Given an hour's notice, these busy men who
wore those steel vises clamped upon their ears could disconnect the
lines, pull down and reel in the wires, pack the batteries and the
exchanges, and have the entire outfit loaded upon automobiles for speedy
transmission elsewhere. Having seen what I had seen of the German
military system, I could not find it in my heart to doubt this.
Miracles had already become commonplaces; what might have been epic once
was incidental now. I hearkened and believed.
At his command a sergeant plugged in certain stops upon a keyboard and
then when the Colonel, taking a hand telephone up from a table, had
talked into it in German he passed it into my hands.
"The captain at the other end of the line knows English," he said.
"I've just told him you wish to speak with him for a minute." I pressed
the rubber disk to my ear. "Hello!" I said.
"Hello!" came back the thin-strained answer. "This is such and such a
trench"--giving the number--"in front of Cerny.
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