The Khaki Boys over the Top; Or, Doing and Daring for Uncle SamChase, Josephine
History
The Khaki Boys over the Top; Or, Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam
Chase, Josephine
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
But the natural healthfulness of the boys kept them up, and they
soon recovered from the slight wounds and bruises caused by the fight
during which they were captured.
"Heard of any chance to escape?" asked Roger, when they had been in
the camp about two weeks.
"No, though there is talk of digging under the barbed wire and a lot
of the men going out," Jimmy answered. "You want to hold out and hide
all the food you can. Well need it if we do get away."
His advice was followed, and, though the prisoners did not get much
more than enough to keep them alive, the three boys managed to hide
some scraps of bread and a bit of what was called "sausage," though it
was made mostly from the meal of peas and beans.
As Jimmy had said, there was a plot, hatched among some of the English
prisoners, to break out of the prison camp. But before there was a
chance to put it into operation Fate stepped in and gave her aid--that
is, it was aid for some, and death for others.
Not far from the German prison camp was a German ammunition dump, and
one night there passed over it a raiding squadron, though whether of
French, American or English airmen could not be learned by our heroes.
At any rate several bombs were dropped and one, either more accurately
placed than the others, or falling more luckily, fell on the dump and
it went up in a terrible and fearful burst of powder and shell.
The concussion caused several of the prison camp buildings to
collapse, and a number of Russians were killed. The barbed and charged
wires about the camp were torn loose and then it was that Jimmy saw
his chance--a chance taken by many of the captives.
"Come on!" he shouted to Roger and Bob, as they awoke in the darkness
and confusion, hardly knowing what had happened. It seemed like the
end of the world.
Out rushed the three Brothers, catching up their few belongings and
the precious packets of food they had hoarded against just such a
chance as this, though they had not hoped for it so soon.
The Germans were in such confusion, and such havoc had been caused
among them when the ammunition dump went up, that they had no time,
then, to look to their prisoners. Consequently the unfortunate men who
had been kept in the horrible camp scattered to the four winds, eager
to make their way back to their own lines.
Jimmy, Bob and Roger formed a little party among themselves. They
had only a general notion of which direction to take, but again Fate
seemed to help them, for they were not stopped all that night. They
tramped on, taking the most unfrequented ways, stumbling on in the
darkness and on the alert for a sight of German soldiers. But the
attack of the Allied airships, and the consequent destruction of a
great pile of German shells, had caused such havoc back of the Hun
lines that for several hours all was in confusion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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