So with body tired after his strenuous exertions, but with his mind as much at rest as it could be under the circumstances, Tom threw himself down at last to take a brief rest under the shadow of a giant beech.
The sun streaming through the branches woke him a little later. For a moment he did not know where he was and lay trying to get his thoughts in order. Then it all came back to him with a rush and he sprang to his feet and looked about him.
There was nothing in sight to alarm him. The place seemed to be wild and unvisited. A squirrel sat in the boughs over his head chattering his surprise and perhaps his displeasure at the sight of the intruder. A chipmunk slipped along a grassy ridge and vanished in the undergrowth. Birds sang their welcome to a new day. Everything about him spoke of peace and serenity. It seemed as though there were no such thing as war in the world.
Yet even while this thought lingered with him there came a discordant note in the booming of a distant gun. But it seemed far off and though other guns soon swelled the menacing chorus there seemed to be no immediate cause for alarm.
A little way off from where he had slept, a small brook wound its way through the sedge grass. Tom welcomed it with a grin, for he had not had a bath since he had been captured.
In a moment he had undressed and plunged into the brook. The water was scarcely deeper than his waist, but its coolness was like balm to Tom's bruised and heated body. When he resumed his clothing he felt infinitely strengthened and refreshed.
The young soldier worked his way into a dense thicket as a measure of precaution, before he ate the remnants of food that he had carried away with him the night before. It was a meager breakfast and he could have eaten four times as much if he had had it. But even crumbs were grateful to him in his famished condition.
He had just finished when an ominous sound fell on his ears. Voices mingled with the tread of feet and the clank of weapons. He looked through the bushes and saw a squad of soldiers wearing helmets coming over a little rise of ground beyond where he lay concealed.
He counted them as they came into view. There were at least forty Germans going along in loose marching order. They might have been a patrol out for scout duty or, what was more likely, a foraging party.
He had scarcely established their numbers when on the other side of the thicket and not more than fifty feet away another squad of Germans came into view. They apparently belonged to the same party, but had separated somewhat from the others, probably for more ease in marching.