"Don't give up!" cried Jimmy fiercely. "Stand 'em off as long as you can, and then——"
Once more he was interrupted by a voice coming from the passage leading from the dugout.
"Lively now!" was the command. "There's a bare chance we may get 'em out this way, but we've got to hurry!"
"You won't get us out alive!" said Bob fiercely, and he looked around the dugout for some way of escape. There were only two entrances—or exits—whichever one might choose to call them—the one by which the boys had emerged from the tunnel, and the other by which they hoped to leave. But this last was now blocked by an approaching party.
"Stand together, boys!" said Sergeant Jimmy in a low voice.
"Shall I douse the glim?" asked Franz.
He was about to blow out the candle when into the dugout came hurrying a squad of khaki-clad soldiers, and it needed but a glance from the Khaki Boys to show them that they were their own comrades of the 509th Infantry. Lieutenant Morrison was in charge—an officer of whom the five Brothers were very fond.
"Here they are!" cried the lieutenant. "How in the world did you boys escape? We saw the place where the big German shell struck, and we didn't think there'd be more than half of you left alive after the dugout caved in, as it must have done. Yet here you all are."
"One's missing, sir," said a corporal.
"There were five and——"