CHAPTER XIX
OVERHEARD IN A SANDPIT
Carefully the boys peered in every direction for signs of the presence of guards in the vicinity, but apparently the boche whom they had captured had been the only one stationed south of the house. They reached the edge of the large excavation without an alarm to themselves or the enemy, and then began an examination of the descent for an avenue of departure for themselves and their waiting companions in the house.
The night was clear, but there was no moon; and it was difficult, with the aid of only the stars, to get a satisfactory view any considerable distance ahead of them. However, it is well known that one can accustom his eyes to ordinary darkness of night to such an extent that he is able to discern distant objects with a clearness that at first would seem impossible.
And so it was that after lying several minutes at the edge of what at first seemed to be a steep bluff, they found that they could make out the edge of a deep pit directly to the south and a hill-like descent that curved along to the left gradually to the southward. Bushes grew here and there along this winding hill-path, so that it was evident that they must make their inspection rod by rod, if not yard by yard, in order to determine of what value it was to them.
“Let’s go down there and see what it looks like,” Phil whispered in his companion’s ear.
Dan nodded his willingness, and soon they were creeping along the course indicated. After they had left a considerable screen of bushes behind, they stood erect and looked carefully about them; then continued their descent. They stopped, however, several times on the way, looking about and listening intently for evidence of the presence of enemy soldiers. In one of these precautionary halts, Phil said to his companion scout:
“I don’t believe this is a stonequarry at all. It’s a big sandpit, according to my notion. And this is a path used by the workmen who live up on the higher ground. I bet it leads right down to the entrance of the pit.”
“I believe you’re right,” Dan returned. “There’s so all-fired much sand around here, it can’t be otherwise. How far do you think we’d better go? Everything looks clear in this direction.”
“Let’s go down to the foot of this hill and see how things look there before we go back,” Phil proposed in reply.
They continued to the bottom of the hill and found themselves at the wide entrance of a huge sandpit with bushes growing in abundance along the border nearest their approach. Here they stood close to a clump of bushes, listening and peering cautiously in all directions for warning sounds or signs indicating the presence of enemy soldiers in the vicinity.
The warning came almost immediately. The sound of voices in conversation only a few feet from them caused the boys to stand as still almost as the ground on which they stood. They held their breath, as it were, and listened eagerly to catch the words being exchanged by two men on the opposite side of the thicket.
Apparently the conference was very secret, for the principals had sought a dark and out-of-the-way place to “put their heads together,” and the eagerness of their tones indicated the degree of importance they placed on the purpose of the interview. But it was in German, and although both of the listeners had studied that language at school, they were unable to form a clear idea as to the main purpose of the conversation.
It did not take Phil long, however, to identify one of the men. His high-pitched voice and tripping utterance, little short of a stutter, could hardly have been duplicated by another. Without a doubt he was the oddly proportioned commissioned officer who had been in charge of the squad of boches that Phil had captured at Belleau Woods and who later, with the assistance of another, had turned the tables on him.
“It’s my boaconstrictor evil genius,” Phil mused, although not very apprehensively. “How I wish I could make out what they are talking about.”
He did, however, catch a few words that intensified his curiosity, although they carried to his mind little or no enlightenment. Considerable was said about an aeroplane and “the Americans” and bombs. Phil and Dan both strained their ears and their imagination to put these and other single-word ideas together and uncover the meaning of the interview, but in vain. Both had studied “literary German” at school, but their knowledge of conversational Prussian was exceedingly limited.
Ten or fifteen minutes after Phil and Dan arrived at the mouth of the sandpit, the conversation ended and the two men departed, starting up the path by which the escaped prisoners had descended. The latter waited a minute or two for them to get a good start, and were about to follow them and, if possible, prevent them from giving the alarm if they discovered the wrecked tunnel leading from their prison, when a new surprise of startling nature added another thrill to the adventures of the night.
“Phil!”
This utterance of Sergeant Speed’s given name was scarcely above a whisper, but distinct. The latter shivered as if a ghost had touched him on the shoulder. Then concluding with a desperate denial of his “sense of sound location,” that it must have been his companion that spoke to him, he turned to Dan to ask him what he wanted. But the latter was looking about curiously to learn the source of the familiar address.
A moment later both of them beheld a third human form standing a few feet away and instinctively assumed an attitude of defense, prepared to change it into one of attack, when the supposed stranger spoke thus in low tones:
“Don’t be alarmed, Phil. I am Tim Turner whom you left for dead in Belleau Woods.”