Phil saw his opportunity. Every one of the boches had dropped his gun in order the better to pet his smarting wounds. The boy, protected by the hole of the large tree which he was endeavoring to keep between himself and the enemy’s bullets, had not been touched by even the smallest of the flying stones, sticks, bits of earth or pieces of shell. Springing out from behind the tree he ran toward the panic-stricken sextette, with rifle ready to be brought to his shoulder at a moment’s warning.
“Halt!” he cried; “Halt, or I’ll shoot!”
CHAPTER IX
KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL!
Whether or not the boches could understand this much, or this little, English was a matter of no importance. They evidently knew what the Marine in khaki meant, and they obeyed, several of them yelling “Kamerad!” in tones of panic.
Phil had not forgotten all his school German vocabulary. The next order that left his lips slipped out with very good Prussian accent:
“Kom her! Hande ueber Kopf.”
The now timid Teutons advanced with hands over their heads toward their youthful captor, in strict obedience to the order.
Phil was relieved that his prisoners did not laugh at his German. They came forward with all due respect for the order given—or was it for the bullets in the boy’s gun? He did not know. Under ordinary civil circumstances he would have hesitated to engage in conversation with a German in the latter’s native tongue for fear lest he show his ignorance of the idioms of the language. “Hande ueber Kopf” was a literal translation of “hands over (your) head.” It might be very good German, and then again it might be very poor.
Relieved at the failure of his prisoners to give him the laugh, he decided to continue to give orders in their language whenever he could recall words that seemed to carry the intended meaning. But he found it difficult sometimes to keep from laughing at himself, for he knew unmistakably that some of the German he was using was at least unique. Still his prisoners regarded him with profound respect—or, again, was it the bullets in his gun?
Phil was puzzled what to do with his prisoners, whose condition of captivity was, after all, rather uncertain. He dared not take his eyes off them for a moment. Possibly some or all of them carried small firearms, which they would bring into action at a moment’s opportunity. The boy dared not attempt to search them, nor dared he attempt to march them back through the woods toward the American rear line. They were almost certain, if they carried such weapons, to find an opportunity, by springing behind large trees, to whip out their pistols and turn the tables on him.