
Topoff”:

“He was a Prussian spy in France for twenty years, owning the chateau in
which he lived. He pretended to be a great friend of the French cause,
had even become a citizen of France to camouflage the real nature of his
business. But an English spy in Berlin heard a rumor that Topoff was a
relative of the kaiser and reported this to his government. I was
therefore sent here to find out what I could.

“But it seems he was on guard against the very thing I was after, and I
was unable to detect a suspicious look or act until after the last big
drive of the enemy. Meanwhile I had managed to convey to him the idea on
a number of occasions that my sympathies were on the other side of the
Rhine, so that I was in a position to take up the role of a boche when
he revealed his true colors.

“I made quite a hit with him, and found that he was in constant secret
communication with Berlin. His second lieutenancy was a mere camouflage,
for he was high up in secret service rank. I got considerable
corroboration of the report that he was a relative of the kaiser, but no
direct confirmation.”

“There’s just one peculiarity about him that I’d like to understand,”
said Phil. “Why did he run so much risk of being killed by mixing in
infantry battles right at the front?”

“There’s only one reason I can give for that,” Chance replied, “and I
think it’s the true one. He was a clever, shrewd rascal, but also a
brazen daredevil. There’s no doubt he had lots of courage, and it’s a
wonder he wasn’t killed long ago. In spite of his misshapen physique he
was powerful and quite active. He seemed to have almost a mania for
proving that his big girth was no obstacle to his putting up just as
good a fight as a slender athlete could put up.”

The squadron of aeroplanes made the return trip without encountering an
enemy plane. No doubt there were boche air-fighters within sighting
distance, but it is also probably true that they could not muster
sufficient available force to meet the Yanks, so they remained in
hiding. Two days later Phil met Tim, who had been transferred
temporarily from trench duty to Headquarters messenger service, and they
had a half hour’s conversation over their recent experiences. He met
also Dan Fentress and Emmet Harding, two of the twelve Marines who made
their escape from the boche prison in advance of the remaining 240. They
had managed to get back with the American army in a manner similar to
the scheme worked by the larger body of prisoners. The other ten, Phil
learned months afterward, were recaptured by the enemy and finally were
returned, after the armistice, as released prisoners of war.

And, oh, yes, by the way, before the signing of the armistice, which
meant virtually the end of the war, Phil was wearing the bar of a
lieutenant, and Corporal Tim became a sergeant.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Over There with the Marines at Chateau Thierry" ***

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