“Lieutenant Oswald will get some credit now,” returned another.
“The Yankee pig ought to be shot down! What is the sense of making a prisoner of him?” cried a third. “The Americans had no business to come into this war!”
“Don’t worry, Carl—they will treat him rough enough!” exclaimed the first soldier who had spoken. Then he picked up a lump of dirt and hurled it at Dave, striking him in the leg.
“He’ll be useful to get some information from,” remarked another soldier. “A lieutenant like that ought to know a good deal.”
“I don’t believe the Americans know anything!” cried still another. “They are a lot of numskulls! They had no business to get into this war!”
After a short pause at the trenches Dave was marched to the rear, of the lines. Here, to his surprise, he was joined by two other Americans, both privates.
“Hello! where are you from?” he questioned quickly, after both of the other prisoners had saluted him and he had saluted in return.
One man, whose name was Oscar Davis, was from New York State, and the other, named Ralph Thompson, was from Massachusetts. Both were young fellows of about Dave’s age, and both were as mad as hornets because they had been captured.
“I was out in a night raid with twenty others,” explained Oscar Davis. “We got along pretty well until all of a sudden Jerry began to throw up some star shells and flaming onions. Then I and two other fellows were spotted by the Fritzies, and both of the other fellows were killed. Then something hit me in the back and knocked me over on my head, so that I was partly stunned. When I got so I could do some thinking these fellows had me and they fairly dragged me over to their trench.”
Ralph Thompson proved to be an American aviator. He had been up in a small machine doing special work when a storm had come up and one of the planes of his machine had suddenly broken. He had tried to get back behind the American lines, but the storm had been too much for him, and he had come down with a crash directly on top of one of the German dugouts. There had been a grand commotion, the Germans thinking that the dugout had been struck by a shell. He had set fire to his machine, as was the custom, but before he could make his escape had been surrounded and captured.