But the corporal stopped him instantly. "Don't dig them out!" he cried. "There's no knowing but what you may cause an explosion. Or they may have some electric connection that will give warning to the Boches. We've spotted the location of this infernal trap and that's enough. Our officers will see that our men steer clear of it."
"Of course," remarked Bart, "all the value to the Huns of this trap depends upon our boys jumping in from the top of the trench. If they came in from the entrance to the dugout, all the trouble of planting these spikes would be thrown away."
"It would be a trap just the same, only in a different way," replied the corporal. "It's a safe bet that the Germans have machine guns planted where they can sweep the whole length of this part of the trench. They'd wait until our boys were all crowded in here and then the machine guns would start spitting and wipe every last one of them out. There'd be no way to get put except the way they had come in, and no one could get through that storm of bullets. But now let's get out of this while the going's good."
The conversation had been carried on in the faintest whispers, and after the first hurried examination of the dummy trench there had been no light. But they all felt better when they had passed out of the trench without mishap and lay on the ground above. Here they were at least in the open, and if death came to them they would not be slaughtered like rats in a trap.
The corporal consulted his radio watch and found that it wanted but two hours to dawn.
"Not much time left, boys," he murmured. "And unless we get back to our lines before daylight, we'll stand a good chance of losing the number of our mess. But if we don't do anything else, we've done a pretty fair night's work. The finding of this dummy trench will put a crimp in the Heinies' plans. I'd like to have some prisoners to take along just for luck but all we've bagged is that sentry."
"Perhaps we haven't even got him," suggested Frank. "Some of his comrades may have found him by this time."
"Not likely," replied Bart. "He couldn't make a noise, and as we left him outside the wire they wouldn't be likely to stumble over him."
"All the same, we'd better get a hustle on," replied the corporal, and they started on their homeward journey as stealthily as they had come.
They had some difficulty in finding the breach in the wire through which they had entered, but at last they succeeded and wormed their way out. Then they felt around for the sentry and found him in the place they had left him. He had returned to consciousness, for when the corporal risked a ray of his flashlight on the upturned face, they could see that his eyes were open and looking at them intelligently.