"Yes, captured! Better lie down in the trench till we are discovered, or else those Huns will fire into us," counselled another of the men.
"And give in like that!" shouted Jules indignantly. "Give in without trying to crawl back to our people?"
"Crawl back!" a corporal answered him hotly. "As if we shouldn't do that if it were possible. Look for yourself, man; you've eyes in your head. See the lines of Brandenburgers between us and our people!"
As a matter of fact, just at the moment when he was pointing to a thick though somewhat scattered line of grey-coated infantry which had now swept on beyond them, a gust of wind came whirling round the corner of the shattered fortress, singing and whistling over the summit, and bringing with it heavier flakes of snow which obliterated the scene about them and made vision almost impossible.
"Well, then!" added the heated Corporal. "Even snow won't help us; for we don't belong to the Flying Corps, and can't, therefore, very well ascend and drop beyond them."
"But——" exclaimed Henri, who had been using his wits and his eyes all this time, and, though bound to feel somewhat helpless, seeing the position in which he and his comrades found themselves, was yet not quite resigned to the idea of becoming a prisoner. ("Not much!" he told himself. "I've had some!—as they say in America. Ruhleben was a lesson which has taught me that the lot of a prisoner is hardly inviting.") "But——" he called out.
"But——" shouted the Corporal back at him, standing quite close to Henri, and bellowing in his ear; for, indeed, the little fellow was very excited. "But you would like to call us cowards next, because we will not charge after the Germans."
"One moment," Henri said, patting him on the shoulder, "one little moment, mon cher ami! Neither you nor I wish to be prisoners, eh?"
"Vraiment!" the little fellow answered, a trifle mollified, his anger oozing out at the tips of his fingers. "But then—— Ah! It is Henri, eh? I did not recognize you earlier. Then what do you advise, Henri—you, who have tasted prison life in Germany?"
"Yes, yes! Let Henri tell us," called a number of the others; for already our hero had won no small reputation amongst his fellows.