For several days more they continued in hiding and fared pretty well meanwhile, all things considered. They managed to gather food enough, such as it was, to keep soul and body together without any “internal quarrel,” and they also gathered in a good supply of arms from the strewn battlefields of the vicinity; so that, emboldened by numbers and reports of successes of their friends on the other side of No Man’s Land, they felt like attacking a whole boche army in the rear.
Then at last came the announcement from scouts that the enemy was being driven back, slowly, it is true, but surely, and after this information reached them, it was not long before visual evidence of the retreat loomed before them over the western horizon.
This was followed by a tense waiting of several hours; then the boche soldiers began to pour into the ruined town.
“They’ll make a stand here, no doubt,” Phil remarked to several of his comrades; “and that means we’ll have to begin to get busy before very long. The Allies no doubt will train their heavy guns on this place, and we’ll get our share of the shelling. What we want to do is to spring a surprise on the enemy that will create consternation among them and make them think an attacking army has dropped out of the clouds on top of them.”
It was ticklish business, this waiting for the psychological moment which might be wiped out of future possibility almost any instant by the dropping of a few bombs that would heap masses of debris on top of them and convert their refuge into a tomb. Then suddenly Phil hit on a scheme that probably proved their salvation.
The two French scouts who had brought back information regarding the success of the Americans at Chateau Thierry were sent out again after they had volunteered for this second service planned by Sergeant Speed. How they accomplished their mission is subject almost for another book, for theirs was clever work, indeed. But they were aided materially by the confusion of the boches resulting from their recent defeat and the necessity for quick preparations for a new defense.
These two Frenchmen, Rene La Ferre and Pierre Balsot, made their way in Prussian uniforms through the newly forming enemy front and offered themselves as prisoners to a squad of Yanks who had just raided a machine-gun nest and were about to return to their own lines. They were hurried to headquarters, where they told their story. Their description of the location of the hiding place of the fugitive was so accurate that the American artillery was able to blow up the rest of the town without materially damaging the refuge of the 240 United States Marines and Frenchmen.
Still there remained a considerable force of the enemy machine gunners, riflemen and bomb throwers behind breastworks afforded by the ruins, and it was decided to dislodge these with a move planned by Phil and his comrades and communicated to the American command through the two French messengers.
After the village had been thoroughly wrecked by the artillery, the bombardment ceased and a charge on the town was made by hundreds of Marines, who ran forward in extended order to minimize the deadly effects of the sweeping machine-gun fire of the enemy. This was a signal for the escaped prisoners to dash forth from their places of concealment.