“I’ll bet if we all started singin’ ‘The Watch on the Rhine’ out loud, those Jerries down there would pull their freight for Berlin in two minutes; they’d think we were ghosts.”
“Sho! You’d have to sing it in German.”
“Would, eh? No, thanks! My throat’s a bit sore now as ’tis. Wonder if the feller that invented that language kept pigs and learned the sound of it from them.”
“Sh! Lay low an’ quit gabblin’, you duffers!” whispered the watcher at one peep hole. “Here comes two Heinies up the hill!”
Don, at the other rock fissure, turned and spoke to Herbert and the corporal. A hasty and whispered order went around the rock basin and in the quiet that ensued the sound of heavily shod feet, treading among loose stones and of rustling leaves, could be distinctly heard.
CHAPTER XIII
Lying Low
THE next ten minutes were almost a non-breathing experience for twelve good men and true; they had decided that their safety lay in at least keeping most woefully quiet. A little while after the ordeal had passed, Herbert and Donald were telling each other what had been in their thoughts during those tense moments when the heavy footfalls were drawing nearer. Herbert had imagined one of his men suddenly sneezing and Don had wished for the chance to turn a good old American skunk loose to scent up the place; this would have surely kept the German officers at a safe distance.
But there proved to be no fear of the one, nor need of the other doubtful procedure; the khaki squad was as silent as death and the two ascending German officers no more suspected their presence in the spot than they would have a herd of elephants. And so they came quite to the edge of the spruces, sat down on a boulder and conversed in low tones for about ten minutes; then got up again and as slowly went back to their camp. Twelve breathing sets of apparatus were in easier working order when it was reported that the Germans had gone.