Blinded by the dust and splinters, he fought his
way madly through the mass of debris until he emerged clear of the
wreck. The first thing he stumbled upon was the body of the German
sentry who had been posted outside the guardhouse. He had been
struck down by a fragment of the shell and blood flowed from an
ugly wound in the head.
Jack paused only long enough to rip off the sidearms and ammunition
belt of the stricken German and then ran pell-mell across the open
space that fronted the old guardhouse to one of the village streets
up which the stream of German sailors had vanished. As he got an
unbroken view up the street and on to the higher ground that stretched
away from the village, Jack beheld a pitched battle in progress with
a skirmish line stretched out as far as the eye could carry. The
Germans had raffled to the defense of their hiding place and had
hurriedly thrown up an emplacement for their machine guns.
"Crack---crack----crack!" came the spitting of the rifles, interspersed
now and then with the louder detonation of light artillery.
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