"I'm glad that motorcycle carried double," replied Bart. "I'd have been cheated out of a lot of lovely fighting if it hadn't."
They fought desperately, savagely, their bodies tired to the breaking point, but their courage never failing. And at last they won out. The armies rejoined each other. The gap was closed. And Frank and Bart rejoiced beyond measure that they had been able to do their part in the closing.
"Some fellows have all the luck," remarked Billy, when they had rejoined their regiment two days later, and were telling him all about it. "Now if that coin we flipped had only come down heads instead of tails——"
"Stop your grouching," laughed Frank. "You'll have all the fighting that's good for you by the time we've driven the boches over the Rhine."
CHAPTER XVII
THE MINED BRIDGE
For several days the drive continued. At first it had been quite as successful for the Germans as they could have hoped. Their initial surprise had carried them a long way into French territory, and this had involved the capture of a considerable number of men and guns.
But they had fallen far short of their ambitious aims. They had not rolled up the Allied armies. They had not reached Paris. They had not captured the Channel ports.
The Allied armies had stretched like an elastic band, but had not broken. They knew now what the enemy's plans were and they were rapidly taking measures to check them.