"You said it! If our boys would only rush this bunch and get us away."
"Silence, pigs!" cried a German officer, and with his sword he struck at Tom, slightly injuring the lad and causing a hot wave of fierce resentment.
"You wouldn"t dare do that if I had my hands free, you dirty dog!"
rasped out Tom in fairly good German, and he tugged to free his arms from the hold of a Hun soldier on either side.
The officer who had struck Tom seemed about to reply, for he surged through the ranks of his men over toward the captive, but a command from some one, evidently higher in authority halted him, and he marched on, muttering.
There was sharp fighting between the Hun sentries and small parties, and similar bodies from the American and Allied sides going on along the lines now, and both armies were sending up rockets and other illuminating devices.
The two Virginia lads felt themselves being hurried forward--or back, whichever way you choose to look at it--and whither they were being taken they did not know. The taunts of their captors had ceased, though the men were talking together in low voices, and suddenly, at something one of them said, Tom nudged Jack, beside whom he was walking.
"Did you hear that?" he asked in so low a voice that it was not heard by the Hun next him. Or if it was heard, no attention was paid to it, for Torn spoke in English. The tramp of the heavy boots of the Huns and the rattle of their arms and accoutrements made noise enough, perhaps, to cover the sound of his voice.
"Did I hear what?" asked Jack.
"What that chap said. It was something about one of the German prison camps having been burned by the prisoners, a lot of whom got away. The rest were transferred to a place not far from here. Listen!"
And the Americans listened to the extent of their ability.
Then it was they blessed their lucky stars that they understood enough of German to know what was being said, for it was then and there that they got a clew to the whereabouts of Harry Leroy, from whom they had heard not a word since the dropping of his glove by the German aviator.
They did not even know whether or not their packages had reached their chum.
The talk of the Germans who had captured Tom and Jack was, indeed, concerning the burning of one of the prison camps. As the boys learned later, the prisoners, unable to stand the terrible treatment, had risen and set fire to the place. Many of them perished in the blaze and by the fire of German rifles. The others were transferred to a camp nearer the battle line as a punishment, it being argued, perhaps, that they might be killed by the fire of the guns of their own side.
"And there are some airmen, too, in the new prison camp," said one of the Germans. "Our infantrymen claimed them as their meat, though our airmen brought them down. But there was no room for them in the prison camp with the other captured aviators, so The Butcher has them in his charge."
Tom and Jack learned later that "The Butcher" was the t.i.tle bestowed, even by his own men, on a certain brutal German colonel who had charge of this prison camp.
Then there came to Tom and Jack in the darkness a curious piece of information, dropped by casual talk of the Huns. One of them said to another:
"One of the transferred airmen tried to bribe me to-day."
"To bribe you? How and for what?"
"He is an accursed American pig, and when he heard we were opposite some of them, he wanted me to throw a note from him over into the American lines. He said I would be well paid, and he offered me a piece of gold he had hidden in the sole of his shoe."
"Did you take it?"
"The gold? Of course I did! But I tore up the note he gave me to toss into the American lines. First I looked at it, though. It was signed with a French name, though the prisoner claimed to be from the United States. It was the name Leroy which means, I have been told, the king.
Ha! I have his gold, and the note is scattered over No Man"s Land! But I will tell him I sent it into the trenches of his friends. He may have more notes and gold!" and the brute chuckled.
Tom and Jack, looked at one another in the darkness. Could it be possible that it was their friend Harry Leroy who was so near to them, since he had been transferred from a camp far behind the lines?
It seemed so. There were not many American airmen captured, and there could hardly be two of this same rather odd name.
"It must be Harry," murmured Tom.
"I think so," agreed Jack.
"Silence, American pigs!" commanded man officer.
He raised his sword to strike the lad. But just then occurred an interruption so tremendous that all thought of punishing prisoners who dared to speak was forgotten.
A big sh.e.l.l rose screaming and moaning from the Allied lines and landed not far from the party of Germans which was leading along Tom and Jack.
It burst with a tremendous noise well inside the Hug defenses, and this was followed by a terrific explosion. As the boys learned later the sh.e.l.l had landed in the midst of a concealed battery--a stroke of luck, and not due to any good aiming on the part of the American gunner--and the supply of ammunition had gone up.
There was great commotion behind the German lines, and two or three of Tom"s and Jack"s captors were thrown down by the concussion. The air service boys themselves were stunned.
And then there suddenly sounded a ringing American cheer, while a voice, coming from a group of soldiers that confronted the German patrol, cried:
"Halt! Who"s there? Are there any of Uncle Sam"s boys?"
"Yes! Yes!" eagerly cried Tom and Jack. "Come on! We"re captured by the Germans!"
There was another cheer, followed by a roar of rage, and then came a rush of feet. Gleaming bayonets glistened in the light of star sh.e.l.ls and many guns, and the members of the German patrol, finding themselves surrounded, threw down their arms and cried:
"Kamerad!"
The fortunes of war had unexpectedly turned, and Tom and Jack had been rescued and saved by a party of Pershing"s gallant boys.
CHAPTER XXII. NELLIE"S RESOLVE
"What happened?"
"How"d they get you?"
"Are you hurt?"
These were a few of the questions put to Tom and Jack as they were surrounded by the rescuing party of their friends, led, it afterward developed, by the very lieutenant with whom the two air service boys had started in the patrol across No Man"s Land.
The German captors had either all surrendered or been killed, and the tables were most effectively switched around. At first Tom and Jack were too surprised and overwhelmingly grateful to answer.
But they soon understood what had happened. And then they told the story of their fight against odds until captured. They said nothing just then of the unexpected information that had come to them about Harry Leroy"s presence in a German camp so comparatively near their own lines. But they resolved, at the first opportunity, to make use of the information.
The shooting of the big guns gradually ceased when it was made manifest that neither side was ready for a general engagement. The pop-pop of the machine weapons, too, died away and the star sh.e.l.ls ceased rising.
"Come on you Fritzies--what"s left of you," cried the lieutenant, when he had made sure that there were no others of his party whom he could rescue.
Then with Tom and Jack the center of a happy, tumultuous throng of their own comrades, the trip back to the American lines was begun. It was without incident save that on the way a wounded British soldier was found lying in a sh.e.l.l hole and carried in, ultimately to recover.
Tom and Jack told what had happened to them, how they had been surrounded and led away; and then, came the story of the lieutenant who had led the patrol party which had turned defeat into victory with the aid of reinforcements which were sent to him.
He had seen his hopes blasted when rushed by the big crowd of the Hun patrol, and, though slightly wounded, he realized that absolute defeat would come to him and his men unless he could get help. He sent a runner back with word to send relief, and then, surrounding himself with what few men remained alive and uncaptured, the fight went on.