It was one of the most rapid motion-picture affairs ever staged in real or cinematic life. What film enthusiast would not have given every other opportunity he might hope for in after years for this one?
The Yanks and the poilus poured out of those buildings like an army—at least so it must have seemed to their astonished foes. All of them were armed with rifles, most of which had been picked up on the battlefield, and were well drilled and officered, for Phil had looked after this important factor while they were in hiding.
Far more rapidly than the narrative can be told, they charged in squads, routing out stronghold after stronghold, gun nest after gun nest. The boches did not know what to make of it, and their panic grew like a prairie fire. They had no way to tell how many they had to face or from what source they had sprung. The situation was almost ghostly in its aspect of mystery. Consternation presently seized the entire enemy force in this section and the helter-skelter race that followed in a mad effort to escape from something like a phantom foe sprung suddenly out of the ground was laughable in spite of the carnage with which it was associated.
Near the end of the fight Phil found himself face to face with a ponderous antagonist whom he was not slow to recognize. He cornered the fellow in a street from which exit was blocked, or greatly impeded, by heaps of debris. Mr. Boche then turned, at bay, with clubbed gun, missed his swing, the weapon flew out of his hands and Phil had the late commander of the “underwear squad” of Belleau Wood at his mercy. It was “Mr. Boaconstrictor” of the large girth, “Count Topoff,” the so-called “general in disguise,” who wore the insignia of a Prussian second lieutenant.
“You’d better surrender,” Phil advised with a grim grin. “My bayonet maybe wouldn’t reach clear through you, and your royal family would be forever disgraced.”
Undoubtedly Phil would have succeeded in making a prisoner of his antagonist if one of those fortunes, or misfortunes, of war that always are beyond the control of even the most heroic had not intervened. A pillar-like remnant of a brick wall about fifteen feet away, probably shaken by some flying missile of the fight, toppled over, and a shower of masonry struck Phil on the head.
If it had not been for the helmet he had picked up several days before and preserved for such an occasion as this, he probably would have been seriously, if not fatally, injured. But in spite of the protection, the shock was sufficient to knock him over. Still he was not utterly incapacitated for further action, and he staggered to his feet, gripping his gun and attempting to recover his battling equilibrium.
But he was dazed, and his every effort was a wavering struggle. He saw his recent antagonist bearing down upon him and tried his best to steel himself for the meeting, but although armed and his assailant unarmed, his chances were hopeless. He was like a drunken man attempting to stab a piece of cheese with a table-fork.
“Mr. Boa,” the titled boche, brushed the bayonet aside like a reed in his path and gripped the boy’s left arm with his powerful right hand. In spite of his odd proportions, the fellow evidently had his share of physical strength. Phil tried to twist himself loose, but his efforts were of no avail. He must recover from the effects of the shock of the fallen masonry before he could hope to resist an assailant of half his ordinary strength.
“Count Topoff” held the boy with one hand, and with the other wrenched away his gun. This was rendered the more easy of performance by a feeling of nausea that seized Phil and took away most of his remaining strength.