There were no more bursts of shells behind them as they ran for the woods. But just as they plunged into the thick tangle of trees, the chatter of machine guns blazed behind them and the zing of shells filled the air. Bert fell to the ground and Max went down beside him. With a quick motion he rolled Bert and himself behind a boulder. There Dick crept up to them.
“Go ahead!” Bert said. “They got me in the leg. They’ll be swarming over that stretch of water in a minute.”
“Oh, no, they won’t!” Dick said. “Remember—we’re all picked swimmers. And we dropped our guns. They’ll come after us only if they can keep their guns, and I don’t think they can manage it with ’em.”
Machine-gun bullets still spattered around them intermittently, and they could hear the angry, bellowed orders of a German officer across the water behind them.
“He’s telling ’em to cross over,” Max said. “He’s telling ’em we’ve got no guns and to go ahead after us!”
“Well, I’ve got the answer for that,” Dick grinned. He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a waterproof pouch. Ripping it open he extracted a service automatic, dry as a bone. Heading around the rock as he hugged the ground, he wriggled forward about ten feet in the underbrush. There, peering through the branches of a bush, he saw the Germans on the opposite point. Standing on the crest was the officer, still bellowing orders to his men, who moved slowly forward toward the water. They didn’t like the idea of making that crossing.
Dick steadied his right arm on the ground, aimed the automatic carefully, and squeezed the trigger. The German officer’s angry words were cut short. He looked startled and dismayed, as if someone had played an unfair trick on him. His hand went to his chest, he looked around him for a second, and then toppled forward from the ridge, rolling to the shore below. The German soldiers looked at his body a moment, then turned and scrambled back up the little hill as if death itself were chasing them. In two seconds they were all on the other side of the hill. Dick grinned and ran back behind the rock where Bert and Max waited for him. A tentative machine-gun burst followed him, but he was safe behind the rock.
“I don’t think they’ll come across now,” he said. “I got the officer, the one who was telling them we had no guns. At least they won’t be coming for a little while, until another officer makes them do it. Come on! Up you go, Bert!”
Max and Dick lifted Bert and carried him rapidly forward through the trees. Fifty feet further along they found the rest of their men, and Dick counted them quickly. Yes—they were all there.
“Jimmy,” he said to one of the men, “you take over with Max to carry Bert here. The others will spell you once in a while. I’ve got to go ahead to find that old aqueduct. Follow me!”