"Hola!" cried one of them in his own tongue. "You are an American?"
"Yes," Prescott admitted.
"Come and join us. We have the best bed in this camp."
"It looks as if it might be hard," smiled d.i.c.k, glancing down at the men.
"Hard, but not so bad, after all," replied the other officer.
"See, we have removed our overcoats and spread them on the ground.
And we have two blankets over us. Come under the blankets with us, and we shall all be warmer."
d.i.c.k hesitated. He wondered if he wouldn"t be crowding them out of their none too good protection against the night air.
"If you get in with us," urged the first, "it will make us all warmer."
On the face of it that looked reasonable, provided he did not crowd either out under the edge of the blankets.
"Oh, there will be plenty of room," one of them a.s.sured him.
"We can lie very close together. And you have no blanket if you sleep by yourself."
So d.i.c.k allowed himself to be persuaded. Then, to his surprise, they insisted that he get in the middle between them. This, too, he finally accepted, but repaid them in part by taking off his trench coat and spreading it over the blankets in such a way that all three gained added warmth from it.
"How long have you been here?" d.i.c.k asked.
"Two weeks," replied one of the pair. "It is a wretched life. Had I known how bad it was I would have forced my captors to kill me."
That was cheering news, indeed!
"We must sleep now," spoke the other officer. "There is little sleep be to had here in the daytime, and then we can talk."
d.i.c.k lay awake a long time. A prisoner in the hands of the Huns!
All he had heard of the wretched treatment accorded prisoners by the Germans came back to him. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was not a prisoner through any act of his own.
CHAPTER XX
ON A GERMAN PRISONER TRAIN
At last he fell asleep. When he awoke the sun was shining in his face. He was alone, for his bed-fellows of the night were already astir. They had tucked him in as warmly as possible before leaving him.
Closing his eyes, d.i.c.k slumbered again. When he next opened his eyes he sat up.
"Good morning, comrade!" called one of the two between whom he had slept.
"Ah, good morning," Prescott answered in French, and stood up.
"My, but the mattress in this bed is a beastly one."
The officer who addressed him, a young man of twenty-five or so, laughed good-humoredly.
"What time is breakfast to be had here?" d.i.c.k asked.
"I fear, comrade, that we shall not have any this morning, for the news is that we are to be entrained to-day and sent away."
"To Germany?"
"It must be. And on embarkation mornings no food is served."
"They start us away hungry?" d.i.c.k asked.
"Always, so I have been told. But you are not missing much, comrade, for you are not yet accustomed to the food the Germans feed their prisoners, and no one eats much of it until he has been hungry for a few days. Then something like an appet.i.te for the stuff comes to one."
Finding himself somewhat chilled and cramped Prescott began to go briskly through some of the Army setting-up exercises.
"That is a fine thing to warm the blood," said one of the French officers, "but I warn you that it will make you hungry."
The other French officers now came forward to make themselves known to the only American officer in this prison camp.
"We are moving to-day," said one. "Will it be better in the new prison than here, do you think?" Prescott asked.
"In some ways at least. We shall undoubtedly be housed in a wooden building, and that should be warmer at night. Besides, I hear we are permitted straw mattresses when in Germany."
"That begins to sound like luxury," laughed d.i.c.k.
"And there our friends can send us food through neutral agencies."
"Do you suppose, if they do, we shall be allowed to have some of the food?" d.i.c.k asked.
"Some of it, at least, or our friends would quickly stop sending it to us when they heard from us that we did not get it."
"It will be a dog"s life," broke in another, "even with such better treatment as may be accorded to officers."
d.i.c.k Prescott"s heart was as stout as any American"s heart could be, but as he listened to the talk of his French brothers in arms he could not help feeling glum.
For one thing, it was hardly for this that he had sailed from America to be taken at the outset and to be shut off from all service with the men of his own country!
A German under-officer who spoke French came to the wire to call out:
"You officers will march from here soon. Begin to get your packs ready. There must be no delay."
"It won"t take me long," d.i.c.k told his new friends. "When captured I had only my uniform and my pistol. The latter was taken."
He turned to, however, to help his French brothers who possessed blankets, water bottles and other small belongings, for some of them appeared almost too weak to prepare for the march.
The same order had been given to the enlisted men in the next enclosure. For a few minutes there was some bustle over getting petty belongings together and marshaling them into a pack that could be slung over the back.