Thoughts of escape returned.  Crossing a river in battle was a perilous operation, entailing much confusion, and the chance might come at the Marne.  They could see too that the Germans were now being pressed harder.  The French shells were coming faster and with more deadly precision.  Now and then they exploded among the masses of German infantry, and once or twice they struck close to the captives.

“It would be a pity to be killed by our own people,” said Fleury.

“And at such a time as this,” said John.  “Do you know, Fleury, that my greatest fear about getting killed is that then I wouldn’t know how this war is going to end?”

“I feel that way myself sometimes.  Look, there’s the Marne!  See its waters shining!  It’s the mark of the first great stage in the German retreat.”

“I wonder how we’re going to cross.  I suppose the bridges will be crowded with artillery and men.  It might pay the Germans just to let us go.”

“They won’t do that.  There’s nothing in their rules about liberating prisoners, and they wouldn’t hear of such a thing, anyhow, trouble or no trouble.”

“I see some boats, and I fancy we’ll cross on them.  I wonder if we couldn’t make what we call in my country a get-away, while we’re waiting for the embarkation.”

“If our gunners become much more accurate our get-away, as you call it, will be into the next life.”

Two huge shells had burst near, and, although none of the flying metal struck them, their faces were stung by fine dirt.  When John brushed the dust out of his eyes he saw that he was right in his surmise about the crossing in boats, but wrong about probable delays in embarkation.  The German machine even in retreat worked with neatness and dispatch.  There were three boats, and the first relay of prisoners, including John and Fleury, was hurried into them.  A bridge farther down the stream rumbled heavily as the artillery crossed on it.  But the French force was coming closer and closer.  A shell struck in the river sixty or eighty feet from them and the water rose in a cataract.  Some of the prisoners had been put at the oars and they, like the Germans, showed eagerness to reach the other side.  John noted the landing, a narrow entrance between thick clumps of willows, and he confessed to himself that he too would feel better when they were on the farther bank.

The Marne is not a wide river, and a few powerful pulls at the oars sent them near to the landing.  But at that moment a shell whistled through the air, plunged into the water and exploded practically beneath the boat.

John was hurled upward in a gush of foam and water, and then, when he dropped back, the Marne received him in its bosom.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SPORT OF KINGS

John Scott, who was suffering from his second immersion in a French river, came up with mouth, eyes and nose full of water.  The stream around him was crowded with men swimming or with those who had reached water shallow enough to permit of wading.  As well as he could see, the shell had done no damage besides giving them a huge bath, of which every one stood in much need.