oners was marched
down the road and halted. Later more came. Noon had passed before
the final detachment arrived.

It was wearisome, but Dick Prescott did not feel that he had wasted
his time. Full of the hope of escaping, some day, he had watched
covertly everything that he could see of German army life and
movements behind the fighting line. Also, from several incidents
that he witnessed, he gained a new idea of German military brutality.

One scene that made his blood boil was when a French officer, a
wounded man, and suffering also from hunger, let himself slide to
a sitting posture on the ground.

"Here, you!" ordered the German corporal advancing threateningly.
"You have been told that you must stand in line."

"But our comrade is weak from loss of blood," interposed another
French officer who spoke German.

"Take that for your meddling," retorted the corporal, landing
the back of his hand stingingly on his informant's face. It was
a humiliating blow, that a prisoner could not resent in kind.

"Get up," ordered the corporal, "or I shall aid you with my bayonet."

Though the words were not understood by the sufferer, the gesture
was. He tried to obey, but did not rise fast enough to suit the
corporal.

"Here," mocked the fellow. "That will help you!"

His bayonet point passed through the seat of the victim's trousers,
more than pricking the flesh inside.

"Coward!" hissed Prescott and three of four of the French officers.

"If you don't like it, and are not civil," raged the corporal
hoarsely, "I shall beat some of you with the butt of my gun."

Subsequently a French officer who had stepped a foot further than
he was supposed to stand was rebuked by the corporal's gun-butt
striking him on the knee-cap. After that the prisoner limped.

"These brutes ought to be killed---every one of them!" Dick muttered
disgustedly to a French officer near him.

"Most of them will be, before this long war is over," nodded the
Frenchman, "but a soldier's death is too fine for such beasts."

Finally a German officer arrived. Under his crisp orders the
now long column of prisoners moved out into the road, forming
compactly and guarded by at least forty infantrymen. The order
to march was given. With only two halts the prisoners were marched
some eight miles, arriving late in the afternoon at a railway
yard.

Here the column was halted again for an hour, while the German
officer was absent, presumably, in