For perhaps two minutes the fight continued. Then with a lightning thrust Frank's bayonet found its mark, and the German staggered for a moment, fell headlong and lay still.
His fall seemed to take the heart out of the others who were being outfought and pressed back. They wavered, broke and started to flee, but the sharp crack of the corporal's revolver brought one of them to the ground, and the others halted.
Up went their hands and from the lips of each came the cry "Kamerad!" in token of surrender.
The American boys rounded them up and disarmed them. Then the corporal took account of stock.
Bart was there panting and flushed with nothing worse than a scalp wound where a rifle butt had glanced from his head. Wilson himself was unhurt. Billy also had come through unscathed, but Tom was nowhere to be seen.
An awful fear, a fear that they had never felt in the fighting itself, clutched the hearts of his comrades. Good old Tom, bound to them by a thousand ties of friendship and comradeship—had he met his fate in this desolate stretch of No Man's Land?
Frantically they searched among the bodies for one that wore a suit similar to their own. Frank found it first. His hand went to the heart and to his joy found that it was beating.
He lifted Tom's head and rested it on his knee.
"Tom! Tom!" he called, as he chafed his chum's hands and loosened his suit at the throat.
Tom's eyes slowly opened, and, recognizing his friend, a faint smile came to his lips. But he did not speak, and Bart, who was the only other one who could be spared from guarding the prisoners, joined Frank in redoubled efforts to bring Tom back to full consciousness.