r and marshaling them into a pack that
could be slung over the back.

"Officers ready!" ordered the under-officer, returning. "Fall
in by twos and march after me to the office."

He marched the little detachment through the larger enclosure,
and in through the rear of the office building. Here there was
a roll-call. Then the officers, again in twos, were marched outside,
where a corporal and four soldiers fell in with them as guard.

Down the road the captured officers were marched for something
like a quarter of a mile.

"Halt, but keep your places in the ranks," ordered the corporal.
"Any prisoner disobeying will be shot."

"There is something that promises!" cried Captain Lescault, pointing
to the sky.

Southward, over the lines, appeared a squadron of swift French
airplanes, coming over the German lines. Almost instantly German
aircraft began to rise from the ground, going to meet the invaders
of the air.

Over the purring of the engines sounded the sharp, continuous
rapping of machine guns as the opposing craft fought each other.

Two German planes came crashing down to earth. More appeared
in the air, until the French flyers, outnumbered, turned and flew
back over the French lines.

"I believe our flyers got what they wanted," whispered the same
French officer to Prescott.

Five minutes later the Frenchman whispered exultingly:

"Ah, I was sure of it! Our airmen were spying for the artillery.
Now you shall see things happen."

In the air sounded a screech. Then, less than three hundred yards
further down the road a French shell exploded, overturning a motor
truck and killing both Germans on its seat. The truck itself was
a wreck.

Crash! Another shell landed in the road, bowling over two officers
at the head of a body of oncoming soldiers. The next shell landed
in a mass of marching German infantry, killing and wounding several.
Then, for five minutes a hurricane of shells descended on that
road, wrecking trucks, killing and wounding more than a hundred
men in German marching detachments, and chasing all troops from
the road.

"That does not win the war!" growled the German corporal in charge
of the officer-prisoners. "It is only French mischief!"

Hardly had the shell hurricane ceased when some hundred men, under
guard, came marching down from the prison camp. These were halted,
at the edge of the field, just behind the officers.

An hour passed before another detachment of pris