Harding allowed a wry smile to steal over his face.
“We do not,” he replied. “And the chances are that as a result of the trouble here we won’t eat at all to-day.”
Hal gazed at him in pure alarm.
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “You don’t mean to tell me they will starve us.”
“Not quite,” was the Englishman’s reply, “but I’ve gone three or four days at a time without a morsel.”
“But a man can’t work unless he eats,” declared Hal.
“Maybe not; but the Germans are not worrying about that. If we want to eat we’ve got to work and make no trouble. That’s all there is about it. Let me tell you something. I’ve seen at least twenty men carried out of here and they are not living now. They were simply starved to death. These Germans will go the limit. Don’t make any mistake about that.”
Hal turned this over in his mind.
“Well,” he said to himself at last, “we’re up against it and that’s all there is about it. I am afraid General Pershing would have done better had he entrusted his mission to other hands. We seem to have made a mess of it.”
He turned to Chester.