“Close the door!” demanded Porky.
Beany did so.
“Don’t leave me here, sir,” cried the man below suddenly. “If the Germans find that we have allowed this spot to be discovered, they will shoot me. If the enemy comes I shall be shot. I will come quietly. I am glad to surrender.”
“That’s all right,” growled Porky. “You are safe for a while. I am leaving a guard here. We want a few English-speaking prisoners, so you are quite safe for a while.”
“One of those men outside speaks English also,” cried Fritz.
“All right,” said Porky. “I advise you to keep still. Sergeant, detail a guard for this place with orders to shoot him at the first outcry.”
“Yes, sir,” said Beany. He retreated under cover of the darkness, thoughtfully going around the corner of the mound as a flare brightened the sky, and he remembered, in the nick of time, that it wouldn’t do to let the two men, carefully bound as they were, see him roaring directions at an imaginary squad. He returned in a minute and saluted, although his form was only a darker shadow in the darkness of the night.
Above, Porky closed the trap doors, and as he did so, cut the ropes by which they were opened and closed. Not even with his teeth could the trussed up prisoner below open them.
Beany had already shut the door in the side and wedged it with a broken piece of gun-carriage.
“Come with me, Sergeant,” said Porky, for the benefit of the English-speaking prisoner. “Vorwarts!”