"Not much, nor Austrian, either. I studied German at school and learned enough to be able to make myself understood on the other side of the Rhine."
"Come on, Ellis," said Lieut. Osborne, rising suddenly. "We've got all we want now. I'll report to the colonel and probably in a day or two Tourtelle will hear from us again. I'm going to take this cubist souvenir with me."
In the course of the conversation he had repacked the section of tattooed skin in the salt, and as he arose to leave he put the box in one of his overcoat pockets. Irving followed him out of the building, and soon they were speeding back over the road by which they had reached the field hospital.
CHAPTER XV
IRVING AN ORDERLY
"We will go direct to Col. Evans' headquarters," Lieut. Osborne announced shortly after the return trip had been begun. "He asked me to report back to him as soon as possible."
The trip was soon made. The colonel's headquarters were less than a mile behind the rear line trenches, and the road to this point was in fairly good condition.
Irving felt a deep interest in this visit aside from the bearing it had on the matter under investigation. He had never seen a colonel's headquarters and was curious to know what appearance such a place might present.
He was not greatly surprised to find it a dugout, although he had not pictured it such in his mind. The first suggestion that had offered itself to him was that the head of the regiment probably had stationed himself in the palatial residence or chateau of some wealthy fugitive civilian. However, when the truth appeared to him with the most commonplace simplicity, he decided that it was the very thing that he ought to have expected.
The dugout was a two-room affair in the side of a hill on the outskirts of a small village. The hill was covered with fruit trees and berry vines, affording an excellent camouflage. One of the rooms was occupied by the colonel and the other by his orderlies. The walls and roof were of concrete, thick enough to resist heavy bombing from the air. Other attaches of this headquarters were housed in several homes of the otherwise deserted village.