"Don’t know. Be ready to jump. We’re going nearly thirty miles an hour now; I’ll slow down in a minute or two. We must get away from the line and hide up." In a few minutes he slackened speed to about five miles. "Drop off!" he said. Harry leapt out. Kenneth opened the throttle to the utmost, put the engine into top, and jumped clear as it gathered way. By the time he had picked himself up the train had disappeared. Clambering up the western bank, the two men, bending low, raced as fast as they could towards a small clump of trees that stood up dark in the moonlight. They were but halfway across the field when there was a tremendous crash somewhere to their left rear, a sound of tearing and rending, then silence. "It’s run off the line or something," Kenneth panted. "Hope the old gun is smashed." It was weeks before they knew what had happened. Then, passing over the ground in the course of a general advance of the British forces, they saw the debris of the train, engine, gun, and trucks, lying amid shattered masonry in and beside a shallow brook. The engine had failed to take a sharp curve and dashed into and through the parapet of the bridge. CHAPTER IX D.C.M. The two men had almost reached the clump of trees when they heard the thud of horses’ hoofs approaching them from the front. They instantly dropped flat into one of the furrows of the stubble field. Two horsemen galloped round the corner of the clump, and rode down towards the railway, passing within twenty yards of the fugitives. Waiting breathlessly until the horsemen had gone out of hearing, the two got up, and, still bending low, hurried over the few yards between them and the clump and plunged among the trees. "We shall have to get back to-night, by hook or crook," whispered Kenneth. "They’ll track us down as soon as it is light.... Listen!" From beyond the clump came the steady tramp of a considerable body of men. Was it possible that the Germans were on their track already? For a few moments they were unable to decide in what direction the men were going. The sounds became gradually fainter, receding towards the railway. Apparently a detachment had been dispatched towards the scene of the conflagration. They stole towards the western side of the clump, and, standing within the shadow of the trees, looked out across the country. The moon was still up, obscured at moments by drifting clouds. Far ahead, a little to their left, they could just distinguish the tower of the ruined church. Still farther to the left the moonbeams revealed the roofs of the small village which the church served, and in which, no doubt, German soldiers were billeted. Lying on the eastern slope of a low hill, it was invisible from the British lines, but Kenneth remembered having seen its position marked on the map.