“Well!” roared “the count” with voluminous contempt; “I believe you’re just fool enough to think that’s the way we’re going to wake you up.”
“Isn’t it?” Phil asked, provokingly.
“No!” the boche officer bellowed, and the boy began to fear he had carried the matter too far. Perhaps even now an attack of insane violence could not be averted.
“No,” repeated “the count,” his face becoming flushed with, crimson hate; “we’re going to push you all, Americans, English, French, Belgians, into the Atlantic Ocean; then you’ll wake up.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
FROM TANK TO LIMOUSINE
The big tank was still laboring along with the retreating boche army, although no more shells were being hurled at her. The defeat and rout effected by the dash and daring of the “devil-hound” Marines had been complete and this powerful “dreadnaught,” although uninjured by the score or more of shells that struck her, evidently was unfitted to fight a finish fight with the “fleet of land cruisers” of the enemy, in the opinion of her crew.
The engine made a good deal of noise as the huge war machine “caterpillared” along, and Phil and “the count” had to lift their voices to high pitch in order to be understood during their conversation. Although the battle had resulted in disaster for the kaiser’s army, still the “titled Topoff” appeared to gloat with satisfaction over such phases of the engagement as could be shown to have an element of glory for the boches. He seemed to have no eye, ear, taste, or smell of appreciation for anything that suggested defeat for his soldier comrades.
“He’s awfully conceited, but not such a fool as I thought he was,” Phil mused during a lapse of the conversation. “That was a fairly clever joke he put over on me about the water cure, but I don’t believe he saw the joke himself. He seems to take himself seriously even when he says something funny.”
Fifteen or twenty minutes after the finish of the battle, the tank came to a standstill, and the door in the right side was opened. Topoff then ordered his prisoner to get out and followed close at his heels. Outside the tank, “the count” seized the boy’s arm with one hand and led him along—whither, Phil was curious to know.
The defeated army had retreated to a new line and dropped into a series of trenches undoubtedly occupied by them, or the French, during an earlier stage of the big boche offensive. The most feverish activity marked the scene, which extended north and south as far as eye could see and east and west for a depth of about half a mile. The country consisted of a succession of rolling hills, but Phil was able to command a good view of proceedings from the eminence on which he stood. The trenches had suffered considerably from shell explosions and rainy weather since their last condition of serviceability, and consequently there was much to do now to get them back into the most comfortable shape possible.