"That settles it," whispered Bart. "We think we"re here, but we"re only kidding ourselves. We _can"t_ be here. Heinie says so and, of course, he knows."
"What a come-on he"d be for the confidence men," gurgled Billy. "They"d sell him the Brooklyn Bridge before he"d been on sh.o.r.e for an hour."
Questioned as to food supplies, the German admitted that their rations, although fairly good, were not so abundant as at the beginning of the war. Then with characteristic arrogance he added:
"But we will have plenty to eat and drink too when we get to Paris."
"I suppose your captain tells you that too," remarked the inquisitor.
"Yes," was the reply.
"That eternal captain again," murmured Bart.
"He must be a wonder," chuckled Tom.
"You"ve been rather a long time on the road to Paris, haven"t you?"
asked the captain, with a tinge of sarcasm. "Seems to me I"ve heard something about a banquet that was to celebrate the Crown Prince"s entry into Paris a month after the war was started."
A discomfited look stole over the prisoner"s face.
"That was Von Kluck"s fault," he said sullenly.
"Seems to me the French army had something to do with it too," whispered Frank to Bart. "What does your captain tell you your armies are fighting for?" continued the questioner.
"To give Germany her place in the sun," answered the prisoner without hesitation.
"That seems to be a stock phrase of the Huns," whispered Billy. "I"ll bet it"s part of the lesson taught in every German school."
A few more questions followed, but failed to elicit any information of special importance, and the prisoner was dismissed, to have his place taken by some of his comrades.
But what they told the boys never knew, for just then Corporal Wilson, who had been in close conference with his lieutenant, beckoned to them and they filed silently out of the quarters.
"Back to the firing line for us," remarked Frank.
"About time too," replied Bart, as he shouldered his rifle. "We"ve been missing all the fun."
But the first words of the corporal showed them that they were mistaken.
"You lads are out of it for the rest of the day," he remarked. "Go back to your old trench now, get some grub and tumble into your bunks."
They looked at each other in surprise, for the sun had not much more than risen.
"You heard what I said," reiterated the corporal. "Get all the sleep you can to-day, for you won"t do any sleeping to-night!"
CHAPTER IV
BETWEEN THE LINES
The Army boys looked at each other in blank inquiry, but the corporal did not offer to enlighten them, and they were too good soldiers to ask questions when orders were given.
"What do you suppose is in the wind now?" asked Bart, as they made their way to their sleeping quarters.
"Search me," replied Frank.
"Aeroplanes," chirped Billy.
Bart made a thrust at him which Billy dodged.
"I guess we"re picked for a scouting party," remarked Tom. "The captain may want to confirm some of the information he"s getting from those chaps."
"Information!" snorted Bart. "More likely misinformation. Those fellows struck me as being dandy liars."
"They wouldn"t be Huns if they weren"t," remarked Billy. "You know Baron Munchausen came from over the Rhine, so they come rightly by their talent in that line. But what"s the matter with Tony here?" he added, as they pa.s.sed by one of the field kitchens in a protected nook, where one of the bakers was kneading away desperately at some dough and muttering volubly to himself.
"He seems all riled up about something, for a fact," commented Frank.
"What"s the matter, Tony?" inquired Bart of the perspiring baker, an Italian who had spent some years in the United States and who was generally liked by the boys of the old Thirty-seventh because of his customary good nature and his skill in compounding their favorite dishes.
Tony looked up in despair.
"I can"t maka de dough," he complained. "I worka more dan hour. It lika de sand. It getta my goat."
The boys laughed at his woe-begone face.
"Put some more water with it," suggested Billy at a venture.
Tony looked at him with such a glare of contempt that the amateur baker wilted.
"I usa de water!" he exclaimed. "Plent water! No maka de stick."
"It looks all right," remarked Frank, as he picked up some of the substance on the kneading board and let it dribble through his fingers, "but as Tony says, it"s like so much sand."
"And it tastes queer," said Billy, putting a bit of it on his tongue.
"Looks as though some of the food profiteers were trying to put something over on us," observed Tom.
Just then one of the commissary men came along, evidently looking for something.
"There"s a bag of trench foot powder missing," he said. "Have any of you chaps seen anything of it?"
"Not guilty," returned Bart. "Though the way my feet feel it wouldn"t do them a bit of harm to have some of that powder on them right now."
A sudden light dawned upon Frank.
"Say, Tony!" he exclaimed, "let"s see the bag you got that flour from."