Again we find Phil and Tim within easy gun-roar of the battle line. But this time they are on the “other side of No Man’s Land.” And the roar is becoming louder and louder. Early one morning it burst forth with great volume. The hiding refugees had not realized they were so near the fighting front until this noisy evidence of proximity burst upon them.

There had been comparative quiet for several weeks. The boches had made their grand effort to break through the French line in the vicinity of Chateau Thierry. At this place it had seemed as if they were about to effect their purpose until two divisions of American Marines were brought up to relieve the French. Then the enemy was forced to a standstill, beyond which he was unable thereafter to advance a foot.

Of all this the fugitives knew nothing, and their knowledge of succeeding developments was quite as limited, save for the indications of sound or silence from the battle area. When finally the unmistakable evidence of another big battle reached their ears, they were quartered in several buildings in the business section of a town a few miles from the boche rear lines. They had selected these buildings with a view to their special serviceability because of facilities for concealment, intercommunication and defense or escape in case of attack.

There was no need of a crier to announce the long awaited event when finally it came. Everybody was on the alert almost in an instant. All day the roar of battle continued without abatement, but the hidden fugitives had no way to determine how it was going. At dusk several scouts were sent on ahead to reconnoiter, but they were unable to obtain any information of definite character except that, it appeared, the enemy had launched a new drive against the Allies in the “great bend.”

The battle continued with unabating fury the next day and the next and the next. Finally two French soldiers, who said they were well acquainted with the vicinity and who spoke German fluently, donned enemy uniforms that they had taken from the bodies of slain boches, and set out under cover of the darkness to learn what was the situation.

“The battle of Chateau Thierry is being fought and it is being won by American Marines,” they reported on their return after several hours’ absence.

“Marines!” was the exclamation uttered by every American that received this message. They had not known that two divisions of fellow Sea Soldiers had stopped the enemy advance on Paris at this point more than a month before and, backed up with reinforcements, were now given the task of driving back the enemy in a sector where other veteran allied troops had failed.

For several days more they continued in hiding and fared pretty well meanwhile, all things considered. They managed to gather food enough, such as it was, to keep soul and body together without any “internal quarrel,” and they also gathered in a good supply of arms from the strewn battlefields of the vicinity; so that, emboldened by numbers and reports of successes of their friends on the other side of No Man’s Land, they felt like attacking a whole boche army in the rear.

Then at last came the announcement from scouts that the enemy was being driven back, slowly, it is true, but surely, and after this information reached them, it was not long before visual evidence of the retreat loomed before them over the western horizon.

This was followed by a tense waiting of several hours; then the boche soldiers began to pour into the ruined town.

“They’ll make a stand here, no doubt,” Phil remarked to several of his comrades; “and that means we’ll have to begin to get busy before very long. The Allies no doubt will train their heavy guns on this place, and we’ll get our share of the shelling. What we want to do is to spring a surprise on the enemy that will create consternation among them and make them think an attacking army has dropped out of the clouds on top of them.”

It was ticklish business, this waiting for the psychological moment which might be wiped out of future possibility almost any instant by the dropping of a few bombs that would heap masses of debris on top of them and convert their refuge into a tomb. Then suddenly Phil hit on a scheme that probably proved their salvation.

The two French scouts who had brought back information regarding the success of the Americans at Chateau Thierry were sent out again after they had volunteered for this second service planned by Sergeant Speed. How they accomplished their mission is subject almost for another book, for theirs was clever work, indeed. But they were aided materially by the confusion of the boches resulting from their recent defeat and the necessity for quick preparations for a new defense.

These two Frenchmen, Rene La Ferre and Pierre Balsot, made their way in Prussian uniforms through the newly forming enemy front and offered themselves as prisoners to a squad of Yanks who had just raided a machine-gun nest and were about to return to their own lines. They were hurried to headquarters, where they told their story. Their description of the location of the hiding place of the fugitive was so accurate that the American artillery was able to blow up the rest of the town without materially damaging the refuge of the 240 United States Marines and Frenchmen.

Still there remained a considerable force of the enemy machine gunners, riflemen and bomb throwers behind breastworks afforded by the ruins, and it was decided to dislodge these with a move planned by Phil and his comrades and communicated to the American command through the two French messengers.

After the village had been thoroughly wrecked by the artillery, the bombardment ceased and a charge on the town was made by hundreds of Marines, who ran forward in extended order to minimize the deadly effects of the sweeping machine-gun fire of the enemy. This was a signal for the escaped prisoners to dash forth from their places of concealment.