The bridge was made up of about twenty boats, which showed me that the stream was about two hundred and seventy feet in width, or more. The water looked dark, but I was not sure that it was deep.
About the middle of the bridge I lurched against the same guard heavily, as though by accident, and he struck me a heavy blow with his rifle. With a yell I went overboard, threw up my hands, and sank.
I had taken a deep breath for a long swim under water, for I had fallen on the down tide side and would have to swim against the current to come up under the bridge, as I intended to do. I was almost exhausted when, looking upward, I saw I was under one of the boats. I took another long stroke and, fortunately, came up between two boats, but to my alarm saw that I was not under the covered portion that formed the roadway. I quickly submerged, and without being seen reached a safe place and clutched the gunwale of a covered boat.
I heard a tumult of trampling feet on the planks above me, with calls and outcries. Then it occurred to me that some one might look under the planking; so I dove under the boat, swam to one that was nearer the shore from which we had come, and waited again until their footsteps receded to the other end of the bridge, and I was satisfied that they had abandoned further search for me.
But what had become of my chum? He was to have followed me.
I stayed under the bridge, keeping myself above water by holding on to a boat, until it was very dark, then swimming quietly down stream, landed on the shore, thinking it safer to keep away from the roadway for a time.
I was lying on my stomach, looking and listening, and trying to make out which was south, but with neither moon or stars visible, I could only guess. I was in a quandary. It would not do to blunder, for fear of getting caught, which was likely enough with the country swarming with Boches.
I finally made up my mind to reach the bridge once more, and get the points of the compass thereby. I walked for a long distance without seeing the bridge, which I had thought to be near me. Was it possible that they had removed it?
I was lying in the grass thinking it over, when I heard the roar of wheels and the tramping of men on what I knew must be the bridge; but it was in a different direction from what I thought it to be.
I waited an hour until the sounds died entirely away. Then I crept cautiously to the bridge to get my bearings. I had approached the bridge through the field, mostly on my hands and knees, and was about to get to my feet, when I saw—or did I only imagine it?—a dark figure slowly moving on the road, occasionally stopping as though to look or listen. I saw this figure so indistinctly that, as I have said, I at times questioned its reality. Then the moon came out from behind a cloud, and I no longer doubted. It was a man. And I had but little doubt that it was a German soldier who had been left behind to hunt me down.