“Was it real, and did we see that bridge knocked into flinders?” asked Buster, when the terrific racket had in the main died out and it was possible for them to exchange comments or ask each others’ advice.
“As genuine as anything that ever crossed our path,” replied Josh. “Ugh! wasn’t it fierce, though, to see those poor Austrians crawling like ants all over the old thing when it began to break up? Some of them were badly wounded, too. I tell you, we’ll be seeing that sight many a time when we wake up from a bad dream.”
“But what are we going to do now, fellows?” George wanted to know.
“The way is clear again,” suggested Josh, helplessly.
“And will be right along to-night, unless those Austrian engineers try to shove out another lot of their pontoons, to be smashed into kindling wood,” George said.
“There they begin firing again!” exclaimed Buster, in a fresh tremor; “oh! I wonder what’s in the wind now.”
“It’s all from over the river on the Austrian side, you notice,” Jack remarked, after the crash of a shell had been heard not a sixth of a mile below them and apparently close to the bluff that marked the river’s edge.
“They’re as mad as hops over the smart way the Serbs knocked their bridge down, seems like,” suggested Buster.
“That’s where your head’s level, Buster!” exclaimed Josh; “if they can’t have the game go their own way they won’t play in the Serbs’ back-yard. So now they’re meaning to shell the river bank over here.”
“What for?” asked the fat chum wonderingly. “They can’t see a single one of the Serbs’ batteries, or even a man for that matter.”