"Here is a fine mess!" said the lieutenant. "Poor boy! I feel sorry for
one with such an affliction! And is he not between the devil and the
deep blue sea? In Gumbinnen there will be Russian cavalry by
to-morrow--and at Insterberg, I suppose, the first real battle will be
fought!"
Fred caught his breath. He was getting what he wanted now, certainly! If
only he did not betray himself! If the officer would only go on and tell
him a little more! And he did go on, almost as if he were speaking to
himself.
"If his people have any sense, they will have cleared out of Gumbinnen
before this. He knows someone at Insterberg, perhaps, but if it is the
plan to let the Russians come so far without fighting and then strike
while they are there, the population will have been ordered out. And
they have been unloading troop trains at Insterberg, too--so that the
Russians would not find out how many men we had here. Eh--take him up
behind you, Schmidt! We can't abandon him. Perhaps the hospital people
or the cooks can make some use of him."
Fred heard this with a start of dismay. It was decidedly more than he
had bargained for, because now that he had the information he had come
to get, he wanted to get back to the wireless as quickly as possible.
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