"And that did the business, did it?" questioned Pudge, also deeply interested for personal reasons.
"It shattered things, and killed every German in the place," said Frank. "Do you know they found more than a dozen quick-firing guns there? They had made it a regular fort, even though they knew not a single man of them could ever escape in the end."
"But how can we dig a tunnel without the tools?" demanded Pudge, almost pathetically, "and what have we got to blow them up with, I want to know?"
"We couldn't if we would, Pudge," he remarked, "and we wouldn't if we could. We came over here on business for the _Sea Eagle Company, Limited_, and not to take a hand in shortening the supply of the Kaiser's brave soldiers."
"Then what are we meaning to do about it?" the fat boy kept on asking. "I want to know, because to tell you the truth, I'm not feeling very comfortable right now."
"Frank, have you thought up that scheme yet?" asked Billy, just as indifferently as though it might be the regular program for Frank to figure out a method of escaping from each and every ill that beset them.
"I think there's a way to do it," Frank responded. "This swale we're lying in, as near as I can tell, keeps right along in a crooked fashion, but always bearing in a direction that will take us away from the windmill."
"Oh! that's the game, then, is it?" cried Billy. "You lead off, and we follow after you like a trailing snake? Well, I'm pretty good on the crawl, and when it's necessary I can wriggle to beat the band."
"Yes," sang out Pudge with a groan, "but how about me? I'm not built to make a good wriggler, and you know it, fellows. It's going to be awful tough on a fellow whose body is so thick that it looms up above the sheltering bank some of the time. I'll be fairly riddled with shot, sooner or later. Please tell me how I'm going to manage it, won't you?"
"There's only one thing for you to do, Pudge," Billy jeered.
"Hug tight where you are, and we'll promise to come back sooner or later and rescue you, after we've got a bunch of those Tommies to help us out."
Apparently the "last resort" idea did not wholly appeal to Pudge, for he quickly went on to say:
"Guess I'll do the best I can at hunching along after you. Some places I might manage to roll, you see. But I certainly do hope they won't open fire on me with one of those machine guns that run off a dozen shots a second."