CHAPTER XXV AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER

A few days after this meeting we saw, while hiding in some woods, German artillery moving over near-by roads, and by this inferred that we were near the German lines, and that they were falling back.

I was not sick but weak and tired. I lay down to rest and hide, while my chum left me to get some water, and forage for turnips or other food, still unharvested.

I had waited for a long time--so it seemed to me--and becoming alarmed I cautiously started out to find him. Just as I had about given him up, he came creeping on his hands and knees through some underbrush saying, “Hist! The German devils are right thick around here; I have been trying to dodge them for an hour. Get down out of sight, chum!”

All this was uttered in a hoarse whisper, and with an expression of alarm more ominous of danger than his words.

We remained in our hiding place during most of that day, and at night began once more to travel cautiously, with many misgivings, westward, hoping to get through the German lines.

“If it were not for our uniforms, chum,” said my comrade, “we would stand a better chance; but they are ‘a dead give away.’”

We traveled slowly and warily--but at last, in some unexplainable way, we fell into a trap.

We had stopped in a little depression of the ground in the outskirts of a wood near a little brook. Thinking it as good a place for concealment as we would find, we refreshed ourselves by bathing our hands and faces, after which Gordon began dressing my wound. He was rewinding the bandage, after washing it, when he stopped short and, in a whisper said, “What’s that?”

But there was no need of an answer, for there came the sharp call: “Hande hoch!” And to enforce this order of “hands up” several rifle barrels pointed towards us from behind trees. We were caught.

Our German captors were mostly young fellows who looked like students. With one exception, and that was an old grizzled sergeant, not one of them, I should judge, was over seventeen years of age. I learned through Gordon that they had but lately come in to the service, and they were greatly pleased to have captured us. The old sergeant spoke fair English.

“Who are you?” he interrogated. “How came you inside our lines?”

“We are Americans and escaping prisoners,” Gordon answered in German.

“Ach!” he responded in English. “You gets avay?”

“Yes.”

He allowed Gordon to finish dressing my wound, and after taking a look at it himself, said, when he saw that Gordon had some clean bandages, “Verbande” and coolly took most of them, with the grim remark: “May need these myself.”

From this I inferred that linen bandages were scarce with them.

Then came the order: “Vorwart!” and we were hurried forward to their headquarters, where we were halted and turned over to a new guard.

For a while but little attention was given us, and we were allowed to lie down while awaiting--we knew not what.

“It is rather disheartening,” I said, “to be gobbled when we were so close to our lines.”

“Yes,” replied Gordon coolly, “but that was the place where we were most likely to get caught. Don’t look so glum; never say die, chum, until you are dead, and then--you can’t.”

“They will be marching us to prison soon, I suppose,” I said.

“Very likely,” replied Gordon; “but I will do my best to vote in the negative, as we used to say in our debating club.”

We were brought to our feet by a command, and conducted by a guard to a shattered house, where we found ourselves in the presence of a black-headed, blotch-faced, severe-looking officer, who began to question us in imperfect English. Then, as we were unable to understand his questions, and he equally unable to understand our replies, he spoke a few guttural words to an orderly, who saluted and went away.

As I stood at attention looking the ill-natured officer in the face, I noticed some one stop at my side and brush my elbow never so slightly, as if in warning, and at the same time slip something into my side pocket.

I turned my head to look, and saw Lieutenant Jonathan Nickerson in the uniform of a German officer, clicking his heels and saluting his superior. It took all my resolution to appear unconcerned. I was so astonished that I could have been knocked down with a straw. But I knew I must be on my guard.

Under direction of the officer, Jot, whom I took to be his aide, began to question me.

“You are Americans?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What regiment?”

We answered that question and several other correctly.

“How came you inside our lines?”

“We had been made prisoners, but escaped, and at the time your men captured us, we were trying to get through your lines to our own.”

The questions that followed were mostly about our army, and were answered in such way that little information was given.

Gordon told me afterwards that Jot reported to the officer, “These are ignorant Americans. They don’t know anything that is taking place a foot beyond their noses. They are not educated like our soldiers.”

So we were dismissed, and marched to a place where there were other prisoners, but none that I knew. From them, however, I learned that my own division was now on that front, and also got the comforting information that the Boches were being constantly beaten. But though comforting, it made me all the more impatient to be with my regiment again.

My heart had given a great throb of pain when I had seen Jot’s face. It was worn as though by mental suffering and, at one time, when we were about leaving, it had such an expression of imploring love, that all my anger and distrust gave way to sympathy at sight of his dear face. As from our first acquaintance, I could not distrust his truthfulness or his friendship when in his presence.

Then, remembering that something had been dropped into my coat pocket when he passed me, I drew out a little book. It was Jot’s New Testament, that I had often seen before, and had been given him by his mother when on her death-bed.

I knew how highly he prized it, and as I held it in my hand I could almost feel his presence.

I opened and examined it. The page on which his mother’s name had been written, with his own, was torn out; and upon examining its blank leaves I saw nothing to indicate why it had been given me. I was about to return it to my pocket, without further examination, when on one corner of a fly-leaf I saw written “1st chapter of St. John.” Then I remembered that we used to play at secret communications with each other, by marking the pages of a newspaper.

I turned to that chapter, but could discover nothing, and was about to put it away, when I saw at the bottom in faint pencil lines the word, “Marked.”

On further examination I found letters and words underscored, and by patient examination I got this message. “When you see me, watch. If I remove hat, _be careful_; if I take out handkerchief, _make ready_, _I have plan for your escape_. _When Jack is in your lines, rip saddle._”

I had no need to re-read the message, for it was stamped upon my memory by the pains I had taken in deciphering it. Then I carefully erased the marks.

All that day and the next we remained in the same place, but I saw nothing of Jot. It was Tuesday when we were put here, and by Wednesday several other American prisoners had been added to our party. The nearing sound of artillery and of fainter rifle fire told that a battle was on.

A young non-commissioned officer who spoke English was put in charge of the guard. Once as he walked by my side, Jot came up and spoke a few words in German to him, and then took off his hat and used his handkerchief. It was the signal.

Our next march began, with the sound of battle closing in around us. Later we halted to rest, and Gordon remarked while dressing my wound, “There don’t seem to be a right good chance for us to get away together, so do your best for yourself, and I will do the same for myself, and trust to chance for the rest.”

Before I could reply the young sergeant on guard came up and said, “You are talking too much,”--and peremptorily ordered Gordon to another part of the line.

Gordon shook hands with me at parting, saying, “When you get back into God’s country again, look me up,” and was gone.

“Are you not needlessly severe?” I remonstrated to the sergeant. “He was dressing my wound, and you are taking away what little comfort a prisoner has by separating friends?”

But he answered loudly as though accidentally addressing me in German: “Wenn sie versuchem sich zu entfernen, schiesse ich!”--and repeated in English, “If you try to run away, I’ll shoot you.” Then he added in a whisper while scarcely moving his lips, as he turned away, “Wait!”

I could hardly believe I had heard it. Was _he_ in Jot’s service and a part of his plan? Nothing else occurred just then to confirm that belief. Could I have imagined I heard it? Hardly!

Before night came on it began raining, and as I marched on, I was a prey to thoughts as dark as the clouds above me. Was this young German trying to test Jot’s loyalty to the German cause through me? Was there a trap set for both of us? But how could he do it?

We were marched into a field, where there were stacks of straw and hay, and halted for the night. With the slight shelter afforded by my overcoat thrown over a portion of a straw stack I lay down, the young guard loudly and roughly repeating his warning about running away in German, and as though to enforce this, he sat down with his back against the stack near me.

Most of the guard by this time were trying to shelter themselves from the storm by taking refuge near the stacks; but the young sergeant, as though determined to keep an eye on me, stretched himself by my side.

I was napping when, to my surprise, the sergeant, clutching my arm with a whispered precaution for silence, said, “When you hear me snore, take my revolver, put on the coat that covers me, without getting to your feet. When I pinch your arm, creep to the other side of this stack, then go on keeping in line with the next stack ahead, and then the next, until you reach a tree on the road at the end of this field. If the alarm is not given, wait awhile and then give two whistles through your fingers for the horse. Give him the rein when you get into the saddle; he knows the way to your lines.”

I could hardly believe my senses, much less my good fortune. I waited, it seemed for hours, and thought the signal would never come, or that I had been dreaming. Then it came and, reassured, I followed his instructions. I stealthily took the revolver, put it in my pocket, then removed the coat and put it on, and was about to move to the other side of the stack, when in a whisper, the sergeant said, “Wait. The countersign is _Blood and Iron_. Don’t use it unless obliged to; now wait again until I pinch.”

I then saw, what I had not before observed, that there was a sentinel walking post at a little distance from the stack.

At last there came a sharp pinch, and the whispered caution, “_Go softly_.” I crept to the other side of the stack, then stealthily proceeded to the one ahead of me, and so on until I reached the tree. Peering in every direction and seeing no indications that I had been observed, I gave two sharp whistles. It was not long until I heard the tramp of a horse. I softly called, “Jack!” and the little horse came to my side, tossing his head and rubbing his nose against my arm, as though recognizing me.

I mounted and gave the horse the reins. Before long rifle shots rang out, showing that my escape had been discovered. But we soon left them in the rear.

At times galloping swiftly and at others walking softly, Jack went on in the rain and darkness. In my impatience it seemed as though daylight and safety would never come. Then close ahead came the sharp command “Halt!” and at the same time my bridle was seized, and I was pulled from my horse.

I thought I was in the hands of the enemy, and was about to cry “Blood and Iron,” and struck the horse to urge him forward. He gave a startled jump but did not move onward. Then I heard a voice say, “Look out for the Boche and his horse,” and knew that it was an American outpost.

I said not a word as they conducted me to a shattered building a few hundred yards away, then into a room where a candle was lit, and a tall form indistinctly seen by the dim light, shot out the question, “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to escape,” I replied, half amused at the situation.

“What is your name, rank, and regiment?”

“Lieutenant David Stark,” I replied, and was about to add my regiment, when I was interrupted--

“Great scott! Is it Dave?” And my old colonel, forgetting military etiquette, was slapping me on the back and almost dancing, as he cried out “My! David, I am glad to see you!”

He had no need to tell me that.

“I little thought yesterday,” I said, “that I should be here this morning, or possibly ever again. I can hardly believe it even now.”

As I told of my escape, and about the horse, the colonel said, “I see--the horse has been here before, and knew the safe way.”

Calling to his orderly he commanded, “Bring the saddle here at once, and feed the horse well.” Then, looking at his watch--“It is thirty minutes past four. What time did you get away?”

I couldn’t tell. It had seemed an eternity since I had started, so long was the way to freedom.