CHAPTER XVIII
TURNING THE TABLES
For a few seconds Dick stood dumfounded. The smith, full of apologies for the deliberate insolence of his assistant towards a German officer, hurriedly explained.
"The swine is an English prisoner," he said. "He was lent to me from a camp at Meseritz. If the rest of these Englishmen give so much trouble as this one I feel sorry for the good Germans to whom they are hired out. I pay this rascal a mark a week and feed him, and only by threatening to send him back to camp for punishment could I get him to work at all. But I was beginning to think I had broken his spirit, and now he goes back to his old ways."
"Let me see if I can cow him, smith," said Dick. "You cannot speak the English tongue, I suppose? No; well, I can, although it is a barbarous language, hardly fit for good Germans to use. I will frighten him. He will know what it means to refuse to work at the orders of a Saxon officer."
"The matter is in your hands, herr leutnant," replied the smith, obsequiously.
"It's all right, my man," began Dick, addressing his luckless fellow countryman. "Don't look astonished. I'm supposed to be jawing you. Look as sullen as you can. That's better. This is part of a British machine. We're stranded three miles out. Set to work as hard as you can, without giving the show away, and I'll do my level best to get you away. We're in a bit of a hole ourselves, but with this job set right we can make another start."
"Thought something was fishy, sir," replied the man. "Hun flying officers don't sport 'wings'; leastways, I've never seed 'em. Yours puzzled me a bit, but I'm getting past being astonished at anything."
"It's lucky for me that this old smith isn't as cute as you are," rejoined Dick. "Now I'll tell him I've made you promise to slog in. I'll let him know that you are to carry the rod back to the battleplane. I'll order him, and he daren't refuse."
"His bad fit is soon over this time, her leutnant," remarked the smith, as the prisoner resumed his post at the bellows. "And this is peculiar metal—so light. Do I temper it in water or oil?"