Somewhere ahead of him, but seemingly upon a lower level of ground, men were talking! And they were talking in German!
As though a bullet had struck him, Jerry dropped forward upon the ground. Grasping the outstretched roots of a tree, he pulled himself up within its heavy black shadow. There, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of attracting attention, he lay and listened.
He thanked Brighton then for his understanding of the German language.
Slim Goodwin was a prisoner, and those men—how many there were of them he could not tell—were questioning him! Slim was pretending not to understand.
Jerry's brain worked rapidly. There was no use of his returning to the wireless and attempting to summon help that way, for even if aid was sent it would be hours before it could arrive, and, presuming that the rescuers could find the spot, there was every likelihood that the Germans would have departed with their prisoner before that time. No, assuredly, if Slim was to be rescued, he, Jerry, must do it. But how?
As he lay there thinking, he heard the one who seemed to be the officer in charge order another man to build a fire. As it crackled and began to blaze up, the reflection of the flame gave Jerry their exact location. Also it formed a curtain of light against which it would have been easy for him to have seen any Boche sentinel or outpost, had there been one between him and them.
Assuring himself that there was not, he crept cautiously forward, foot by foot, until he was at the edge of the shelf of rock and could gaze almost directly down upon them. The fire gave good illumination. There was a young German lieutenant and four of his men. A short distance away, in the shelter of some trees, five horses were tethered.
Slim finally had consented to talk—if what he was doing could be called talking. And in what was purposely the most miserably broken German imaginable, he was telling them that he got separated from his unit several days ago (which was true), and that he had been wandering about that part of the country for the last couple of days (which also was true), and that he did not know where he was (which likewise was the truth).
While this was going on Jerry had scribbled upon a piece of paper: "Am near. Look lively if they sleep." This he wrapped around a small stone. For a moment all the Germans turned toward the fire, where one of the men was preparing supper. In that instant Jerry tossed the message straight at Slim's feet.
Slim gave a little start, recovered himself immediately, stooped over, and, pretending to wash his hands in the snow, unwrapped and hastily read the note, and then trampled it into the ground. When one of the Germans turned suddenly, he was innocently drying his hands.