CHAPTER XIX

IN SWIRLING WATERS

False-hearted and desperate as had been the two men who struck down and rendered Roger and Jimmy senseless, their last inhuman act--the tossing of the unconscious Khaki Boys over the cliff--defeated their intentions. For as the Brothers fell into the deep water, the shock and contact of it brought back their senses.

Roger and Jimmy splashed into the water at the same time, and at first they sank deep into the swirling depths of the river, which ran at the foot of the cliff, dotted here and there on its surface with black rocks.

The blows that they had received on their heads had not, fortunately, been sufficiently hard to make them unconscious for more than a few minutes. It was as if a pugilist had received a "knockout" of a little more than the usual severity.

The shock and chill of the water brought back the senses of the two lads, and their first, natural instinct, in common with that of every swimmer, was to hold their breath when they felt their heads submerged.

And then the boys came to the surface and struck out. Again this was almost instinct. They were both good swimmers, and among the feats they had practised at various times in summer pleasure camps had been to swim across a lake fully clothed. This exploit stood the lads in good stead now, though the garments they wore and the accoutrements they had to carry very heavily handicapped them.

But they knew how to get rid of their gas masks, and as their steel helmets had fallen off during the attack, and as they had no weapons, they were not as heavily burdened as a soldier on the battle front would have been.

So they managed to get to the surface and strike out, though they did not know in which direction to swim, save toward the nearest shore. But to reach that was a task more easily thought of than carried out. The current was swift, and they could make little progress against it.

"Don't try to breast it!" cried Jimmy to Roger. "Let yourself float down, and work your way over to the nearest bank."

"All right! How are you?"

"Pretty rotten. I got a bad jolt on the head, but the water makes it feel better," said Jimmy.

"What happened to us, anyhow?" asked Roger, as he managed to get to his companion's side. "All I remember is being struck down. Did the Germans make a counter-attack?"

"It wasn't the Germans," declared Jimmy. "It was those two Bixton fellows from the signal corps. They attacked us!"

"What for?" cried Roger. "Are they German spies?"

"Well, they're as bad as that, if not worse," declared Jimmy. "They're traitors, I believe. They must have attacked us, as they threatened to do, because they found out that we, in a way, were responsible for Mike Bixton's being sent to jail. They threatened to do us up, and they did it."

"They surely did!" assented Roger. "Why, they might have killed us."

"They tried to, hard enough," declared Jimmy.

"Do you really think so?" cried his companion.

"I'm sure of it! Why, they struck hard enough to kill. Only that we had on our tin hats, they'd have ended us. And then dumping us into this river--that was to be the end, they thought."

"And I'm not sure but what it will be yet," said Roger, as his swimming strokes seemed to lose power.

"What's the matter?" asked Jimmy anxiously. "Can't you keep it up?"

"Not much longer. I'm about all in. My head feels queer!"

Jimmy looked about him. They were in the midst of swirling waters that rushed in and out among the rocks. The two lads had a hard struggle not to be dashed against these.

"Do you see that flat rock over there?" cried Jimmy to his chum, pointing to one about a hundred feet down stream and nearer to the western bank than the boys then were.

"Yes, I see it," was the answer.

"Do you think you can reach it?"

"Maybe. But why?"

"Because it's a flat rock, and it stands well up out of the water. If we climb out on it we can take a rest and catch our breath. Then, maybe, we can get across to the shore."

"Go ahead!" said Roger desperately. "I'll follow you."

They had momentarily caught hold of a small projecting rock in the stream, but it was not large enough to afford a foothold. Jimmy now let go of this and struck out for the flat rock of which he had spoken. Roger followed as best he could.

It was no easy matter for the half-exhausted lads to scramble up the sides of the slippery rock. But their desperate situation seemed to give them additional strength, and at last they were out of the water. They sat down, little streams running from their clothes over the slanting rock, whence they dribbled into the river that flowed on either side of the boulder.

"Well, we're alive, anyhow," remarked Jimmy, as his breathing came back to somewhere about normal.

"That's about all we can say," rejoined his chum. "We'll never be able to swim to shore. The current is too swift," and he pressed his hands to his aching head.

"Oh, don't give up so easily!" exclaimed Jimmy. "We'll get to shore all right. What we are going to do when we get there is the only thing that's worrying me."

"Get back to our company as soon as we can," advised Roger. "The others can't be so very far away."

"They may be ten miles, as far as I can tell," went on Sergeant Jimmy. "I don't know a thing that happened after the Bixtons struck us until I woke up in the water. They certainly are scoundrels!" he declared bitterly.

"That's right," assented his chum. "You'd think, if they thought they had a real quarrel with us, that they'd have waited until the battle was over to attack us. I can't understand it all."

"Nor I," admitted Jimmy. "Unless they are afraid of us, as well as bearing us a grudge because of what we did to Mike. And I'm inclined to think they are afraid."

"What of?" asked Roger.

"That we'll tell on 'em. I believe the two Bixtons are the same fellows we saw in the dugout and who were seen later by the Twinkle Twins sending up smoke signals. The fact that the Bixtons belong to the signal corps makes it all the more suspicious."

"Yes, I guess it does," said Roger wearily. "Well, if we ever get out of this we'll have something against 'em all right. But how are we going to get across?"

"We'll have to swim for it," declared Jimmy. "Come on. No telling when we'll be under fire. I say, Roger, look at that!" he suddenly cried, pointing up stream.

Roger looked, and saw a raft made of tree trunks lashed together coming down the swift river, and on the raft were a number of German soldiers.

"That raft is going to come right close to this rock!" cried Jimmy, and Roger also decided that this would be the case.

"Are they coming after us?" he asked.

"No, I don't believe so," was Jimmy's rejoinder. "I guess they've been in a fight themselves. There are two or three lying down on the raft who look as if they were wounded."

On came the raft, urged by the swift current. The Germans aboard it saw the two lads on the rock in the middle of the river, and they seemed to be taking counsel among themselves.

"If we could get on that log outfit we could float down stream in safety until we came to a landing place, or to a better place to cross," suggested Jimmy.

"But we can't get on!" exclaimed Roger. "Those Germans don't seem to have any guns, but they're two to our one, not counting those lying down. We can't get on the raft, Jimmy."

"We've got to!" was the desperate answer. "We'll fight 'em with bare knuckles for a place there. It's our lives or theirs! Roger, we've got to fight!" and Jimmy rolled up his sleeves while the raft with the four live Germans and three dead ones swept nearer and nearer to the rock that formed a refuge for the two Khaki Boys.