Air Service Boys in the Big Battle; Or, Silencing the Big Guns

by E. J. Craine

  CHAPTER XXI. THE CLEW

  For one wild instant Tom and Jack, as they admitted to one anotherafterward, felt an insane desire to attempt to break away from theircaptors, to rush at them, to attack if need be with their bare hands,and so invite death in its quickest form. They even hoped that theymight escape this way rather than live to be taken behind the Germanlines.

  It was not only the disgrace of being captured--which really was nodisgrace considering the overwhelming numbers that attacked them--t itwas the fear of what they might have to suffer as prisoners.

  Tom and Jack, as well as the others, might well regard with horror thefate that lay before them. But to escape by even a desperate strugglewas out of the question. They were surrounded by a ring of Germans,several files deep, and each was heavily armed. Then, too, their captorswere fairly rushing them along over the uneven ground as though fearfulof pursuit. The air service boys had no chance, nor did any of theircomrades of the patrol who might be left alive. How many these were, Tomand Jack had no means of knowing. They did not see any of their comradesnear them. There were only the Huns who were bubbling over with coarsejoy in the delight of having captured two "American pigs," as theybrutally boasted.

  Stumbling and half falling, Tom and Jack were dragged along. Now andthen they could see, by means of the star shells, groups of men, somenear and some farther off. There was firing all along the Hun and Alliedlines, and as the boys were dragged along the big guns began to thunder.What had started as an ordinary night raid might end in a generalengagement before it was finished.

  There seemed to be fierce lighting going on between the several detachedgroups, and the air service boys did not doubt that some word of thedispersing and virtual defeat of the party they were with had reachedtheir lines, resulting in the sending out of relief parties.

  "This sure is tough luck!" murmured Jack to Tom, as they stumbled alongin the midst of their captors.

  "You said it! If our boys would only rush this bunch and get us away."

  "Silence, pigs!" cried a German officer, and with his sword he struckat Tom, slightly injuring the lad and causing a hot wave of fierceresentment.

  "You wouldn't dare do that if I had my hands free, you dirty dog!"rasped out Tom in fairly good German, and he tugged to free his armsfrom the hold of a Hun soldier on either side.

  The officer who had struck Tom seemed about to reply, for he surgedthrough the ranks of his men over toward the captive, but a command fromsome one, evidently higher in authority halted him, and he marched on,muttering.

  There was sharp fighting between the Hun sentries and small parties,and similar bodies from the American and Allied sides going on alongthe lines now, and both armies were sending up rockets and otherilluminating devices.

  The two Virginia lads felt themselves being hurried forward--or back,whichever way you choose to look at it--and whither they were beingtaken they did not know. The taunts of their captors had ceased, thoughthe men were talking together in low voices, and suddenly, at somethingone of them said, Tom nudged Jack, beside whom he was walking.

  "Did you hear that?" he asked in so low a voice that it was not heard bythe Hun next him. Or if it was heard, no attention was paid to it, forTorn spoke in English. The tramp of the heavy boots of the Huns and therattle of their arms and accoutrements made noise enough, perhaps, tocover the sound of his voice.

  "Did I hear what?" asked Jack.

  "What that chap said. It was something about one of the German prisoncamps having been burned by the prisoners, a lot of whom got away. Therest were transferred to a place not far from here. Listen!"

  And the Americans listened to the extent of their ability.

  Then it was they blessed their lucky stars that they understood enoughof German to know what was being said, for it was then and there thatthey got a clew to the whereabouts of Harry Leroy, from whom they hadheard not a word since the dropping of his glove by the German aviator.They did not even know whether or not their packages had reached theirchum.

  The talk of the Germans who had captured Tom and Jack was, indeed,concerning the burning of one of the prison camps. As the boys learnedlater, the prisoners, unable to stand the terrible treatment, had risenand set fire to the place. Many of them perished in the blaze and by thefire of German rifles. The others were transferred to a camp nearer thebattle line as a punishment, it being argued, perhaps, that they mightbe killed by the fire of the guns of their own side.

  "And there are some airmen, too, in the new prison camp," said one ofthe Germans. "Our infantrymen claimed them as their meat, though ourairmen brought them down. But there was no room for them in the prisoncamp with the other captured aviators, so The Butcher has them in hischarge."

  Tom and Jack learned later that "The Butcher" was the title bestowed,even by his own men, on a certain brutal German colonel who had chargeof this prison camp.

  Then there came to Tom and Jack in the darkness a curious piece ofinformation, dropped by casual talk of the Huns. One of them said toanother:

  "One of the transferred airmen tried to bribe me to-day."

  "To bribe you? How and for what?"

  "He is an accursed American pig, and when he heard we were opposite someof them, he wanted me to throw a note from him over into the Americanlines. He said I would be well paid, and he offered me a piece of goldhe had hidden in the sole of his shoe."

  "Did you take it?"

  "The gold? Of course I did! But I tore up the note he gave me to tossinto the American lines. First I looked at it, though. It was signedwith a French name, though the prisoner claimed to be from the UnitedStates. It was the name Leroy which means, I have been told, the king.Ha! I have his gold, and the note is scattered over No Man's Land! ButI will tell him I sent it into the trenches of his friends. He may havemore notes and gold!" and the brute chuckled.

  Tom and Jack, looked at one another in the darkness. Could it bepossible that it was their friend Harry Leroy who was so near to them,since he had been transferred from a camp far behind the lines?

  It seemed so. There were not many American airmen captured, and therecould hardly be two of this same rather odd name.

  "It must be Harry," murmured Tom.

  "I think so," agreed Jack.

  "Silence, American pigs!" commanded man officer.

  He raised his sword to strike the lad. But just then occurred aninterruption so tremendous that all thought of punishing prisoners whodared to speak was forgotten.

  A big shell rose screaming and moaning from the Allied lines and landednot far from the party of Germans which was leading along Tom and Jack.It burst with a tremendous noise well inside the Hug defenses, and thiswas followed by a terrific explosion. As the boys learned later theshell had landed in the midst of a concealed battery--a stroke of luck,and not due to any good aiming on the part of the American gunner--andthe supply of ammunition had gone up.

  There was great commotion behind the German lines, and two or three ofTom's and Jack's captors were thrown down by the concussion. The airservice boys themselves were stunned.

  And then there suddenly sounded a ringing American cheer, while a voice,coming from a group of soldiers that confronted the German patrol,cried:

  "Halt! Who's there? Are there any of Uncle Sam's boys?"

  "Yes! Yes!" eagerly cried Tom and Jack. "Come on! We're captured by theGermans!"

  There was another cheer, followed by a roar of rage, and then came arush of feet. Gleaming bayonets glistened in the light of star shellsand many guns, and the members of the German patrol, finding themselvessurrounded, threw down their arms and cried:

  "Kamerad!"

  The fortunes of war had unexpectedly turned, and Tom and Jack had beenrescued and saved by a party of Pershing's gallant boys.