Stumbling and half falling, Tom and Jack were dragged along. Now and then they could see, by means of the star shells, groups of men, some near and some farther off. There was firing all along the Hun and Allied lines, 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 general engagement before it was finished.
There seemed to be fierce lighting going on between the several detached groups, and the air service boys did not doubt that some word of the dispersing and virtual defeat of the party they were with had reached their lines, resulting in the sending out of relief parties.
“This sure is tough luck!” murmured Jack to Tom, as they stumbled along in 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 struck at Tom, slightly injuring the lad and causing a hot wave of fierce resentment.
“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 arms from the hold of a Hun soldier on either side.
The officer who had struck Tom seemed about to reply, for he surged through the ranks of his men over toward the captive, but a command from some 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 along the lines now, and both armies were sending up rockets and other illuminating devices.
The two Virginia lads felt themselves being hurried forward—or back, whichever way you choose to look at it—and whither they were being taken they did not know. The taunts of their captors had ceased, though the men were talking together in low voices, and suddenly, at something one 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 by the Hun next him. Or if it was heard, no attention was paid to it, for Torn spoke in English. The tramp of the heavy boots of the Huns and the rattle of their arms and accoutrements made noise enough, perhaps, to cover the sound of his voice.