PRISONERS Apparently some of the enemy had not yet withdrawn to the north, for in less than five seconds Roscoe was surrounded by a group of German soldiers, among whom towered a huge officer with an eye so fierce and piercing that it was apparent even in the half darkness.

He sported a moustache more aggressively terrible than that of Kaiser Bill himself and his demeanor was such as to make that of a roaring lion seem like a docile lamb by comparison.

An Iron Cross depended from a heavy chain about his bull neck and his portly breast was so covered with the junk of rank and commemoration that it seemed like one of those boards from which street hawkers sell badges at a public celebration.
Poor Tom, who had been hauled out of the hole, stood dogged and sullen in the clutch of a Boche soldier, and Roscoe, even in his surprise at this singular turn of affairs, bestowed a look of withering scorn upon him.
"I knew those branches were _broken_ off," Tom muttered, as if in answer.

"They're using them for camouflage.

It's got nothing to do with the other thing about which way we were going." But Roscoe only looked at him with a sneer.
Wherever the wrong and right lay as to their direction, they had run plunk into a machine-gun nest and Roscoe Bent, with all his diabolical skill of aim, could not afford his fine indulgence of sneering, for as an active combatant, which Tom was not, he should have known that these nests were more likely to be found at the wood's edge than anywhere else, where they could command the open country.