"Why you no answer?" prompted the Hun.
"Suppose I refuse?" asked the captive. "Men taken prisoner are not compelled to reply to questions on military matters."
The German laughed gruffly.
"Rules of war for fools are," he chuckled. "We Germans make war, we no play. You answer vill make now, so."
"All right; if I am compelled to do so," rejoined Sidney. "The mine runs away to your left—two hundred yards, I should think." In point of fact, and Private Bartlett was perfectly aware of it, the explosion chamber was almost immediately beyond that part of the hostile trench in which he was held prisoner. Although the main force of the explosion would be directed against the Pumpnickel Redoubt there was the almost certainty of a swift and terrible death to every living creature in the German first-line trenches as well.
The Hun officer snapped out some words of command to his men. The soldiers began to pile up sand-bags across the trench to neutralize, as they thought, the outlying effects of the impending explosion, while the locality that Bartlett had purposely and wrongly indicated was cleared of troops.
"Ach!" continued the Major. "Now you vos tell me dis: at vot hour the mine goes it off?"
"At six-thirty," replied Sidney promptly. He was entering eagerly into the "business" by this time. It would result, he had no doubt, in the extermination of several hundred Germans and his comparatively insignificant self as well.
"Now, we see," remarked the Prussian officer. "If der truth you haf said, den all vill well be. We keep you here—in der drench."
Evidently the German had certain misgivings, for, ordering a post to be driven deeply into the slime and his prisoner to be firmly bound to it, he scurried off to a remote portion of the reserve trenches.