"Can't say," said Bill. "But I'm too young to lead you fellows."
"Too young!" exclaimed Nobby. "You don't 'come it' in that way, young Bill. I ain't been down 'ere these many days cookin' for our mess without learning things. My word, Larry ain't the one to talk much unless you've got 'im in a good mood—and seems to me he ain't always in a good mood—but he did talk at times, and—well—there's some of us as has heard o' that trawler. Boys, there ain't no officer 'ere; there's some of us what 'as got non-commissioned rank—but this is a fix what's likely to cost us our liberty. Who's to lead us?"
"Bill," came from many of them. "Bill," they cried.
"Sure—Bill. Didn't I tell you, boys," said Larry. "Then get in at it, youngster. What are we to do?"
"Do?—it's almost impossible to say," Bill answered them; for during the last few hours he had been hard at work considering the situation—only to meet with disappointment. How could he devise any plan when there was nothing to base his plans upon? If they stayed down in the dug-out they risked destruction and certainly imprisonment; if they went abroad, well, plans then depended entirely upon circumstances.
"Boys," he said, "I'll do what I can. Some of you fellows may be senior to me, but no matter; we're all in the show together, and if I can help, why, you can count on me. Now, as to what we're to do: I'm going aloft at once, and immediately it's dark enough I'm going to our German and I'll send him off down the lane double quick, with orders not to come back unless he wants a bullet in him. By then you chaps will have collected all the grub you've got, each one of you will have picked up his rifle, and you will see that every round of ammunition we're possessed of is carried on with you. Then we take a line that leads us west and south, and we'll make for the Somme River, for that's the direction, I think, in which our troops have retreated."
"Good for you!" said Larry.
"It sounds a likely sort of business, it do," said the big man with the hairy waistcoat—"leastways it's better'n nothing. Being cooped up here is worse than bein' blown to bits or taken prisoner out in the open. Well," he went on, swinging his arms wide, or as wide, we will say, as the dug-out permitted, and throwing his chest forward, "the open's the place for a man—eh, boys? Living down here like a rat or like a rabbit ain't what I asks for."
A glance at this gallant fellow was quite enough to show that he was an open-air man; he was indeed a typical example of your English countryman who lives the day long in the open, thrives on fresh air, and looks robust and sturdy. As to fear, he seemed to have no idea as to what it meant, and rather looked upon these new difficulties and dangers as something of a diversion. He at any rate would make a most excellent companion on the sort of adventure on which the party were now to step out. Bill glanced at him approvingly; Larry cocked an eye at this burly Englishman and smiled.
"Say, boy," he lisped, "ef you ain't just it—just the sort o' pard as Uncle Sam likes. I'm glad I've a chance of soldiering up alongside o' you. It does a man good what's come from the States, where we've been looking on at the fighting these last two or three years, to come in contact with British soldiers who've been fighting like tigers all this while. But we'll do the same, never you fear. America means business!"