"'Why don't you shoot at them?'
"'We are not ready, or rather, they are not.'
"The Germans were digging a trench on a rise of ground, where they always try to place them, instead of on low ground, about half a mile away. Mattia peered at them, looking through the bushes, until he was ordered by an officer to go back and bring up the breakfast for the men. Thus the little Frenchman was given to understand that he was one of them. The officer in command either had forgotten his orders to the boy of the previous night, or else had decided to use him so long as no fighting was going on.
"There was much about the work that Mattia did not understand. He now knew that there were other French detachments close at hand, but he neither saw nor heard them. The others, undoubtedly, were camouflaged just as his detachment was.
"So secretly, however, had the French worked that the Germans did not appear even to suspect the presence of the enemy. This secrecy was maintained for two more days, Mattia in the meantime having been initiated into the mystery of the machine gun. He was allowed by a friendly sergeant to handle the gun and go through the motions of firing it and putting in a fresh string of shells. It was a delight to him.
"On the morning of the third day he was ordered to remain behind in a dugout that had been built. He knew by this that an action was at hand.
"It came about nine o'clock in the morning, when a company of French soldiers came marching down the field in plain view of the Germans, though no Germans were in sight. He did not know that these infantrymen were a decoy, a part of the plan of the French to draw the enemy down within easy range of their machine guns.
"Rifles began to crackle from the Prussian trenches, and to his amazement, after firing a few rounds in reply, the French infantrymen ran for the cover of the brush. He saw the reason for this a moment later when a big troop of German cavalry topped the rise of ground and swept on toward the French, followed by the charging infantry of the Germans.
