CHAPTER XIX
Turning the Tables
To Jerry, lying there half frozen, stiff in every joint and scarcely daring to move for fear of making some sound that might not only divulge his presence and result in his own capture, but also prevent the escape of Slim, it seemed that never did it take men so long to eat a meal.
And as they ate, his own appetite became ravenous. The cruelest punishment of all was to lie there half starved and hear them vulgarly smacking their lips over the warmed-up remains of a chicken undoubtedly filched from a countryside barnyard.
But at last, after what seemed to Jerry to have been hours of feasting, they did finish. With a derisive laugh the German lieutenant gathered all the bones from every other tin plate and shoved them, with mock courtesy, toward Slim.
The latter was biding his time, and, his courage increased by knowledge that his friend was close by, refused to get angry. He merely waved the plate aside.
Their stomachs filled, the Germans almost immediately began to think about sleep. In truth, they all looked as though they had been up all of the night before, as probably they had. One of them, a mere youth certainly not yet out of his teens and the youngest in the party, yawned. The lieutenant saw it, and in a fit of apparently unreasonable anger said, in his native tongue:
"So! You want to serve notice that you desire to sleep? Very well, you shall do sentinel duty—and all night. And mind that you do not sleep!"