"It"s a pleasure to command such a nervy crowd as that. You don"t need to use the spur. I"m mostly busy putting on the brakes. It would have done your heart good if you could have seen the way they waded into the Huns. That fellow Sheldon particularly is a crackerjack when it comes to a sc.r.a.p. He"s as strong as an ox and as quick as a cat."
"I"ve had my eye on him," replied the officer. "He"ll go far before the war is over. You can go now, Corporal. I"ll have your work mentioned in the order of the day."
He was as good as his word, for when the regiment was drawn up for inspection the order of the day commended each man of the squad by name for their gallant exploit that, as the order ran, "reflected credit on the regiment."
"How"s your head feeling now, old man?" Frank asked of Tom, as they rejoined each other at mess.
"Pretty groggy," responded Tom. "But I"m not kicking. I"m lucky to be alive at all. That fellow made an awful swipe at me, and if it had hit me fair it would have been all over."
"A miss is as good as a mile," put in Bart. "I had a pretty close shave myself. Seemed as though twenty star sh.e.l.ls were going off at once."
"Yesterday was your lucky day," remarked Billy. "You had two narrow escapes."
"Let"s hope it won"t be three times and out," responded Bart lightly."
By the way, I wonder what they did with that corporal who tried to do me up?"
"Most likely he"s shot by this time," observed Tom. "If he isn"t, he ought to be."
"He isn"t shot yet at any rate," remarked Fred Andon, who sat near by.
"I guess the fighting was so hot all day yesterday that they didn"t have time to attend to him. Likely enough he"s down in the prisoners" pen waiting for the court-martial."
"Let"s go down and see after we"ve finished our chow," suggested Billy.
"That is if you fellows ever get through eating. Look at Tom stowing it away. He"d eat his way through the whole quartermaster"s department if he was let."
"And he"s the fellow that they wouldn"t let enlist because of his teeth," gibed Bart. "They didn"t know Tom."
"I"m not the only one that got a raw deal," replied Tom, with whom it was always a sore point that he had been refused when he wanted to enlist, but had been accepted in the draft. "There"s a drafted man here who was telling me the other day that he walked ninety miles to enlist.
And do you know what the enlistment board did to him?"
"What?" was the query.
"Turned him down because he had flat feet," responded Tom. "Told him he wouldn"t be able to stand a five-mile hike."
There was a roar of laughter.
"I heard another good one," chimed in Billy. "A fellow wanted to enlist, and the examining board wanted to reject him because he had a cast in his eye. "Oh, that"s all right," he drawled, "I allus shets that eye anyway when I shoot." That made them laugh and he got by."
In high spirits they finished their meal, and as they were off duty for the next hour or two, made their way down to that quarter of the field where the prisoners" camp was placed.
Behind the barrier at the point nearest them they saw one bulky captive, who was munching contentedly the food that had been given him, and who had none of the woe-begone expression that a man in his position is commonly expected to show.
"See him shovel it in," laughed Billy.
"He doesn"t seem to have a care in the world," remarked Bart.
"Probably glad to be behind our machine guns instead of in front of them," conjectured Tom.
"h.e.l.lo, Heinie!" said Frank good-naturedly.
"h.e.l.lo yourself," came the answer.
"Do you speak English?" asked Frank in surprise.
"A little," replied the German, and proceeded to prove it by answering, although in rather a halting manner, the questions they put to him.
No, he at any rate had not wanted the war. He was a skilled mechanic in one of the munition factories. There had been a strike on account of bad conditions and he had been one of the leaders. The Government had seized him and bundled him off to the front. He was glad to be captured. After the war the Kaiser would see that men were born to be something else than cannon fodder.
"Well," remarked Frank as they moved along, "there"s one fellow at least that doesn"t cry: "_Hoch the Kaiser_.""
"Seems good to see it so full," remarked Bart with great satisfaction, as he saw the large number of Germans who had been captured in the fierce fighting of the day before.
"If only the Kaiser and the Crown Prince were in that bunch," sighed Tom.
"That"s a pleasure still to come," replied Frank. "But where"s the fellow that tried to stab Bart? I don"t see him anywhere. Seems as though the party isn"t complete without him."
They made inquiry of one of the guards.
"Oh, that one," replied the guard. "They"ve roped him out from the rest of these mavericks and given him a hut all by himself. I guess he"s thinking of making his will. I hear they"re going to have him out before a drumhead in the morning."
"Which hut is it?" asked Frank, as his eye took in a little group of shacks at the further end of the field.
"That end one down by the big tree." The guard pointed it out with the point of his bayonet.
They went down in that direction, and as they neared the hut saw that it was guarded by a single sentry.
"Who"s that fellow on guard?" asked Tom. "My head"s so dizzy yet that I"m seeing things double."
"Looks rather familiar for a fact," said Bart. "Wait till he turns his head this way."
The next instant the sentry turned, and there was a whistle of surprise from Billy. "By the great horn spoon!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "It"s Nick Rabig!"
"Set a Hun to watch a Hun," remarked Tom bitingly.
"Oh, come, Tom," remonstrated Frank, "that"s going a little too far.
I"ve no reason to like the fellow, and we know he had to be dragged into the army, but that doesn"t say he"s a Hun."
"All except the uniform," persisted Tom. "He"d rather be fighting for the Kaiser this minute than for Uncle Sam."
"Shouldn"t wonder if Tom"s more than half right," a.s.sented Billy. "You know the way he" used to talk in Camport."
"You notice that we"ve never seen him volunteering for any of the raiding parties," said Billy.
"But that may only mean that Rabig has a yellow streak in him. It doesn"t say that he"s a traitor," returned Frank.
"Well, maybe he isn"t," conceded Tom. "But all the same it seems rather queer that he should have been picked out to guard this Heinie. They could talk together in German through that closed door and n.o.body be wise to what they were saying."
"I don"t suppose the officers know Rabig as well as the rest of us do,"
said Billy. "But say, fellows, look at that bit of white under the door of the hut. What do you suppose it is?"