The bridge, where was it? A bewildering sweep of smoke and fitful flashes of dimly seen flame; a rending of planks and beams, many of which rose high in the air; a terrific din of crashing wood, and then, only a great gap remained.
The bridge was gone!
CHAPTER VIII
THE DANGEROUS CROSSING
The boys and the driver of the caisson cowered there and waited until the last fragment had fallen, either in the water or else ashore. They no longer had a way open for reaching the opposite bank of the stream, where possible safety awaited them.
“Oh! what did it, Thad?” broke in Bumpus, when he was able to find his tongue and lift his shrill voice to a shriek. “Could it have been a shell, do you think?”
Thad had his suspicions. He found it hard to believe that a bursting bomb would do all that damage. It might injure the bridge in one section and render it unfit for safe passage; but some unseen powerful force had apparently lifted the whole structure and scattered the remnants all around.
“No, I believe it was blown up by a planted mine!” he called out in reply to the question Bumpus had asked.
“By the French, do you mean, Thad?” demanded Giraffe, looking incredulous; “but why should they want to do that, when one of their own batteries was using the bridge to escape by?”
“I don’t know,” Thad went on to say hurriedly, as he looked around him; “like as not they had it fixed to destroy the bridge when the enemy came along, and after the battery got across the men in charge of the electric switch, hidden somewhere across there, thought the Germans must be in close pursuit, so they let her go.”
“And now we’re in a hole!” cried Bumpus, involuntarily ducking his head upon his fat shoulders as another shell burst not far distant.