TOM USES HIS FIRST BULLET
It had been a pet saying of Tom's scoutmaster back in America that you should wait long enough to make up your mind and not one second longer.
Tom knew that the pressure of liquid above that fatal bullet hole near the bottom of the hogshead was great enough to send the poison fairly pouring out. He could not see this death-dealing stream, for it was hidden in the bush, but he knew that it would continue to pour forth until several of these great receptacles had been emptied and the running brook with its refreshing coolness had become an instrument of frightful death.
Safe behind the protecting bulk of the hogshead crouched the two surviving Germans, while Roscoe, covering the spot, kept his eyes riveted upon it for the first rash move of either of the pair. And meanwhile the poison poured out of the very bulwark that shielded them and into the swift-running stream.
"I don't think they've got us spotted," Tom whispered, moving cautiously toward the trunk of the tree; "the private had a rifle, didn't he?"
"What are you going to do?" Roscoe breathed.
"Stop up that hole. Give me a bullet, will you?"
"You're taking a big chance, Tom."
"I ain't thinking about that. Give me a bullet. All you got to do is keep those two covered."
With a silent dexterity which seemed singularly out of keeping with his rather heavy build, Tom shinnied down the side of the tree farthest from the brook, and lying almost prone upon the ground began wriggling his way through the sparse brush, quickening his progress now and again whenever the diverting roar of distant artillery or the closer report of rifles and machine guns enabled him to advance with less caution.
In a few minutes he reached the stream, apparently undiscovered, when suddenly he was startled by another rifle report, close at hand, and he lay flat, breathing in suspense.
It was simply that one of that pair had made the mistake so often made in the trenches of raising his head, and had paid the penalty.
Tom was just cautiously crossing the brook when he became aware of a frantic scramble in the bush and saw the German private rushing pell-mell through the thick undergrowth beyond, hiding himself in it as best he might and apparently trying to keep the bush-enshrouded hogshead between himself and the tree where the sniper was. Evidently he had discovered Roscoe's perch and, there being now no restraining authority, had decided on flight. It had been the officer's battle, not his, and he abandoned it as soon as the officer was shot. It was typical of the German system and of the total lack of individual spirit and resource of the poor wretches who fight for Kaiser Bill's glory.
Reaching the bush, Tom pulled away the leafy covering and saw that the poisonous liquid was pouring out of a clean bullet hole as he had suspected. He hurriedly wrapped a bit of the gauze bandage which he always carried around the bullet Roscoe had given him and forced it into the hole, wedging it tight with a rock. Then he waved his hand in the direction of the tree to let Roscoe know that all was well.
Tom Slade had used his first bullet and it had saved hundreds of lives.
"They're both dead," he said, as Roscoe came quickly through the underbrush in the gathering dusk. "Did the officer put his head up?"
"Mm-mm," said Roscoe, examining the two victims.
"You always kill, don't you?" said Tom.
"I have to, Tommy. You see, I'm all alone, mostly," Roscoe added as he fumbled in the dead officer's clothing. "There are no surgeons or nurses in reach. I don't have stretcher-bearers following me around and it isn't often that even a Hun will surrender, fair and square, to one man. I've seen too much of this 'kamarad' business. I can't afford to take chances, Tommy. But I don't put nicks in my rifle butt like some of them do. I don't want to know how many I beaned after it's all over. We kill to save—that's the idea you want to get into your head, Tommy boy."
"I know it," said Tom.
The officer had no papers of any importance and since it was getting dark and Tom must report at headquarters, they discussed the possibility of upsetting these murderous hogsheads, and putting an end to the danger. Evidently the woods were not yet wholly cleared of the enemy who might still seek to make use of these agents of destruction.
"There may be stragglers in the woods even to-morrow," Roscoe said.
"S'pose we dig a little trench running away from the brook and then turn on the cock and let the stuff flow off?" suggested Tom.
The idea seemed a good one and they fell to, hewing out a ditch with a couple of sticks. It was a very crude piece of engineering, as Roscoe observed, and they were embarrassed in their work by the gathering darkness, but at length they succeeded, by dint of jabbing and plowing and lifting the earth out in handfuls, in excavating a little gully through the rising bank so that the liquid would flow off and down the rocky decline beyond at a safe distance from the stream.
For upwards of an hour they remained close by, until the hogsheads had run dry, and then they set out through the woods for the captured village.