"I"m sick of this war already. I hope the Germans win. If I"m sent over to France I"ll watch my chance to desert and get over to the Germans."
"Oh, ye will, will ye?" demanded Private Riley, another prisoner in the bull-pen. "Ye dir-rty blackguard!"
Buff! The Irish soldier"s fist caught Mock squarely on the jaw, sending him squarely to earth, though not knocking him out. After a moment Mock was on his feet again, quivering with rage. He flew at Riley, who was a smaller man, hammering him hard. Other soldier-prisoners interfered on behalf of Riley, whereupon Private Wilhelm, a heavily built fellow, rushed to Mock"s aid.
"A German and a German sympathizer!"
With that yell a dozen or so of time prisoners set upon the pair.
Some lively and perhaps nearly deadly punishment would have been handed out, had not several men of the guard rushed in, thrusting with their rifle b.u.t.ts and breaking up the unequal fight.
But Mock was reported for his utterance, and Wilhelm for his sympathies. Both were brought up before Captain Greg Holmes, and d.i.c.k was sent for to join in questioning the men, which was done behind closed doors. At the end of the hearing Mock and Wilhelm were returned to the guard-house looking much crestfallen.
"Did you hear what they said to me?" Mock was overheard to demand of Wilhelm. "Said they"d have me tried for saying I"d desert, and that I"d be likely to get several years in prison for talking too much. Oh, I"m sure sick of being in this man"s army!"
"Sure!" nodded Wilhelm, understandingly. "It"s tough!"
"It"ll be tougher, I warrant ye, if we hear ye two blackguards using any more of your line of talk around here," Riley broke in. "The guar-rd won"t be forever stopping our pounding ye!"
After that Mock and Wilhelm were left severely alone by their fellow-prisoners in the bull-pen. Most of these men were serving merely sentences of a day to a week for minor infractions of discipline.
The next morning Private Riley managed to get word to Greg that Private Brown, of the guard, had been talking with Mock at the barbed wire of the pen enclosure.
"Private Brown is supposed to be an all right soldier, but he"ll bear watching," was d.i.c.k"s comment when he heard the report.
That afternoon it was reported that both Mock and Wilhelm had been talking with Private Brown at the barbed wire fence. d.i.c.k smiled grimly when he heard it.
The next morning orders were read releasing Mock, Wilhelm, Riley and some of the other soldier prisoners ahead of time that they might not be deprived of too much instruction. The released ones were cautioned to be extremely careful, in the future, not to fall under the disciplinary ban.
"Sure, I can understand some of us getting out, but not Mock,"
declared Riley to a bunkie (chum). "Him an" his talk about deserting to the enemy!"
In the meantime d.i.c.k had given an accurate description of the carpenter who had tried to enlist Mock in some dangerous scheme of revenge. The fellow had disappeared from among the gang of carpenters, and that was all that was known. Secret Service men had been put on the trail, but had failed to find the fellow.
"Now, maybe a soldier sometimes says more than he means," broke in Sergeant Kelly, who had come up behind the pair on the nearly deserted drill ground. "Soldiers are like other people in that respect."
"But not Mock," Riley objected. "He"s a bad egg."
"I don"t say he isn"t," Kelly rejoined. "What I"m advising you is not to conclude that a man is worthless just because he talks.
For that matter, Riley, I believe that the men we have most to fear are spies who manage to get in the Army, talk straight and do their work well, and all the time they"re plotting all kinds of mischief. Like the fellow or the chaps who put that powdered gla.s.s in the chow of F company not long ago."
"Here"s hoping I live to see Mock hanged!" grumbled Private Riley, as Sergeant Kelly moved away.
Kelly, who had served as sergeant with d.i.c.k in other regiments, had followed him into the Ninety-ninth. Prescott rejoiced that he had this excellent fellow with him, as capable first sergeants are always looked upon in the light of prizes.
Yet, in a---to him---new man Greg Holmes had an almost equally good top in Lund, a Swede who had put in ten years in the Army.
When Greg dropped into the company office that forenoon, Lund handed him a list of men who had put in application for pa.s.s that afternoon. It was to be a visitors" afternoon, and there would be no drills.
"Nineteen, and all good conduct men, Sergeant Lund," commented Greg, glancing over the list and reaching for a pencil with which to O.K. the list.
"And two more put in application, but I didn"t put their names down, sir," Lund explained, as he stood at the side of the young captain at the desk.
"Who were they?"
"Mock and Wilhelm."
"Have they behaved themselves since they got out of arrest?"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Then we"ll let them off this afternoon," proposed Holmes amiably, as he wrote time two names down on the list. "Perhaps they"ll turn out better for a bit of considerate treatment."
Though Lund frowned as he received the list back in his own hand he made no comment.
Immediately after the noon meal Mock and Wilhelm exhibited their pa.s.ses to the guard and walked briskly out of camp.
"Look at that now---the pair of traitors!" muttered Private Riley, as he spat vengefully on the ground. "Me, I knew better than to ask for it, and me so lately out of the pen. But those bir-rds with dir-rty feathers get their chance to go off the reservation and plot more mischief."
Had Private Riley been able to follow the pair unseen he would have been even angrier. Mock and Wilhelm, stepping briskly along the road over which d.i.c.k had ridden that eventful evening, kept on for some three miles, then turned abruptly off into the forest.
For another half mile they kept on, going further and further from the road.
"Here"s the spot," said Mock, after some hunting under the trees.
"It must be the place, for it has the nail driven into the tree trunk."
"Sure, it"s the place all right," Wilhelm agreed.
Mock emitted a shrill whistle that would not, however, carry very far. Instantly there came an answering whistle.
"And here we are!" spoke up the stoop-shouldered stranger, coming out of a. jungle of bushes. "I"m glad to see that you"re on time. And to-day I hope you"ve more sand than you had that night."
"Forget it," said Mock shortly.
"You"re ready now?"
"To do anything," Mock agreed.
"Sure! He"s all right!" Private Wilhelm nodded. "I"ve attended to that."
"Come here, Carl!" called the stoop-shouldered one, in a low voice.
From another clump of bushes came another man, bearded and bespectacled. If there"s anything in a face, Carl was unmistakably German.
"Carl will tell you what to do," said time stoop-shouldered one.
"You men are in two different companies?" asked the man behind spectacles.
"I"m in B company," nodded Mock. "Wilhelm is in E company."