“Did I hear what?” asked Jack.
“What that chap said. It was something about one of the German prison camps having been burned by the prisoners, a lot of whom got away. The rest 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 enough of German to know what was being said, for it was then and there that they got a clew to the whereabouts of Harry Leroy, from whom they had heard 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 their chum.
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 learned later, the prisoners, unable to stand the terrible treatment, had risen and set fire to the place. Many of them perished in the blaze and by the fire of German rifles. The others were transferred to a camp nearer the battle line as a punishment, it being argued, perhaps, that they might be killed by the fire of the guns of their own side.
“And there are some airmen, too, in the new prison camp,” said one of the Germans. “Our infantrymen claimed them as their meat, though our airmen brought them down. But there was no room for them in the prison camp with the other captured aviators, so The Butcher has them in his charge.”
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 charge of this prison camp.
Then there came to Tom and Jack in the darkness a curious piece of information, dropped by casual talk of the Huns. One of them said to another:
“One of the transferred airmen tried to bribe me to-day.”
“To bribe you? How and for what?”