Before they could find their voices a motor cycle, driven as though the angel of death were at the wheel, shaved their mud-guard and, in its turn, vanished into the night.
"Things are looking up!" said Ford.

"Where is our next stop?
As I said before, what we want is a live one." Herbert pressed his electric torch against his road map.
"We are next billed to appear," he said, "about a quarter of a mile from here, at the signal-tower of the Great Eastern Railroad, where we visit the night telegraph operator and give him the surprise party of his life." The three men had mounted the steps of the signal-tower so quietly that, when the operator heard them, they already surrounded him.

He saw three German soldiers with fierce upturned mustaches, with flat, squat helmets, with long brown rifles.

They saw an anaemic, pale-faced youth without a coat or collar, for the night was warm, who sank back limply in his chair and gazed speechless with wide-bulging eyes.
In harsh, guttural tones Ford addressed him.

"You are a prisoner," he said.