Part 8 (1/2)

”You mean you will not?”

”I refuse to tell.”

”Refuse,” exclaimed the officer, growing red in the face. ”That is not a safe word to say to me.”

Tom kept quiet.

The officer after a moment of inward debate s.h.i.+fted to another line.

”What are your commanders' plans, as far as you know?”

”To beat the Germans,” returned Tom promptly.

The officer's face became apoplectic.

”Yankee pig!” he roared. ”You know that is not what I meant. Tell me if you know anything of their tactics, whether they intend to attack or stand on the defensive.”

”I don't know,” replied Tom truthfully.

”Have you plenty of ammunition?”

”More than we can use,” replied Tom promptly, glad to tell what could do no harm and would only increase the chagrin of his enemy.

”How many troops have the Americans got in France?”

”A good many hundreds of thousands,” answered Tom, ”and they're coming over at the rate of two hundred thousand a month.”

”Yankee lies,” sneered the officer. ”You are very ready to give me more information than I ask for when it will suit your purpose.”

Tom kept discreetly silent, but he chuckled inwardly at the discomfort shown by his enemy.

The officer pondered a moment, and evidently decided that there was not much to be got out of this young American who faced him so undauntedly.

Perhaps other prisoners would prove more amenable. But his dignity had been too much ruffled to let Tom get off without punishment.

”You think that you have baffled me,” he said, ”but you will find that it is not wise to try to thwart the will of a German officer. We have ways to break such spirits as yours.”

He called to the guard, who had been standing stolidly at the door.

”Take him out in the woods and put him to work where the enemy's sh.e.l.l fire is heaviest,” he commanded. ”It doesn't matter what happens to him. If his own people kill him so much the better. It will only be one less Yankee pig for us to feed.”

The guard seized Tom and thrust him roughly out of the door. Then he took him back to the barn and a whispered conversation ensued, with many black glances shot at Tom.

A short time afterward he was placed with some others in the custody of a squad of soldiers, and taken into the woods close behind the German lines. Of course this was a flagrant breach of all the laws of war.

But there was no use in protesting. That would only arouse the amus.e.m.e.nt of the German guards.

As a matter of fact, when Tom came to think it over, he did not want to protest. His captors could have taken no course that would have suited him better. At first his heart had sunk, for he realized that the officer's purpose was to sign his death warrant. The chances of being killed by the American sh.e.l.ls was very great. And then the significant word of the lieutenant that it didn't matter what happened to him, was a hint to the guards that they could murder him if they liked, and there would be no questions asked.

But after all, to be in the open was infinitely better than to be eating his heart out in a squalid prison camp. His health stood less chance of being undermined. As to the sh.e.l.ls, he had grown so used to that form of danger that it hardly disturbed him at all.