CAPTURED
AS the three lads, hoping for a snatch of sleep before the orders came
for a renewal of the battle, settled into their blankets in a dug-out
which only forty-eight hours before had been occupied by Germans who
held forth there in that sublime assurance born of four years of
uninterrupted and practically unchallenged possession, Ollie Ogden
chuckled audibly.
“What’s the matter now?” demanded George Harper, none too graciously,
for already he had drowsed, and the injection of humor, particularly
when the cause was unknown, was not altogether pleasant.
Tom, too, looked sharply at his friend, but with other reason. For an
instant he feared that the low laugh was the first hysteria which is the
forerunner of one phase of shell shock—that dreaded punishment when taut
nerves break, the mind snaps, and a strong man temporarily is
transformed into a cowering, jabbering, pitiful hulk of his former self,
actuated by one thought, escape from the thing that caused his mental
wreck.
But Tom’s one quick glance was sufficient to assure him. To be sure
Ollie showed the same evidences of fatigue as did the others; but all
three had built up for themselves, in the sports and athletics at
Brighton, constitutions which it would require far more than their
experiences of the last twenty-four hours to break, harrowing as those
experiences had been, and Ollie was only giving vent to amusement at a
sudden thought that had flashed through his mind.
“What are you giggling at?” Harper demanded again, now only half awake.
“Remember that relay race at Brighton,” Ollie answered, “when you, Tom,
ran the first mile, George the second, and I was to finish with the
third?”
“Aw, can’t you ever forget that?” Harper interrupted, peevishly. “What’s
the idea of rehashing that thing again?” he added, suddenly forgetting
his sleepiness.
“I’m not rehashing it,” Ollie assured him, in soothing tones. “I was
just thinking about it, that was all.”
“Well, what’s that got to do with us and this war?” George demanded,
showing no disposition to abandon the subject which always was an
unpleasant one to him.
“Oh, it just occurred to me that it was somewhat of a parallel case in a
way.”
“What way?”
Tom also was evidencing an awakened interest, and cast another inquiring
glance at Ollie.
“I’ll tell you,” the latter answered, at the same time giving Tom a sly
wink which entirely escaped the other youth, who at that time with
belligerent movements was disentangling himself from his blanket, in
order to get into a sitting posture.
“Well tell us,” he snapped. “You might as well get it off your mind.”
“Now don’t get so peeved,” Ollie soothed again. “It’s nothing to get so
excited about.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” from Harper again. “Nothing to get excited
about, of course. Well, are you going to tell us what you were grinning
and sputtering about a moment ago?”
“Sure,” Ollie answered, “if you’ll just give me half a chance.”
“Go ahead, I’m not interrupting you.”
“You remember, Tom,” again giving him the wink, “that you got so far
ahead of the others that you had the race practically won at the end of
the first mile, when you touched George’s hand, and he was off, to
maintain that lead to the end of the second mile, when I was waiting to
finish up?”
“Yes,” Tom drawled, trying vainly to suppress a smile, while George
squirmed uneasily and had to interrupt with, “You always have to review
the whole thing, don’t you?”
As George seemed about to break forth with another impatient
interruption, Ollie turned to Tom again with another grimace. “It wasn’t
George’s fault that he started across country in the wrong direction,”
he went on. “We all know he didn’t do that on purpose. He ran like the
wind, all right, but it just happened that he ran the wrong way.”
There was a distinctly audible grunt of disgust from Harper.
“Yes, I remember,” Tom responded in tone so obviously sympathetic as
merely to aggravate the victim of the story further.
“Well, as I stood there with the relay men of the other teams,” Ollie
continued, “and as one after another they were touched off and were
away, I kept wondering and wondering what in the world could have
happened to Harper, and—”
“You’ve said all that at least a dozen times before,” the latter
interjected again. “What’s the idea of—”
“And finally the last man was away, and still I stood there, just
wondering and wondering—”
“And wondering, like a blamed idiot,” Harper shot out again, in deep
disgust.
Ollie went on as though there had not been an interruption to his
reminiscence.
“At last I gave up in despair and trudged back to Brighton. Remember,”
to Tom, “the race was over before George ever stopped. Didn’t even
hesitate until he’d reeled off about five miles, and then it took him an
hour to get back, after he’d realized he was away up the county and far
off the course of the race. Well, I just recalled how I felt, when I was
waiting there for something to happen, and nothing did. I was thinking
that those Germans, waiting for that mine to explode and send us all
into Eternity, must have felt somewhat the same way as I did.”
“Huh!” George Harper grunted, in deep disgust. But Tom and Ollie burst
into laughter which was none the less uproarious if suppressed by the
necessities of their present situation; and their merriment was not so
much at the predicament of the Germans, if the truth be told, as in the
mischievous delight they took in the increased misery with which Harper
heard this oft’ repeated tale of his mistake in that Brighton relay
race.
“Think you’re smart Alecks, both of you, don’t you?” Harper growled,
from the depths of his blanket, while distinct gasps of amusement
continued to come from Tom and Ollie as they wrapped themselves in
theirs; but a few moments later all three were sleeping as soundly and
as peacefully as though nothing more serious than the story just told
had disturbed the quiet routine and happiness of their lives.
And thus, too dog-tired even for dreams, as oblivious to all that was
going on about them as they were themselves for the time completely
forgotten by the officers and men of their own company, they slept on
and on, hour after hour, unmindful and unknowing that overhead—above the
dark and hidden hole in which they lay unheeded—their own advance army
had moved out, and entirely vanished in pursuit of the enemy; the whole
American movement pushing forward, circling about them, leaving them
alone, forgotten, abandoned.
The afternoon was well on the wane when Tom Walton, falling into a dream
of that foot race which had been the subject of their conversation just
before they slumbered off, awoke panting and as breathless as though in
fact he had just run a mile in record-breaking time.
For a moment he looked about the dark cavern dazedly, unable to remember
where he was or why he was there. Then slowly it began to dawn upon him
that he had been asleep for a long time, and he rose hurriedly, throwing
his blanket aside and hurrying up the short ladder to the outside world
above.
What he saw almost took his breath away. The thousands of men who had
been there when he and his two companions turned in for their
much-needed sleep were nowhere to be seen. The land all about was a
shell-torn desolation. Here and there lay corpses as grim reminders of
the awful struggle which had marked the taking of what once had been the
town of Thiaucourt; but so far as Tom could see there was not a sign of
life anywhere—except that which was betokened in the dull booming of
guns far, far to the northward.
Shouting to awaken George and Ollie, he descended part way into the
dug-out.
“Up, slackers!” he called, still rubbing the sleep out of his own eyes,
scarcely able as yet to fully comprehend the truth of the situation.
As the other two lads raised tousled heads inquiringly out of the warm
depths of their blankets, peering at him blankly as exhausted persons do
in that first instant of suddenly being brought back to wakefulness, Tom
was up and out of the dug-out again, taking a second survey of the
scene, reviewing the events which had preceded their turning in, casting
about in his still muddled mind for some explanation of the surprising
situation he found himself and his friends in.
What had happened? Why hadn’t they been summoned to join their company
whenever and wherever it went? A score of such questions chased each
other through his mind, to be capped with the utterly disconcerting
one—which way had the American army gone? Had it advanced, even beyond
sight and sound, or had it—had it been compelled to retire?
For an instant Tom shivered as though he suddenly had been struck by a
chilling wind, but in another he had regained his assurance and
confidence, for did not the booming of the guns to the north indicate
beyond question that there the battle raged anew—that in the quick
advance they had been forgotten and left there to sleep away their
fatigue?
Of course! And thus Tom quickly summed up the situation for his two
surprised friends when they emerged from the dug-out to demand excitedly
the whys and the wherefores of their sudden awakening.
“Apparently the whole army that was in this section has gone ahead for
two or three miles,” Tom told them briefly. “We were overlooked, which
is a good warning that we should not place too great a value upon
ourselves, or overestimate our own importance.”
“But when,” demanded George Harper, excitedly, “when did all this
happen? I didn’t hear anything.”
“Nor I,” added Ollie, not without a sense of humor, even in the most
trying situation, “and yet the evidence is pretty conclusive. Apparently
it did happen, and right effectively, too.”
“Yes,” Harper admitted slowly, and then added: “I wonder whether we’d be
classed as deserters or deserted?”
“I feel like I did the day of that race, when I—” Ollie began, but the
rest was lost as he dodged suddenly to escape a well-aimed kick from the
irritated Harper.
It required Tom’s diplomacy to restore peace and calm consideration of
what they were to do in the situation confronting them.
“Only one thing to it, as I see it,” said George Harper at last, “and
that is to head out toward the sound of those guns and just keep on
until we come up with some of our own men.”
“Yes, just keep on going, that’s you,” Ollie answered, his mischievous
nature again cropping out. “But how about your sense of direction?”
A tart reply which Harper already had phrased upon his lips remained
unsaid as he abruptly pointed upward to where a big aeroplane was
approaching them from out of the north. They stood silent as it came
swiftly and majestically down the wind toward them.
“An American,” Tom announced at last, when able to make out the markings
on the machine. “Wish he’d come down and give us our bearings.”
“Seems as if he was thinking of that himself,” said Ollie, as the ’plane
nosed downward in its approach. “Maybe he’s got some engine trouble and
is going to make a landing.”
“Changed his mind,” Harper remarked, as the machine passed over them,
took an upward tack again, then at a higher altitude began circling
about them. “Looks as though he was sort of sizing us up. Tom, why not
signal him?”
Acting upon the suggestion, Tom, who was the only one of the three who
could talk in the arm signalling code, began to reveal their identity,
while if the maneuvers of the aeroplane were significant, those in it
looked on with interest.
“Americans seeking our own lines,” Tom spelled out with quick upward and
outward jerks and sweeps of both arms.
The three youths waited for something that might be taken as an
acknowledgment or reply, but none came, or, if it did, they were too far
away to see it; and a moment later the machine swept to the eastward,
swooped down so close to the ground that for a time it was completely
lost to sight behind a nearby wood, then rose again and taking a wide
swerve east and north finally disappeared entirely.
“He’s polite, anyway, whoever he is,” Ollie commented as they gave up
hope of the pilot having any intention of returning to them. “He might
at least have dropped us a biscuit or two.”
“Which reminds me that I’m pretty hungry myself,” admitted Tom Walton.
“Ravenous, better describes my awful emptiness,” said Harper, “and I
don’t see any hope of eats around here. Let’s get started.”
They descended together into the dug-out to roll their blankets and get
their equipment, but they were not to move on just then with the freedom
they had expected.
The aeroplane, camouflaged as an American machine, had done some
signalling, too, but not to the boys from Brighton. Its mission in
descending almost to earth behind the wood had been to make the presence
of the Americans known to a small detachment of Germans which somehow
had escaped detection in remaining there, and which had been waiting for
darkness to fall, in order to make an effort to skirt the long American
lines and join their own, further on.
And while Sergeant Tom Walton and Privates Ollie Ogden and George Harper
were down in the dug-out, totally ignorant of what was going on above,
half a dozen of these Germans had crept up and concealed themselves in
positions most advantageous to the capture of the Americans.
The three youths had not moved fifty feet from the dug-out when without
the slightest warning, or time in which to fight back, they found
themselves entirely surrounded, a bayonet point jabbing the stomach and
back of each of them.
There was absolutely nothing they could do but surrender, and this they
did at the command of the officer in charge,—a lieutenant of cavalry, as
the lads noted from his uniform and insignia.
“A fine mess we’re in now,” Tom ejaculated, as their guns were taken
from them and they were instructed to march ahead of their captors.
“Wonder where we’re bound for?” Ollie whispered in reply.
“Some place where they’ve got some eats, I hope,” George Harper summed
up, and as the first shadows of night began to fall they were herded
into the Germans’ hiding place, where they found a dozen more Huns.
Preparations of some sort were going forward, but to the extreme
disappointment of the famished youths it was apparent that it was not
for the serving of food. And it was not long before they became aware
that they were in for what looked like a long and fatiguing march,
although they had not eaten for many hours.
“Well,” said Ollie, when that matter seemed settled beyond all hope or
doubt, “we ought to be glad they didn’t shoot us, anyway.”
The sharp glance of a German near them was sufficient to warn them
against any further conversation.
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