The Khaki Boys over the Top Part 25

Every device of refined and barbarous cruelty was practiced as well as every trick of cunning. But the three remained steadfast, and even laughed in the faces of their captors. But not a jot of vital information did they give, though they boasted in exaggerated terms of the strength of the commands to which they were attached, and told of countless armies on the way over to wipe the Huns from the face of the earth.

At last the German officer, in a burst of rage, ordered the three prisoners taken away, and this was done with great roughness. This coupled with their terrible night and the mental and physical torture inflicted at the inquisition, made the young soldiers sick at heart and body. Once more they were thrust into their horrible prison, and not until nearly noon was any food given them.

Then it was only some greasy, slimy water, probably intended for soup, together with some chunks of mouldy bread.

"But we've got to eat it, boys!" said Jimmy. "We've got to keep up our strength."

"What's the good of it!" sighed Bob, with a half cry of anguish.

"So we can escape, of course!" said Jimmy with more fierceness and energy than he really felt. "Think I'm going to stay in this hole?"

"How are you going to get out?" Roger wanted to know.

"I'll show you!" went on Jimmy, and by his strength of character, and by his forced spirits he bolstered up the courage of his companions.

They managed to choke down the food, vile as it was, and seemed to feel a little better for it.

Their miseries of the next few days I will not detail. In fact, the boys themselves could not remember all of them, horrible as they were. Again and again they were questioned, but always they remained steadfast, and gave no information that could be of any value to the Huns.

Then they were taken from their horrible prison and removed to a camp, some distance in the rear, where there were a number of other Allied captives, in as miserable a condition as that to which the three Khaki Boys were now reduced.

"Well, we've got a better chance now," said Jimmy, with an a.s.sumption of cheerfulness, when they were thrust into the barbed wire enclosure.

"A better chance for what?" asked Bob.

"To escape," was the answer, "It's a common occurrence for prisoners to get out of German prison camps, though I won't say that they all get back to their friends. Anyhow, we'll try the first chance we get."

There was one advantage of being in the prison camp, and away from the dungeon that was partly underground. The air and light were better, and the food was somewhat improved, though it was far from being good, satisfying, or even decent.

But the natural healthfulness of the boys kept them up, and they soon recovered from the slight wounds and bruises caused by the fight during which they were captured.

"Heard of any chance to escape?" asked Roger, when they had been in the camp about two weeks.

"No, though there is talk of digging under the barbed wire and a lot of the men going out," Jimmy answered. "You want to hold out and hide all the food you can. Well need it if we do get away."

His advice was followed, and, though the prisoners did not get much more than enough to keep them alive, the three boys managed to hide some sc.r.a.ps of bread and a bit of what was called "sausage," though it was made mostly from the meal of peas and beans.

As Jimmy had said, there was a plot, hatched among some of the English prisoners, to break out of the prison camp. But before there was a chance to put it into operation Fate stepped in and gave her aid--that is, it was aid for some, and death for others.

Not far from the German prison camp was a German ammunition dump, and one night there pa.s.sed over it a raiding squadron, though whether of French, American or English airmen could not be learned by our heroes.

At any rate several bombs were dropped and one, either more accurately placed than the others, or falling more luckily, fell on the dump and it went up in a terrible and fearful burst of powder and sh.e.l.l.

The concussion caused several of the prison camp buildings to collapse, and a number of Russians were killed. The barbed and charged wires about the camp were torn loose and then it was that Jimmy saw his chance--a chance taken by many of the captives.

"Come on!" he shouted to Roger and Bob, as they awoke in the darkness and confusion, hardly knowing what had happened. It seemed like the end of the world.

Out rushed the three Brothers, catching up their few belongings and the precious packets of food they had h.o.a.rded against just such a chance as this, though they had not hoped for it so soon.

The Germans were in such confusion, and such havoc had been caused among them when the ammunition dump went up, that they had no time, then, to look to their prisoners. Consequently the unfortunate men who had been kept in the horrible camp scattered to the four winds, eager to make their way back to their own lines.

Jimmy, Bob and Roger formed a little party among themselves. They had only a general notion of which direction to take, but again Fate seemed to help them, for they were not stopped all that night. They tramped on, taking the most unfrequented ways, stumbling on in the darkness and on the alert for a sight of German soldiers. But the attack of the Allied airs.h.i.+ps, and the consequent destruction of a great pile of German sh.e.l.ls, had caused such havoc back of the Hun lines that for several hours all was in confusion.

"It's getting daylight," murmured Bob, as he and his two chums were limping down a road. Limping is the correct term, for their own good army shoes had been taken from them and replaced by German apologies, with paper soles, which now were all but gone.

"What shall we do?" asked Roger.

"Keep on until we see something to stop us," advised Jimmy. "We are going toward our own lines, I think, or where our lines used to be, though there may have been a lot of changes since we were caught."

"Can't we stop and get a drink?" panted Bob. "My tongue is like a piece of that leathery stuff the Germans gave us and called meat. I've got to drink!"

It was light enough now to disclose a small stream not far away.

Looking about to make sure no Germans were in the vicinity, Jimmy led the way toward it. A drink of water and the eating of some of their scanty stock of food would put new life in them.

They reached the water safely, near a small clump of trees. They drank, and though the fluid seemed half mud never was there a sweeter draught to parched throats and dry mouths. Then, as they were about to open their rude packets of food. Bob clutched Jimmy's arm.

"Look!" he exclaimed, pointing off to the left.

"A searching party!" gasped Jimmy. Then Roger saw at what his chums were gazing--a squad of German soldiers under the command of an officer, and they were marching straight toward the clump of trees where our heroes hoped to stay and eat!

"Quick!" cried Jimmy. "Burrow down in the leaves and dirt! If they see us we'll be shot on sight as escaping prisoners! No chance for quarter! Burrow down!"

And amid the dirt and dead leaves of the little patch of woods the boys scratched shallow hiding places for themselves, stuffing their food inside their s.h.i.+rts.

They were only just in time, for no sooner were they as well covered as they could manage in the hurry than the Germans came tramping into the little grove.

However, they did not seem to be acting on any precise information, as presently, after a cursory search in the grove, they left, and the boys breathed easier again.

"Shall we chance it now?" whispered Bob to Jimmy, cautiously raising his head from the hole amid the leaves.

"Wait a bit," advised his chum. And, in ten minutes more, when it seemed that the party of Huns must be far enough away, the lads emerged.

"Close call!" murmured Bob, brus.h.i.+ng off some of the dirt. "But I guess we can eat now--such stuff as we have! Say, Roger, did you--"

He paused, to gaze in the direction where Roger was looking. And Jimmy, attracted by the att.i.tude, gazed also. And they saw a strange sight.

Marching away, for which the three Brothers felt great relief, was the searching part of Germans. But this was not at what Roger was looking.

It was the sight of a man, in a German uniform, seated on a fallen log at the edge of the clump of trees. The man was looking over some papers, and he must have been there when the searching party pa.s.sed.

Perhaps he had been with them.

"Look! Look!" murmured Roger. "It's the captain again. Captain Frank d.i.c.kerson--the officer who saved our lives at the red mill; and he's in a German uniform!"

CHAPTER XXI

BACK WITH FRIENDS