"I believe our flyers got what they wanted," whispered the same
French officer to Prescott.
Five minutes later the Frenchman whispered exultingly:
"Ah, I was sure of it! Our airmen were spying for the artillery.
Now you shall see things happen."
In the air sounded a screech. Then, less than three hundred yards further down the road a French shell exploded, overturning a motor truck and killing both Germans on its seat. The truck itself was a wreck.
Crash! Another shell landed in the road, bowling over two officers at the head of a body of oncoming soldiers. The next shell landed in a mass of marching German infantry, killing and wounding several. Then, for five minutes a hurricane of shells descended on that road, wrecking trucks, killing and wounding more than a hundred men in German marching detachments, and chasing all troops from the road.
"That does not win the war!" growled the German corporal in charge of the officer-prisoners. "It is only French mischief!"
Hardly had the shell hurricane ceased when some hundred men, under guard, came marching down from the prison camp. These were halted, at the edge of the field, just behind the officers.
An hour passed before another detachment of prisoners was marched down the road and halted. Later more came. Noon had passed before the final detachment arrived.
It was wearisome, but Dick Prescott did not feel that he had wasted his time. Full of the hope of escaping, some day, he had watched covertly everything that he could see of German army life and movements behind the fighting line. Also, from several incidents that he witnessed, he gained a new idea of German military brutality.
One scene that made his blood boil was when a French officer, a wounded man, and suffering also from hunger, let himself slide to a sitting posture on the ground.