Ken himself was none too happy. It took all his pluck and philosophy to keep going at all. He was aching in every bone, his mouth and throat were parched, and his tongue like a dry stick in his mouth. The dust rose around them in choking clouds, flies bit and stung, yet he could not lift a hand to brush them from his face. What was hardest of all to bear were the jeers and insults flung at them by their captors.
But they trudged on doggedly, refusing to pay the slightest attention to the taunts or blows showered upon them, and in spite of everything, Ken used his eyes to take in every feature of the country through which they travelled. Small hope as he had of ever seeing again his own lines, yet he missed nothing of importance, storing up each hill, valley, clump of trees, and track in his tenacious memory.
At last they came within sight of a group of squalid hovels in a valley.
'That's Keni,' Ken told Roy.
The brutal corporal caught the word.
'That's Keni,' he repeated in his own language, 'and, by the beard of the Prophet, you shall soon see how spies are dealt with.'
The village swarmed with soldiers, many of them wounded, who stared at the two British prisoners with lack-lustre eyes. The narrow street of the place reeked with filth and foul odours, and swarmed with a pestilence of flies. The two youngsters were thrust roughly into a dirty hovel, and with a final jeer from their brutal jailer, the door was locked behind them.
For a moment Roy stood straight, towering in the centre of the low-roofed room. There was a very ugly light in his eyes.
'Wait, my friend, wait!' he said hoarsely. 'I'll be even with you before I've finished.'
'Steady, old chap!' said Ken quietly. 'Steady! Take it easy while you can. Remember, we've got that little interview with Kemp before us.'