served Ned, whose face was
bleeding, though only from scratches.

"You were knocked down by the concussion," explained the officer who
had told them to get up. "It was a close call all right, but no one is
hurt. Fall in for roll call!"

Ned, Bob, Jerry, and some of the other soldiers scrambled to their
feet. They had been on the point of answering roll call when the
explosion came, and now that the danger was over, at least for the
time being, they had a chance to see what had caused it.

The aeroplane from which the bomb had been dropped was not now in
sight, but this is what had happened. One of the German machines
passing over the front line, as they often did, had escaped the Allied
craft, and had also managed to pass through the firing of the
anti-aircraft guns. Whether the machine had gone some distance back,
hoping to drop bombs on an ammunition dump, or whether it came over
merely to take a pot shot at the American trenches, was never known.

But the aviator had dropped a large explosive bomb, which, luckily for
the Motor Boys and their comrades, had fallen into an open space,
though not far from one of the camouflaged stations where the soldiers
were quartered before being taken up to the front-line trenches. The
explosion had blown a big hole in the ground and damaged some food
stores, but that was all, except that when the Americans were about to
answer roll call they were knocked down by the concussion, and some,
like Ned, were scratched and cut by flying dirt and stones, or perhaps
by fragments of the bursting bomb.

"See, no one is hurt," went on the officer, as if to reassure those
who were soon to take their places in the front-line trenches. "Good
luck was with you that time."

"I hope it keeps up," murmured Bob. "It's a mean trick to shoot a man
before he has his breakfast," and then he wondered why the others
laughed.

They all looked curiously, and it may be said, thankfully, at the big
hole made by the bomb. As the officer had said, only good luck had
prevented some of the boys from filling that hole.

After this Jerry was silent and thoughtful.

"Well, what's next?" asked Ned, after an examination had shown that
his wounds were merely scratches, for which he refused to go to the
hospital, or even a dressing station.

"Breakfast, I hope," said Bob, and this it proved to be.

The excitement caused by the dropping of the bomb soon died away,
though Ned, Bob, Jerry, and some of the other