"Sure!" grunted Larry, "but you hold yer jaw, young Bill!" he added, sotto voce. "This German chap speaks English, don't you forget it. Perhaps he's been a waiter—most of 'em seem to have been that—and has made a small fortune out of your people or out of mine. That's why he hates us, perhaps; for see how he scowls at us. But escape, boy? Sure we will—eh, Jim?"
Jim merely glanced at them, but as he did so his eyes flashed an answer which there was no mistaking, and he nodded.
"March! No talking! I'll bayonet the man who speaks! Fall in, you dogs! Listen to me. We've broken the British line; we've separated the French and the English. We're marching to Paris. We shall soon have conquered both England and France, and then America shall feel the weight of our blows. Ha, America!"
The German swung round upon the diminutive Larry, and, stepping a pace nearer, stood over him as if he would trample upon him and crush him. Whereat Larry, no doubt unconsciously, felt for his cigar end, and, discovering it had gone, merely stood staring up at this giant, this bully.
"Say, mister!" he said in gentle tones, "you ain't got no call to try and skeere me—I ain't the American army. You won't find the American army and our boys so jolly small as I am. You wait! Marching on Paris, eh? Waal, you ain't there yet, I'll bet. As for whoppin' the British——waal! My! I've seen something of them fellows, and they'll take some whopping! And then you'll beat the Americans. Oh ho, you will! Waal, that too'll want a bit o' doin'."
The man scowled down at him, and, gripping his rifle, lifted it up above his head as if he would dash the butt against Larry's face. Then he thought better of the matter, lowered it, and, finally turning on his heel, marched away. Who knows? The very mildness of Larry's appearance, the gentleness of his voice, may have taken the man by surprise. Or was it that in that gentle and diminutive exterior he had seen something, perceived something hidden before, had grasped some idea, as it were, of the indomitable courage of this gallant American? Yes, it must have been that. Those who looked into Larry's eyes under similar circumstances saw a glimmer there of warning. This was the little man who in the mines was feared by evil-doers. Even as a prisoner he was not to be derided. In point of fact, that swinging butt had caused him to brace every muscle and every sinew. Unknown to the German, unsuspected by his comrades, he was on the point of springing at the man's throat, when luckily the bully turned abruptly.
"I'll know him next time," said Larry in the same gentle tone. "Things then may be a bit more even. Suppose now he's got a gun, and I too. Waal, boys, guess I'll do more than stand still and talk to him."
Nobby's big broad fingers were stretched out, and gripped the frail shoulders of the American. Nobby, broad-shouldered, powerfully built, and perhaps a little obtuse and dull of understanding, could yet realize what had passed in those last few moments. Long since this he had developed an enormous admiration for Larry and his other American comrades, for Bill, too, let us say, and none the less for his British comrades. Larry was such a queer fellow; so calm, so deliberate, so full of pluck and spirit, and yet so fragile in appearance.
"Say, Larry," he gulped, mimicking the American's drawl, "you do get me. Blest if I can understand a chap like you. Now if I was to take you by this same shoulder, I could shake yer as a dog does a rat, and blest if I don't think you look as though you'd fall to pieces. But when you gets a squint at me, I knows that, like the rat, you'd turn and get yer teeth into me, and then it'ud be a fight to the death. Blimey! I'm glad I ain't that German, because some day you'll meet him, that's certain, and then—— Well, as I said, I'm real sorry for 'im!"
"March!" They were hurried out of the barbed-wire entanglements, and presently joined another column of unfortunate prisoners. A few hours later they reached the railway station at Péronne, where they were driven into cattle trucks preparatory to the journey into Germany. That night the train pulled out of the station and lay in a siding. Far off, very far off indeed, they heard the sounds of strife. British guns, American guns, French guns, in the far distance, defending the Allied line against the German rush. Then they lost these sounds as the train which carried them steamed out on its journey.