The sentence was never finished. There was a sudden sharp crackling, a gasp of exclamations from the throng, and a shower of sparks shot into the air from where the severed cable end lay upon the ground.
The Germans had turned on the current, but they had turned it on a moment too late!
The narrow margin by which a terrible tragedy had been averted was obvious to all. They stood about, awed and silent, watching the deadly current expend itself in a harmless sputter.
The general himself was a man of few words. He summoned the lads to him.
“Young men,” he said, “I congratulate and thank you. You have saved an army. It will not be forgotten.”
And the three youths flushed deeply as a lusty cheer went up from the men gathered about them.
CHAPTER XIII
Captured
AS the three lads, hoping for a snatch of sleep before the orders came for a renewal of the battle, settled into their blankets in a dug-out which only forty-eight hours before had been occupied by Germans who held forth there in that sublime assurance born of four years of uninterrupted and practically unchallenged possession, Ollie Ogden chuckled audibly.
“What’s the matter now?” demanded George Harper, none too graciously, for already he had drowsed, and the injection of humor, particularly when the cause was unknown, was not altogether pleasant.