"We might be able to get him mad enough to make him talk," returned Hal.
"By Jove! so we might," said Chester. "We'll have a try at it to-morrow if it's necessary."
"All right. Then let's turn in. I've a feeling it's going to be a strenuous day to-morrow."
And it was; though not strenuous in the way Hal had expected.
CHAPTER VI
A PERILOUS SITUATION
Hal and Chester held no conversation with Anthony Stubbs the following day, and therefore were unable to learn more than they already knew of the war correspondent's great "story."
Before they rose Stubbs was up and gone, and when he returned, several hours later, Hal and Chester were receiving orders from General Petain.
The German advance had continued the day before in spite of the heroic stand of the French troops. Successive charges by the Teuton hordes had driven the defenders back along practically the entire front. Here, with the coming of night, they had taken a brace with the arrival of reinforcements and had stemmed the tide; but not a man failed to realize that there would be more desperate work on the morrow.
The French lines now had been pushed back well to the west of the city of Verdun itself and the civil population of the town had fled. The town had been swept by the great German guns until hardly one stone remained upon another. North of the city, the French had been bent back as the Germans thrust a wedge into the defending lines almost to the foot of Dead Man's Hill.