any these were, Tom
and Jack had no means of knowing. They did not see any of their comrades
near them. There were only the Huns who were bubbling over with coarse
joy in the delight of having captured two "American pigs," as they
brutally boasted.

Stumbling and half falling, Tom and Jack were dragged along. Now and
then they could see, by means of the star shells, groups of men, some
near and some farther off. There was firing all along the Hun and Allied
lines, and as the boys were dragged along the big guns began to thunder.
What had started as an ordinary night raid might end in a general
engagement before it was finished.

There seemed to be fierce lighting going on between the several detached
groups, and the air service boys did not doubt that some word of the
dispersing and virtual defeat of the party they were with had reached
their lines, resulting in the sending out of relief parties.

"This sure is tough luck!" murmured Jack to Tom, as they stumbled along
in the midst of their captors.

"You said it! If our boys would only rush this bunch and get us away."

"Silence, pigs!" cried a German officer, and with his sword he struck
at Tom, slightly injuring the lad and causing a hot wave of fierce
resentment.

"You wouldn't dare do that if I had my hands free, you dirty dog!"
rasped out Tom in fairly good German, and he tugged to free his arms
from the hold of a Hun soldier on either side.

The officer who had struck Tom seemed about to reply, for he surged
through the ranks of his men over toward the captive, but a command from
some one, evidently higher in authority halted him, and he marched on,
muttering.

There was sharp fighting between the Hun sentries and small parties,
and similar bodies from the American and Allied sides going on along
the lines now, and both armies were sending up rockets and other
illuminating devices.

The two Virginia lads felt themselves being hurried forward--or back,
whichever way you choose to look at it--and whither they were being
taken they did not know. The taunts of their captors had ceased, though
the men were talking together in low voices, and suddenly, at something
one of them said, Tom nudged Jack, beside whom he was walking.

"Did you hear that?" he asked in so low a voice that it was not heard by
the Hun next him. Or if it was heard, no attention was paid to it, for
Torn spoke in English. The tramp of the heavy boots of the Huns and the
rattle of their a