"And the next question is, how to get out," added Bob.
"Hark!" exclaimed Jimmy, holding up a warning hand.
There was silence, broken by a faint, crackling noise.
"Do you think you hear the German guns, or ours!" cried Bob.
"Neither one," said Jimmy, and there was a curious note in his voice. "What I hear--and what you'll all hear, soon--is the crackling of flames. The old mill--or what's left of it, boys--is on fire!"
Jimmy looked about him, without moving. Above them there seemed to be a solid mass of torn beams and jumbled masonry. On either side there were stone walls--cracked walls, it is true, but, nevertheless, too solid to admit the passage of the Khaki Boys. And only on one side was there an opening, but this was so choked with debris as to make it seemingly impossible to make egress that way. And, as the young soldiers stood there, trapped under the collapsed mill, the sound of the crackling flames became more plain. They could smell, now, the smoke of burning wood.
"We've got to get out! We've got to get out!" yelled Bob.
He rushed to a place where, through a crisscross of beams and planks, he could see daylight. Yet, though there were openings, none of them was large enough to permit the passage of the smallest of the five Brothers. And the wooden beams and planks were all of extraordinary thickness.
"We're trapped! Trapped! And the fire coming nearer!" half sobbed Bob.
And then he saw through the crisscross of beams, coming toward the burning mill, a man who seemed to be an American officer. And yet he wore no such uniform as Bob had ever seen before.
"Steady, boys!" cried this strange rescuer, as he glimpsed them. "I'll soon have you out! Wait! Don't bring the ruins down on top of you!"
Through the splintered and tangled crisscross of beams, planks and boards which barred their way to freedom, as some iron grill or lattice work might have kept in some ancient prisoner, the Khaki Boys looked at the man who had shouted to them; the man who had said he would rescue them. And he spoke with a calmness and confidence that was in strange contrast to the scene of terror, noise and confusion which was behind the boys--a danger that was ever coming nearer as the fire, started by the exploding shell, ate its way into the dry timber of the old mill, and menaced the five imprisoned Brothers.