“Come with me,” he instructed Tom and those officers who had not yet been charged with special duties. He led the way quickly to a dug-out further down the line. Before they reached it bugles were sounding, men were tumbling out of their blankets, rubbing their eyes and looking about sleepily. Staff officers were shouting the orders for immediate movement. Officers and men who heard, looked around hurriedly for signs of the enemy.
In the dug-out the general ordered one of the several men sitting at telephone instruments to connect him immediately with the commanding officer of the nearest unit of Engineers.
To this officer he indicated as definitely as he could the position of the mouth of the tunnel, and ordered him to be there as quickly as possible.
“To dig out mines,” he summed up. “They’re already connected up, I believe.” And seeing the first of the thousands of men under him already on the move for designated points beyond the danger zone, he took a part of his staff with him, and with Tom in the lead, set out at a vigorous double-quick for the point where George Harper still was guarding the man whose movements indirectly led to discovery of the mines.
Meanwhile Ollie had encountered even greater difficulties than Tom in his search for the commanding officer of the Engineers, for although he went directly to the wood, he found only small squads at work there, the main body having progressed in a circling movement to the northward of the town, to prepare the pathway for the day’s advance.
When, after the greatest difficulty, he finally did locate the headquarters of the colonel, he arrived there just in time to see the latter and his aides departing at the head of a hundred men.
Saluting a lieutenant, Ollie started to tell him his story, but was cut short with the information that the news already had been received and they were then on their way.
“But you arrive at a good time,” the lieutenant added quickly, and addressing a superior he informed him that Ollie could take them directly to the spot.
And thus it was not without a justifiable feeling of being of some real importance that Ollie was called to the colonel’s side, and walking beside that officer, to direct the way, was plied with questions as to the discovery. It was little enough that Ollie could tell, for Tom had given him but a bare outline of the danger that confronted the troops. Nevertheless the colonel thanked him warmly, not forgetting to add a word of praise for all three of the lads after he had been told how it happened that the mouth of the tunnel had been discovered.
“And you got your man after all?” he asked, when Ollie had finished, having touched but lightly upon the fact that all three had at one time dropped off to sleep.