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Title: Under Foch's Command
Author: Brereton, Captain F. S.
Language: English
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UNDER FOCH'S COMMAND
STORIES OF WAR
BY CAPTAIN BRERETON
"When Captain Brereton has a war subject to handle he always does it
well."--+Westminster Gazette.+
+The Armoured-Car Scouts+: The Campaign in the Caucasus.
+On the Road to Bagdad+: A Story of the British Expeditionary
Force in Mesopotamia.
+With Our Russian Allies+: A Tale of Cossack Fighting in the
Eastern Campaign.
+On the Field of Waterloo.+
+With Wellington in Spain+: A Story of the Peninsula.
+A Hero of Sedan+: A Tale of the Franco-Prussian War.
+With Wolseley to Kumasi+: The First Ashanti War.
+From the Nile to the Tigris+: Campaigning from Western Egypt to
Mesopotamia.
+At Grips with the Turk+: A Story of the Dardanelles Campaign.
+With Roberts to Candahar+: Third Afghan War.
+A Hero of Lucknow+: A Tale of the Indian Mutiny.
+Under Haig in Flanders+: A Story of Vimy, Messines, and Ypres.
+With Joffre at Verdun+: A Story of the Western Front.
+Under French's Command+: A Story of the Western Front from Neuve
Chapelle to Loos.
+With French at the Front+: A Story of the Great European War down
to the Battle of the Aisne.
+How Canada was Won+: A Tale of Wolfe and Quebec.
+Jones of the 64th.+: Battles of Assaye and Laswaree.
+A Soldier of Japan+: A Tale of the Russo-Japanese War.
+With Shield and Assegai+: A Tale of the Zulu War.
+Under the Spangled Banner+: The Spanish-American War.
+In the King's Service+: Cromwell's Invasion of Ireland.
+In the Grip of the Mullah+: Adventure in Somaliland.
+With Rifle and Bayonet+: A Story of the Boer War.
+One of the Fighting Scouts+: Guerrilla Warfare in South Africa.
+The Dragon of Pekin+: A Story of the Boxer Revolt.
+A Gallant Grenadier+: A Story of the Crimean War.
LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LTD., 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
[Illustration: THE GERMAN "GOT HIM" AT ONCE]
UNDER FOCH'S COMMAND
A Tale of the Americans in France
BY
CAPTAIN F. S. BRERETON
Author of "The Armoured-car Scouts"
"From the Nile to the Tigris"
"Under Haig in Flanders"
&c. &c.
_Illustrated by Wal Paget_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
Contents
CHAP. Page
I. AN AMERICAN DECLARATION 9
II. THE SHERIFF'S POSSE 21
III. IN THE MINE SHAFTS 37
IV. "EN ROUTE" FOR EUROPE 53
V. A GERMAN AGENT 68
VI. BOMBED IN MID-OCEAN 81
VII. ABOARD A U-BOAT 95
VIII. CAPTURE OF THE TRAWLER 109
IX. A HARD FIGHT 124
X. THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT 137
XI. ON CONVOY DUTY 150
XII. GERMANY'S GREATEST EFFORT 162
XIII. SURROUNDED 176
XIV. WHERE MEN FOUGHT FOR EMPIRE 191
XV. ATTACKED FROM ALL SIDES 206
XVI. HEINRICH HILKER, MASTER SPY 221
XVII. AN AMERICAN ENCAMPMENT 236
XVIII. IN SEARCH OF LIBERTY 251
XIX. PLOTS WITHIN PLOTS 262
XX. A TURN IN THE TIDE 275
Illustrations
Page
THE GERMAN "GOT HIM" AT ONCE _Frontispiece_
ONE OF THE THREE FELL WITH A DULL THUD 40
THE THREE FRIENDS ARE HAULED ABOARD THE U-BOAT 88
A LUCKY SHOT TOOK AWAY A PORTION OF THE BRIDGE 128
BILL, TYING A SOMEWHAT DIRTY HANDKERCHIEF TO
THE TOP OF HIS BAYONET, WAVED IT 216
THE MAN BESIDE HIM WAS A MANIAC, HE TOLD HIMSELF 272
UNDER FOCH'S COMMAND
CHAPTER I
An American Declaration
It was one of those glorious days which they enjoy so frequently west
of the giant range of the Rocky Mountains, an exhilarating day when one
rises from one's bed and issues into the open to discover a snap in
the air. For spring was but just coming, and the mountains were still
clad in snow and in hoar frost; the atmosphere positively sparkled,
while the rays of the sun coming aslant through a giant canyon swept
across the steep slopes of the mountain, where it encompassed the
apparently sleeping city down below, and were reflected from thousands
of minute angles, from masses of virgin snow, and from icicles which
had gathered since the previous evening. Could one have clambered into
those mountains, or into the canyon we have mentioned, one would have
found here and there spring flowers already pushing their tender
buds through the coating of snow, here far thinner than higher up
towards the peaks of the range. In a hundred hollows little rivulets
were running, while towards the centre of the canyon to which all
progressed, some at speed and some leisurely, there raced a brook,
gathering size at an inordinate pace, sweeping on its surface masses
of half-melted snow, flashing here and there as the rays struck upon
bubbling eddies, and then plunging beneath an arch of snow, to go
tumbling over rocks farther down, and so speed on towards the city.
Compare this scene with the peaks above, still ice-bound, with spring
hardly come as yet, so that residence at that elevation was not to
be encouraged. Compare it with the city down below: a city of wide,
well-swept, tree-edged streets, of big houses and wide open spaces,
green already. Down there was a different scene, throbbing with life,
though from the heights above it appeared to be slumbering; with busy
cars clanging their way and motor-cars dashing hither and thither. Seen
from the heights above it presented a whitish blotch, picked out by red
roofs here and there, and by dark streaks which represented the roads.
It appeared to be a gigantic gridiron, for every block of houses was
square, and the roads intersected one another at right angles.
Out beyond it see the glimmer from a vast expanse of water--a lake--the
first glimpse of which astounded and delighted the eyes of Brigham
Young and those pioneers who, forsaking the East, fought their way
across the prairie to discover a new land, and, peeping downward at
the sight we are presenting to our reader, imagined they had gained a
fertile country--a country flowing with milk and honey. Fertile indeed
it looks from the mountains: trees by the thousand stretch out on every
hand, casting a delightful shade, and farther afield green patches
of vast extent hug the lake and stretch away into the open country,
with brown squares here and there, on which fruit farms abound, and
where dairy-men work for their living. But hasten to the lake, dip
a hand in it, and taste the water. It is brine. For down there is a
huge salt lake, which gives its name to the city. Down below there is
Utah, which, for all its salt lake and its salt desert, has been termed
"God's own country".
Ten miles away perhaps, beyond the smoke of the city, yet surrounded
in the smoke and dust which it itself creates, lies a copper-mine of
world-wide notoriety. Rails run hither and thither; tubs and trucks
clank over them; while the mountain side, which the active hands of man
and the never-ceasing grinding of machinery is eating away at a rapid
pace, presents a series of steps, as it were, along which other rails
are laid, where locomotives grunt, where trucks screech their way past
the wide openings which give admission to the centre of the mountain.
"And that is you, Jim," said one young fellow as he dropped out of a
passing truck and accosted another; "just coming off, eh? Then let's
walk home together. It takes longer, I know, for we could ride in the
trucks down to the bottom of the mountain; but a walk's a walk; it does
one good at this hour in the morning."
"Sure," the other answered, with that drawl common to men of his
country. "While we walk we can talk about the situation. What'll you
do, eh? I've been itching this two years past to be up and away. Of
course I know that some people must work, for copper's needed, and so
are thousands of other articles, but----"
"But," said Dan, looking sharply round at him--"but for us young chaps
the time's come for fighting."
They trudged on down the rocky slope along which the rails ran,
descending gradually and by an easy grade to the bottom, and thence to
the smelting plant, where the ore was crushed and treated. They walked
between the rails which carried, every day and all day and night too,
long lines of trucks, heavily laden, needing no locomotive to carry
them to their destination, they stepped aside now and again at some
siding to pass another train, this time of empty trucks being dragged
up by a smoking engine, and for a while they did not exchange another
word. For their thoughts, like the thoughts of everyone in America
at that moment, whether East or West, North or South, were filled to
overflowing.
Armageddon, the world war which had broken out with such irresistible
violence and so unexpectedly--at least unexpectedly to Americans--in
the year 1914, had progressed through long weary months to this
eventful year of 1917. Tales of tragedy had reached America; thousands
of men had heard or read of atrocities committed by the Germans in
Belgium, and had ground their teeth and become almost violent. Still
more thousands of men had taken a firm grip of themselves and had
looked at the situation as dispassionately as was possible.
"No! Not yet--not yet," they had told themselves. "America loves peace;
we are a democratic nation, all men, from the President downwards, are
equal--as good the one as the other; we wish no harm to anyone in the
world; we desire only to work, to thrive, to live surrounded by freedom
and justice, only----"
And then heads wagged, men looked doubtful, some cursed. The women,
fearful of what might follow, fearful lest America should be drawn into
this gigantic conflict, and their men-folk--their husbands and their
sons--take up the cudgels, yet perhaps more susceptible than the men,
feeling more acutely the sufferings of their distant sisters, spoke out:
"What of the _Lusitania_? Are American women and children then to be
sent to the bottom of the ocean because the Kaiser ordains that none
but German ships shall sail the seas? Is no American vessel to make
its way to England, to France, or any other country without fear that
the torpedo of a German submarine may explode beneath her? Is that the
idea that American men hold of freedom and justice?"
"Bah!" American men were getting out of hand; even the wonderful
patience of President Wilson was becoming exhausted. For see, since the
_Lusitania_ had been sunk on a peaceful voyage in 1915, other vessels
had followed the same way; more lives had been lost, citizens of the
great Republic of America had fallen victims to the ruthless acts of
German pirates; and now the Kaiser had ordained that America must
cease her traffic on the ocean altogether. She might by his consent
send a few vessels across to Europe, and these must be painted in
vivid colours, must follow certain tracks, must obey the orders of the
"All-Highest".
"And this is his idea of freedom, eh?" Jim Carpenter shouted all of a
sudden, catching Dan Holman by the shoulder, his face flushed a deep
red, his eyes glowing as through a mist. "I say, who's going to put
up with that sort of bullying, for bullying it is sure? Say now, Dan,
supposing you and I lived in Salt Lake City, and you were to say to me:
'Here you, clear out!--slick off! Salt Lake City ain't the place to
hold both you and me. Quit!--without more talking!'"
"Huh!" growled Dan, and walked on. "Huh!" he repeated, and there was
more than disgust in his voice.
"Just so," said Jim, proceeding. "You and I are chums, Dan, and such
a thing ain't likely to happen; only, supposing it was the other way,
just sort of half-friendly, as Germany and America are supposed to be
at this moment, and you out with such orders, d'you think----?"
"Do I think!" growled Dan, almost shouted it. "Don't I know that you'd
tell me to mind my own business--to quit talking nonsense, that you'd
up and say that you was as good a man, and that if I wanted to turn you
out of the city, why, I'd better get to business. And that's the answer
all of us hope the President will send to this Kaiser."
From west to east and north to south they were discussing the same
theme, the men in their clubs, in their hotels, and their offices
and elsewhere; and the women, keeping the tidy homes which America
possesses, were wondering, hoping against hope many of them still, that
war might be averted, while praying that nothing might happen to sully
the honour of America.
In the capital, at Washington, on this very day, there were collected
all the wise heads of the community, all the nominated representatives
of the States of this vast country. Even as Jim and Dan reached the
valley below, and trudged along towards the hostel where they boarded,
the decision of America was being taken, the wires were singing with
the words transmitted over them, telephones were buzzing, and that
noble speech which President Wilson delivered to Congress was being
swept to the far corners of the country.
"It is war!" said a man who suddenly emerged from a store that the two
young fellows were passing, waving his hat over his head--an uncouth,
rough individual wearing a slouch hat, a somewhat frayed coat with
many stains about it, a pair of blue trousers tucked into big, high
boots, and a tie red enough in all conscience. "War!" he shouted. "The
President ain't goin' to stand any more o' this nonsense. He's told the
Kaiser slick that if America wants to send ships over the sea, and of
course she wants to do so, she'll do it without permission from him or
any other man who likes to style himself 'All-Highest'. He's told that
German crowd that his patience is worn out, that America, although she
hates war, is going to war for the principles that are dearer to her
than almost to anyone. He's intimated to the Kaiser that he'll call
upon him somewhere in France and on the sea too, and fight the question
out till one of 'em's top dog, and that'll be America and her allies."
The fellow threw his hat into the air, and, running up to Jim and Dan,
shook them by the hand. "I know what you think," he said, bubbling over
with enthusiasm--"you two young chaps that's often chatted it over with
me; you've been waiting for the day. You, like thousands and thousands
more of us, will go across yonder to take the President's message to
the Kaiser--eh?"
They shook hands eagerly on it, and for a while stood there chatting.
For they had each of them much to say. Indeed, there were groups
eagerly talking everywhere in this mining encampment: in the houses
wherein the married people had their quarters, in the hostels where
bachelors roomed and boarded, and farther away, where the ore from this
giant copper mountain was smelted, in the hostels there, and amongst
the clanking machinery.
"War! America's at war!"
In spite of the fact that thousands of them had anticipated the event,
it struck them like a whirlwind, left them almost speechless, or,
contrariwise, set them shouting. Pass along the street and see men
dressed as they are in those parts--their hands in leather gloves,
their coats wide open, and often their shirts too at the neck, arguing,
speaking in loud tones and most emphatically, or talking in some quiet
corner to a group of friends who listen intently. In the stores along
the street they had stopped business, and customers and men behind the
counter exchanged views on the situation. In the saloons, where spirits
and other liquors were served, there was excitement; much, it must be
confessed, in one of them which bore no very enviable reputation. For
into this place a motley throng lounged or swaggered every day of the
week: Spaniards, who had come to America to delve a way to fortune;
Poles, and Greeks, and Russians, who had come from their own lands to
make wealth more rapidly; Austrians, Turks, and Germans also come
here to seek a short road to prosperity. They were seated at tables
along one wall, or stood at the bar talking heatedly like those others
outside, or whispered to one another. But behind the bar there was no
whispering on the part of the ruddy-faced and jovial tender whose duty
it was to serve drinks to those thirsty mining people.
"War!" he shouted, and brought a big brawny fist down upon the counter
with a bang which set glasses jingling. "War at last, and not too soon
neither. Down with Germans and all that's German, say I, and I've said
it these months past. Down with the Kaiser!"
A man lounging there not six feet from him, a huge hat over his eyes,
and collar turned up as if to hide his features, leaned across the
counter and tapped the bar-tender on the shoulder.
"Say," he drawled, and with a distinctly guttural accent. "You vos for
war? Ha! And you haf said: 'Down mit the Germans and Germany!'"
"Sure!" shouted the barman, rocking with laughter; "and so says every
one of us. I'm not one for politics; I'm just a plain straightforward
American, with plenty of friends and a good home, but I bar the
slaughter of women, and I don't take orders from no one. Nor shall
America! That's why I'm glad that it's going to be war. That's why I
say: 'Down with the Germans!'"
Men raised their heads as they sat at the tables, and looked across at
the bar-tender; many of them smiled, some nodded, and others laughed
outright.
"Just Charles," one of them said, "the brightest, jolliest fellow we've
ever had. It does one good to look at him. And he's downright. Say,
Charles!" he called out, "I'm with you. Down with the Germans! I'm glad
it's war. Let's get in and whop 'em."
The man leaning against the bar counter turned his head towards the
speaker and scowled.
"A German," another of the customers at a table near at hand observed,
_sotto voce_, to his comrade. "It's said that he's been over this
side only a matter of six months, and chances are that he's a German
agent, though he'd tell you that he's American to the backbone. A
sulky-looking beggar."
"Say!" that individual began again, as he stretched over the bar, and
once more tapped the bar-tender on the shoulder, "you said down mit
Germans and Germany?"
"Aye, sure!"
"And what then? And down mit the Kaiser also?"
"Of course," flashed Charlie, "him first of all, because then it'll be
easier to knock sense into the heads of the Germans."
There was a flash, a loud report, and a column of smoke just where the
bar-tender had been standing. Men sprang to their feet; one rushed
across to support the tottering figure of Charlie, while a second
man sprang towards the individual who had been leaning against the
counter. Then he recoiled, for a revolver muzzle looked steadily at him.
"Don't move," came in even tones from the rascal who had just fired.
"Stand back every one of you, I mean business."
He backed to the door of the saloon, and pushed his way through it;
then, turning on his heel, and thrusting his still smoking weapon into
his pocket, he sped down the street, passed Jim and Dan, who were still
discussing the question of war with animation, and so towards the
mountain.
Here, miles away in the heart of America as it were, the Kaiser had
indirectly brought about yet another tragedy; for undoubtedly one of
his emissaries had carried the war far afield, and had done here, as
ruthlessly as could well be imagined, the wishes of his master.
CHAPTER II
The Sheriff's Posse
Imagine the commotion that ensued in the mining city which lay
at the foot of that giant mountain which the industry of man is
slowly eating away. That shot which had rung out in the saloon near
which Jim Carpenter and Dan Holman, his bosom chum, happened to be
standing--listening to the harangue of that bearded and excitable
person who had announced the declaration of war to them--though it
was muffled by the windows of the saloon itself and by the half-door
which closed the entrance, yet attracted the ears of quite a number.
Nevertheless the figure which presently emerged and went off down the
street escaped attention. Then an avalanche poured into the street.
"Where's he gone? Which way did he turn? Where's that German?"
"German?" asked Jim. "What's happened? We heard a shot, and guessed
there must be a shindy in the saloon. Still, there have been others,
so we didn't take much notice. As to seeing anyone coming out, that we
did not, for we weren't quite sure where the sound came from, and were
looking the other way. Who's the man? What's happened?"
"What's happened!" exclaimed a heated individual, a tall, lithe,
broad-shouldered and clean-shaven American, tapping Jim in friendly
fashion on the shoulder. "Let me tell you, sir, the cruellest and most
bloodthirsty murder that the Kaiser has ever committed!"
Dan stood back a pace and stared at the man in amazement. "The Kaiser,"
he exclaimed, "here? Surely----"
Another face was thrust forward into the circle now standing about Jim
and Dan. "He didn't mean the Kaiser himself," this lusty miner cried.
"George, here, is talking of what the Kaiser's brought about through
one more of his rascally agents. Listen here: a man was standing up
against the bar counter five minutes ago; a chap that's not long been
in these parts, but I happen to know something about him, and that
something is that he's a German. Well now, what d'you think happened?
Charlie, the most jovial fellow that ever served a glass to any of us,
states the case squarely and aloud, just as he's been used to: says as
he's glad it's war, says as he thought it was high time we Americans
were in it, and just downs the Kaiser with a bang of his fist."
"And then this here scoundrel of a German chap shoots him point-blank!
Where's he got to?" shouted another.
It was less than five minutes later that the Sheriff, hastily summoned
by telephone, came cantering up the street, and after him his posse,
collected from all parts from men who had already been selected to act
as special police in case of trouble arising, well acquainted with
their duty, and hurrying from their work, from their houses, from
wherever they might have been, all mounted on horseback, and making for
the centre of the mining city.
Let us say that though the old mining cities and villages of America
now wear a totally different aspect, and lead a supremely different
life from that common in the '40's, yet "hold-ups" still occur in
places; ruffians even now are come across, and every now and again
there is a broil, and some tragedy or crime is perpetrated. Here then
was one, and already the Sheriff and his men were seeking for the
culprit.
"He came right round along the street down here," a man bellowed,
running up a few moments later; "a dark man, with his coat collar
turned up and hat pulled over his eyes?"
"That's the one," they shouted.
"And hops into one of the trucks making up the mountain; it'll be well
up the slope now. He's setting his tracks for the workings."
At once there was an exodus; the crowd broke up, the Sheriff and his
men galloping off to ascend the mountain by a winding track, whilst
Jim and Dan and twenty more dived for their own homes, then, armed
with the best weapons they possessed, turned out again, and, clambering
aboard a train of empty trucks going upwards, made for one of the
tunnels which had been cut into the heart of the mountain.
"We've telephoned round to the other side to tell 'em to close the
exit, and I've told off parties of men to watch every one of the
openings on this side," the Sheriff told them as they alighted opposite
one of the huge galleries which gave access to the mountain. "Next
thing is to have a confab. We've got to get that fellow out, but we'd
best remember it's dark in there, there are cuttings this way and that,
and galleries running everywhere, so lights are wanted, and, after
that, guides."
Jim stepped forward and Dan with him. "How'll we do?" they asked.
"You?"
"Yep!" declared Jim, with the curt assurance of a young American. "Dan
and I have worked here since we were boys, and know every tunnel and
every cutting. As to lights, Mr. Sheriff, I don't know. You see----"
"How's that?" demanded the Sheriff. "No lights! Waal, that gets me!"
"You see," explained Dan, coming to the assistance of Jim, for he had
seen his reasons instantly, "the man who enters the workings carrying a
lamp will draw fire, if that fellow means to do more shooting."
For a moment or so there was silence, the Sheriff pushing his hat back
from his head and rubbing his forehead, while the men about him looked
at one another and nodded.
"Mebbe all right! Say, now, I don't want to dictate to no one,"
declared the Sheriff, "but, draw fire or not, we've got to get a lamp
to find this fellow; we've got to take our risks so as to arrest him.
Waal, taking risks is in our line; we expected that when we were
elected. I'll chance it."
Jim and Dan instantly agreed to do likewise.
"There's a motor-car over here," said the former at once, beginning to
walk towards it. "We can remove the lamps and use those. I don't say,
Mr. Sheriff, that you're not right. This is a job which means risk,
and, as you say, it's your duty to get into danger. Our job is to help
you, like every honest citizen will want to do. Come on, Dan, and let
us see what we can make of the lamps, for the sooner we follow that
beggar the better."
It chanced that the motor-car standing not far off was equipped with
acetylene head-lights, being dissimilar in that respect to the majority
of modern automobiles in America, and promptly they removed these lamps
and brought them back to the party. Presently they had them alight,
and, taking one and sending the second along to the next party, who
were watching the nearest opening, they plunged boldly into the gallery
which led to the inner workings, one man carrying the lamp and the
rest grouped about him, the Sheriff and half a dozen of them bearing
revolvers, while not a few carried guns which they had hurriedly
snatched from their lodgings.
Pushing on with great caution, and flashing the lamp hither and
thither, so as to expose the openings to works which led off from this
main gallery, the party had presently proceeded some three hundred
yards, and had as yet discovered no trace of the fugitive. Then one of
them gave vent to a cry, and, bending down, picked up an object.
"The hat he was wearing, I could swear," he said, lifting it. "Let's
put it in front of the light. See, Mr. Sheriff, I was in the saloon
there with Bill Harkness, a-talkin' about this here declaration of
war that the President's made, with one eye on Harkness, as you might
say, and one on the chap leanin' up against the counter. This is his
hat--I'd put me boots on it."
He raised the hat till the full stream of light from the lamp fell
upon it, so that all could examine it. As he lowered it again, and the
beams swept on into the depths of the tunnel, there suddenly came a
deafening report; the lamp went out as if drowned in water, while the
man carrying it fell to the ground with a crash.
"Pick him up," said the Sheriff. "Jim Carpenter, you were right. Did
any of you folks catch a sight of the varmint?"
Not one answered. As a matter of fact, the man who had fired the shot
had been secreted round a corner, and, at the moment he stretched forth
one arm with his weapon, the party in search of him were examining the
hat which he had dropped, and which was sure evidence of the fact that
he had taken refuge in these workings. A second later he had dived back
round the corner, and now the whole place was in darkness.
"We had best get out," said the Sheriff in low tones. "I ain't the one
to be driven off by a murderer. But Jim's right, and every time we come
in bearing a lamp that fellow's open to get us. He's a shot, too, for
else he wouldn't 'a got his bullet in so straight. Let's get back and
'tend to our mate."
Feeling their way along the walls, they staggered back to the exit, and
were presently once more in the open, where, to the relief of all, they
discovered that the man they carried had been merely stunned. For he
had held the lamp at arm's length and just level with his head, and the
bullet which had struck it had flung it back violently against his head
and so stunned him.
"And what next?" the Sheriff asked as the party gathered in a group and
looked at one another enquiringly. "Young Jim Carpenter, you've been
these many years in and around the works, what 'ud you do? Mebbe you
can find your way round blindfold."
Jim thought the matter over for a while. It was true that he could
find his way anywhere in those works blindfold, or without a lamp,
and indeed would have been a dunce could he not have done so, seeing
that he habitually went to his work along the galleries without a
light, every inch being familiar to him. Yet to find one's road in the
workings within the mountain and to search for a murderer therein were
two entirely different propositions. The one required no nerve, hardly
any effort; the other called for something more, and promised at the
least excitement and adventure.
"Guess, Mr. Sheriff," he said at last, "it's the duty of every one of
us to lend a hand."
"I can't compel," came the answer. "Me and my posse were elected to
look after the rights of people in this here city and surroundings, to
arrest thieves and vagabonds, and to maintain order. If we are hard
pressed we are entitled to call upon those nearest, but they ain't
compelled to join; they are free citizens. Folks in this country are
free, young Jim Carpenter."
He eyed the young fellow critically, peering at him closely from the
top of his peaked hat to the soles of his sturdy mining boots, noticing
the breadth of his shoulders, the depth of his chest, his firm face
with the pair of glittering, frank eyes looking out from it, the strong
hands and arms, bared almost to the shoulder, and the general air of
strength and resolution about this young miner.
"Should say as he and Dan are just the last to refuse a request that
might plunge 'em into danger," he was thinking. "They're quiet,
hard-working folks, as we all know, and orphans this many a year,
having earned their own grub and a good deal more, and have been
independent of others. Waal?" he asked bluntly.
"I've been thinking, that's all," said Jim. "It don't do to go in for
a thing like this without some sort of consideration. Any way you look
at it it's not an easy job; for I take it this German chap is bottled
up in the mountain and has to be hunted out of any corner or hollow in
which he's taken shelter. You might board up the entrances and starve
him out, only the chances are there's food enough in the workings to
keep him alive for quite a while; for the miners often take in a store
so as to free them from the job of carrying food up every day. As to
water, there's pools of it; so, as you might say, a siege like this
could last for days on end, and the murderer fail to be captured. So
the best and quickest way is to go in and pull him out; and bearing a
lamp, as we have just now tried, ain't successful."
"Just as you warned us, I'll own," the Sheriff admitted. "Now then?"
"I'd take in a small party only," Jim said, "every one of 'em armed
and good shots, and one of 'em carrying an electric torch. I'd let 'em
wear rubber boots, and would warn 'em not even to whisper. They could
arrange signals before they went in: a tug at the coat to warn each
other that one of 'em had heard a suspicious sound. I'd let 'em creep
forward till near their man, and then the one with the lamp could flash
it on, while the others covered the fellow with their revolvers."
"Gee," shouted the Sheriff, "that's some talking!--some sense! Let's
think it over. But what about a guide? Who'd lead 'em? Who's the chap
who's a-goin' to take hold o' the torch? It means shootin', mind. That
there skunk what's got inside could shoot the eye out of a horse, I
reckon, so that those who go in after him will have to look mighty
lively--so who's a-goin'?"
"That's settled," Jim said abruptly. "That is, of course, if you think
I'll do."
"And I'll go along with him," Dan immediately chimed in. "Only we shall
want someone who can shoot well: Jim and me's used a gun (revolver) at
times, but we ain't no experts; but Larry, here, he's the man. If the
chap who shot Charlie over the bar, and put our light out a while ago,
could hit the eye out of a horse, Larry'ud shoot one out of a fly, I
guess."
"Huh!" grunted the Sheriff, and cast a sharp glance at the individual
in whose direction Dan had jerked a thumb. There he saw quite a
diminutive person, yet looking rather terrific in his mining costume.
For what with his high brown boots with their thick soles and the
lacings which ran almost from the toe right up to the knee, his rough
trousers cut too big for him, and a somewhat broad hat tilted right on
the back of his head, to say nothing of fierce moustaches, Larry looked
a terrible fellow.
Yet those who knew him knew him as a smiling, happy-go-lucky
individual, a miner whose chief characteristic was a penchant for
spending money. Dollars fled through the unfortunate Larry's pockets
as if the latter were full of holes. He was always in an impecunious
position; and yet Larry had pride, for not once did he beg of his
comrades. For the rest, it was on quiet half-holidays that he and a few
others would betake themselves to some retreat down at the foot of the
mountain, and there practise with their revolvers.
"You ain't got no cause to take on," Larry had told Jim many a time
when the latter had missed a can tossed in the air, for that was his
particular test applied to all who desired to become marksmen. "See
here, young fellow, I tosses the can into the air, and you has your
back turned to it. I says 'Go!' and round you swings, up yer arm goes,
and then the gun speaks. It ain't done by aimin', it comes natural. You
can't hit a can, same as that, tossed in the air, unless you've spent
dollars in ammunition same as I've done. There ain't no particular
difficulty in it, it's just persistence and practice--just stickin' to
it. So there, and that's all there is to it."
It might be easy enough for the diminutive Larry, but it caused him
no end of amusement to see the obstinate way in which Jim and others
tackled the proposition, and to watch their many failures; although, to
do this jovial fellow but justice, it caused him to shout with delight
when finally they were able to hit the flying object. Yet, with all
their practice, not one came up to the redoubtable Larry.
"Yep, Sheriff," he grinned, as the latter pointed a finger at him,
"I'll own up to it. It ain't that I'm of a quarrelsome sort of a
disposition."
At that they all grinned.
"What's that?" demanded Larry, firing up, not understanding their
humour. "Me quarrelsome! Why, I've been here about the mines this six
years past and there ain't one with whom I've had a ruction."
That again was substantial truth; yet we must amplify it a little by
the statement that the population working round this huge copper-mine
was constantly fluctuating, and only a small proportion of the men
remained there for many months together. Yet in such a community men
soon gather knowledge of one another, and, though there were brawls
now and again, though men came to the mine who were of a distinctly
cantankerous and quarrelsome disposition, it was significant that,
learning early of Larry's prowess with a gun, it was not with this
diminutive little miner that they picked their quarrels.
Larry grinned widely, for now he saw that his friends were merely
bantering.
"I kin git you," he laughed. "Waal, Mr. Sheriff, let's move on. I've a
gun here handy," and he tapped the holster in which his revolver was
resting.
"But there's the torch to be got first of all," Jim reminded them,
"and then there are rubber boots or shoes. They are of as much
importance almost as our friend Larry. What's the odds, Mr. Sheriff, if
we set our guards at the exits from the mountain, and send down below
to get all we want? I ain't the one to delay, but we are more likely to
succeed if we make our preparations carefully."
There came a commotion away on their left as he was speaking: a weapon
snapped sharply, there was a rush of men towards the entrance, which,
like the one in front of which Jim and his friends were standing,
was being watched and guarded, and then one of the Sheriff's posse
approached.
"The varmint tried to make out, Mr. Sheriff," he reported. "We was
there a-talkin' away and watchin' the entrance, when a man comes
slinkin' along out o' the darkness, peers out at us, and lifts his
revolver. It was Jacques what took a pot shot at him, and I see'd the
bullet splash on the rock by his head, and our chap turned and went off
like greased lightning."
The Sheriff at once went to the telephone hut near at hand and called
up the parties at the other exits and warned them to be on their guard.
"You'd best get some sort of cover," he told them, "so that if the
fellow tries to break out he won't have a clear shot at you. Me and my
mates here are going in to search for him, and just before we move off
I'll send another 'phone message to you. Keep a bright look-out."
It was perhaps half an hour later that the messenger, whom they had
dispatched to the bottom of the mountain by means of one of the mine
locomotives, came back on the foot-board of that same wagon bearing
sundry pairs of rubber-soled shoes with him and a couple of electric
torches, also he carried a basket of food and a couple of water-bottles.
"Seems to me, boss," he said, addressing the Sheriff, "that you folks
might be some while in the mountain; it ain't altogether a small place,
now, is it? And ef you get on the tracks of this here chap what's
murdered Charlie, you won't be askin' to come back just to get a bite
of food or a drink of water. You'll want to trace him and perhaps drive
him out to one of the watching-parties. Ef that's so, it occurred to me
that some meat and bread and a couple of cans of cold tea would meet
your ticket, and here they are. Now I'm a-goin' to put on one o' these
pairs of shoes, for I'm one o' the party."
It took quite an amount of argument to settle who were to go and who
were to stay behind to watch the entrance into which Jim and his
friends were to penetrate. Naturally enough the Sheriff must be one of
the little adventurous band, and Larry was an indispensable. Jim, too,
must go, for he was to guide them; and Dan would be there to assist
him if need be, or to replace him in case he became a casualty. But
the remainder clamoured to accompany them; and it took not a little
persuasion and tactful chatter on the part of the Sheriff to pick his
men and to decide who should be of the party.
"It stands to reason, boys," he said, "that we are all doing our duty
whether we go in or stay out here. You've seen for yourselves that this
here chap we're after won't stand at anything: if he comes into the
open he's as likely to shoot at you as he will at us who are goin' in
after him, only, of course, I admit it's slower work stayin' out here.
Guess you've put me up as Sheriff so as I should be able to talk when
times like these come round."
"You bet!" they admitted, nodding their heads.
"Then I'm goin' to give orders right off. Larry and Jim and Dan and me,
and Jacques there, and Tom Curtis will make the investigating-party;
t'others waits here and takes cover under boulders. Our friend Tim,
what's been round the mines these many years, will take charge of the
lot of you, and will post a man at the 'phone ready to call up the
other parties. This here young fellow, Harry Dance, will follow us in
five minutes after we've started, and when he's gone for five minutes,
this here Tim will make in after him, and ef we are longer still, and
moving up, Frank Stebbins will take the track into the mine so as to
keep in contact. It will be a sort of relay business. Ef we get held
up, the message can be passed back, and ef we want help some of you can
come in after us. Only mind, there's always got to be a guard standing
here in case the fellow doubles; for you've got to remember that in the
workings in there there are burrows in all directions, and a man can
leave the main gallery and turn and twist and come back on his tracks
and easily avoid a search-party."
Donning the rubber shoes which had been brought for them, and each of
them tucking a portion of bread and meat into his pockets, while Dan
and the Sheriff shouldered the cans of tea, the party saw to their
weapons. Jim made sure that the electric torch he carried was in
working order, and thrust the reserve one in his pocket. Then, at a nod
from the Sheriff, and a cheery "Good luck!" from the party who were to
remain behind, and who watched their departure ruefully, Jim led the
way into the mine, and presently he and his friends were swallowed up
by the darkness.
CHAPTER III
In the Mine Shafts
There was dense opaqueness within the bosom of the gigantic mountain
which the industry of man in Utah has honeycombed with passages, and
once the search-party, with Jim at the head, had gained some distance
from the exit and had turned abruptly to their left, thereby cutting
themselves off, as it were, from the few stray rays of daylight which
filtered in through the arched entrance, the darkness seemed to become
accentuated, while the silence was positively startling.
"Stop!"
Jim touched the Sheriff on the sleeve, and the latter signalled to the
next man behind him, and so they all came to a halt. There they stood
listening for three or four minutes.
"Pat-a-pat! pat-a-pat!" they heard, and then a deep splash. "Pat-a-pat!
pat-a-pat!" once more, and then a bubbling sound, only to give way to
that same refrain: "Pat-a-pat! pat-a-pat!"
"It's----!" gasped the Sheriff, for he was an open-air man, a farmer in
the neighbourhood, and these inner workings rather tended to overawe
him. "What is it?" he whispered.
"Water falling from the roof into a pool; there's lots of it," Jim told
him, _sotto voce_. "Come along!"
Once more they were threading their way onward, each man with his left
hand outstretched, feeling the damp, roughly-hewn side of the tunnel,
while with his other hand he held the tail of the coat of the comrade
in front of him. As for Jim, he gripped the electric torch in his
right hand, ready at any moment to switch the light on and project the
beams in any direction. A hundred, two hundred yards they gained, five
hundred yards, without having heard a single sound to disturb them,
save occasionally that pat-a-pat, the often tuneful dripping of water
from the roof into some rocky pool beneath, water through which their
feet splashed when they came to it. Then of a sudden a rumbling roar
smote upon their ears, advanced swiftly towards them, met them, as it
were, and then, racing past their ears, went on along the dark gallery,
and so towards the open, bringing the party to a halt.
"A shot," Jim whispered. "That fellow's fired his gun somewhere on
beyond us, and a goodish way, I'd say, for the gallery carries sound
like a speaking-tube, and you can hear a man shout, for instance, more
than a quarter of a mile away. Let's move forward faster."
"Get in at it," the Sheriff answered.
And then they were moving again, on through the darkness, stumbling
over rough tram-lines, through pools of water, over fallen boulders,
round acute corners, and so on and on, while behind them first one
and then others of the party they had left at the entrance crept in,
forming that communicating chain which the Sheriff had so thoughtfully
ordered.
"H--hush!" The Sheriff's bony fingers gripped Jim's arm, and, unmindful
of the fact that darkness surrounded them, he stretched forth his other
hand and pointed into the void in front. "The varmint's there," he
whispered hoarsely. "I heard him move. Listen!"
Yes, something or someone was moving. Whether in the near distance or
far it was impossible to state definitely, though every member of the
search-party stretched his ears to the fullest extent and listened
eagerly, head forward, horny palm making a funnel in the endeavour to
catch more sound waves, and so to unfathom what was then a mystery.
"Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat!" went those lugubrious drops into the pools of
water underfoot, "pit-a-pat!" they tumbled from the arched roof of the
gallery on to the persons of that listening search-party, while water
streamed down the rough-hewn sides and dribbled over the fingers which
they had placed there to guide them.
Yes, someone moved.
"Farther along," Jim hardly whispered, tugging at the Sheriff's coat.
"Let Larry come along!"
The giant form of the Sheriff unbent a little when he turned, stretched
out a hand and gripped that youth by the shoulder.
"I heard," came a whisper. "I've got me gun, and all's well. You get
in, Jim, I'm following."
The party they left heard them stumbling along, their feet making
mysterious sounds as they splashed along the floor of the tunnel, and
then of a sudden the blackness in front of them was illuminated by
one piercing beam which cut its way through the darkness, its edges
brilliant, its centre blurred. That beam hit upon the dripping side of
the tunnel some yards ahead, painted a brilliant circle on it, hovered
to one side, then flicked back, and later showed in its very centre the
figure of a man bent almost double crouching beside the wall, a metal
object on one knee gripped by one hand, an object which reflected the
beam brightly.
"It's----" shouted the Sheriff, and then a sharp crack from a revolver
drowned his voice and stunned the ears of all present. They saw the
flash of the weapon, and a moment later watched as the crouching figure
darted along the side of the tunnel, and swept round a corner, while a
second shot, a second reverberation, wakened the echoes, and a bullet
flicked a piece out of the edge of rock round which that crouching
figure had doubled.
"Come on," shouted Jim, while Larry beat himself on the breast, vexed
that he should have missed such a shot.
"It's the light," he cried angrily, "it put me out; I wasn't expecting
it. Seems to me I'd better have a torch, too. Here! hand one over,
Jim, then I shall know when to put it on and be ready."
For five minutes or more they struggled on, running at times, and then
halting to listen. Finally Larry clapped a wet and perspiring hand on
Jim's shoulder.
"Gee!" he said; "it ain't no good, this here runnin' up and down like
rabbits. Every time we moves the fellow hears us. This party's too big.
Let's divide, or, better still, supposin' we post sentries who will
block the tunnel. You see the skunk we're after is mebbe bolting round
and round in a circle."
"That's true," Jim assured him. "There are burrows leading in all
directions here, and it's not at all difficult to miss anyone."
"Particularly if you're anxious to avoid a meeting, same as this
white-livered German," grunted the Sheriff, who was panting after his
exertions.
"And you've got to remember," said Larry, "that every time we moves
he hears us. Listen! There, didn't I say so? That's the varmint we're
after, and mebbe he's two or three hundred yards away, yet you can hear
his feet splash in a pool of water."
There echoed along the wet walls of the gallery the sound of a distant
splash, and then there was silence for a few moments, broken again by
the clatter of someone's heel against a piece of rock.
"Same as he hears us," growled the Sheriff. "Larry's right, and we've
got to break up this party. Well then----?"
He plucked at Jim's shoulder, and the latter at once responded.
"Larry and Dan and I will go on," he said abruptly. "You, Mr. Sheriff,
and the others had best divide into two--half here and half farther
back. That may trap the fellow we're after. Meanwhile we three who are
going on can crawl very carefully and slowly beside the wall of the
gallery and halt after a while. If we hear our man we will try and get
nearer, but our main object will be to get him to move nearer to us,
then we'll have our lights on him in a moment."
"Not forgettin' guns," laughed Larry, "not forgettin' this here, this
shooter! It's just horse sense that, Mr. Sheriff. Jim's been long
enough in the mine to know his way about, and he's listened hours and
hours, same as me, and knows what it is to hear a man a-comin'. When he
sits down and listens to you movin' along to him, and it's a case of
shootin' between two people, it's the man who sits tight and does the
listening has all the chances. Shucks! Jim's given us an idea what's
worth followin'."
It took but very little time to make their preparations, when Jim
and Dan and Larry again crept away, this time at a much slower pace,
halting when they had proceeded some two hundred yards. Here they were
at a point where a smaller gallery left the main one, and ensconcing
themselves at the entrance they lay down and listened.
"Seems to me as the skunk's got right away," said Larry, his patience
nearly exhausted when they had lain there nearly half an hour and not a
sound had reached their ears, save those made by their distant friends
who were patrolling the main gallery, "suppose----"
Dan gripped him by the shoulder.
"H--h--ush!" he whispered.
Jim pushed his torch forward and made ready.
"Aye!" grunted Larry, and then there was a faint click as he prepared
his revolver.
"Wait!" Someone was coming toward them. A sound of stealthy footsteps
reached their ears, though whether coming from the left or the right
was at that moment uncertain. Peering in both directions, the three lay
there with bated breath, endeavouring to remain cool and yet almost
trembling with suppressed excitement. Then, of a sudden, the sound of
a splash only a few yards away arrested their attention, and caused
them to start to their knees. An instant later their two torches cast
beams into the gallery, and centred themselves with a flash upon an
individual creeping along some twenty yards from them. It was the
German without a doubt, hatless, dishevelled, sopping wet, and bearing
a haunted, hunted expression. He blinked as the light fell full in
his face, and then snatched at a weapon which he held concealed in a
pocket. At the same moment Larry's pistol spoke, and with a howl the
man dropped his left arm helpless beside him. But a moment later a
flame flashed from beneath his coat, and one of the three fell with
a dull thud on to the wet ground which floored the tunnel, his fall
pushing Larry aside and upsetting his aim so that his second bullet
went wide of the mark. A moment later the man was gone, and could be
heard scuttling along into the distance.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE THREE FELL WITH A DULL THUD]
"Show a light," said Jim hoarsely, as he bent over Dan's prostrate
figure; "where's he hit, Larry? Ah!--look!"
Beneath the wide-open shirt which Dan wore there was a splash of colour
extending over his broad chest, a splash of red running down beneath
the cotton. The young fellow's eyes were closed, his face, brilliant in
the rays of the electric torch, was desperately pale, while he seemed
to have ceased breathing.
"Hard hit!" said Larry. "If I don't rip the heart of that darned
German! And next time I don't shoot only to wound, to make him
helpless, same as I did this time, I shoot to kill, Jim, shoot to
exterminate the varmint."
They debated for a while what they would do, and then whistled for the
Sheriff and his party to join them.
"It's a bad do!" the latter said when he came up and looked at Dan,
bending over him and feeling his pulse and then counting his breathing.
"Hard hit, as you say, Larry, but he's young and strong and ain't taken
to liquor; if anyone can pull through it's Dan. Only, he's got to get
every chance, which means that the sooner we've got him out of here
the better. Let's carry him, boys; later on we'll hunt out this German."
"Later on?" said Jim, who had now recovered a little from the shock
which Dan's condition had caused him. "No, Mr. Sheriff, I'm going on
at once, there's no time to be lost, for when it gets dark a fellow's
chance for creeping out of the mine will be enormously improved. I'm
going to hunt him down and either shoot or capture him, which it don't
matter."
"Same here," declared Larry, "same here, Mr. Sheriff; now's the time,
as Jim says. We've winged our man, and chances are he's bled quite
a heap and will be weak like and more easily taken. If we wait till
to-morrow he may have got away or got his arm tied up, and be in better
shape to meet us. Now's the time. You pull out, Mr. Sheriff, with Dan,
for the boy's life depends on it; me and Jim's goin' forward."
They parted, the Sheriff and his men to pick Dan up with every care and
bear him along as gently as they could to the entrance; there he was
put in a car and hurried down to the mining hospital below, where, in
case of casualties occurring, the surgeon was already in attendance.
"Hum!" he said; "a close call, Mr. Sheriff. I don't know! I don't
know! Indeed," he continued, shaking his head as he bent over Dan's
almost lifeless figure and put his stethoscope to his chest, "slick
through--small-calibre bullet, and not over-much bleeding. Missed the
heart by two or three inches, which is lucky. Well, it might have
been worse, Mr. Sheriff, it might have caught him right through the
heart, or that bullet might have lodged in his lung and set up no end
of trouble in the future. If he lives for a few days, he will pull
round. You and your men get off now and leave Dan to me and the nurses;
but----" he shook his head again, "but, Mr. Sheriff, don't count on
anything wonderful."
Meanwhile, Jim and Larry had pushed on resolutely into the darkness of
the tunnel.
"Hold hard!" said Jim after a while, when they had crawled some
distance and had listened on many occasions, only to hear nothing which
told them of the near presence of the man they were seeking.
To be sure, there came to their ears the steady dripping of water as
it splashed into the inky-black pools on the floor of the tunnel, and
now and again a distant echo which reverberated gently along the whole
length of the gallery.
"It's the Sheriff talking in that big voice of his to the men in the
opening," Larry explained. "This here tunnel's like a speaking-tube.
Well, what is it, Jim?"
"I've been thinking. This is like hunting for a needle in a bundle
of hay. We've nothing to go on, Larry, except sounds, and they're
uncertain; it seems to me that we must pursue a different course."
"A different course?" asked his companion, a little astonished. "How?
which way?"
"I don't mean in direction; I mean course of action. See here," said
Jim, "you've winged the German."
"Winged!" said Larry, his tones now those of disgust. "If I was worth
a cent with a gun I'd have drilled a hole clean through him. I could
'a done, Jim. Ef you was to put up a dollar at ten paces distant, end
ways on, I'd hit it slick ten times out of ten, and I ain't boastin'
now----" he ended, with a low hiss of annoyance.
"Everyone knows what you can do, Larry," Jim told him. For indeed
Larry's prowess with a revolver was known throughout the mine.
"If you couldn't shoot straight you wouldn't have been able to hit
his arm; for you've told us you meant only to wound him. Of course I
understand that you wish now that you'd killed him, for then Dan might
not have fallen, but you've winged him and probably he's bleeding.
Perhaps if we use our torches, we shall be able to follow a trail if by
chance he's left one."
The suggestion cannot be described as one of any brilliance, for indeed
it was so very obvious; yet in the excitement of the chase it had not
occurred to either of them before, and now the prospect it offered
caused Larry to grip Jim by the shoulder eagerly.
"It's it! Gee," he whispered excitedly, "ef it don't offer the only
chance! And then?"
"And then," said Jim, "if we get on his trail we shoot off our lights
and go forward say twenty yards and pick it up again. In that way,
sooner or later, we may get him cornered. He'll shoot."
"Aye, he'll shoot," agreed Larry, "and we'll chance that, Jim. Only, if
the chance comes, you can lay it that we'll flatten out our man with
one of these bullets. Pity you ain't armed, Jim, you ought to 'a had a
gun along with you; but you ain't fearful."
"Fearful! Let's move on. Now search the ground with your light."
It was not until ten minutes or more had passed that the two as they
crept along the floor of the gallery came upon a patch brighter than
that they had been traversing, and here on the wall, about three feet
from the floor, there was the impression of a hand--a blood-stained
impression. For the outline of the fingers and the palm of a man's hand
were imprinted upon the stone in a brilliant red--sure sign that the
German had gone in that direction.
"And here's his boot-mark in the mud at the foot of the wall," said
Larry, pointing it out to Jim, "and right here's another and another.
He was going along this way. See, here, Jim," he whispered, putting his
lips close to the ear of the young fellow who was his companion, "ef it
was me alone as was leading this expedition, I'd turn off me light here
and get ready with the feet. I'd move along quick, say a hundred yards
or more, and then lie low and listen."
"Same as I was going to suggest," Jim answered. "Come on, let's hold
hands so that we don't get separated; and after this, not a word, not a
sound!"
Hurrying forward, they stopped again when they thought they had covered
the distance agreed upon, and then sat down with their backs against
the wall of the gallery, listening and waiting. It was some ten minutes
later that the faintest whisper of a sound was heard, a whisper which
appeared to be approaching them, although that was a matter for
conjecture. They listened intently till both were certain that someone
was approaching them, though whether in the gallery in which they
themselves were waiting, or in some other of the numerous burrows which
honeycombed the mountain, was a matter they could only guess at. Then,
of a sudden, they became aware of the fact that whoever gave rise to
the sound was very near them. Almost instantly they switched on their
lights, and just as rapidly one of them went out, while at the same
moment Larry gave vent to a shrill exclamation, and a flash of flame on
the far side of the gallery and a loud report accompanied the cry he
gave.
When Jim contrived to turn his own torch on the point where the flame
of a pistol-shot had illuminated the darkness, the tunnel was bare,
there was not a sign of anyone, though rapidly moving away were the
sounds of retreating footsteps. By his side lay Larry, groaning and
muttering and growling.
"Guess that there fox has managed to do us in again," he managed to
tell Jim. "You lay hold o' me, young fellow, and carry me under yer
arm. I'm only a small bit of a chap, and of no great account, but, Gee,
if I get hold o' that chap! If I ever gets square face to face o' that
feller!"
It was indeed a sorry finish to what might have been quite an
exhilarating affair. Undoubtedly the German had got the better of the
bargain. In some uncanny manner, indeed, he had contrived to hoodwink
all his pursuers, and late that night was clever enough to slip out of
one of the exits and escape from the mountain. All that could be heard
of him after that was that he had managed to reach the Pacific coast,
and had taken ship no doubt for Germany. One clue he left: a photograph
of himself, which was found in his lodgings. Below the portrait the
man's signature was scrawled in a calligraphy decorated with many
flourishes.
"Perhaps we'll see him over t'other side," said Larry, a few days
later. "Guess we'll find no difficulty in recognizing that ugly mug
wherever we come across it."
"And I just hope that happy meeting 'll come along pretty quick,"
agreed Jim. "As soon as you are fit to move we'll get off there and
make tracks."
"Aye, aye, make tracks!" cried Larry, for they had talked the matter
over and decided to leave for France at the very first opportunity.
"Our chaps will be trained over this side," Larry had said, "but
that's too slow a job for me. Reckon a man as can shoot same as I can,
and same as you, will be useful over yonder. Pity Dan can't come."
Dan couldn't, and indeed would hardly be fitted for the duties of a
soldier for many months to come, for the German's bullet had wounded
him severely. But his place was taken almost at once by English Bill, a
mere stripling.
"Son o' Charlie, down in the saloon in the camp," he told Jim. "You
see, mother's an English-born woman; father came over here seven years
ago, leaving me and mother to follow. I've been here just a year."
"Just a year!" repeated Larry, looking the stripling over. "And what
may be your age, young feller? Yer size and yer cheek, don't yer know,
make yer out to be a good twenty; yer face, and what-not, says that yer
barely eighteen."
"Seventeen this last fall--old enough to come along o' you and do
something to them Germans," came the quick answer. "I can shoot, too,
Larry. You ain't the only one that knows how to hold a gun. Father
taught me. Besides, didn't this low-down hound murder him? Wasn't he
a German agent? Hasn't England been fighting Germany this last three
years? What's the good of me here then? I've something to do in France,
same as you have. I'll come right along."
And come right along English Bill did, stripling though he was, and
made quite an excellent companion for Jim and Larry. Indeed the three
of them were to meet with many adventures before they reached France
itself, and there, with British and French and American troops round
them, were to see quite a deal of fighting.
CHAPTER IV
"En Route" for Europe
It was three weeks after the affair of the copper mine and the runaway
German, and of the murder of Charlie by this unscrupulous agent of the
Kaiser, that Jim and Larry and the juvenile English Bill--William John
Harkness--made definite plans for their departure.
"Yer see," said Larry, as he stood, hands thrust deep into the
capacious pockets of his trousers, his head tilted forward, and his cap
over his brows, "yer see, young feller, it ain't been possible before
to get a move on. There's been--there's been things to do," he said
rather lamely, a little diffidently.
"Huh!" Jim merely nodded and looked a little askance at Bill, who, like
many a youngster, coloured as his deeper feelings were stirred.
"Yep," he blurted out a minute later, though the two of them saw him
gulp. "Yep," he repeated, aping the speech of Larry; for Larry and Jim
seemed to this young English lad personalities to be envied, admired,
and copied. "There's been things! The burial of Father, for instance,
the winding up of affairs."
"Aye," grunted Larry, "the winding up of affairs, and yours have been
important, Bill."
Jim nodded, and again the young fellow beside them flushed. Indeed,
the winding up of his personal affairs had been to him, if not to the
others, quite a big concern, which, coming very fortunately for him
immediately after the death and burial of a father whom he admired and
respected and cared for deeply, had helped to distract his grief from
the loss he had suffered.
Curiously enough, it turned out that Charlie, the bar tender, was by no
means bereft of this world's goods. It should be noted that bar tending
in America is a highly-thought-of occupation, controlled by its own
particular Union, demanding high wages, and the best of surroundings
and conditions. Add to this that Charlie, popular with all with whom he
came in contact, was a man possessed of no small intellect, and one can
gather good reasons for his becoming affluent.
"A man can work quite contented at what seems a subordinate job, young
Will," he told his only son soon after he had joined him from England.
"I don't mind saying I could give up this work to-morrow if need be,
and live perhaps at ease like what's sometimes called a 'gentleman'
back in England. But I ain't the one for living at ease. Work's what
I like, and plenty of it, so long as it's congenial; and here it's
that all the time. And mark you this, lad, I'm a teetotaller, though
I do serve drinks over a bar, often enough to rude miners. But I was
sayin', a chap don't need to leave his work if he likes it, and working
behind a bar don't prevent me from making a way in other directions.
There's mining shares to be bought by the chap that's saved; and I've
bought 'em. If yer mother had lived, she could have gone back to
England and aped the lady. There's been ranch shares to buy, and them
too I've taken a liking to, and done well with 'em. Think it out, me
boy, a man thrifty and careful, and who works steadily most every day
and most hours of the day, will have dollars to spare to put into work
that other men are doing; and so it goes on till one day he turns round
and finds that he's got quite a tidy sum tucked away to cover the time
when he's too old for working."
It was that "tidy sum" that Larry referred to when he said that English
Bill had had "affairs" to clear up, and it was those "affairs" and the
attorney to whom Jim introduced him that distracted Bill's attention
from the loss he had suffered, taking his mind from the gruesome act
of that rascally German and forcing him to concentrate on other more
humane affairs. Now everything was cleared up, the estate of the
murdered Charles was either sold already or being sold, the money was
banked, and there was no longer any need for Bill to be in attendance.
As for Jim, he was satisfied that Dan was progressing, slowly, perhaps,
but surely.
"Though he won't be fit for months yet," the doctor told him. "As it
is, he's had as narrow an escape as you could imagine, and it'll be
months before he's able to run about, which means that it will be
months before he finds his way to France to take part in smashing that
villain of a Kaiser. Aye, villain!" he cried, bringing a fist down with
a bang on the edge of the operating-table. "D'you think we over here
don't know? Haven't I friends, American doctors, that have been over in
England these months past, who joined up to help the British Medical
Service? Haven't they been in France? Aren't there friends of mine who
have been working for months in the French hospitals? And what's their
tale?"
If Jim had waited to hear the whole tale--for the doctor was
notoriously garrulous--he would have heard much that he had already
read, and would certainly have gathered some new information: news of
shattered villages, of smashed châteaux, of a country ravaged wherever
the Hun could reach it, of the Cathedral of Reims levelled almost, of
poisoned gas projected at French and British, of dastardly acts in all
directions, of the bombing of towns and villages, and the slaughtering
of women and innocents. But Jim knew a lot about it himself. It had not
required the dastardly act of that German who murdered Charlie to rouse
him to a state of indignation, to make him swear to leave for France
at the earliest possible opportunity. He had read of the ravaging of
Belgium; he too knew something of the diabolical acts of the Germans
to their British and French prisoners. Besides, it did not want a
very wise man to realize that the German was no ordinary combatant. He
had not hesitated to break every rule of warfare. Was not one of his
infractions of the general usages his new, widely proclaimed intention
to torpedo and submarine every ship afloat, whether it carried women
and children, or whether only merchandise?
Jim knew his own mind, like thousands and thousands of other Americans.
He had only waited the word of the President of the United States.
That word was spoken, and nothing now could hold him back, after the
personal experience he had so recently met with.
"Guess we can board the train to-morrow," said Larry, pushing his head
a little farther forward and looking at Bill in such a truculent way
that one would have thought that he meant to be pugnacious.
"Yep--the 5.45 out," came the answer. "Bags packed; got some dollars in
my pocket, with a draft on a bank at Noo York."
"And then?" asked Jim, for, though the three had made up their minds to
leave for France together, they had not yet discussed the details of
their journey. It didn't seem to matter, in fact, so long as they did
reach France, and at the earliest possible moment.
"And then?"
"Oh, and then? Yep," said Larry, opening his lips, shutting his eyes,
and then grinning inanely at the two of them.
"Yep," he repeated, and looked hard at Jim.
"Yep," said Bill, looking in the same direction.
"And then--oh!--and then," said Jim, scratching his head, "well, let's
get there," he added in the most practical voice. "The train will take
us there without any bother, and once on the spot we'll be nearer the
coast--on the water, as you might say--and could really get a move on
about sailing."
See them then on the cars _en route_ from Salt Lake City, via the
Canyon, to New York, where, in the course of four days, they put in an
appearance.
"First thing is to fix up quarters," said Larry as he jingled a few
cents in his pockets. "Time was when I come to Noo York and gone to the
best hotel. That was in good times, Jim, when I was out for a holiday
and didn't mind spending. But this is business; we're on a different
jaunt altogether now. Say now, we'll make right down for the docks."
Taking their "grips" (hand-bags) with them--for, like many an American,
the three travelled very light, and (porters not being in evidence
at the stations as they are in England) were therefore not in any
difficulty--they found their way to the cars (tram-cars) which plough
in all directions through the old and new portions of this premier city
of America, where once the Dutch held play, and where in their turn
the British dispossessed them. Presently they were down in the docking
area, with warehouses about them, the masts of huge ships projecting
into the air--amongst them not a few which were German. Larry jerked a
somewhat dirty thumb in that direction.
"There's the _Vaterland_ and what-not yonder," he grinned. "Ships nigh
thirty or more thousand tons, what the Kaiser built to beat creation on
the water. Guess they'll be American soon, if they ain't already."
"Not yet," replied the critical Jim, "though in effect they do belong
to the country. I was reading in the news last night that Uncle Sam
has put a guard upon each of the ships belonging to Germany, and that
the crews which have lived on them all these months since the war
began in Europe have been sent ashore. Pity is that in the meanwhile
they've damaged the engines, though our workmen will soon make that
good. And--who knows?--in a few months' time they'll be taking American
soldiers to France to teach the Kaiser his lesson."
To Larry and Jim the sights they saw all along the waterside were
novel, for, though Larry had been to New York before, and indeed had
travelled quite a considerable amount in America, the water-side had
never attracted him, but now that he was likely to embark for France,
ships and all that passed on the ocean were a source of interest to
him. To English Bill--young Bill as they sometimes called him--the
sight was a common one.
"There'll be ships and ships going across," he told his two companions.
"Store-ships filled with food, some for the Belgians, who are nigh
starving, other store-ships with food for Britain, because, you see,
being an island with a big population, she cannot very well feed them
all. Besides, as folks told me before I came out, she has these many
years devoted herself to manufacturing all sorts of articles. She's
allowed her land to go under grass, and hasn't been growing the crops
that once she used to produce. There's the Argentina, there's America,
there are the wide wheatfields of Canada to supply her."
"Or were," Jim said laconically, "or were, young Bill."
"Aye," agreed Larry, with a puff of the lips, "and will be yet, Jim.
You are thinking of submarines. Well, it'll take all the submarines
that the Kaiser's got, and a heap more, to keep America from sending
food to our British allies. But you was talkin' about ships, Bill. What
then?"
"There's others full of ammunition--ammunition made in American
factories--going over to be fired by British and French guns. There'll
be steamers and sailing vessels. Seems to me that, as not one of us
three knows one end of a ship from the other, we'd better keep away
from sailing vessels. There would be jobs, perhaps, aboard one of the
steamers, and we might manage to get taken on."
"You! Take you on!" said a huge upstanding figure with a ruddy face,
whose curly locks protruded from beneath the blue sailor cap he was
wearing. "You!" he laughed, almost scornfully, and yet with a kindly
note, as he stood over English Bill and peered down at this smiling
youngster. "Think as we've got jobs for such as you aboard our vessel!"
Then he laughed outright, and clapped a huge hand on Bill's shoulder.
"You'll be English," he said.
"Aye. English Bill, we call him," Larry interjected.
"British!" Bill fired out, "same as these here two, only they're
American."
"American, of course," the huge sailor responded, looking a little
puzzled. "But British? How?"
"He means," said Jim, with one of his pleasant smiles, "that America's
allied with Britain and France and all the rest of the Entente against
the Kaiser and his barbarians, so that we are all one and the same--all
friends, all fighting for the identical cause. Besides, Bill and we two
are chums, so it don't matter whether you call us all three Americans
or all three British. I ain't ashamed of being one or the other after
seeing the way Britons have shown up, have come forward by the million,
have fought the Hun in France and many another place. After that, why,
who's going to be ashamed of being mistaken for a Briton? Not me, eh,
Larry?"
"Nor me neither," jerked the latter, his head thrust forward as was
his wont, his cap tilted at a most dangerous angle, his eyes screwed
up, peering at the big sailor. "See here," he said, "I like yer look,
stranger. Yer come from aboard that ship, do yer?"
"I do," the man admitted, and then laughed uproariously. "You three
just take it! And what may be yer wants? This 'ere youngster you've
called English Bill has asked for a job. Well, there may be a job--two
or three of 'em; only what for? What's your game? There's talk of
America adopting conscription, eh?" and he looked a little slyly at
them--a little sharply at Larry and Jim, whereat the former actually
scowled and then smiled.
"I know what you're thinking of, but it's natural. Down at the mines,
if a chap had said that to me, most likely there would have been
shooting. You are right, though. There has been men elsewhere, perhaps,
that has tried to escape their national duty by slipping away from
their country. Well, stranger, just listen to this. We three are bound
for France. We're in a hurry to join up and get a slap in at the
Germans."
Thereupon they sat down on the quay-side and told their story, to which
the big sailor listened intently, sometimes scowling, then nodding his
head in evident approval.
"Tom's my name," he said, when the yarn was finished--"Tom Burgan, but
Tom'll be good enough for you young fellows; and let me say I like yer
spirit. It was a pity, though, that you didn't nail that Heinrich.
I should say that he was an enemy agent. There are lots of 'em in
America, as you people must know by now, seeing the way there have been
fires at works which have been manufacturing munitions for us Britons.
What do they call that, eh?"
"Sabotage," said Jim.
"Aye, something of that sort," agreed Tom. "'Sabitarge,' let's call it.
Dirty work, whatever you calls it. Pity is, I say, that this Heinrich
escaped, 'cause he's free to carry on the same sort of work elsewhere.
And he shot young Bill's father, did he? And he was a good man, eh?"
Bill's lips twitched; they always did when his father was referred to.
"A good man, Tom!" he ejaculated; "there never was a better."
"And proudly spoken, too. Happy's the man that knows that his son will
say that of him. Well, let's hope you'll meet this German again; only,
look out for squalls if you do. As for the search you made for him, it
must have been tricky business in that mine. It must have been nervy
sort of work seeking for him in those dark passages. And now you're
looking for more trouble. That don't surprise me. Every man that's
the proper age--and the younger and more active he is, the sooner he
seeks it--seeks for something over in France, on the high seas, or
elsewhere, some job that he can do to put a spoke in the wheel of the
German Emperor dominating the world. Well, he flooded the sea with his
submarines to keep all ships from sailing. Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Tom
uproariously, disdainfully, and the trio who listened to him joined in
heartily. "But come aboard; we'll go and see the old man."
"Old man?" said Jim.
"Aye, old man," Tom repeated, winking at Bill, who evidently understood
the meaning of the words he had employed.
"Old man?" said Larry, a puzzled look on his face. "See here, Tom, and
no offence meant, I don't want to be serving under no old man."
"You come aboard," said Tom, gripping him by the shoulder and lifting
Larry to his feet as if he were a child or a doll or some quite
inconsiderable person. "The old man's my skipper. 'Old man' stands for
skipper in the navy. You'll find him young enough even for your liking.
Step aboard."
"Af'noon, sir," he said, addressing a dapper, clean-shaven, nautical
individual who at that moment emerged from a companion and stepped on
the deck before them. "Here's three who wants to make for France to
fight the Germans. There's three jobs goin' aboard, for you're short
of your complement by that and more. How'll they do? This 'ere lad's
English to his toe-nails."
"Oh!" The nautical individual looked Bill up and down in that swift way
that officers have, and seemed to take in every tiny feature. "To his
toe-nails," he tittered, for Tom was quite a character aboard the ship,
and could take certain liberties with his officers.
"Aye, sir," repeated Bill, liking his look, "from the hair of my head
to the soles of my feet, and these two are Americans, just as much
American as I am British."
"And what can you do?" asked the Skipper, for it was he undoubtedly.
"This young fellow," and he pointed to Jim, "looks strong and steady,
and could do almost any job aboard. Young Bill, here, will fit in
almost anywhere, but you----" and he pointed a finger at the diminutive
Larry. Even to be unusually kind to him and a little flattering, Larry,
with his small attenuated figure, his ill-fitting clothes, his absurdly
big head, and his somewhat buccaneering appearance, was anything but
an attractive object, and certainly looked as though he were hardly
capable of strenuous work. "But you----" repeated the Skipper; "now I
have my doubts!"
It was like Larry to fire up at once.
"Doubts! See here, Old Man," he growled.
Whereat Jim put out a restraining hand, and Tom, enjoying the joke,
roared heartily.
"He can do a day's hard work with anyone, yep," said Jim; "and if you
was to get into any sort of trouble this here Larry would be a good
man: he can shoot, he can. When we're out at sea he'll give you a show,
and if it's a case of hitting a dollar at ten yards or of perforating
a tin that's thrown in the air, why Larry's your man. And he ain't so
fierce as he looks, nor so delicate neither."
The upshot of the whole thing was that then and there the three were
taken on as hands aboard the vessel, for indeed it was hard to obtain
full crews just at that period. A day later the ship cast off her
mooring, backed into the Hudson River, and, swinging round with the
assistance of a tug, was soon steering out towards the ocean. Little
did Bill and his friends dream, as they looked back and watched New
York disappear, and the banks of the beautiful Hudson River sink into
the distance, that their voyage to Europe and to France would prove as
eventful, even more so, as had been their last few weeks at the copper
mine, where the German had put in an appearance.
A peaceful voyage was denied them, first, because the weather was
unpropitious. A hurricane faced them as they gained the ocean, and for
four or five days the vessel whirled amongst the waves, huge masses of
spray bursting over her forecastle, while her decks heaved and tossed
in a manner which tried even Tom and older sailors. As for Bill and Jim
and Larry, all the fight was knocked out of them.
"I'd rather die!" groaned Larry, after many hours had passed, as he lay
prostrated in his bunk. "Here, you, Tom!" he said feebly, "take me up
and shy me overboard. I'd like to drown."
"You'll just sit up and swallow this 'ere 'ot cup o' stuff," the sailor
told him, roughly gripping him with that huge hand of his; "now open
yer face and take it in. No lyin' down again, neither; up yer get! Move
up and down! Now you, Jim! Bill's already feelin' better--youngsters
do. How's that, Larry? It's made yer feel good and warm inside.
What?--you won't? Oh, won't yer?"
And Larry did in most obedient manner. Indeed Tom's friendly treatment
soon brought him round, so that, as the gale abated, all three were
already proving useful. It was then, or a little later, that events
occurred to disturb the remainder of the voyage.
CHAPTER V
A German Agent
"I've been thinking," said Bill, on the fifth evening after the three
friends had left New York on their journey to Europe.
"Aye," said Larry in his slow way. "Thinking of what, Bill?"
"Wonder," said Bill, "what a man would want out here in the middle of
the ocean to be slinking along the deck at night as if he was afraid of
meeting people."
Jim and Larry looked at him in some astonishment, a little puzzled to
know what he meant.
"A man slinking along at night out here?--Where?--on this vessel?"
asked Jim.
"Yep," came the abrupt answer. "What 'ud he want to do? Who'd he be
afraid of meeting?"
"Meeting?" said Larry. "Is this one of the crew? Course he must be,
though, 'cos there ain't anyone else aboard the ship; we ain't carryin'
passengers. What do a man want to be slinkin' along at night-time for,
Jim? It was at night-time, wasn't it, Bill?"
"Yep," again came the curt answer.
"And what else did he do?" asked Jim, beginning to get interested.
"Tell us all about it."
"I was on watch," said Bill, "and Tom had sent me down from the
fo'c'sle to the waist to get him a drink of water. The ship was
rolling about fairly well, and so I had to hang on to a stanchion as
I was crossing. I was just by the donkey engine when I saw a man on
the far side passing me. He was hanging on too, going along almost on
all-fours."
"Yes, yes," said Jim, "looks as though he was afraid of falling, same
as you were. Perhaps he's a new hand, same as us, only----"
"Not that," said Bill sharply. "Someone shouted an order just then from
the bridge, which was above us; the man squeezed himself in close to
the donkey engine, and I could see him turn his face to look up at the
bridge. He lay there two or three minutes and then slunk off. At the
far end he disappeared, and I went on my errand. I did not think much
of it then, but I have been thinking since. It was queer."
It was so queer that, after discussing the matter, the three decided
to set a watch to see whether they could gather further information,
and that night once more as Jim and Bill, who lay together in the
waist, were about to return to their bunks, inclined to pooh-pooh the
importance of the whole incident, a man's figure appeared, dimly seen
under the light shed by the thin crescent of the moon, a man who slunk
across the deck, sheltering behind the engine, the mast, and the
hatchway. Then he was gone, only to reappear a little later, and then
disappear once more just after an order had been called from the bridge
and the man on watch on the forecastle had responded to the hail.
"It's mighty queer," said Larry when the three were closeted together
in the cabin in which they were quartered.
It should be explained that the bunks usually handed over to the crew
had, on this particular ship and on this particular voyage, been
vacated for a special reason, and the space thus left free was filled
with war material of an important nature. The ship herself, in pre-war
days one of the ocean greyhounds which conveyed passengers between the
United States and England, provided ample accommodation elsewhere for
the crew as well as a 'tween-decks space for cargo--in this case, as
has been hinted, of unusual value.
"Mighty queer," repeated Larry, as he thrust the stump end of a cigar
into the corner of his mouth, American-wise, and chewed it savagely.
"You're sure you're right, you young chaps. This feller, who is
he?--one of the officers, crew, or what?"
Bill shook his head.
"Oh!" gulped Larry, drawing at his cigar and then regarding it severely
when he found it had gone out.
"Couldn't say. Might be anything," said Jim reflectively. "It was too
dark to be sure, but----"
"Yep, but----" Larry flicked the ash off the end of his smoke. "Yep,"
he repeated encouragingly, "but----"
"But he went for'ard."
"Oh, he went for'ard!" said Larry.
"For'ard!" ejaculated Bill; "but that's where----" and then he stopped
in the midst of his sentence.
"That's where things of importance are carried," said Larry
significantly, "things that if they was lost might hamper the troops in
France, things what Uncle Sam's been hard at work makin' so as to down
the Kaiser; now if----"
All three looked in succession at one another, their suspicions clearly
written on their faces.
"If," said Bill at last, "he wanted--this fellow we've caught a sight
of--to break up the ship to sink the cargo--well, isn't he the sort of
man that would slink about and not want to be seen, and disappear when
there was a hail from the bridge? Should he look sideways at everyone
and want to keep himself to himself? As to whether he's one of the crew
or not, who knows?"
Finally they came to the conclusion that no one could guess, and that
positive evidence was required before they could proceed further with
the matter.
"Only," said Jim in his quiet reflective way, "it's up to us to give a
hint to the old man. Supposing now we set a watch and the fellow eludes
us and really does a mischief, who'd be blamed? Who'd blame themselves
most? You would Larry--you and I and Bill."
"But supposing it's a mare's nest, what about it?" asked Larry, pulling
hard at his cigar. "The old man would point at us, the officers would
smile, the men would smirk and have a few things to say that wasn't
altogether complimentary. I'm a quiet sort of chap I am, Jim, but when
fellers gets sarcastic it gets my goat up. I can stand fun--lots of
it--skylarkin' don't come amiss to me nor to Bill either, and I dare
say you can enjoy a little of it; but downright contempt, nasty sort
of sarcasm, that gets me every time, and I find myself fingering my
gun, that is, I should if I carried one, which I don't now, seeing it's
against the rules of shipboard."
In the end they approached Tom, the huge sailor who had befriended them
in getting their berths on board the ship, and with his approval took
the first opportunity of having a clandestine meeting with the Skipper.
"You've done quite rightly," the latter told them. "This may be a
mare's nest, as Larry here says. In that case it doesn't go any
further, not another man aboard the ship will know; though, as a matter
of precaution, I shall tell my officers. They have all sailed with me
for years and I can vouch for their honesty and patriotism, they are
either British or American to the backbone--and that's something in
these days."
"Guess it is," Larry ejaculated. "Well then?"
"Forewarned is forearmed," the Skipper said. "I'll not interfere
further. You three, with Tom here, will take the matter into your own
hands. One of you had best feign illness--serious illness I mean; and
the other two can be put on duty night and day to watch him. Tom can be
the sympathetic friend. We'll give it out that it's pneumonia or some
other ailment which will account for two of the men--two friends that
is--attending to him. After that you will make your own plans. Carry
on, as they say in the army."
And "carry on" Bill and Jim and Larry did, with Tom's connivance.
"And you've give it out that it's pneumonia?" asked Larry in subdued
tones that very evening, as Bill stood at the door of his cabin
with a jug of milk in his hand, while Jim stood at the foot of his
resting-place. "Every soul aboard knows as Larry, new hand--what we'd
call a 'tenderfoot' way west--is down with a go of bronchitis and a
cough what 'ud make his worst enemy sorry for him. Listen to it!"
The impertinent fellow coughed and coughed and coughed till Jim really
felt anxious about him, while Bill, seeing the fun of the thing,
laughed so heartily that the milk spilt from the jug, and Jim brought
him up with an "about-turn".
"That's the sort of thing you'd do at the door of a sick-room?" he
asked severely. "Here's Larry coughing his heart out, and you laughing
in that heartless way. Put the milk down and go!"
If any one of the crew had been in the neighbourhood they would have
seen the youthful Bill slinking away with his tail between his legs;
for he recognized how injudicious his behaviour had been, though indeed
Larry was to blame, since he was the cause of it. But a few hours'
experience of this new plan caused all to settle down, and their
hilarity to give place to essential seriousness. Indeed that night all
realized that their quest meant much, not only to themselves and their
shipmates, but to the British army, which was looking for the delivery
of the goods which they were carrying.
However, they had yet to prove that their suspicions were well founded.
It might, as Larry had said and repeated more than once with a sheepish
grin, be "but a mare's nest", in which case all three friends, and the
burly Tom in addition, felt--though they took care not to tell one
another--that the position would be a little trying.
"You can take it from me," said Larry, when he had given up coughing
violently, and he and Bill and Jim sat with their heads close together
discussing the matter, "you can put it right like this: ef there's
a chap aboard what's slinking about, he's either crazy or he's got
something to slink for. What's a man want to slink about in the
darkness for--eh?"
"Stealing," suggested Jim.
"Ho! stealing!" growled Larry; "as ef there was any one of us aboard
worth robbing! No, that don't appeal to me; it's something wus."
"Worse," Bill also thought it. He stood for a while silent and
thoughtful and then crept out of the cabin. Yet though he watched from
the waist of the ship for an hour, and Jim, who relieved him, sat there
for a similar period, nothing occurred to arouse their suspicions.
A little later, Larry, with a blanket wrapped round him, groped his
way along the deck and lay down at the doorway which led into the
forecastle.
"If the feller's on the roam, he's got to roam over me," he thought, as
he made himself comfortable. "Of course it may be as he wants to get
down one of the hatchways. Ef so, Tom, watching back there, will spot
him."
Yet the night passed without incident, and on the following day the
three friends continued with their plan, though now doubting more than
ever the justice of their suspicions. As to the imposition they were
practising, it was never suspected by any of the crew of the steamer.
"That there young Larry's ill," said a stoker, as he pushed his head
up from the engine companion and wiped the sweat from his brow with
a dirty rag, which had been clean that morning, and which he removed
from his neck, as is the habit of the fraternity, "he's just the look
of a man what 'ud go down. Pneumonia, eh?" he remarked, as he casually
plugged tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. "Huh! shouldn't wonder!" he
nodded wisely. "Thin, delicate sort of a chap what 'ud break up easy.
That sort doesn't make old bones. Perhaps dead afore morning! You
never know! So long, sonny!"
The beaming face, the smoking clay pipe, the black head of tousled hair
disappeared; the stoker dived down into the bowels of the ship, and the
man to whom he had addressed his somewhat lugubrious remarks heard the
rattle of his stoking shovel a few moments later. If the stoker himself
could have seen Larry his exclamations might well have been varied.
"Never felt better in all my life," said the invalid, as he sat in
the corner of the cabin, smoking a cigar, which, as was his wont, was
tucked into the corner of his mouth alongside his teeth, and caused a
bulge in one cheek. "Never! Only I'm puzzled about this matter, and
don't I want to catch this fellow?--that is," he added, "ef there is
a feller, ef young Bill didn't imagine him. He's young is Bill, and
there's no saying ef he's grown out of all his youthful imaginings yit."
Whereat Bill flared up, and became even more determined to discover the
culprit.
"For I'm sure," he told himself, as he walked up and down the deck,
"that I saw someone--someone who was slinking about--a suspicious
someone. Well, we shall see. We are more than half-way across to
England now, and in a couple of nights we shall make the north coast
of Ireland. If anything is going to happen, it's got to happen pretty
soon. We shall see!"
It was in fact precisely two nights later, when the ship had drawn
within twenty miles of the Irish coast, and was making a direct run
for her English port, that Bill, creeping along the deck, sighted a
flitting figure.
"Come along," he whispered, running back to the cabin and beckoning
Larry and Jim. "I've seen someone--he's down in the waist. Don't wait
for anything, and be as quiet as you know how. I reckon we'll discover
who he is this time."
They followed instantly, and, sneaking down the ladder, hid themselves
beside the windlass, with a mast towering quite close to them, and
there, breathless with their haste, their hearts thumping with
excitement and expectation, they waited, peering this way and that,
seeing nothing for the moment. A little later Bill stretched out a hand
and touched Larry on the shoulder.
"There!" he whispered. "There!" and, swinging round, Larry, too, caught
a faint impression of a head and shoulders against the star-lit sky. He
waited while Jim drew closer and also saw the figure.
Then all three crept along the deck, one behind another, as a man on
the far side of it drew away from them.
"Bound for the fo'c'sle," Larry said hoarsely. "It's locked ain't it?"
"Locked," answered Jim laconically. "But he'll have a key. Listen to
it!"
There came to their ears the faint click of an instrument being used
in the lock of the forecastle door--a gentle, grinding sound, and then
silence.
"Come on," whispered Bill; "perhaps he's gone in. Got your flash lamps?"
All three had, and, making their way swiftly along the deck, they
soon reached the bulkhead behind which lay the forecastle. The door,
previously shut fast and locked, stood ajar. Bill pushed it open
without hesitation, Larry pressed up beside him, and Jim peered over
their shoulders. Then Bill switched on the beam of his electric torch.
The light flooded the forecastle, fell upon that material so valuable
to our fighting forces which the vessel was carrying at full speed
to Britain _en route_ for the battle-fields, swept over a space of
empty deck, hugged other material, and glancing from it went on to the
depths beyond, almost to the bows of the vessel. There it was brought
up, as it were, abruptly by the figure of a man, half-bent, facing
the doorway, a man at whose feet stood a square iron box, in the lid
of which was a metal plunger, a man who stared at them with wide-open
eyes, startled yet full of hate, which blinked in the electric beams.
"It's--it's Heinrich!" roared Larry, darting forward and slipping a
hand on his empty holster pocket. "It's the German that shot Charlie
back there in the camp by the copper-mine. It's the same ugly phiz as
was in the picture found in his lodgings. It's----"
With a hasty movement the man banged a fist on the metal plunger. A
brilliant flash of light followed the movement, and then a hissing,
sizzling noise, while smoke filled the forecastle. Steps were heard,
and the door above banged as the rascal, too much concerned for his
own safety to think of any further need for caution, clambered up the
companion and emerged on the deck, then came a blinding flash, and Jim,
seizing Bill and Larry, dragged them through the doorway.
"Back!" he shouted. "Lie down on your faces! Hi there, on the bridge!"
he bellowed. "Look out for yourselves! we've come upon our man, but
it's too late; he's fired his detonator, his bomb's on the point of
bursting."
Before a return hail could come, almost before the three could fling
themselves upon the deck, so as to escape the effects of the impending
explosion, the deck above the forecastle soared into the air, there
came a shattering, tearing roar of breaking woodwork, a deafening
detonation, while bolts and masses of wood and iron thudded upon the
decks around or splashed into the water--water made clearly visible
by the flare which burst from the fore part of the vessel. As for the
latter, she trembled in every timber and plate, her decks shook and
rolled, she heaved and thrust her bows upward; then they came down with
a souse, and for a moment it looked as though she were going under.
But not yet! She lay with her stern high in the air and her forecastle
slowly submerging; and as she lay there helpless, changed in one
moment from a controllable dependable unit of efficiency to a shattered
wreck, of a sudden a beam broke the blackness all about her--an
electric beam projected from some surface vessel. This beam flooded the
ship, flooded the water all about her, and threw a streak of brilliant
light from a point perhaps half a mile from her.
Somewhere in that streak there appeared a tiny object, a tiny boat in
which a single man rowed furiously--doubtless he was the German.
CHAPTER VI
Bombed in Mid-ocean
Darkness covered the scene a minute after that shattering detonation
which had lifted the forecastle of the ship in which Larry, and Jim,
and Bill were sailing. The deafening report, the shattering sound of
raining woodwork and iron, and the swish of timber and bullets as they
fell in the water were succeeded by a deathly silence. No one called
out, not a cry escaped the crew of the vessel. From that point, half
a mile distant across the level surface of the water, from which a
brilliant beam had played upon the scene there came not so much as a
whisper, not a hail, nothing to denote whence the light came, or from
what source--whether enemy or ally--and then, of a sudden, the darkness
was rent, though in puny form, by the comparatively feeble light from
a torch wielded by Larry. Those who stared down from the bridge to the
waist of the ship could make out the dim form of the American, with Jim
and Bill near him, and could see Larry's right arm moving up and down,
his fist shaking in the direction from which the light had flashed upon
them.
"Of all the scoundrels!" he was shouting. "Of all the low-down German
skunks! And we was too late to take him, we was, Jim! Gurr!" The fist
came down with a bang upon his somewhat attenuated chest, whereupon
Larry coughed.
"Silence!" There came a hail from the bridge. "To your boat stations!
Larry, come up here, and your friends too, and report what's happened.
Mr. Quartermaster, go forward and report."
Mr. Quartermaster promptly carried out the order, in fact he was
already on his way for'ard as it came, and presently returned bearing a
smoking lantern.
"It's driv her deck right off and blown a hole right down through her,
sir," he reported. "There's six foot or more water in the fore part of
the vessel, and she's down four foot or more."
"Sinking?" asked the Skipper curtly.
"Aye, sir, sinking!"
"Ah! and how long will she take?"
"Depends!" came the answer. "If the bulkhead holds she might make
a port safely. If it don't"--the burly Quartermaster shrugged his
shoulders--"if it don't, well it don't!"
For a while they stood there on the bridge, considering the matter, and
then the Skipper himself took the lamp and went for'ard, taking Jim and
Larry and Bill with him, while the ship's electrician followed with a
couple of high-power lamps with which to illuminate the part which had
been damaged.
"Not so bad as I thought," said the Skipper after a while, when he
had thoroughly examined the matter. "You can douse that light now,
for it will be seen far out at sea, and that submarine which picked
up the German might become inquisitive. There's a chance of saving
her, I think, only it's almost impossible to say at night-time. At the
first streak of dawn we'll have a careful investigation of the ship,
and meanwhile we'll victual our boats and make all ready. There's one
thing I'm glad to see: the explosion has shattered the deck above and
has blown a hole downward, but it doesn't seem to have damaged much of
our cargo; in fact, the effects of the high-explosive have not spread
except directly upwards and downwards; and that is fortunate--that is
to say, if we can save the vessel."
The remainder of the night was spent in swinging out the boats and in
carefully victualling them all, food and water being placed in every
one of them. Then the men sat down on the deck and smoked as calmly
as might be, uncertain of the morrow, yet, sailor-like, as confident
as ever. As the dawn came, hot coffee was served round together with
ship's biscuit.
"It'll do no harm to any one of us," the Skipper said; "and an empty
stomach doesn't conduce to high courage; a chilly early morning and
hunger don't let a man tackle a job squarely. Now then, we'll have a
good look round. Ha! four feet down, you said, Mr. Quartermaster. I
should say she was six feet down by the head now. Ugly! Don't like it!"
"Only, she ain't more down than she was last night," came a moment
later the most emphatic answer. "I'll swear to it. At night-time a
man's likely to be put out a little in his measurements, and that's
what's happened, I believe. If she's deeper its only by a matter of six
inches, which you'd expect, seeing that I sounded the water in her hold
within half an hour of the explosion. If she ain't sunk by now, sir,
she won't sink by this time to-morrow; that is, if you don't drive her
too hard, and if the weather don't come up over too rough and blowin'."
"If," sniffed Larry. "I'm not a sailor, but even I can see that things
are queer. Only if there's a chance of saving her we'll stand by. Trust
us!"
A cheer came from the men who stood round waiting for the Skipper to
decide finally what was to happen. Once more he went forward, and now
that there was bright daylight, and he was able the better to examine
the damage, it was not long before he returned to them, his face set,
but his eyes bright and glowing.
"She might sink any moment," he told them abruptly, looking round at
the expectant faces. "In that case she'd take us all down, and the
boats too. Well, those of you who don't like the outlook had better
launch a boat or so and clear off."
"Oh! Ah! Aye!" came from the assembled crew, while one--a foreigner
from a neutral country--whimpered. Tom, the giant Quartermaster,
turned, growling, upon him. Then he swung round.
"What about you, Skipper?" he asked bluntly.
"Yep! what about you?" lisped Larry in his inimitable manner. "Me and
Jim and English Bill has got a little inquisitive, ain't we?" he asked,
whereat the two chums nodded.
"Aye, very inquisitive!" Jim chimed in.
"And I'll tell you why, sir," Bill said. "If you are not going over the
side into one of the boats to pull away, if you are going to stay here
with the chance of being pulled under----"
"Well, what of it?" asked the Skipper, his eyes deep sunk, sparkling in
the morning sunlight.
"That's all about it, then," Bill answered him, just as abruptly;
"we're not going either. You are in command here, and if you tell us
it's no longer a case of ordering us to stay, and that you are going to
stand by because it's duty or something of that sort, because you are
going to save the ship and her cargo, and by doing that to help your
country, that means that every mother's son of us that's English stands
by you, and every mother's son of us that's an American ally does the
same--eh, Larry?"
That individual merely tilted his peaked cap a little forward, hitched
up his baggy trousers, and slapped the empty pocket wherein he was wont
to keep his revolver.
"Yep," he replied, and finally extricated from the depths of one of
his coat pockets the stump of a cigar, which went into its accustomed
position. "Yep," he lisped again; "I rather like it, Skipper. Supposin'
she was to go down now and pull us with her, it wouldn't be worse than
being blown sky-high, the same as that Heinrich something-or-other
would have done with us. Sky-high, eh? You wait until I meet him again,
I'll 'sky-high' him! But it's get in at it, Skipper. You are staying,
so am I, so's English Bill, and so's Jim and Tom and every other
mother's son of us. What? No; I've made a mistake. Here's one as wants
to go over the side and pull off into safety! You--you----" he began,
as he stepped towards the shrinking sailor who had whimpered.
"Stop!" commanded the Skipper. "Lower one of the boats and put this man
in it; only, see that there are no oars. He can tow aft, and if the
ship shows signs of going down he can cut himself adrift, otherwise if
he cuts he will be alone. In any case he will be safe, and that's what
he considers of uppermost importance. Now, lads, we've got to hold a
council of war. Tom, it's my belief that if we push the old girl along
even in this sea, for you can't call it rough, we shall burst in our
for'ard bulkheads, swamp her 'midships, and send her down like a stone."
Tom agreed. He nodded that big curly head of his and turned his quid
into the other cheek.
"So we'll run her astern. She's sound there, and no sea that's running
will do her any harm. It'll make steering a bit of a job, but it's not
impossible. Of course I shall lay a course for the nearest port, which
means some little corner on the Irish coast. If she gets deeper down
in the water, and looks like foundering, I shan't wait to run her into
a port, but shall beach her on the first opportunity. After all, boys,
it isn't the ship that matters so much, though ships are valuable these
days and getting more so, it's the cargo we've got, and that we must
save at any hazard."
All through that day the crew stood by the Skipper gamely, so gamely
that, what with their jovial faces and their satirical remarks to the
sailor seated in the boat towing behind the vessel, that worthy managed
to scrape together a modicum of courage. He even begged to be taken
aboard, and, finding that no one took the slightest notice of him,
finally pulled on the rope, and, getting close under the bows of the
vessel, now sadly sunk and projecting only a little way from the water,
he managed to clamber aboard, and found his way across the wrecked
planking.
Towards evening the wind, which had been swinging round to the west
since the early hours, veered to the east and began to blow more
strongly. The swell, which had rocked the vessel ever so gently during
the day, became bigger, and soon waves were washing against her sides
and were causing her to roll and to plunge, every plunge sending her
bows deep under, till at times it appeared they would never rise again.
Yet the crew stuck to their posts. Fortunately, too, every hand was
required to assist in navigating the vessel, for, going astern as she
was, it was no easy task to keep her on a course, and at least four men
were required at the wheel, which now steered her, her automatic steam
steering-gear having got out of order. What with preparing the boats,
making ready for their rapid launching, cooking food, hauling ropes,
and standing by the wheel, every member, whether steward or deck-hand,
had ample employment, and therefore sufficient distraction from his
dangerous surroundings.
Yet in spite of distractions it became greatly and increasingly obvious
to all that the vessel was sinking deeper, that her buoyancy was gone,
that she lifted now so very slowly from the trough of the seas that a
larger one following in her wake might easily overwhelm her. Yet the
eyes of the Skipper still flashed and glowed as warmly as ever; Larry
strutted the deck as gamely as he had done on the first day when he had
stepped aboard as she lay in the Hudson River; Jim, his arms bare to
the elbow, worked as cheerily as any member; while Bill--English Bill,
as he had naturally come to be called--carried on as though nothing out
of the usual was occurring. It was five o'clock in the evening when the
Skipper, pointing to the Irish coast-line, now some four miles distant,
gave the order to beach the vessel.
"She may or she may not carry as far as that," he added, his lips
compressed together. "If she does, it's a flat beach and a high
tide, so the cargo will be salved without much difficulty, even the
vessel might be salved later on, though I am not thinking of her in
particular. Keep her on that course, Mr. Quartermaster; she'll do.
I'll go right for'ard so as to con her when we get to close quarters.
English Bill, you come along too, and bring Larry and Jim. You might be
useful."
The sun was sinking, and already evening was drawing in, but the light
was sufficiently good to enable all hands to see the Irish coast
clearly. Peering at it through the glasses which the Skipper lent him,
Bill could make out a flat pebbly shore, with land rising gradually
from it. It looked indeed the very place on which to beach a vessel,
and, better than all, the beach seemed to stretch for miles, so that
though the ship could only steer an erratic course it was hardly likely
that she would miss some portion of the part selected for landing.
"What's that? Look yonder!" Jim called out a few minutes later, as,
having watched the shore for a time, he swept his eyes seaward. "That,
sir----"
"A submarine! Possibly the one that took off that rascal last night.
A submarine without doubt, and coming to the surface. She's up! She's
raising her guns! There's no doubt that she took it for granted last
night that the bomb had destroyed us, and, finding us now still
floating and about to beach the vessel, she's going to shell us. Stand
by, boys! You three remain here, so as to help con the vessel; I'll go
on to the bridge to make other arrangements."
Cool and determined, he ran aft to the bridge, and gained it as the
submarine opened fire upon them. A shell, indeed, flicked its rapid
path just above the bridge, and hitting the charthouse, stripped the
roof from it.
"Boys," called out the Skipper, as cool as ever, "swing out the two
boats here on the starboard side. The ship will give them shelter.
Lower them into the water and let 'em tow. Now, all hands at it! One
moment, though. You, Tom Spencer, get down to the engine-room and send
the Chief Engineer to me."
As the vessel's screws pulled her still nearer to the Irish coast, and
the men set to work, rapidly yet in good order and without confusion,
to lower the boats on the side farthest from that point where the
submarine had made its appearance, the guns aboard the latter--for she
carried two--got the range and began to burst shrapnel over her decks.
A man fell; the front of the bridge and the canvas screen along it were
torn into shreds. Another man, standing on the bulwark guiding the
falls of one of the boats, let go his hold, staggered, and tumbled head
foremost into the water. An instant later Tom, the Quartermaster, dived
in after him, and as the Skipper looked over the side he saw the sturdy
form of the lusty sailor rise to the surface bearing the man in one
arm. By then a couple of hands had swung down the falls into the boat,
and the two were dragged into her.
Crash! A shell plunged across the decks near the after part of the
vessel, where Jim and Larry and Bill stood, and, hitting the deck house
which sheltered the steam steering-gear, rent it as if it were made of
cardboard. The explosion drove the trio to the rails, and left them
staggered and gasping. Another, bursting high amidships, flung the men
at the wheel in all directions.
"Steady, boys!" called out the Skipper. "Four more of you get to that
wheel! Larry, how's she doing?"
"As straight as a die! She'll do!" came the cheery answer. "Now, you
young chaps," went on Larry, as a shell ricochetted from the sea close
under the stern of the vessel, "you two had best get along towards the
bridge and go over the side into the boats. The hands are all tumbling
into 'em. They'll be clear of shells there, the ship'll give 'em
shelter."
"And you?" asked Jim, while Bill looked sharply at Larry, looked quite
indignantly at him in fact.
"Me----?" began Larry, as though he were intensely astonished at the
question. "Oh, me? I've been given the job of staying here, but you
ain't. You cut off, you two."
There might have been an explosion on the spot, judging from the
appearance of Jim and Bill. They were, in fact, on the point of
reminding their chum that they too had received orders.
"Leave the job? Funk it?" began Bill.
"See here," Jim shouted. "I--we----"
The arguments, whatever they were, were cut short by a blinding flash,
by a shattering detonation, then, so far as the trio were concerned,
by nothingness. A shell had burst against the ship's counter, wrecking
her rudder and smashing a huge hole in her plates just above the
water-line. In its course it crumpled the deck above upwards as if
it had been made of paper, and, bursting its way through, probably
ricochetting from one of the main beams of the vessel, it scattered
Jim and Bill and Larry in the very midst of their argument. It flung
them far from the ship, and sent them sprawling in the water, where,
fortunately for them, the cold revived them and helped to keep them
conscious. Yet it was only in a half-conscious way, automatically, as
it were, that each one battled and supported himself in the water,
while his head swam, his brain reeled, and his ears were filled with
strange noises.
Little by little the ship passed on. Now and again other shells crashed
against her. More than once, Bill, peering through his wet eyelashes at
her, heard the sound of voices, and then presently saw a beam of light
flash from the shore, and watched as the vessel slowly grounded.
"Saved her!" he shouted, and then subsided, as the sea washed into his
mouth and set him choking.
Something touched his shoulder. Something gripped him by his sodden
coat-sleeve. He turned, and there, staring at him, illuminated by the
beam from the shore, was a face with which he was familiar, no one
could have mistaken it. It was the thin, cadaverous, smiling face of
Larry, with those twinkling, merry eyes of his, that happy-go-lucky,
inimitable look with which he always favoured his friends and his
enemies.
"You!" he shouted, "and here's Jim too! Here, hang on, young Bill,
we've got hold of something that looks like a bit of a boat. Now, if we
get washed ashore, what a landing!"
"Only----!" Jim, who lay athwart the shattered boat, peering at the
shore, blinking in the light, stretched an arm across their faces and
directed their attention to a point closely adjacent. "Look there!"
It was the submarine, now awash with the surface, her conning-tower
thrown open. A man was standing there, while on the deck below there
were a couple of German sailors armed with rifles. Did they see the
three wallowing in the water? Were they going to shoot them down?
Heaven knows! German sailors, to their eternal dishonour, have shot
down helpless people--aye, helpless women and children, too--in open
boats after similar submarine warfare. But no. The submarine came
closer, the officer in the conning-tower gave a sharp order and
shouted. A man slid down her bulging side with a rope round his waist,
and a minute or so later the three friends had been hauled on to her
narrow deck. Then a guttural voice ordered them to clamber to the
conning-tower.
[Illustration: THE THREE FRIENDS ARE HAULED ABOARD THE U-BOAT]
As the good ship, which they had so gallantly helped to salve, settled
down on the pebbly shore of Ireland, a wreck no doubt, yet with her
cargo more or less intact, and, as it proved, easily and successfully
salved, Bill and Jim and Larry found themselves prisoners in the
submarine, motoring away into the North Sea, bound for a German prison.
CHAPTER VII
Aboard a U-boat
"Which all comes of being in a hurry," said Jim, with philosophical
calm, as he squatted against the side of the submarine in the narrow
hole into which the Germans had pushed himself and Larry and Bill, and
sat there with a pool of water increasing about him.
"Hum! Yes!" sniffed Larry, who in some miraculous manner had contrived
to salve his peaked hat, and bring it aboard the submarine with him.
He, too, sat crouched against the walls, the electric beams from a lamp
flooding his head, his attenuated form, his somewhat sloping shoulders
and short limbs, and casting a shadow of the man athwart the iron grids
which formed the deck, till Larry, pictured in shadow, looked like a
horrible demon. As for Bill, dripping with sea water, chilled to the
bone, yet as philosophical as either of his companions--for friendship
with them had taught him calmness and philosophy if it had taught
him nothing else--he lay at full length, breathing heavily, a little
depressed, yet, with youthful spirit, already beginning to think of the
future.
"Which comes of being in a hurry! Yes, Jim," he agreed. "Only think
what it's brought us to--a submarine! and I suppose we're already under
the water."
The two friends nodded at him. "You can hear it outside. I felt her
going down," said Larry. "Rummy feeling--eh? being right under the
sea; running along without anyone being any the wiser. Supposing one
of your British torpedo-boat destroyers--T.B.D.'s they call 'em--or
one of ours, 'cos, don't yer know, Uncle Sam's already got some of his
fleet over this side of the Atlantic, supposing they were to drop a
depth-charge on us. Disagreeable--eh?" and Larry looked at Jim and Bill
with that wry little smile of his, and shrugged his narrow shoulders;
whereat Bill at least burst into laughter.
"You ain't going to frighten me in that way, Larry," he said. "Besides,
if it bust this show it might send us clear of her. Of course I know
it would be awkward to go to the bottom like a stone, to find yourself
boxed in this steel cage, unable to move out, waiting to be suffocated;
we won't think of that! Let's think of France, of the fighting there
that we're going to take a part in."
"That we mean to take part in," said Jim, with determination. "Wonder
if these fellows'll give us something to eat, it was breakfast time at
daybreak, and we've had nothing since then."
As if summoned by the speech, the door leading to the narrow
compartment into which they had been thrust opened and a German sailor
pushed his head in.
"Come out!" he commanded, and led the way over only a few short feet
of deck to the central part of the vessel, where was all the apparatus
that controlled her movements.
"Now tell us who you are," demanded the officer who accosted them, and
who spoke excellent English. "First--British or American?"
"American," said Larry, pushing himself to the fore and speaking before
Bill could get in an answer.
"Good country to come from--you'll never see it again," came the
sardonic answer. "But as you're American, and not British, perhaps
you'll get off lighter. If you'd been British I'd have pushed you
overboard."
Larry looked at the man, contempt written on every feature of his
sharp, determined face, Jim's lips curled, only Bill stood staring at
the German as if he thought him a monster.
"Well?" demanded the naval officer.
"See here," said Larry, who made himself the spokesman, "this ain't
the sort of place for you and I to have a conversation on this matter.
If things was reversed, and you was me and I was you, which I'm glad
it ain't, but if it was like that, then we might have a pow-wow.
Being as it is, few words the better. As for us, if you says you'll
push us overboard, we're bound to believe you. What then--we're
Americans--what'll you do?"
"Depends! What was the cargo you had aboard the vessel? What damage was
done?"
"Done! How?" asked Larry, curious to learn how much the Commander knew
himself.
"By the bomb placed by our agent--a clever trick that!" said the
officer; "a clever man Heinrich Hilker! But perhaps you don't know him."
Whereat Larry sniffed harder, but, feeling it wise to make no answer,
stood staring round him at the various wheels and quadrants and
instruments which filled almost every available inch of the centre of
the vessel.
"Well then," demanded the officer, when a minute had passed, "what is
your report?"
Larry looked under the peak of his hat into his eyes, regarding every
portion of the officer down to his feet, screwed up his lips, smiled
that enigmatical smile of his and answered not a word. Then, after a
long pause, he tapped the officer on the shoulder.
"See here, Mr. Officer," he said, "you've taken us in what you call
fair fighting, and we're prisoners; let it stand at that. You wouldn't
expect to give away what had happened in your own case, supposing
positions were reversed. Then don't expect it of an American. Play
the game, and give us something to eat and drink, for we're well-nigh
famished, and something strong would send the blood through us after
being chilled in the water."
Maybe the German officer in command of this German submarine was of
a type different from those who have commanded the majority of these
under-water vessels, and who seem to have stooped to the murder of so
many helpless individuals. He looked Larry up and down, stared hard at
Jim, and stepped a pace closer to Bill, as if attracted by his youthful
appearance and anxious to interrogate him. Then he clapped his hands,
gave a sharp order, and saw the trio led back to the compartment in
which they had been incarcerated. There a sailor brought them food and
steaming coffee, adding to each cup some rum, which helped to warm them
wonderfully. A little later he brought them dry clothing and took their
wet garments away from the compartment; then, as if anxious to treat
them well, he produced blankets and mattresses, upon which Larry and
his two friends were soon stretched.
Indeed they slept for hours, worn out with their exertions of the
previous night and with the struggle they had waged during the day
which had just passed. Nor were their dreams unhappy. They fell asleep
mindful of the unfortunate position in which they found themselves, but
buoyed up by the memory of their success in helping to beach the vessel
and her valuable cargo.
"It ain't as if the Hun had done us in altogether," said Larry just
before he dropped asleep. "He was clever, he was, and that Heinrich was
about the most cunning scoundrel that the Kaiser could have employed.
See how he failed, though! Gee! That bomb ought to have blown the front
of the ship away, and yet it left her cargo almost undamaged. Reckon,
young Bill, your chaps is working like niggers now to get it salved,
and--and--we're here."
"And alive and well," said Jim cheerfully.
"And while there's life there's hope. And there's the French front,"
Bill chimed in in sleepy tones, "that's the next thing to be thought
of."
Yet other things soon arose to engage their attention. It was at
an early hour on the following morning--though they themselves did
not know that the day had broken, for it was quite dark in the
interior of the submarine and the electric beams still flooded their
compartment--that they knew that the vessel had stopped, and presently
felt a breath of cool air as the door of their prison was opened.
"Come up!" a voice called, and obediently they clambered into the
conning-tower and so on to the deck of the submarine. She was lying
awash, and near her a surface vessel, a trawler by appearance.
"Hope you haven't had an uncomfortable night," grinned the officer
in command of the submarine. "I'm transferring you to one of our
mine-sweepers. She'll take you to Germany and to prison. _Bon voyage!_"
A boat pulled alongside and the three dropped into it and were rowed
to the trawler, which, as soon as they were aboard, hauled in its
anchor and steamed off, leaving the submarine still floating on the
surface. Not that Larry and Jim and Bill were able to watch her, for
immediately they reached the deck of the vessel they were hustled to
a companion-way and forced to go down between decks. Here, when their
eyes became accustomed to the darkness, they found themselves in the
hold of the vessel with a number of other occupants of the space seated
against the bulkheads or against the sides of the trawler.
"Hello, mates!" began Larry, as if to open the ball. "Cheerio!"
A short, heavily-built man came forward at once. "You're British?" he
said. "No, American!"
"No, both," said Larry. "I'm American, so's Jim, here. This here is
Bill, who's English."
"Submarined?" came the next question.
"Yep. First done in by a German agent and his bomb, then gunned by a
submarine. Me and my mates were blown overboard and rescued by a fellow
in command of the submarine."
"Rescued! That's unusual! Why?"
Larry shrugged his shoulders. Indeed, neither he nor Jim nor Bill could
tell why it was that the submarine commander had taken it into his head
to preserve their lives. Too often, alas! men had been left floating
helpless on the water after a similar attack, and the submarine, having
risen to the surface, and its officers and crew maybe having jeered at
them, had motored off and left them to their fate. It was no wonder
then that this burly individual expressed surprise at such a happening.
"And you?" asked Jim after a while.
"Me and these fellows 'long with me belong to the merchant marine,
and we've to thank a submarine for being here. It's three nights ago
that, without a word of warning, without sight of the submarine, there
was a terrific explosion that burst our plates in and swamped our
engine-room. The chief engineer and his mates were killed right off,
and our skipper was thrown from his bridge into the water. We chaps set
to work to lower the boats, but they'd been smashed into matchwood. It
so happened that this trawler was steaming some few miles away, and it
may be that the same submarine that did you in was the cause of our
misfortune. Anyways, we were taken aboard and brought to the trawler,
and--and--here we are."
"Waiting to go to a German prison," came a voice from one of the
figures seated against the bulkhead.
"Which means wellnigh starvation for the British," said another,
whereat there was silence.
"If--starvation if----" began Bill, as though he had suddenly thought
of something brilliant.
"If what, young Bill?"
"That is, if we get to a German prison."
"If--we--get--to--a--German--prison!" the burly individual repeated
slowly, emphasizing each word in turn. "Now, you don't think--look
here, my name's Jack, and I was bos'n aboard our vessel. You spit it
out. What's the yarn?"
Larry looked at Bill curiously. In the dim semi-darkness of the hold he
could see his face, not clearly, but sufficiently well to realize that
his eyes were gleaming.
"Yep, Bill," he said encouragingly, "spit it out! It don't want any
tellin' that neither you nor me, nor any of these fellows, wants to go
to a German prison, but----"
"Aye, but," said Jim, "how are we to work it not to do so?"
"Depends," said Bill, "only it's got to be done quick, if at all. I'm
only guessing, but I reckon we're steaming now for the German coast.
There are mine-fields and all sorts of things through which a vessel
has to thread her way, and once in those we couldn't easily make our
way out again; so the sooner we get to work the better."
"Get to work! How?" demanded Jack.
"Like this. Make a row, shout, attract the attention of the guards, get
'em to come down here, collar one of 'em, take his rifle, fight our
way up. I'm not sure, but I had a good look round when we came aboard,
and counted only eight men. Two of them were armed, and stood near the
companion down which we came, the rest were deck-hands. There will
be the captain, too, and a small staff down in the engine-room--they
needn't count. If we're going to do it, we shall be through with the
business and masters of the ship before the engineers knows what's
happened. Then, if we are wise----"
The burly sailor clapped a hand on Bill's shoulder.
"You speak soft, sonny," he said; "you just talk gently for a moment.
Bless me, but I believe he's got the very idea; and if the idea's any
good it's as he says: it's got to be done now. This very moment, as you
might say, within half an hour at most, and it's got to be gone through
without whimpering. Boys, close round!"
Heads had been lifted in the meanwhile, the figures of men crouching
against the bulkheads and against the side of the trawler, crouching
despondently it must be admitted, had moved, had straightened
themselves, while not a few of their fellow-prisoners had sprung to
their feet and come nearer as Bill and his friends discussed the matter.
"Escape!" one of them said. "Why not?"
"Better than going to a German prison; better than being starved. I'd
risk a hit," said another, "if I knew that I could get back to England.
Besides----"
"Besides what? I'll tell you; besides every man's wanted to get our
ships going. What then? What next, young fellow? How's it to be done?"
By then all of them were standing about Bill and his friends, peering
at the youth in their midst, and endeavouring to decipher his meaning;
their faces thrust forward, their hands on their hips, listening
eagerly to every word he and his friends uttered.
As for Bill, he was rather taken off his feet by the sudden interest he
had aroused. To be sure, as he came aboard the vessel he had taken a
swift glance round, and had noticed what a small crew she appeared to
carry. In a swift glance, too, he had taken note of the companion-way,
and of the method adopted to close it. There was a door at the top, and
against that had been placed a huge bale and a coil of rope, which,
seeing that it opened outwards, effectually closed it. But strong men
from within could easily push it aside, and--why not?
"There are two ways of doing the trick, I think," he told them, his
voice now lowered. "One of them is to feign illness and to shout for
help. That may or may not bring one of the guards down amongst us, but
it will have the effect also of warning the remainder of the crew.
T'other's to creep up, put our shoulders to the door, and heave it
open. We'd have to chance a shot from the man on guard, but once we've
mastered them we'd be free of the deck, and nineteen of us, as I make
our number to be, should be able to overpower them."
"Line up, you men!" came from Jack. "This 'ere business wants in the
first place a lusty chap with shoulders that will take no denyin'. It's
a case for volunteers. Is any of you for it?"
If any of the guards had peered down into the hold of the trawler just
then they would have witnessed a weird performance; they would have
seen those eighteen sturdy men, all silent, desperately in earnest,
line up, listening to the words of their leader. And as he spoke they
would have watched the whole line step forward without a moment's
hesitation. All were volunteers.
"So it's like that!" said Jack, and Bill could have sworn he chuckled.
"Now, seein' that the companion won't carry every one of you, and one
is bound to go first, and have another strong 'un by him, and seein'
as I have the broadest shoulders of the lot--why, I go first, as is
natural, then Jim Scott comes second, 'cos he's a heavy weight, and if
I go down the door won't stand much of a push from him, will it? After
that we comes as we can, but I'm goin' to tell each man of you off for
special business."
"Hold hard! And what about us, Mister?" came from Larry, who pushed
himself forward, automatically putting his hat at an angle as he did
so, though the darkness hid the movement. "See here, Mr. Jack, it was
one of this here party that fixed the business up. What have we done to
be left to the last?"
For answer, the burly figure of the sailor came a little nearer and
the two gnarled hands were stretched out, the fingers extended, and,
falling upon Larry's attenuated shoulders, passed thence down his arms,
down his body, and finally to his legs.
"No offence! You're an American, and everyone knows that Americans are
not the boys to hold back, but rather the ones to be right in front,"
said Jack. "But it's beef that's wanted here, sir, British beef, and me
and Jim's got it. I don't say as we ain't got the pluck too, but pluck
won't push that door at the top of the companion open. Weight will,
beef will--get me?"
Larry did. He had already summed up the business with his quick
American wit, and liked the bos'n and his bluff statements, liked the
bold way in which he had adopted Bill's ideas. That the other men
below fancied the English sailor there was no denying, and if it had
not been for the need for secrecy they would have cheered him. Then,
too, there was the added need for haste, there were those mine-fields
to be thought of, and the fact that every minute carried the trawler,
presumably, nearer to some German port.
"Get you? Yep," said Larry. "'Carry on', as they say in the British
army."
In deadly silence, feeling their way in the dim darkness of the hold,
the imprisoned sailors made their way to the companion, up which
Jack crept on all-fours, followed closely by Jim Scott, while the
others--Bill, Larry, and Jim foremost amongst them--followed closely.
"You just shove easy and quiet first of all, so as to get a move on,"
said Jack, "and then out yer comes, every mother's son of yer!"
Leaning his whole weight against the door above, the sailor pushed
with gentle force--with force which increased every moment. The wood
creaked and bent. To those behind, eager for a successful result, it
sounded as though the timbers would crack asunder rather than that the
door would open. But no! Wait! In a moment a thin crevice of light
showed; it grew broader; it was now a whole inch wide; then two, then
three.
Bill, peering between the legs of Jack, who stood above him, could see
right through on to the deck of the trawler, and then, with a heave and
a hoist, the door was thrown right open.
CHAPTER VIII
Capture of the Trawler.
A deafening report greeted the coming of Jack and Jim and Bill and his
friends through the doorway of the companion which led to their prison.
A bullet flicked its path across their faces and buried itself in the
bale which had been thrown against the door--then there was a crack.
Sailor-like, with an agility of which one would hardly have thought
him capable, considering his burliness, Jack had leaped at the German
who had fired the shot, and, displaying much science in the manœuvre,
undercut him in a manner which astonished not only the marine, but some
deck hands standing close beside him. For the German's chin went back,
his head was jerked almost from his body, his feet left the deck a
moment later, and he measured his length on the steel plates.
It was at that precise instant that Larry seized the falling rifle, and
hardly a second later that Bill, coming swiftly after him, launched
himself like an arrow in amongst the German deck hands. Jim was there
too, following up his strokes, while another party of the sailors had
turned sharp right and were sweeping the deck hands on that side of
the vessel. As for the second marine on sentry-go, he was dealt with
in the most disagreeable and summary manner--that is, disagreeable to
himself--for one of the sailors, bobbing up from the companion like a
jack-in-the-box, gripped the muzzle of his rifle as he was in the act
of firing it, and, extending his other hand, took the German by the
nape of his neck and exerted such pressure that the man first let go
his weapon, then shouted, and later screamed with pain.
"And you ain't wanted," cried the sailor, lifting him bodily from his
feet at last, "not here! So down yer goes!" And down the German went,
falling like a bale down the companion and into the depths below, only
at that moment cleared of British prisoners.
There, too, the deck hands were hounded within less than five minutes,
leaving only the skipper of the trawler on his bridge above, an officer
by his side, and the staff of the engine-room.
"Just you carry on, young Bill," cried Jack, seeing that the decks were
cleared, and hearing at that moment a crack from a revolver as the
skipper opened fire upon them. "This 'ere was your manœuvre; carry it
through!"
Bill swung towards Larry with the thought of giving him an order,
only to discover the American already stretched flat upon the deck,
sheltering behind the mast, his rifle directed on the bridge. Indeed,
almost at that same instant his weapon spoke, and the skipper, who by
then had emptied his revolver in the direction of the escaping sailors,
lifted his arms with a sudden spasmodic movement and fell back behind
the canvas screen which crossed the front of the bridge. There, within
a short space of time, appeared the face of the other officer, just
peering over the screen, his hands raised above his head, calling
loudly that he surrendered.
"Send along a party to the engine-room hatch, and order the men up one
by one," cried Bill. "Larry, just get up on the bridge and nab that
officer. What's doing, Jack? There's a commotion. That was a gun!"
"A gun!" Jack looked worried for a little while as he peered over the
bulwarks of the trawler and looked seaward. "This 'ere trip's come off
well, young feller, but it ain't the only fightin' we've got to do this
time. That gun-shot came from aboard a sister trawler. You can see her
there, steaming up out of the mist. She's heard the shooting. Maybe she
thinks there's mutiny aboard, though, knowing there was prisoners here,
she guesses what's happened. There's another!" he exclaimed as a sharp
report sounded from the direction in which he pointed, while through
the mist there loomed the bows of another trawler. "A shot's gone just
ahead of us. Next time they'll get our range. Things then won't be very
pleasant."
Bill clambered to the bridge and looked eagerly about him in all
directions. Right aft he could see a party of the sailors standing
about the hatch, which no doubt led to the engine-room, and presently
a head appeared. A man was extricated by the scruff of his neck, and
was tossed on along the deck to the companion, out of which Bill and
his comrades had so recently emerged. There, at an order he had given
now some minutes ago, stood two burly British sailors, one of whom was
armed with a rifle, while the other had seized an axe from the rack
round the mast. On the bridge beside him stood Larry, alert, and as
eager as himself. At his feet lay the body of the skipper; and then
of a sudden his eye fell upon an object right forward, covered in
tarpaulin.
"A gun!" he shouted, and waved eagerly to Jack. "Hi!" he bellowed.
"There's a gun for'ard, Jack; see if you've got any men who understand
it. There's a locker, too, near at hand, and there will be ammunition
in it. Larry, you get along with one of the men and see if you can
discover some rifles and ammunition, for we shall have to look for a
boarding-party. If not rifles, then get axes, iron bars, shovels if you
like from the stoke-hole, anything with which to repel the Germans.
Jack, ahoy!" he shouted again, and that worthy, playing up to the young
fellow whom he had placed in command, touched his cap and aye-ayed to
him.
"Aye, aye, sir," he repeated as he came up on to the bridge, having
sent four of his men forward to the gun.
"We have been making a bad mistake," said Bill. "She's still steaming,
but now that we're taking the hands away from the engine-room she'll
soon come to a stop. Put her about; and Jim, here, will take command of
the stoke-hole. Send some men down with him, and let 'em stand over the
German boys there."
He hailed the men standing at the opening of the companion which led to
the hold.
"Order up those of the engine-room staff who have been passed down, and
send them along to their job again. Some of 'em'll understand enough
English; and just see that you get 'em!"
In between his orders, punctuating them in fact, came the thuds of the
gun aboard the other trawler, which was now clearly visible, though at
some distance. Fortunately, too, not yet had her shells reached the
vessel, though they ricochetted astern and ahead and passed over her
decks, without hitting her. As Jack put a man at the wheel and swung
the vessel round, the shots went far astern, though a little later, the
trawler turning too, they began to burst within a few feet of her bows,
and looked as though presently they would come aboard her. By then,
however, the scratch gun-crew, which Jack had sent into the bows of the
captured vessel, had thrown off the tarpaulin which covered the gun,
and very swiftly (for your British sailor is a man of parts and smart
at understanding things of that nature) they had grasped the meaning of
the various wheels and levers, and had made themselves familiar with
its breech action.
Inspection of the ammunition and a trial loading followed, and then
a shot which shook the trawler and deafened those on her decks. Not
one, but a dozen and more pairs of eyes followed the shot or fixed
themselves upon the other vessel. Then a hoarse cheer burst from the
men, for a splotch of white suddenly obliterated the bows, there was a
blinding flash, and when the smoke had cleared away it was seen that
the short bowsprit had been smashed, and that the halyards from it had
been cut adrift. What other damage had been done by this lucky shot it
would be impossible to say, but it was significant that the trawler
sheered off at once, and steered a course which took her farther away
rather than nearer to the captured vessel.
"Which just gives us time to get going," came a cool and very cheerful
voice at Bill's elbow. "Young chap, you've done mighty well. I ain't
goin' to say that me or Jim or any of the other chaps that was down
below couldn't have thought out the plan of an escape that you happened
on, but it was happening on it just then, at what you might call the
psychological moment, that just did it; and since we broke out you've
given your orders clear and sharp, and there's been only one bad one,
Mister, amongst them."
"Getting the engine-room staff up--eh?" asked Bill.
"Yep," came Larry's short rejoinder. "But that's fixed now: there's Jim
down below working like a slave-driver, standing with two other mates,
one in the stoke-hole and t'other in the engine-room, and if you'll
look at their faces you'll know, and the Germans know too, that they
ain't going to stand any sort of humbug. It's a case of shoot the first
time a German tries to mix up the engine, or to let steam go, or to do
us down in some other dirty manner. Gee! Ain't we seen something of the
Germans now? That Heinrich and his shooting of your father, and his
bombing of that other ship; and what with Jack's tale, and the hundreds
of others that we've heard of, why, don't you ask Jim nor me nor any
other American to trust a German. We'll put the handcuffs on 'em first,
and then perhaps we'll know they ain't going to do any further damage.
But you sent me for arms, young fellow; well now, this here trawler,
and probably every other one of 'em, has a sort of magazine, at least
I guessed it was that, though I couldn't read the words written on the
door--this German language ought to be abolished! But I made free to
cut a way in with an axe, and there was rifles and swords and what-not;
every one of our men is now armed. Tuck this quick-shooter into your
belt, young fellow. It ain't the sort of box-of-tricks that appeals
to me, being too easy on its trigger; here's one of my sort--a heavy,
cavalry revolver."
Automatically, not thinking at all of what he was doing, yet conscious
of the meaning of Larry's words, Bill took the weapon and pushed it
into his pocket; meanwhile he peered over the canvas screen which
lined the front of the bridge, casting his eyes in the direction of
the pursuing trawler, then turned in the direction of the gun which
some of his own men were handling. Even to him, inexperienced as he
was, the thought came that never before had he seen such calmness and
such method and order. The gallant fellows, whom Jack had put under
his command so suddenly and unexpectedly, were "carrying on" after the
traditions of their service. Handy tars that they were, they had no
sooner seized upon the ship than they settled down to the manning of
her, as if she had been in their care for weeks past. There was no fuss
or flurry about those jack tars, though, to be sure, there was haste
and hurry, frenzied movement almost, as each man at the gun carried out
the task which in every case was self-appointed. One swung her round
and sighted her, another opened the breech, the third rammed in the
shell-case, and sprang back for yet another, then all moved clear away,
the lanyard was pulled, and scarcely had the gun recoiled, and the
shell gone hurtling out toward the trawler, than the breech was flung
open, while, through the smoke which issued, the man in charge of the
ammunition pushed another shell into position. Thus, time and again
the gun spoke--twice to every shot fired by the pursuing trawler; and
if the gun were strange to these gallant fellows their shooting at any
rate was precise enough--too precise in fact for the Germans.
"They are just about getting it about the ears," grinned the man who
led the gunners. "How's that for a plunk under his bridge, getting her
skipper in his stomick or under the belt, which is all fair in this
'ere warfare. What's that?"
"That" was a blinding flash yonder on the deck of the pursuing trawler,
a burst of smoke, and then a flame which spouted up from the bridge
at which the tar had aimed. But in warfare of this sort retaliation
has to be expected, and, almost as the three men raised a cheer, a
shell screeched across the deck behind them, struck the mast just in
front of the bridge on which Bill and Larry stood, and, bursting as it
struck, brought the steel affair down with a crunching roar and a thud
across the bulwarks, bending them out of shape and denting the deck,
incidentally, too, missing the bridge by less than a foot, tearing
away its screen and leaving our two friends as it were stripped naked,
staring across an open patch of deck, now littered with the fragments
left by the bursting missile.
"Bah!" growled Larry, tilting his hat at a little more of a rakish
angle--a habit he had when greatly moved, though, to be sure, nothing
else could be seen about him to suggest excitement. As for Bill, young
though he was, he stood his ground without wincing.
"And ain't doing half bad," Jack the bos'n told the men he was then
taking along the deck to clear away the wreck of the mast. "I've had me
weather eye on him as you might say. I seed or rather heard from his
voice when he came below and joined us that that young chap had got
something good about him. Mind, I don't say as the Americans along
with him ain't just as good, better you might say, seeing as they are
older and has a right then to expect to be; but the youngster's sharp,
smart, and has lots of go, besides being cool-headed. Cut this stuff
adrift! Chuck it overboard; it's only hampering us, and if another
shell comes in the splinters might do us damage."
His words were almost prophetic; for hardly a minute later an enemy
shell burst inboard, and its shattering roar half-stunned Jack and his
men and Bill and Larry; yet by some miraculous chance not one of them
was severely hurt, though certainly shaken.
As to elsewhere--if the men at the gun, Jack and his deck hands, and
Bill and Larry, were "carrying on", to use an expression beloved both
of sailors and of soldiers, what of the men down below? Jack told the
tale some five minutes later.
"If you'll believe me, sir," he said, clambering up on to the
bridge and touching his cap for all the world as though Bill were a
full-blooded skipper, "if you'll believe me, young feller, there's
Jim, your chum, and his mates, working those Germans at the boilers as
if they were slaves. Not a-drivin' of 'em--oh, no! Only encouragin'
of 'em like. You see, now that the tables are turned, and there's Jim
and Charlie Pipkin and Joe Bent and two others--boys as I know of
well--a-standing over the Germans with rifles, instead of the Germans
a-standin' over them as they was a little while ago, the Hun's sort of
lost all his spirit. If it had been the other way about, from what I
seed of 'em--those chaps what talks about 'Kultur' and raves about the
Kaiser--they'd have pushed the muzzle of a rifle under your ear, and
they'd have made you move slippy. But, bless you, it only wants a look
from that there chap Jim; and as for Charlie, when he just cocks his
eye across one o' them Huns, the chap shrivels--fairly shrivels."
Jack burst into a roar of laughter which was hardly suppressed even
by the scream and flick of a shell which crossed the trawler a little
in front of them. He held his sides and bent back till his stout body
formed an arc, and then set to work mopping his eyes, which were
streaming. "It's a fair turn about, this," he said.
Larry cocked an eye at him in return, just as Charlie down below was
described as doing to the Germans in the engine-room.
"It was. Yep," he lisped; "only--eh? Look over yonder!"
Jack looked, Bill looked, and in spite of himself blanched just a
trifle. As for Jack, the colour surged to his bearded face and he
gripped the rail.
"Oh! Ah! I----" he spluttered.
There was good reason, too, for his exclamations, for the mist which
had been hanging over the sea when this brilliant little action opened,
and which, as it were, had clouded the scene for a while and indeed had
assisted Bill and his friends not a little, was now whisked aside by a
fresh breeze which had got up in the meanwhile and was now rippling the
surface of a sea of dull green colour on which the rays of the sun were
reflected in every direction. Looking towards the German coast there
was a haze, though no mist. The bright sun rays and the glittering
reflection from thousands of ripples seemed to have cast up there an
opaque haze, out of which the pursuing trawler emerged every now and
again, a curtain which was rent asunder every odd minute by her gun,
when a splash of flame, followed by a cloud of smoke, filled in the gap
and then subsided and was replaced by the opacity.
Towards the ocean, however, one could see a long distance, and
there, but a dot yet, though visible to all eyes, was a low-lying,
queer-shaped vessel--one of the greyhounds of the ocean, about whose
bows foamed a white crest of water and from whose deck streamed black
billowy clouds of smoke which formed, as it were, a huge screen behind
her, against which her smoke-stacks and the crest of white stood out
silhouetted sharply. It was a torpedo-boat destroyer.
"Huh!" grunted Larry.
"Hum!" coughed Bill, shielding his eyes.
Jack gripped the rails again and burst into bitter anger.
"And after all what we've done!" he blustered. "After we've been took
at sea and clapped into the hold here like so many dogs--though I
admit we might have been left to drown. After we've broke our way
out and fixed things up in fine trim, and have got almost clear away
safe from the trawler yonder, which ain't worth countin', to see
that--that--image!"
Larry produced his beloved cigar, or rather the bedraggled end of one.
He always seemed to carry one in his pocket. It went to his mouth, was
pushed home into the favourite position, then two hands groped in his
pockets for a sodden matchbox. Quite naturally he attempted to strike a
light, lifted the damp match to the cigar, and threw it to the deck the
next instant.
"How'd you know?" he asked suddenly. "She might be British."
"B--B--British?" shouted Jack. "British! By gum! she might, and in that
case----"
"She ain't," Bill ejaculated. "I'll swear we've got the best of her in
this position. We can see her clearly, standing out in the sun's rays.
Look aft at the trawler. One minute she's gone in the haze, the next
minute she comes up. So you can count that the ship yonder, or the
men aboard her, ain't yet seen us, but they've heard the guns and are
coming along to see what's happened."
"In which case," said Larry, looking aside at Bill, while Jack too
turned to the young fellow.
"In which case," said Bill. "Well, there's nothing else for it; we keep
straight on. If that's a German torpedo-boat destroyer it's bad luck;
if it's British, well, it's British."
There was no need for further argument after that, for it was quite
clear to all three of them, and indeed to the deck hands down below,
and to those standing over the staff in the engine-room, to whom the
news soon filtered, that liberty so recently won might already be
on the point of being torn from them; and if it were, what sort of
treatment might they expect from the Germans? What indeed? It was no
wonder, then, that their spirits sank to zero when, perhaps a quarter
of an hour later, the torpedo-boat destroyer having drawn much nearer,
a gun spoke from her deck and a shot sailed over them. Meanwhile, too,
the pursuing trawler had kept up her fire, so that Bill and his friends
were now attacked from two quarters. It looked like hopeless failure;
and yet, wait.
"What's that?" demanded Bill, pointing to sea eastward. "Another
ship--eh? Another torpedo-boat destroyer! A Ger----."
"German?" shouted Jack. "You can skin me if that ain't a British
torpedo-boat destroyer! You can hoist me to the top of the first
yard-arm you comes across if that there boat ain't British from the cap
of its mast down to its keel! Only, will she come up in time? that's
the puzzle."
It was a point which might well bother him and Bill and the others,
for, undoubtedly, if this second torpedo-boat destroyer was part of the
British fleet, the German had a long start of her. That gun now opening
upon the trawler might well destroy her, and the crew who had won their
liberty, long before the British boat came up. It was a moment for
quick decision and swift action.
"Swing her round! Shove her in the opposite direction! Keep her going
as hard as you can," shouted Bill. "Jack, send a message down to the
engine-room staff to stoke hard, all they can. We must knock every
ounce of speed out of the trawler."
They turned, and, as it were, dived into the haze rising from the
water, and as the engine staff laboured down below, and "whacked"--to
use a nautical expression--the utmost speed out of the boat, a bow wave
rose in front of the trawler. Behind came the other trawler, farther
aft the German pursuing boat, and still farther astern, and from a
different quarter, what everyone hoped was a rescuing British vessel.
CHAPTER IX
A Hard Fight
Long minutes passed before the end of the affair came, and before the
fate of Bill and Jim and Larry and the rest of them was settled. Not
that all the participators in this alarming and exciting adventure
realized the length of time or found the seconds hang heavy upon them.
These fled indeed faster almost than the thudding screw of the trawler
pushed that vessel through the water. For every half-minute brought
some new event, everyone was working to his utmost, and at every turn
the position wore a different complexion.
"It's a time when every man has to work hard, to go all out," said
Jack, as, dripping with perspiration, he clambered to the bridge to
report to Bill. "You can believe me, young sir, but I've just come up
from that there engine-room again, and, my! how them Germans do work to
escape from their own people!"
The very mention of it tickled him so much that, in spite of their
precarious position, this honest, burly sailor burst into uproarious
laughter. Indeed, he might well do so, for the picture down below in
the engine-room would have exercised the same influence on anyone of
British nationality and blessed with a sense of humour. In amongst the
eddying clouds of steam, with the thud and thump of the pistons and
the deafening whirr of machinery filling the air, stood Jim on one of
the engine-room gangways, gripping the rails and looking over into
the smoke-clouds down below, peering now in this direction and then
in that, fixing his eye upon some German "greaser"--just fixing his
eye on him for a moment--and then swinging round to stare in another
direction. No need to show the revolver, which he now wore strapped
round his waist, no need to shout a peremptory order, no need to point,
to gesticulate, to shake a fist. Those "greasers" knew. They cast
glances askance at the young American now and again, and, seeing his
square jaw, his determined appearance, flung themselves upon the task
of keeping the engines going, well knowing all the time that they were
steaming away from their own people.
From the stoke-hold, near at hand, from which now emerged bigger,
whiter clouds of steam and smoke, came the clank of spades upon the
steel decks, and the scrape as fuel was shovelled up and thrown into
the furnaces. There, in what appeared to be an inferno of smoke and
flashing beams of light as furnace doors were opened, amidst fiercest
heat and sweat and incessant movement, stood two of the recently
escaped British sailors, nonchalant, erect, one hand gripping the
muzzle of a rifle and the other akimbo, resting upon their hips. They,
too, glanced now here, now there, noting every movement of every man
under their charge, but never moved. The glance alone was sufficient.
"They're keepin' them at work as if they was willin' slaves," Jack
roared, mopping the perspiration from his streaming forehead, "and
you'd hardly believe me, sir, but when I comes up on deck--and glad
to get there too, for it's hot down below--I finds our deck hands
a-fallin' in and makin' all ready to repel boarders. It looks like the
good old days, and if only the Germans do get up, why, repel boarders
it will be!"
Bill took a glance around him; not that he had not done so on many an
occasion, and had seen all that was going on, but his chief attention
was now engaged with the pursuing trawler and with the torpedo-boat
destroyers, and with conjecturing where the next shell would fall and
what chance he and his men stood of escape from the double danger
behind.
"I'm beginning to think," he had just told Larry, "that the German
destroyer will soon have her attention fully occupied by the other
one--that is, supposing she's British; so if we can escape the shells
she's firing at us now we shall have merely the trawler to deal with.
She's drawing nearer, I'm sure. Perhaps her engines are bigger and
stronger than those in this vessel; in any case we shall soon see. I
don't fear her nearly as much as I do the destroyer."
Larry, from the view Bill and Jack obtained of him, cared very little
as to what might happen. With his hat tilted forward in the most
approved manner, sucking at his cigar again, he peered in the most
nonchalant manner over the rail at the pursuing trawler, and hardly
lifted his eyes as her gun spoke and repeated the shot--hardly even
deigned to turn his head to watch where the missiles went, though when
one sailed close over the bridge he cocked his eye overhead, gave a
shrug, and whistled.
"It's the miss that don't matter," he told Bill. "If she was plugging
them things into us all the time a chap might get nervy and unsettled,
but, as it is, this is playing. Seems to me, young Bill, that you'll
soon be having to give other orders. You see, as things are, we're
steaming away dead ahead of the trawler, and our gun, perched up there
in the bows, ain't able to rake her, while she, with her gun in the
same position, can fire at us all the time, and with no fear of return
shelling. Now supposin' that destroyer there, what's German, does
happen to give over because the other happens to be British, what's
to prevent us turning round and going full ahead at the trawler, or
steaming off at an angle, as you might say? Gee! Then we could pound
her with our own weapon. D'you get me, young fellow?"
Bill did--Jack too, for the matter of that; for he smacked the
American so violently on the back that Larry began to cough and looked
at the burly sailor with some amount of indignation.
"You ain't got no call to do that, Jack," he spluttered. "No forcible
argument of that sort ain't needed. Just say what you think of the
suggestion."
"Think!" the burly sailor shouted. "Why, you couldn't have suggested
anything that would ha' pleased me and the men we've got aboard better.
If that there destroyer does get fully engaged by t'other--and it's
too good a thing to think of--then what's to prevent us going head on
for the trawler? Ain't we entitled to have our own action? What's to
prevent us making her a prize, same as she'll try to make of us? Just
you think what the boys back in Dover town 'ud think if we came sailing
in with this 'ere boat, and another with a prize crew aboard her. They
wouldn't half shout, would they?"
Even the phlegmatic Larry was forced to show some signs of enthusiasm.
The very fact that this experienced sailor took up his idea so
enthusiastically and approved of it was encouraging, and then who could
escape the infection shed all around by the jovial enthusiastic Jack?
The picture of the trawler steaming into Dover, a port to which Larry
had never yet sailed, but which he could well imagine, the picture of
the ship entering docks, the sides of which were lined with cheering
soldiers and sailors and civilians, while behind her came that other
trawler, no longer firing her gun, but a captive with a prize crew
steering her in---- Well, Larry could picture that, and at the thought
grinned widely.
But as yet there was the destroyer to be thought of. Not that she was
doing much harm to the trawler up to this moment, for the other trawler
immediately in pursuit of our friends was steering a course which
placed her across the line of fire from the destroyer, which, still at
some considerable distance, was unable to get a clear field of fire.
As a matter of fact her captain hesitated from fear of injuring the
pursuing vessel. But a few minutes more would give a clear field of
vision, and aboard the destroyer all was in readiness to open upon Bill
and his friends. Under such a bombardment no doubt their vessel would
have been rapidly blown to pieces.
"I'd best just get along and see what sort of boats we're carrying,"
said Jack, when he and his two companions had stared at the two
destroyers for a few minutes. "That there German is gettin' into
position to put a broadside into us, and, if that comes off, this
vessel will sink inside five minutes. We may want to be off without
stopping to think about it. Best get things ready then, so as to leave
her."
He went off down the steps leading from the bridge and mustered the
deck hands about him. Every one of the men was now armed with a weapon
of some description. Some had rifles, others revolvers, while not
a few carried boarding-axes. They trapesed off along the deck to
where a couple of boats swung out from the davits, and having assured
themselves that both were in readiness to be launched, and as yet
undamaged, certain of them dived below in search of food and water to
provision them. In the midst of their search they were recalled to the
deck by Jack, who descended a few steps down the companion and bellowed
at them.
"Hi, lads, you come above again!" he yelled. "We're goin' to put
ourselves on board the trawler. I wants every man that's got a rifle to
come over here and take up a position; the chaps as has axes only'll
lie down behind the bulwarks. When the time comes, every one of you
goes over on to the other boat. Now, I tell you, we're goin' to take
her!"
The men crowded round him yelling like maniacs. These whilom prisoners,
so depressed but a short time before, who had given themselves up to
the thought of long incarceration in a German prison, were now filled
with the highest spirits. They mustered on the deck brandishing their
weapons, took up places which Jack assigned to them, and then, casting
their eyes first at Bill and Larry on the bridge above, and then over
the side at the trawler, they yelled themselves hoarse once more as
they saw that their own vessel had turned about and was heading direct
for their pursuer.
The man at the wheel, too, had caught something of their excitement,
though he sat there impassive, steering the vessel with care and
judgment, making ready to fling her alongside the other. As for the
German trawler, great movement could be observed on her decks; men were
rushing to and fro, while a figure on the bridge was gesticulating
violently, though the words he shouted could not be heard. In any case,
the gun in her bows, which had fired only a little while before, had
ceased abruptly as Bill gave the order to swing his vessel round, and
its crew had scuttled along the deck to join their comrades.
Not so the three who manned the gun aboard the ship on which our heroes
were sailing. They waited only for their trawler to swing round, when
they laid their gun on the other vessel, and then in rapid succession
poured in shots, some of which screamed over her deck, while others
holed her above the water, or crashed their way through her bulwarks
scattering splinters along her decks. Indeed, it was the fire of these
enthusiastic fellows which mainly beat down the resistance of the
Germans. A lucky shot took away a portion of the bridge and killed the
skipper, a splinter at the same time tearing the wheel from the hands
of the man who steered the trawler and wrecking it. She swung off her
course at once, while Bill's ship, conned by that impassive steersman
before mentioned, swung round in a circle and headed so as to come
alongside her.
[Illustration: A LUCKY SHOT TOOK AWAY A PORTION OF THE BRIDGE]
"Just mark that wheel aft!" came in stentorian tones from Jack. "The
last shot smashed the steering-gear on the bridge, and if we don't let
'em man the other gear they'll be helpless. Here you, Tom, and you,
Charles, you make it your business to see that no one goes near it!
Boys, make ready to board the trawler!"
They waved their hands at him, those gallant sailors, they cheered
him with vigour, and then, peering over the bulwarks, watching every
movement, they waited eagerly for the moment when the two ships would
grind together. They drew nearer. Figures aboard the hostile trawler
were now clearly visible; men still raced to and fro. Now and again a
rifle was fired, and a bullet could be heard as it pinged against the
steel sides of the vessel. Two men rushed aft towards the steering-gear
which Jack had pointed out to his comrades, and, reaching it, measured
their length at once, shot down by those told off to fire in that
direction.
Less than five minutes later the two vessels came together with a clang
and a grinding crash, and instantly, before the men picked out by Jack
to lash them together could get a hawser over the side, a number of
the British sailors had scrambled from their own ship and gained the
deck of the hostile trawler. They swept along it like an avalanche,
beating down the resistance of the deck hands. They threw them down
the companion-way, just as they had done with the crew of their own
captured vessel. They shouted down the engine-room hatch, and in but
a few brief minutes they had assembled the whole of the engine-room
staff on the deck, and Jack could be seen haranguing them for all the
world as if these Germans could understand all that he said. And, as he
talked, Larry stood beside him, as nonchalant a figure as ever, chewing
his cigar, vastly entertained by all the proceedings.
"You get in and talk to 'em, Jack," he said. "Just tell 'em all that's
wanted. Ef they keep on working hard, and play the game and what not,
well, all will be well with them; ef not---- Well, let 'em know what
then."
Jack nodded, Jack actually grinned, then mopped the perspiration from
his hot forehead. "I knows! See here, you--you--sons o' guns," he said,
bellowing the words at the Germans, "you'll get straight down below.
Savvy? You'll stoke and grease and carry on as you did before; and if
you don't, well no one will be there to help you. This 'ere Tom will go
along to watch things. Tom, you've got a gun, ain't you?"
Tom had. Tom was a tall and sinewy individual--as honest a British
sailor as you could meet in a day's march, but one who, if he wished,
could adopt a sinister appearance. And sinister he looked now as he
patted his rifle and glared at the prisoners. Then he held up one big
battered forefinger and beckoned to them.
"You come right along here," he said. "You get right down below,
double quick. Savvy! I'm comin' along behind you, don't you fear. You
get in and carry on yer business. No," he added a moment later, shaking
the same forefinger at one of the prisoners--a man with an evil cast of
countenance, who glowered at him, "you ain't got no call to look at me
like that. I'm harmless, I am! Only, just you take care of yourself,
young feller! Just hop it, or things will begin to happen as won't be
too comfortable for you!"
And "hop it" the German did. He and his comrades disappeared down the
engine hatchway, with their tails between their legs, as you might
say, and Tom, following, presently discovered them as hard at work and
as diligent as those he had left on the other trawler. No doubt more
than one of the engine staff would have willingly upset the running of
the machinery had such a thing been easily effected and not so easily
discovered, but the sturdy Tom, with his sinister glance, drove all
thoughts of mutiny or double dealing out of his prisoners' heads. The
rifle, on which he leaned so unconcernedly, and Tom's stern looks, sent
these men about their business in a desperate hurry.
Meanwhile the lashings which had bound the two trawlers together had
been cut adrift. Jim, extracted from the engine-room of the vessel he
and his friends had captured, was now perched on what was left of the
bridge of the other ship, and presently the two vessels were under
way, heading this time out to sea towards the spot where the German
destroyer had been steaming.
And what of her? What of the other boat which had been observed
dashing towards the escaping trawler? The fight and the boarding of
the trawler had occupied every bit of the attention of Bill and his
friends. While it lasted it had been a breathless affair, and, though
it was soon ended, the resistance of the German crew had not been
altogether negligible. Indeed, the sturdy fellows whom Bill commanded
had fought furiously for those few minutes, so furiously, in fact, that
they failed to note the bang of guns in the offing, or to follow the
movements of the two destroyers.
Now, as they steamed towards the spot, it was to discover the German
boat down by the stern, afire for'ard, her funnels shot to ribbons, and
her decks smashed, while steaming close to her was the other destroyer
with a white ensign blowing out from her mast-head. Boats were being
lowered, and as the two trawlers came upon the spot they discovered
British sailors rescuing the German survivors of the enemy destroyer.
Imagine the shouts and the cheers to which Jack and his gallant friends
gave vent. Imagine, if you can, the thrill of pride which went through
Bill's frame as he rang the engine telegraph and stopped his machinery.
It was the first big occasion in his life, and, like Jim and Larry and
all the rest of them, he gloried in it.
"We couldn't ha' come into English waters in better shape," observed
Larry that night as he sat on the deck and surveyed his surroundings,
the boat having meanwhile made the port of Dover. "Here's England right
beyond us and all round us. Yonder there's France. Listen a bit! Hear
the guns, Bill? That's the British and French holding the line against
the Germans. Well, we'll be there soon--eh?"
"We will," Bill and Jim echoed.
CHAPTER X
The European Conflict
Many and long were the discussions held by Jim and Bill and Larry now
that they had reached the neighbourhood of the vast European conflict
which had drawn America into its whirlpool. As they sat on their
captured trawler at Dover they could literally hear the sound of that
conflict in the distance; for across the Channel, but fifty miles
inland, beyond Ypres--the celebrated Ypres, which had long since been
shattered into fragments--British troops were fighting their way along
the ridge of Paschendaele. Messines, the German stronghold, had fallen.
British guns, made in British factories manned by British women, had
smashed the Hun defences.
Consider this achievement for a while. In 1914 Britain possessed guns
sufficient only for a small expeditionary force, and the supply none
too liberal. In 1915 her manufacturing resources were sufficient to
supply guns for an increasing host of volunteers--guns and every other
munition necessary for the conduct of warfare. But the business of
manufacturing weapons and all that appertains to fighting was not yet
by any means fully expanded. Indeed, the need for it was not apparent.
The call for shells, more shells, and still more shells, and for guns
by the hundred to project them, had not yet gone through the land, nor
had munition factories sprung up in every direction with the rapidity
of mushrooms.
Then came the Ministry of Munitions--a huge Government concern
inaugurated to control supplies for every kind of warfare. It commenced
its work perhaps hesitatingly, it forged ahead with determination, it
got fully into its stride; so that when 1916 arrived, and Britain and
France faced the German in Picardy across the Somme valley, British
guns, aye, and British men, were the masters of the situation.
And here was 1917 with still more men and with a still mightier array
of munitions, deluging the German, bruising him all along the line
through Flanders into France, smashing him and his defences, driving
him from the ridges which he had held since 1914, and from which he had
looked down upon the British troops floundering in the mud in Flanders.
To the Kaiser and his ruthless agents, to the German High Command as
it is termed, those days must have seemed portentous. Disaster hung in
the air, the fortune which had favoured them from the first instant
seemed to have departed from them altogether. The Central Powers were
in fact girt in by enemies. The world had declared war against these
land and sea marauders. America had joined the Allies, having suffered
indignities at the hands of the Kaiser; Portugal had joined the
ranks of Prussia's enemies; and states in South America were already
considering their position, or were now throwing in their lot with
those sworn to beat down the oppressors of mankind and to fight for the
freedom of nations.
The Dardanelles was an old tale. Britain had there left her mark, and
the graves of her sons, and had departed. In Egypt the tribes haunting
the Delta of the Nile, stirred up by German agents and supplied with
money and with weapons, had revolted and had been subjugated by
British columns. The Senussi, to take an example, were now conquered.
Across the Canal, and far to the east of it, Turkish hosts gathered
in Beersheba, Jerusalem, and other places were watching the steady
relentless advance of a British railway across the desert, and, as Bill
and his friends reached European waters, troops of the King-Emperor
were already on the fringe of Palestine, where very soon they were to
advance by Beersheba, Hebron, Bethlehem, and other places of Biblical
interest, and were to hoist their flag over the ancient and sacred
walls of Jerusalem, once the home of historical crusaders.
Farther east lay Mesopotamia, where the forced surrender of General
Townshend's gallant troops at Kut had long since been avenged by the
capture of that place and the taking of Bagdad. The noble-hearted
Sir Stanley Maude was already leading his forces up the Tigris and
Euphrates towards Mosul, and, though in later months that dread scourge
cholera seized him, there were others to step into his place and still
lead British and Indian troops onwards.
Glance to the eastern area of Europe. If matters wore a rosy aspect
on the French front, in Egypt, Salonica, and Mesopotamia, if along
those lengths of British trench-lines British guns and British troops
were causing the Prussian to reel, the Turks to surrender, and the
Bulgarians to wish perhaps that they had never joined hands with the
Kaiser and his soldiers, to the east of Europe Russian troops were
reeling from another reason altogether.
Revolution was in the air; the rights of man were being preached
and practised in preference to patriotism and unselfish devotion to
country; upstarts were springing into position; subtle agents of the
Kaiser, their pockets heavy with German gold, had seized upon the ear
of the ignorant people; soldiers turned against their officers; the
working and the peasant class were induced first to oppose and then to
throw off allegiance to those who had been their lords and masters.
Anarchy supervened, though for a time the revolutionists, holding
those who would carry matters to great lengths, attempted to form a
Government and control the country, even attempted to keep the soldiers
in the trenches and to stem the German invasion; until anarchy reared
its head still higher, the voices of Trotsky and Lenin overpowered the
voices of the moderates. The Tsar and his house had been removed,
and were, in fact, prisoners; the government of the people, on behalf
of the people, was destroyed. Trotsky and Lenin became, in fact, the
rulers of the country, and they, be it understood, were already more
than half given over to Germany. Trenches were abandoned, soldiers gave
themselves leave and went off to their distant homes, a few faithful
and patriotic divisions were left stranded; guns by the hundred
and munitions of every description--for the most part supplied by
Britain--lay at the mercy of any German battalion that cared to come
for them.
The inevitable followed. German troops advanced and seized wide tracts
of country. They took, with only the trouble of taking it, vast masses
of military booty; they imposed peace terms on the Russians which
practically made slaves of them; and, with their accustomed cunning, so
handled matters that this huge country, once tenanted by a patriotic
people, became dissolved into separate provinces, each claiming its
own sovereignty, the one already engaged in warfare against the other,
careless of the fact that the conqueror was already knocking at their
doors.
That was the position which faced the line when Jim and Bill and Larry
came upon the scene. Our eastern ally, who had held masses of Germans
and Austrians, and bid fair with proper organization and generalship to
march into Austria, and perhaps into the Kaiser's territory, suddenly
went out of the conflict, leaving Germany and Austria free to withdraw
their troops and throw them upon the French and British in the west and
upon the Italians. The situation was more than serious. Already, in
fact, Italy had suffered a serious reverse, and had been driven from
the line along the River Izonso, which she had captured, right back to
the Piave.
There again German cunning and Austrian duplicity had had much to do
with this loss of territory and of soldiers. Lies had been spread,
gullible subjects of King Victor had listened to and had disseminated
tales which robbed some of their comrades of their patriotic valour.
Thus, when the ground was fully prepared, a secret massing of the
Austrians and Germans allowed strong forces to be flung upon our
Italian ally. The line reeled; where the poisonous lies of the Germans
had penetrated, it broke, it fell back, in places it surrendered. The
whole line then was forced to retire, but, thanks to the valour of the
majority of the Italians, to the patriotism of King Victor's army, a
rear-guard action was fought which saved the situation, though for a
time the position was precarious, so precarious, in fact, that British
and French troops were rushed to Italy to stem this invasion.
And now the end of 1917 was at hand. What had 1918 in prospect for
Britain and her allies? The line in France, stretching from Dunkerque
to Verdun and so to Belfort, bristled with men and weapons. Opposite
it lay the German line packed with an increasing throng of soldiers,
while guns and every implement of warfare, now no longer needed on the
Russian front, were being massed, preparatory to the biggest conflict
the world has ever witnessed.
But not yet had the blow fallen. A comparative calm existed along the
front--the calm before the storm which was undoubtedly brewing. It was
this period of the war which found Bill and his friends stepping from
the steamer at Boulogne, about to take their places in the ranks of the
Allies.
"Hello, boys!" someone greeted them as they halted on the quay and
looked about them. "Come over--eh?"
"Yep," Larry answered laconically, shaking hands with this undoubted
specimen of American citizenship, and then casting his eyes round once
more, for he could never tire of the hum and bustle which existed all
round him.
What with railway trucks being slowly shunted towards the water-side,
what with the vessel then busily unloading, the big station and its
restaurant, alive with officers and men, with blue-frocked porters,
hospital nurses, and every variety of human being; with the quay
farther along stacked high with boxes and bales and parcels of every
sort and description, more ships, motor-cars, motor-ambulances, a
shrieking locomotive, soldiers, sailors, and civilians, women and
children and babies, the place was a seething mass of movement, backed
by the hills beyond, and the picturesque town of Boulogne climbing
towards the summit. It was quite a little time, in fact, before either
Larry or Bill or Jim could give much attention to the person who
had accosted them. They found him a tall, raw-boned, thin, American
non-commissioned officer.
"Names!" he snapped, and they gave them.
"Ah! I've heard of you. They sent me a chit through from London. You've
come right here to get trained. How's that? Why not do your training in
the camps in America?"
They told him--Larry in his jerky, short, abrupt and smiling manner;
Jim, serious, rather monosyllabic, having to have the details dragged
out of him; Bill impulsively, as one might expect of such a youth, yet
modestly enough. Then the Sergeant stopped them and clapped a big,
brawny hand on Bill's shoulder.
"I've heard of you. Gee!" he cried, and pushed the young fellow away
from him so as to study him the better. "So you three are Larry and Jim
and Bill, and, say, what did you do with the trawler?"
"Trawler!" Larry gaped, Jim gaped, Bill looked astonished.
"Aye, trawler! D'you think we're such dunces over here that we don't
know what's going on? Just you wait! Look at this--a _communiqué_ which
was issued last night--see it?
"'Gallant affair in the North Sea. British prisoners on board a German
trawler overpower crew and conduct a fight with another trawler.
German torpedo-boat destroyer intervenes, but assistance arrives
at the critical moment in the shape of a British destroyer. The
escaped prisoners capture the other trawler and steam her in with
the help of their prisoners. The two trawlers reach the roads at
Dover quite safely. This feat is mainly the work of three men from
America--Larry----'"
"Here, hold hard!" cried Larry, pushing his head forward, "you're
romancing--eh? Gee! It's truth! Well I----!"
The big Sergeant shouted his laughter and pointed a finger at the
diminutive Larry.
"True? I should say it was! So you are the three! Come right along.
I've quarters for you, and you can get some food and then sit down and
give me the whole yarn. To-morrow you'll go up country and then start
in at the business of training."
Three days later the three had reached a spot some fifteen miles from
the front line, where they were at once posted to a Franco-American
transport unit.
"You'll have to learn the work with horses first of all," they were
told, "after that there is the motor traction part of it. Yes, you'll
see some of the front. In a day or two you'd be sent with one of the
convoys taking ammunition up. It's exciting work sometimes, boys," the
Sergeant continued. "When shelling's severe, the chaps that take up
food and such like, see things, or rather feel 'em. But you've been
under gun-fire--eh! Don't tell me! Ain't I seen the news about the
trawler?"
So he had seen it too, others also, for the advent of the three to
this Franco-American unit was the signal for quite an outpouring of
questions. The very first night indeed, as Larry puffed tranquilly at
his cigar, a big American finger was pointed at him, while there sat
round the circle with their American brothers a number of blue-coated
_poilus_, likewise attached to the unit.
"Oui! Bien!" one of them said, shrugging his shoulders expressively;
"Larry, Jim, Beill! A-ha! Ve knows sem! Ve 'ave 'eard seir names many
time. You come out wis see story now--hey! Dat is bien!"
Larry blew a cloud of smoke at him, Jim fidgeted, Bill felt really like
bolting; to stand upon the bridge of the trawler under gun-fire had
been one thing, to sit there under this battery of eyes with questions
being flung at them, bursting all round them as it were, was quite a
different experience and a greater ordeal to our heroes.
"See here," drawled Larry at length, turning an expressive and somewhat
dirty thumb in Jim's direction, "he's the scholar of our crew, he'll
spout. Jim, you get in at it. 'Sides, you speak French a little, you
told us so on our way over; give it 'em in French and English together."
It was true enough that Jim, in a moment of enthusiasm, and when
feeling confidential, had informed his chums that he was quite a
considerable French speaker; but now he seemed to have forgotten the
occurrence. He shook his head quite angrily, shook a fist at the
grinning Larry, and mopped a streaming forehead. So it devolved on Bill
to tell of their experiences, which he did quite modestly, interjecting
a word or two of French now and again; for, if Jim were dumb, he at
least had heard something in his schooldays and was, as a matter of
fact, quite a fair linguist.
"Then you ain't got no call to feel scared about going up to the line,"
said their Sergeant when the tale was finished. "You three did mighty
well. There's Americans as reached France in advance of our fighting
units in queer ways. Some of 'em come over as stowaways, some sneaked
across in perhaps more open fashion. I know a chap what got took on as
a German nootral in Noo York. What, don't know what a German nootral
is? Well that is some! A German nootral, chaps, is a man what's
absolutely nootral; he don't care nothing for one side nor t'other. But
he happens to have been born of German parents. They've likely as not
settled in America this many years back, and have made pots of money
under the old stars and stripes. They're grateful, they are! they've
brought up their son to feel grateful too! He speaks German, of course,
and equally of course he's nootral, that is when he's speakin' open and
above-board; but behind the scenes he's as German as the Kaiser. He'd
down America and the very boys that he went to school with. He's out
for planting 'Kultur' round the whole world. He looks for a Germany
that'll spread across England and away over the Atlantic to Noo York,
Washington, and Philadelphia. Shucks! He's about as nootral as I am!
He's just a born traitor! This here pal of mine was all that I've said,
only he wasn't a traitor, he was just artful and burning keen to get
over. So he takes on as I said as a German nootral on a nootral boat
that wasn't any more nootral than a German. He hoodwinked the crowd,
got across, and slipped ashore in England; in twenty-four hours he was
over here. He's laid back o' the churchyard over yonder, he is. Harvey
Pringle was his name--you'll see it chalked up on the cross on his
grave. He was a man, was Harvey Pringle."
The big Sergeant blew his nose violently, stared at Larry in quite
a pugnacious way, lit a pipe with considerable display of energy,
and spat a little aggressively. It was American feeling; it was the
only way in which this sturdy fellow would allow his feelings to vent
themselves. Larry knew what he meant; Jim and Bill realized that he had
lost a friend almost before he mentioned the churchyard; their French
comrades, quick in feeling and understanding, glanced at one another,
exclaimed, and lit their pipes as if in sympathy with the Sergeant.
"Well, boys," the latter went on when he had smoked for a little while
in silence, "you've come over in fine style, and you'll do fine. We
can't have too many boys of your sort. Anyways, we're glad to see you."
It was three nights later when the three chums joined a convoy which
moved out of the camp with its laden wagons for the trench line, where,
for the first time, they were to experience warfare as it was just then
in France.
CHAPTER XI
On Convoy Duty
A moon, half risen and not yet full, lit up the surroundings as the
supply column drew away from the village where Bill and his friends had
their head-quarters. The road wound away from them pale and ghost-like,
a ribbon of shimmering greenish-white, once shaded by trees, the stumps
of which alone remained. Woods cropped their green heads up here and
there, a stream tinkled in the immediate neighbourhood, and all around
lay a blue-green waste over which moonbeams played gently.
"Pipes out!" came the order. "Young Bill, you'll come along with this
French sergeant; you can call him any name you like, he'll answer to
it. Do as he says all the time and you won't get into trouble. Larry,
you come along with me; Jim's fixed with another Frenchman. I needn't
tell you that no matches must be struck, and when we get a couple
of miles nearer not one of you must speak above a whisper. If heavy
shelling starts you'll carry on just the same until further orders."
Bill climbed to the seat beside the driver of the wagon to which the
Sergeant had pointed, and found himself reared well above the column,
able to look right along it. There for an hour he was jolted and jarred
as the vehicles were pulled northward, and there he listened to the
chatter of the men and to the clatter of the horses' hoofs as they
trod the highway. Far away in the distance guns spoke; nearer at hand
at times there were louder clashes as French guns answered. More than
once the hum of an engine could be heard; far overhead and soaring
upwards he caught a fleeting glimpse of an aeroplane hurrying to its
destination. Once, too, a still period was of a sudden broken by the
sharp tattoo of a machine-gun up in the trenches, followed by silence
which was almost painful.
"Just a little 'do'," the Frenchman told him. "Oh yes, _mon
ami_, I speaks the American well, but you--ah! _Je me rappelle!_
you--you--speak French beautifully."
It was just the politeness of the Frenchman; indeed Bill was to find
the friendly and gallant _poilu_ a boon companion, and the few hours he
spent with this soldier made him feel the warmest friendship for him.
"What's that?" he asked a little later, as the pale rays of the moon
were put in the shade by a brilliant conflagration which lit up the sky
ahead and made every horse, every vehicle, and every driver stand out
boldly silhouetted against the ground.
"Very lights! Listen to the machine-gun again! Someone's restless up
there; perhaps it's the Boche suffering from toothache and strolling
out in 'No-Man's-Land'. My comrades of France always shoot when a Boche
is in sight. They do not forget the invaded districts of France, my
friend! They do not forget Belgium! _Pardieu!_ They do not love the
Boche! No, not at all, _mon ami_. Ah, it has died down! Now we shall
push on, for we are within one and a half miles of the trenches."
They clattered on their way steadily; behind them came other columns,
and presently they found themselves driving abreast with another which
had emerged from a side road. Under those mysterious beams they pushed
forward along the road, a collection of vehicles containing all that
makes war possible to an army; bread and meat, and bacon and coffee,
and wine, and such-like articles; trench stores, rifles, ammunition,
barbed wire, and poison gas apparatus; shells for the soixante-quinze,
the famous French quick-firer; shells for the howitzers; and in
bigger and stronger vehicles, which were motor-propelled, shells for
other guns, of larger calibre, which had been pushed up towards the
trench-line. Then the column halted.
"Here we go straight on while the others branch off to various
rendezvous," said the driver. "Do you find it a queer sensation, this
driving at night with the trench-line in front, knowing that there are
men there stretched on either hand for miles upon miles--yes, for four
hundred miles--American, British, Portuguese, Belgian; and opposite
them the Boche--the hated Boche? Do you realize, _mon ami_, that on
every road along that four hundred miles at this very moment similar
convoys are pushing up stores to be carried to the trenches, and that
on the far side of 'no-man's-land' the same is going forward? For the
Boche also must replenish the stomachs and the ammunition dumps of
his soldiers. Poof, you will say, it is all wasted labour! That all
this ammunition will be fired into the air, and that, being fired, it
will cause more waste, for it will kill people! But is it waste? _Mon
Dieu! Non!_ It is spent for the freedom of all nations. This pouring
out of shells and blood, though some of it is thrown to the winds in
these days, will bring forth fruit in the future; for it will see the
defeat of the Germans and the downfall of Prussian militarism, and
will find France mightier than ever, Britain the Queen of Empires,
and America--well, America refined by the fire through which she has
passed, nobler than at the moment. The price, my friend? Well, it
appears high--outrageously high--in our day; posterity will realize
that it was not too high for the liberty it purchased.
"But there, I am romancing. I think in these night hours, I think of my
country saddened by its losses, of yours, and of Britain and our other
allies. I wish that this war had not been, but, being a philosopher, I
see that it was inevitable. And the Boche, does he wish that it had
never been? Bah! Ask him! It was a bad day for the Kaiser when he let
loose his soldiers. An easy conquest was then promised. Does it look
easy now? Will he achieve triumph? Never! Even if he were to do so it
would be to discover a shattered, broken Germany. Ah, here we are at
the rendezvous! Now we halt and feed our horses; presently the fatigue
parties from the trenches will come down and then our stuff will be
taken."
A little later a ghostly line of men appeared out of nothingness as
it were; they were challenged by the officer commanding the convoy,
and soon, laden with material for themselves and their comrades, went
trudging off again under the moonbeams, making for the entrance to the
communicating-trench which led to the front line.
"Heigh ho! a good job done!" said the _poilu_ as he picked up his reins
again. "Get along to the leaders, my friend, and help to turn them, for
these roads are narrow for steering a cart of this sort round. Another
half-hour and we shall be able to light pipes. My word, this night work
costs the country something in tobacco!"
Not a shot, not a shell of any description, had come near the convoy
so far, and in fact the front line, illuminated quite brilliantly a
little while before, and stirred to some movement, as evidenced by the
rattle of machine-guns, had now sunk as it were into blissful slumber.
Even the Very lights failed to illuminate the sky. It looked as though
the two armies had decided upon a truce until the morning. But not so!
Some ten minutes later there came the boom of distant guns, and then a
screech ending in a loud detonation.
"Hum!" thought Bill. "Heard that sort of thing before! Shrapnel--and
not very far away either."
"Just ahead. You can hear the bullets dropping on the roadway," the
_poilu_ answered, pointing. "It's just a strafe; they know, as we know,
that convoys occupy the roads at night, and every now and again they
send over a feeler. If they have luck--poof! it is uncomfortable for
some of us. But then, so also for the Boche; for if he shells, so do we
also. Besides, there are the aeroplanes; they swoop down on the roads.
A week ago the Boche had the impudence to attack us, but we hurried
under some trees, and in the darkness he lost us. But, plague take the
Boche, there are more shells! He is wakeful! It must be the man with
the toothache again, for listen to the machine-guns. Bother the man!
Why does he not go to the doctor?"
Bill could hear him chuckling. That the Frenchman was undisturbed by
the shells now sailing over the country-side was quite evident. He did
not even duck his head as one played over the convoy and ricochetted
from the road perhaps a hundred yards in advance. If his features had
been clearly visible, his eyebrows would have been seen to lift as if
he were vastly astonished when another one spluttered shrapnel to the
left of the convoy. He even laughed when one plunged into the ground
not ten yards away.
"It's always so," he said quite quietly. "You've heard, my friend, that
the bullet does not strike you which has not your number on it. It is
a great joke, I tell you; my number--my regimental number--is so great
that I doubt the bullet was never made that can hold it. But a shell.
Ah! that is different--eh? We can smoke now--_bien_! That is a comfort."
Bill might have found it a comfort too if he had taken yet to smoking;
instead, he sat perched up beside this cool Frenchman, listening to
his words, turning his head round to watch the bursting shells, and
listening to others which hurtled through the air at a distance.
"Uncanny, yes!" he told himself. "It makes one rather feel inclined to
shiver, as if a jug of cold water were being poured slowly down one's
back. But yes, it is something to be a philosopher, only difficult
under such conditions. Somehow it's so different from what it was on
the trawler; then everything was movement, hurry, rush, with fighting
to be expected; here it's all so peaceful--er--except for the shells."
It was peaceful in its own way, though dangerous enough as many have
already discovered; yet, to do him justice, Bill never flinched, and
indeed rather enjoyed the whole experience.
"A man gets used to it," said the Sergeant, when they got back to
their quarters, having in the meanwhile surreptitiously obtained a
report on Bill and his two chums. "You three fellows were not, of
course, expected to mind shelling after that trawler affair; but you
can take my word for it, son, that shelling gets on a man's nerves even
when he thinks he's used to it. You may go up to the trenches night
after night; sometimes there's not a shot fired; then you come in for
a burst of it and things are lively. If you don't, every odd gun that
sounds in your ear may have a shell for you--you're listening for it,
expecting it; it's almost as bad as a strafe same as I've been talkin'
of. Now, young shaver, you turn in! Precious soon you may be takin'
your own convoy up."
Less than a month had passed when Bill was actually driving one of
the convoy carts, Larry and Jim being placed in similar responsible
positions. Then each got a step in rank and became lance-corporal, and
finally, when a few weeks had passed, were full sergeants. Just about
then it happened they were transferred from the Franco-American unit
to one of the new units working with the American army, which was now
swelling visibly and increasing in numbers.
"We're off to the Somme area," Larry said. "Say now, ain't that the
place where British chaps fought the Huns somewheres about 1916, when
America wasn't yet in the war, and when the President was still tryin'
to keep us out of it? Guess it would want a lot of keepin' us out of it
now! What was it they said when we came in?--'in with both feet'--eh?
Gee. It's more than our feet we're putting into this business."
They went by road to Amiens, where the famous Cathedral overshadows the
ancient city, soon to be the objective of the Germans; then they turned
due east and rode to Peronne, where, to their amazement, to Bill's
huge delight and none the less to the satisfaction of Larry and Jim,
they found themselves billeted next to British troops and their unit
actually attached to a British division.
"It's getting a sorter mix-up, boys," a friend of theirs explained.
"Way north there's Belgians and French and British sorter mixed up
together; then there's Portuguese and British and French again sorter
mixed up and jumbled lower down; there's us and more British and
French, and then more Americans, all of 'em facin' the Hun and ready
for him. Folks say as how he's about to start a big offensive. There's
hundreds of thousands of German troops on t'other side of 'No Man's
Land'. For that we've got to thank the Revolutionists in Russia--or
rather, a chap should say, the Bolshevists--who, I reckon, are sorter
super-Socialists, and are agin' the law and agin' everything as the
Irish might say. Well, we're watching for Mr. Hun and his offensive."
"And meanwhile we go on learning our own particular job with motor
transport," said Bill, for this part of the work entrusted to him
and his friends interested him even more than that of the horsed
transport. "You seem to be able to do so much more with motors; you
can go so much faster and farther, and the loads you carry are so much
heavier. Then, too, our job is to take up shells; and when you hear the
guns shying them over at the Huns you somehow feel that you're doing
better work than you were beforehand. An offensive--eh, Larry? Wonder
where it'll start? I did hear that this front might be attacked."
"Guess the Hun wants to win back the line the British and French took
from him in the Somme offensive," Jim said. "You see, he was lying
then just east of Albert and pretty nigh within easy shot of Amiens;
then he got pushed back right away past Fricourt and Pozières and
other historical places, till his line was so broken and his defences
so upset that he made a forced retirement after the battle was over,
clearing out of Bapaume, Peronne, and Noyon to mention a few of the
places. It must have shook him up a little that offensive of our
allies, and if he's made up his mind to recapture the ground, well it
ain't wonderful."
"Not when you come to remember the fact that the Russians are out of
this business altogether," declared Larry with a curl of his lip;
for somehow or other the downfall of the great Muscovite nation, the
refusal of the soldiers there to fight, and the upheaval and revolution
which had undermined the strength of the country, roused something
like contempt. "There ain't no longer need for Germans in the east nor
for Austrians either; a few battalions marching here and there are
quite enough to occupy the country and to bully and overawe the people.
Meanwhile the Kaiser is moving every man-jack he can find into France.
Folks says that the railways are worn-out with transporting guns and
men; and yonder, just over there"--and standing up the diminutive Larry
stretched out a hand to the country beyond Peronne, where the German
lines were--"somewhere yonder there are masses of the enemy, masses of
guns too, I dare say, thousands of gas shells, trench mortars, bombs,
and every sort of implement, all being stored and made ready for the
day when the Germans will fling themselves upon Britons and French and
Belgians and Americans, not to mention Portuguese and others who are
fighting on the Western Front. It will be a terrific combat."
Yet days went by, settled weather arrived, and the end of March was
already approaching. Those were days of beautiful sunlight, when men
began to think of throwing off the hairy waistcoats with which the
British soldier is provided, when greatcoats were discarded during
the daytime, and when men sniffed at the breeze, scented the spring
flowers, and thought of summer. But at night cold winds played over
the ground, and the earth, in which so many thousands were living,
dug deeply into it, struck chill and cold, and, as the early hours
of morning came, condensed the moisture. Then the country-side was
obscured in damp, wet fog, which hid the combatants from one another,
hid, indeed, all but the sound of guns, which thundered here and there
along the battle line.
For days past, indeed, gun-fire had been a feature along the front;
it broke out here and there with violence; it subsided, perhaps, only
to burst into double fury at an adjacent point; while for some hours
now the enemy artillery had been thudding over a wide stretch, and
the Allied guns had been answering shot for shot, so that there was
pandemonium. Then, in the early hours of the 21st March, German masses
were suddenly launched through the dense fog which still clad the
country-side, and threw themselves with desperate fury upon the British
Third and Fifth Armies.
CHAPTER XII
Germany's Greatest Effort
It was cold and raw as Bill put his head up from the dug-out where he
and his chums had their head-quarters.
"Something doin'," he said laconically, bobbing down again and
clambering to the depths below, where in 1915 the Germans had dug hard
to prepare a defensive line which would arrest the British forces.
Yet that contemptible force, as the Kaiser had arrogantly called it,
swollen to unwonted proportions, had overrun this line in spite of
strenuous German resistance, and here, in March, 1918, in place of the
Hun enjoying such comfort as these dug-outs provided--here were Bill
and his friends snug under cover.
"Somethin' doin'," Bill repeated, as he joined the throng down below,
some thirty-five feet under the surface, and stumbled in to find a seat
in the dug-out, about which sat or lounged, perhaps, a dozen men facing
the centre, where, perched on a kerosene tin, a single army-pattern
candle spluttered and glimmered.
"Oh, aye!" answered one, as he pulled at his pipe. "Sounds like it!
Shouldn't wonder!"
They listened. Each man, as if by habit, lifted his head and stared
hard at the spluttering candle.
"Yep!" Larry interjected, pulling his hat from his head and rubbing his
fingers through his hair. "It do sound something like a ruction. This
here gunnin's been goin' on this four hours. Say, Bill, what's it doin'
upstairs?"
"Aye, what's it doin'?"
They turned their eyes upon the young soldier, and then sat there still
staring at the fluttering flame of the candle, listening, listening
to the thud, thud, thud, the almost continuous roar of distant
guns--damped down, as it were, by their deeply entrenched position, yet
a roar for all that--and listening to the distant reverberation, which
shook the earth and sent tremors through the dug-out.
For hours, indeed, German guns had been thundering; for hours shells
of every variety, but mainly gas shells, had been crashing into the
British defences, and crashing upon roads, levelling all that was
left of the puny walls of one-time pleasant hamlets, creating more
destruction in an area already almost utterly destroyed by previous
bombardments. And to those guns British guns made answer, till the roar
made speaking well-nigh impossible even deep down there in that dug-out.
"Best get something to eat, boys," said the practical Jim, when
a few minutes had passed in silence--that is, silence save for
that interminable thud, the occasional whine of a shell scarcely
perceptible deep down in the dug-out, and the deep rumbling of the
earth caused by so many concussions. "It looks as if the Germans are
coming on, and, that being so, the man who's got his waistcoat well
lined will be ready for them. Ah! hear that one? That's an ammunition
dump gone up! Hit direct, I shouldn't wonder."
They had been almost deafened by a rumbling roar, and sat for a while
again in silence, then from an adjoining opening there emerged a
tin-hatted, hairy individual bearing a dixie in one hand and a ladle in
the other. It was the cook--a stalwart British Tommy, his muffler wound
round his face, a cigarette between his lips, the very embodiment of
coolness and nonchalance.
"Food, boys!" he called out, "and maybe it's the last we'll get down in
this dug-out. With all that fire comin' over, it ain't possible that
we shall advance, and from what I've sorter gathered we'll be lucky
if we can hold our ground. There's millions of Germans. The Kaiser's
been bringin' 'em over from Russia all the time, and I expects that
'e's been bringin' all the guns and ammunition that the Russians left
to 'im. 'Ere you are, Bill, hold yer plate! Good bully and stew with
a potato or two a-floatin' around. You won't turn yer nose up at it,
I know, nor Larry neither. I don't know America, but I guess there
couldn't be anything better put before you out there--eh, Larry?"
"Yep! You bet! Feedin' ain't no better and no worse out there, and
it'll never be better than it is here," the American answered, sniffing
at the stew and smacking his lips.
Indeed he spoke the truth, for never were soldiers better fed than
those belonging to Britain. They ate their stew with relish, those men
down in that deep well of the earth, and then fell to smoking and to
chatting, while Bill clambered along flights of steep wooden steps till
he came to the gas curtain which hung across the exit, and, keeping his
gas respirator at the "alert" position, ready to pop the mask over his
face at any instant, he pushed the curtain aside, and, helmet on head,
emerged into the open. It was light--that is to say, it was lighter
than it had been three hours earlier, though a damp, wet fog clung to
the ground. Gun-fire still sounded, but for some uncanny reason its
fierceness had subsided; though now, in place of the heavy thuds of
distant batteries and the bursting of shells, there was to be heard the
sharp, crisper report of smaller explosive missiles.
"Trench mortars, shouldn't wonder," he thought, "and that's rifle-fire,
machine-gun firing, and it's spreading all along the line! It's---- by
James! it's behind us! It's close here to our left! It's---- who are
they?"
He peered through the mist, and then, lifting the curtain, dived down
the steps of the dug-out, reaching his friends eventually in a confused
heap, for he had missed his footing on the damp stairway.
"Why, it's our little Bill," chaffed Larry, and then looked serious,
for Bill sat up, his clothes awry, his helmet dangling in one hand, his
eyes starting.
"They're Huns--Huns I tell you! They're all round us! They've got
behind us! Our men have fallen back. It's been a surprise attack, and
the mist and the fog have helped them. It's--it looks as though we're
cornered."
"Cornered! Cornered! Looks as though we're cornered," they repeated,
the words coming to Bill's ears as if from a far distance, first with a
decided flavour of the American accent, then in broad Devonshire, and
again from Jim in that drawl which was so unmistakable. "Cornered!"
"Yep!"
"But," said Larry, diving for his morsel of cigar, "you don't mean----?"
"I mean," said Bill, "that the Germans are all round us, that we chaps
down here are probably cut off, and that we're in a tight fix. Where's
yer rifles? Where's yer bombs? Some of you men have got a store of
bombs down here that you were to carry up to the front line, and what
about ammunition stocks? This is a business! Look here, boys, make
ready whilst I go up and have another look round. The thing to do would
be to decide which way to go, how to act if we are surrounded. We shall
be made prisoners the moment we turn out, or get shot down. I'm not
asking to be made a prisoner--not me!"
"Nor me neither," came from the burly individual who had borne the
steaming dixie into the dug-out, "nor me neither, Bill. I had some!"
he added, and he actually grinned in spite of the precariousness of
their situation. "Don't yer forgit, young feller, that in 1915 I was
took at Hulloch, opposite Loos, you know--no yer don't, 'cos you was
in America; but Hulloch's just where we gave the Hun proper stuff
somewhere about September, 1915. Well, I got pinched, and for about
a week I was a guest of the Kaiser's. Oh, no thanks! No more being a
guest of the Kaiser nor of any other Hun, I thank you. Skilly ain't in
it--I give yer my word, I was worn wellnigh to a shadow--I----"
The incorrigible, loquacious fellow would have gone on discussing the
event for half an hour had not Bill abruptly interrupted him, while
another of the men brusquely ended his conversation.
"Stow it, Nobby! You as thin as a rake, eh? You'll be thin soon if you
don't hold yer wind and help us to get out of what looks like a nasty
business. Yes, young Bill, you nip up, me and the other boys'll make
ready."
"And I'll go along with him," said Jim, making towards the stairway.
They clambered up rapidly, Jim adjusting his gas respirator. Then,
arrived at the gas curtain, they pulled it slowly aside and peered out.
It was lighter still, for every minute now made a difference. Mounting
higher overhead was the spring sun, though still invisible, yet
sucking continuously at the moisture, driving deep lanes through it,
trying all the while to send its rays to the soaked earth underneath.
There were figures moving about, a batch of men disarmed and dressed
in khaki were being marched across the narrow foreground; officers
dressed in field grey--the German uniform--were galloping to and fro,
and a host of men were staggering past bearing machine-guns and trench
mortars. It was a German invasion in fact. For the German hosts,
seizing the opportunity provided by mist, had taken the British Fifth
Army at a disadvantage, and, coming on by the thousand, had swept
through their front line and were already hotly engaged with other
troops farther to the rear. In that sudden, successful advance they had
overwhelmed small parties of the British, they had run over trenches
and advanced posts and dug-outs, and, in fact, they had erected a
curtain between those men in the front line who had been unable to fall
back, and their comrades now resisting the enemy advance.
In that area which they had so suddenly captured lay the dug-out in
which Bill and his friends were quartered, and they too, like many
another party, were derelict, surrounded, encompassed by enemies, with
no way out, though as yet they were not actually prisoners.
"Huh!" grunted Bill, peering from beneath the flap of the blanket, "it
don't look healthy--do it? A fellow don't know which way to turn nor
what to do. If we wait, we are taken. There'll be a party of Germans
come along and summon us to surrender. Then it would be a case of
'hands up' and 'come out'--or----"
"Be burst in by a bomb," said Jim. "I know it! I went up with a party
of our chaps in one of those raids of ours when we blew up some of the
German dug-outs. My, it was a game!"
They lowered the gas curtain over the entrance again and stumbled down
the stairway.
"Yes, it was a game," said Jim, as they entered the dug-out and joined
their comrades. "A game for the Huns, you bet! Gee! and we wouldn't
find it so."
The big man in the hairy waistcoat, with the broad smile on his strong
face, grinned, and, taking the cigarette from his mouth, tapped Larry
familiarly on the shoulder.
"A game I've played too, up here in these very parts in the days when
we was fighting the Germans back over the Somme. Kamerad! D'you know
the call? They'd come tumbling up from the dug-outs, with their hands
above their heads, and, if you believe me, they'd offer money, watches,
anything, for their lives, boys. We gave 'em somethin' that time. Of
course, if they didn't come up we gave 'em a smoke-bomb; and if that
didn't fix 'em we put a sentry at the door and waited till a chap came
along with something stronger."
"Hold hard! Sentry! Oh!" Bill shouted.
"Oh!" repeated the big man; "and what's now? You ain't frightened?"
"Frightened!" glared Larry. For the very thought sent him into a hot
flush of indignation. "Him!--Bill!--the chap----"
"Shut up!" said Bill. "I was thinking of that sentry. We're
cornered--that's what all agreed--eh?"
Even the big man in the hairy waistcoat could not fail to be in
sympathy with the suggestion. If he had, a glance out through the
door of the dug-out would have soon satisfied him. The light was now
stronger. The mist was clearing. On every side Germans could be seen,
while behind them, where there had been British support-lines before,
was now the fierce rattle of machine-guns and of trench mortars.
Across what had been "No-Man's-Land" streamed columns of Germans, some
marching in good order, others trapesing over the ground dragging every
sort of war material. There were detached bands, too, marching hither
and thither, and halting unexpectedly. They were searching for the
hidden caches of British soldiers, cut off by this sudden advance, and
for dug-outs.
"Hold hard!" said Bill. "You chaps wait down here. Larry and Jim come
along up with me. I'm going to post a sentry over our show," he said,
when they had gained the curtain and were able to peep out. "Perhaps
we'll get a chance."
"A chance!" said Larry, scratching his head--"a chance to place a
sentry! You mean a chance to get hold of some togs in which to rig one
of us up. That's a fine idea, Bill, but it would mean shooting if we
were discovered."
"Not if the sentry's a real German," grinned Bill. "You know what I
mean--a real stout, floppy German!"
"A real stout---- Here, what are you getting at!" cried Jim, and he too
was grinning.
As for Larry, as one might expect, he merely cocked his hat a little
farther forward, fumbled automatically for the stump of his cigar, and
scrutinized the smiling Bill from the top of his tin hat to his thick
boots.
"Look here, me lad, this 'ere fat, floppy German," he said. "What are
you after? Gee, lad, but--but I do believe----"
"Hist! Sit down! Let the blanket drop! There are men there, fat and
floppy," whispered Bill, pulling them both back well into the entrance,
and seeing that the curtain was carefully lowered. Then, pushing it
aside with a single finger, he bid them in turn peer out.
A shattered hedge ran not far from the opening to the dug-out, masking
the entrance to some extent. A bank, too, obstructed the approach to
it, and bordered a sunken road, which no doubt at one time had been
a feature of the village situated just there. But the village had
gone long since. High-explosive shells had churned the ground in all
directions, had torn the pleasant dwellings of the villagers to shreds,
had lacerated the trees and broken them on every side, had even turned
water-courses, by bursting in their channels, and, having dug deep
holes and pits in all directions and flattened every prominence known
by the residents, had transformed the country thereabouts, and indeed
for miles and miles on either hand, into a vast disordered desert.
Yet this one feature remained--a narrow, sunken cart track, passing
along beside a bank which gave it shelter, perhaps, from the desolating
action of the shells--a bank which was seamed and furrowed by the
spades of men who had dug deep into it for shelter. It harboured
amongst those many cavities the entrance to this dug-out. As for the
lane itself, it harboured at this particular moment a German--a big,
lumbering man, whose steel helmet seemed so huge that it covered his
head as an extinguisher covers a candle. He was plodding along towards
the dug-out, perhaps some two hundred yards distant from it, his eyes
upon the ground, his weary feet moving heavily, his rifle over one
shoulder.
"That's him," said Bill, pointing a finger through a niche made by
withdrawing the curtain with his finger. "That's our sentry--a fine
big, fat German!"
He could feel rather than hear Larry giggling. As for Jim, he squatted
down beside the wooden sides of the entrance to the dug-out and did his
utmost to stifle the roars of laughter he felt bound to give way to.
For somehow the sight of that plodding German coming steadily towards
them, Bill's incriminating finger, and their own peculiar position,
struck a ludicrous note. It tickled his fancy immensely.
"Ho! ho! ho!" he roared, till Larry, turning, struck him sharply on the
shoulder.
"Gee, man!" he said; "d'yer think we're going to stay here and be
captured 'cos a big lout such as you gets a-laughin'? But Bill's right,
ain't he? A fine German, just fine! And won't he do for us! Just how'll
we tackle him?"
"Tackle him!" exclaimed Bill. "Easy! Get your gun, push it through the
curtain. Here, wait till he gets close to us, then watch and see!"
Neither of the three had any fears as to the result of the encounter,
and less so as the German drew nearer. From being just a big, fat,
ambling German, he was seen from a closer view to be in addition a very
shaken and frightened individual.
"Here, you just sit up sharp," said Larry, pushing his revolver through
an opening which Jim made, while Bill pushed his head up through the
other side of the curtain. "Hands up--quick! Now, young feller, you
come over here straight! D'you get me?"
The German "got him" at once. He stood of a sudden stock still, lifted
his eyes, and gazed at the entrance to the dug-out. Then he dropped his
rifle, opened his mouth wide as if about to shout, and half turned. But
at that instant Larry's weapon was pushed still farther forward, and,
obedient to Bill's beckoning finger, the German picked up his rifle,
holding it well above his head, and the other hand also, and advanced
towards them.
"Now, you look here, you Hun," said Larry, pushing his way farther
forward, "I'll be just behind you here--savvy?--with a bit of the
curtain between us. You'll march to and fro--get me? Just to and fro
same as any ordinary sentry. But if you try tricks, cunning tricks, me
boy, look out for it!"
"Aye, look out for it!" Jim chimed in; "because, if Larry misses, I
ain't so bad a shot by no means."
"Here, he doesn't understand. Let's try him with a bit of French,"
said Bill, stepping out to the bewildered German. "Speak English?" he
asked, and then, as the man answered "Nein"; "then understand this,"
he told him in French, "you're to act as sentry. If you are challenged
by any other Germans, simply say that you've been put here by orders.
Don't try to play any games with us. My friends here are Americans, and
perhaps you know what that means: they can shoot. You understand that,
eh?"
The man nodded; his mouth gaped for a moment, and then, flinging his
rifle over his shoulder, he began to move to and fro, to and fro, like
an automaton, glancing sheepishly at the entrance to the dug-out, and
seeing there every now and again a little niche or opening, and from
that niche the faces of either Jim or Larry or Bill, and sometimes
also the muzzle of a revolver. It was marching to and fro that
comrades of his saw him, and, taking it for granted that he had been
stationed there to watch the dug-out, they passed on without thinking
to challenge him. For the moment, in fact, Bill's ruse had saved his
comrades from capture, but how long would it act in that manner? The
sentry could not possibly march to and fro for ever, and presently
there would be more Germans in the neighbourhood. What then?
"Aye, what then?" asked Larry thoughtfully, as he cocked and uncocked
his revolver.
"Ah!" replied Jim, unable to fathom the difficulty.
"A teaser," agreed Bill. "Let's hope for the best! What about a meal
anyway?"
"Fine!" was Larry's terse rejoinder.
CHAPTER XIII
Surrounded
"Let's count heads," said Bill, some hours after the German sentry
was posted and when one of the watchers had reported that he still
continued diligently at his post. "It's getting dark--things will be
moving presently."
"And if we ain't by then, something unpleasant will be happening,"
remarked the big man with the hairy waistcoat as he ladled the contents
of a steaming dixie out into the mess-tins of the men. "That there
sentry, as I've squinted at this dozen times now, will be off the
moment it gets dark and dusk's fallen. Give 'im ten minutes from that
to shout hisself hoarse and call up some of 'is mates; after that----"
"After that," grinned one of the men, as though he rather enjoyed the
statement and thought it a joke, "there'll be a swarming band of the
blighters all round--there'll be bombs coming down most like. Say,
boys, we'd better eat all the grub we've got and make the best of it.
Pity to waste good things--eh?"
He laughed as he dug his teeth into a huge slice of bread-and-jam.
"But what about the heads? There's Jim and Bill and me--I counts
us three first, boys, 'cos, you see, I knows me mates best,"
explained Larry. "Then there's Nobby here, our cook--and prime good
stuff he turns out--that's four, and Simkins over there eating
bread-and-jam--five; and, yes, there's five more, which makes us ten
down below and one upstairs watching the Hun--eleven good boys--eh?"
"And ten hundred Huns outside," said Bill. "Yes, fair odds, Larry.
Fighting won't do much for us; we've got to use a little artifice.
Seems to me the first thing to do is to get out of the dug-out, for
once the sentry does get off, or once we're discovered, it will become
a trap. As to the sentry getting off, we could soon put a stop to that
by dragging him down here. But is it worth it?"
"And what then?" demanded Nobby. "Young Bill, you are the boy to show
us the ropes--eh?"
"Yep. You bet!" Larry interjected. "This here Bill's shown me and Jim
and a whole lot of pals the ropes before now. This ain't the time to
spout, but you can take it from me that he's a bit of a leader. Waal,
Bill, what about it?"
"Aye, what about it?" they asked, gathering round the young Englishman,
much to Bill's discomfort.
"Don't you get rattled," said Nobby, seeing him flush. For though the
light was not very good down there the fluttering candle still showed
sufficient light to make the men's faces easily visible, and Bill
had flushed at Larry's words. "You sit yerself down and take another
bite; there's just a tinful left at the bottom of my dixie. Then
have a smoke--one o' these yeller perils. Yer don't know them! Yer
don't smoke! Why, these 'ere things is the soldier's delight, and the
orficers smoke 'em too; so they're good, you can guess. No, you won't
eat any more, and yer won't smoke, but yer thinkin'. What is it?"
"Can't say," said Bill. "But I'm too young to lead you fellows."
"Too young!" exclaimed Nobby. "You don't 'come it' in that way, young
Bill. I ain't been down 'ere these many days cookin' for our mess
without learning things. My word, Larry ain't the one to talk much
unless you've got 'im in a good mood--and seems to me he ain't always
in a good mood--but he did talk at times, and--well--there's some of
us as has heard o' that trawler. Boys, there ain't no officer 'ere;
there's some of us what 'as got non-commissioned rank--but this is a
fix what's likely to cost us our liberty. Who's to lead us?"
"Bill," came from many of them. "Bill," they cried.
"Sure--Bill. Didn't I tell you, boys," said Larry. "Then get in at it,
youngster. What are we to do?"
"Do?--it's almost impossible to say," Bill answered them; for
during the last few hours he had been hard at work considering the
situation--only to meet with disappointment. How could he devise any
plan when there was nothing to base his plans upon? If they stayed down
in the dug-out they risked destruction and certainly imprisonment; if
they went abroad, well, plans then depended entirely upon circumstances.
"Boys," he said, "I'll do what I can. Some of you fellows may be senior
to me, but no matter; we're all in the show together, and if I can
help, why, you can count on me. Now, as to what we're to do: I'm going
aloft at once, and immediately it's dark enough I'm going to our German
and I'll send him off down the lane double quick, with orders not to
come back unless he wants a bullet in him. By then you chaps will have
collected all the grub you've got, each one of you will have picked
up his rifle, and you will see that every round of ammunition we're
possessed of is carried on with you. Then we take a line that leads
us west and south, and we'll make for the Somme River, for that's the
direction, I think, in which our troops have retreated."
"Good for you!" said Larry.
"It sounds a likely sort of business, it do," said the big man with the
hairy waistcoat--"leastways it's better'n nothing. Being cooped up here
is worse than bein' blown to bits or taken prisoner out in the open.
Well," he went on, swinging his arms wide, or as wide, we will say,
as the dug-out permitted, and throwing his chest forward, "the open's
the place for a man--eh, boys? Living down here like a rat or like a
rabbit ain't what I asks for."
A glance at this gallant fellow was quite enough to show that he was
an open-air man; he was indeed a typical example of your English
countryman who lives the day long in the open, thrives on fresh air,
and looks robust and sturdy. As to fear, he seemed to have no idea as
to what it meant, and rather looked upon these new difficulties and
dangers as something of a diversion. He at any rate would make a most
excellent companion on the sort of adventure on which the party were
now to step out. Bill glanced at him approvingly; Larry cocked an eye
at this burly Englishman and smiled.
"Say, boy," he lisped, "ef you ain't just it--just the sort o' pard as
Uncle Sam likes. I'm glad I've a chance of soldiering up alongside o'
you. It does a man good what's come from the States, where we've been
looking on at the fighting these last two or three years, to come in
contact with British soldiers who've been fighting like tigers all this
while. But we'll do the same, never you fear. America means business!"
Probably the huge Nobby had never had such a long speech addressed
to him before, and in front of such an audience. He positively
blushed--stuttered--grinned--and then brought an enormous paw down on
Larry's attenuated shoulder.
"Don't you worry, chum," he said; "I'll look after you. If any blighted
German tries to get at yer, just call to me."
It was hardly the kind of statement that Larry looked for--distinctly
not the sort of thing he required, for, diminutive though he was,
the American positively oozed courage and determination--that cool
determination which seemed to suit him and his languid person so
admirably. As for wanting anyone to take care of him, he was well able
to do that for himself, and was about to tell Nobby so in unmistakable
manner, when, on second thoughts, he realized that it was merely good
comradeship which had prompted him to give vent to the statement.
"You're a chum," was all he said; "you'll look after me. And say,
Nobby, ef ever you get into a tight corner, just sing out. I'm small
but I'm handy--eh?"
He grinned as he turned in Jim's direction, and then winked at Bill,
whereat Nobby glanced at the two of them to find Jim nodding violently.
"He's put the case fine," said the latter. "Larry's small--you'd think
you could take him by the neck and shake the life out of him--but he's
a vixenish little rat, I can tell you, and he'd dig his teeth into
you before you could get a real good grip. And, Nobby boy, don't you
ask him to start in with a gun; he'd flick the eyelid off of a weasel
within ten yards, would Larry--it's part of his vixenish spirit. Oh
yes, he's weak, he is! A tarnation little rat to deal with."
It was complimentary in half a sense, the reverse if viewed from
another direction. But it pleased Larry immensely, and it appealed to
the understanding of the British soldier. He glanced 'cutely at Larry,
took far more notice of the various points of his person, and then
patted him violently on the shoulder.
"I see! You're sort o' small and daring," he said,
"and--and--pug--er--what's the word?"
"Pugnacious," Bill interjected.
"Aye, pugnacious--always wantin' a row, looking round for things to
fight, like so many little people. And he can shoot--he can flick the
eyelid off a weasel! Well, that'ud want doing at ten yards. But, to
speak as you chaps do, I guess he can shoot. That's good. He'll want to
know how in the next few hours, if we're to get through the Germans.
Now, boys, up we go!"
They waited, however, in the dug-out whilst Bill clattered up the
stairs and so to the curtain. Peering out, he discovered it was
already dusk, though he could still see the German sentry. The man was
trapesing up and down in less soldierly manner--he was slouching in
fact--looking about him a great deal more than he had done before, and,
if only Bill could have read his mind, was wondering how long it would
be before the dusk was sufficiently deep to allow him to bolt away
suddenly from his captors.
"Only, then there's the alternative," this hulking German was saying
to himself. "I must return to our forces--I must continue fighting.
Ah! that is terrible! I am tired of it--always it is fight on! fight
on!--for victory! We Germans outnumber them by hundreds of thousands,
and then, where is the victory? Not at Verdun--where I fought! Not at
Ypres before it! Not since then anyway. And now in this great 'push'
shall we attain it?"
It was a question which many another German was asking himself
at that moment--many indeed of the High Command. For Germany was
staking everything--her very existence--upon this enormous and sudden
offensive, which she had launched against the British Third and Fifth
Armies. We have already recapitulated the facts of the case, and
will only remind the reader that on March 21st, when this assault
was opened, Germany's eastern front facing Russia had been almost
completely depleted of German troops. The railways across Germany from
Russia into France were almost worn out with the constant transit
of battalions; and here they were--they and those guns--those guns
manufactured by Britain for Russia and treacherously handed over to
the Germans. Here they all were--thrown pell mell at the British--and
already the line had bulged back, thanks to this enormous mass of
fighting material and to a favouring mist; and the line was to go
still farther back. Indeed the Fifth Army was to experience on this
day, and for almost ten days following, as severe fighting as ever
troops took part in on the Western Front. Nothing but swift retreat,
fighting every inch of the way, could save the British line; nothing
but constant pressure, giving here and there as German masses became
overwhelming--constant pressure, with retreat at the psychological
moment, and taking advantage of every coign and vantage-point--that and
only that, with British valour behind it, could save the line and hold
up this gigantic massed attack on the part of the enemy.
We may advance the story a little with advantage. The Fifth British
Army, which by all the canons of warfare should have been annihilated,
considering its inferior strength and the enormous advantage the mist
gave the enemy--that army retreated rapidly at first, but maintained
cohesion between its various units. It fought night and day, it fought
for every foot of the road from Peronne and back to the valley of the
Somme. It held up the German advance here and there and everywhere, and
melted away from it as huge German reinforcements were brought up. It
smote the enemy battalions, it laid thousands of them in the dirt, and
finally, after days and nights of an ordeal which would have tried the
best of troops, it passed the line at Albert, running north and south,
where the British and French trench line had rested from 1914 onwards
to the summer of 1916, until, indeed, the Somme battles were fought.
There it settled down firmly like a rock, holding up further advance on
the part of the enemy.
During these strenuous days the Third British Army, on the left of the
Fifth, also fell back as respects its right flank, inflicting very
severe casualties on the enemy, while French reserves and American
troops were poured in the direction of Albert and Montdidier, where
soon the Germans were beating against the Franco-American-British line
ineffectually, fighting desperately to continue an advance and to force
the British into a rout.
That retreat will, when its details are better known, be viewed as of
as great historical importance as that from Mons to the south-east of
Paris in 1914. Indeed, in a measure and in its own particular way, it
will demand closer attention and perhaps greater admiration on the
part of a future generation. For, whereas the retreat from Mons was
performed by the British Expeditionary Force when small in numbers as
compared with the enemy, the fighting was less strenuous, manœuvre
warfare had only just commenced and that at the very commencement of
hostilities. The retreat from Peronne to the Somme and across it was,
on the contrary, manœuvre warfare following a long period of close
trench warfare. In it the utmost use was made of mechanical means of
killing people. No cavalry screens could hold the enemy off as our
fine cavalry did on the road to the south-east of Paris. It was a case
of machine-guns and trench mortars in front firing into the British,
and British machine-guns and rifles attempting to hold up the advance
of a horde of men armed to the teeth, behind whom were masses of guns
constantly being hurried forward.
This retreat, however, is analogous to that from Mons in one respect,
in that our very gallant French ally fought shoulder to shoulder
with us. It marks as well a stage absolutely apart, a new era in this
gigantic war in that at this moment American troops appeared, to fight
shoulder to shoulder with us. Not yet had American troops appeared in
force. There were some hundreds of thousands of them already in France,
but the bulk--the millions that America can and will place in the
field if need be--were still in America, five thousand miles distant,
and time and ships were needed to convey such armies and the material
essential for them. Those American troops, let us add--forerunners of
the vast army above referred to--acquitted themselves like men. Though
only a few of the number then in France were flung into this battle
they did wonderful work, so that Larry and Jim and Bill had every
reason to be proud of them.
Mention of the last brings us back to our friends. Bill, emerging from
the dug-out entrance, gripped the German sentry.
"See that?" he said, pointing down the lane, now hardly
distinguishable. "Move on. Don't turn to right or to left--and look
out--we shall be following you. If you try to communicate with your
pals--well, there'll be trouble."
He saw the lumbering German go plodding off down the lane, his rifle
still over his shoulder, and waited until he disappeared into the
gloom. Then he shouted down the stairway:
"Come up, boys, all clear!"
One by one the men filed up from below, each carrying his rifle and
ammunition as well as a haversack filled with provisions, while the
majority also had water-bottles, and all wore steel helmets. Presently
they stood outside the entrance in the gathering dusk, a forlorn little
band, fully conscious of the fact that they stood as it were alone
in this veritable "No-Man's-Land", surrounded by a host of Germans.
Indeed, as they stood there waiting for the order to move, they
could hear voices here and there--the guttural tones of the Kaiser's
soldiers--while from their right, in a south-westerly direction, there
came the continuous rattle of machine-guns, the rolling sounds of
volleys and of independent rifle-firing, and, smothering all these
sounds at times, the racket of a heavy cannonade. Far away sounds
seemed to be echoing--the sounds of British guns and British rifles and
other weapons.
"And then?" asked Nobby, his tin hat a little on one side, his hairy
person standing out conspicuous from amongst the others in spite of
the semi-darkness. "Over there," and he jerked a thumb towards the
fighting-line, "there's ructions, and round about there's Huns, and
there'll be Fritzes here and there and everywhere between us and the
battle-line. Young Bill, you've got somethin' to face! What's the word?"
"Aye, what's the word?" others asked.
"March! Not a sound! Let no one answer if they challenge. But wait,
we'll form up into column of twos, and I'll post a man on either flank
of the column whose job it will be to tackle any inquisitive German. No
shots to be fired, boys! Butt-ends!"
"Ah! butt-ends! I'll butt-end Fritz if he comes near me!" growled
Nobby, his grin gone for a moment, looking, what indeed he was,
a formidable fellow, as he swung his rifle-butt forward from the
sling which was over his shoulder. "If Fritz comes between me and
liberty--well, it'll be Fritz's fault. I've done 'em in before now,
young Bill, and I'll do in a few more before this journey's finished."
"March!" Bill put himself at the head of the little column and trudged
forward, first a few steps down the lane and then out through a gap
which led from it towards the south-west. Right away, far on their
right, he could distinguish a huge dull mass, which common sense and
his knowledge of the geography of those parts told him must be the
Butte of Warlencourt. Farther along, a little to the right of it, would
lie the Albert-Bapaume road, the road which led to safety, and along
that again, in the direction of Albert, on either side, a country
decimated and torn to shreds by the fighting in 1916. There the Somme
battles were bitterly contested, and for miles on either hand, where
once had been a fair land dotted with pleasant villages, was now, as
he knew from frequent observation, a blasted, battered rolling plain
of mud and grass, and grass and mud and shell-holes interspersed with
fragments of smashed villages. Here and there, perhaps as much as
four feet of a wall remaining, elsewhere the base of some ancient
church, a factory in another part crumbling to dust, its machinery
rusting--rotten with exposure.
There would be derelict British tanks, too, turned on their sides,
burst by interior explosion, and far and wide, here and there in
groups--as in the case of the graves of those gallant Australians who
captured Pozières--stood pathetic little crosses, beneath which rested
all that remained of men who had gallantly fought for the empire.
You who live secure in old England, and find it almost impossible to
imagine such conditions, take the word of those who have seen. Conjure
up in your mind's eye this blasted country, and recollect that there,
on the fields they conquered, lie men who died for you, that you and
England might survive the tyranny of Prussia.
But enough of such things. Bill knew every step of the way, for he had
driven it and walked it on many an occasion.
"March!" he exclaimed; "we'll make straight for the Butte and then
for the road. Look out for Germans! A few German overcoats would give
us fine cover, and this mist also should help us far on our way. Step
out--the faster we go the better!"
They went off through the gathering gloom, through the wet mist which
was already cloaking the earth, and presently swung past the western
end of the Butte of Warlencourt, which marked the limit of advance of
the British army in 1916. Then their feet gained the Albert-Bapaume
road, and presently they were speeding along it and getting every
half-hour nearer to the sounds of battle. But though they marched
nearer and nearer to their friends, what chance had they? Would they
ever break through that line of Germans which undoubtedly extended far
and wide and cut them adrift from the Allied armies?
CHAPTER XIV
Where Men fought for Empire
"Halt! I hear men coming! There are troops on the road--listen!"
Bill, who was leading the party of men cut off from the British army--a
party, be it remembered, comprising not only sturdy British soldiers,
but just as sturdy members of the new American army--suddenly thrust
out an arm and brought them to a standstill. There on the paved highway
which runs from Albert to Bapaume, and which the British, with that
thoroughness for which they have now no doubt won world-wide fame, had
macadamized and rolled until it was as smooth as a billiard table,
though but a few months before it had been churned and smashed to
pieces by gun-fire--there, unhappily, the same churning and smashing
process was being repeated between the spot where Bill and his friends
stood and Albert itself, perhaps five miles distant. For in that
direction the thunder of guns was loudest, and even the mist and the
darkness could not hide the flash of hidden batteries and the bursting
of shells from British artillery, nor could the sounds of distant
battle altogether drown other sounds--the deep muffled tread of a mass
of men.
"Coming back towards us from the Albert direction," said Bill.
"Probably men who have been relieved, or perhaps it's a ration party.
Anyway, off we go! Take the road here to the right. Look sharp!"
He stepped off the macadam, to find himself to his arm-pits in a huge
shell-hole--a relic of 1916--in which also reclined what remained of
a shattered tank--one of the land fighting-ships which Britain had
brought to bear against the Germans. Clambering out of it, with two
other men of the party who had been similarly unfortunate, he struck
away from the road, the others following closely. Then, of a sudden,
Larry called to him.
"Say, Bill, here's just the sort of stunt for us! Seems like an old
building."
"Aye, a _sucrerie_. I remember it," came from Nobby. "Here you are,
here's one of the tanks in which they boiled their roots. It's
Pozières--for a hundred! Pozières! don't I know it? Here's where the
Australians did in the Germans what was holding 'em up, and pushed on
towards Courcelette."
Bill recollected the place at once. Not once but a hundred times
probably had he been up or down this Albert-Bapaume road, and, like
everyone who had traversed it, he remembered well that little graveyard
on the left with the crosses to the gallant Australians, and on the
right, here and there, lost almost amongst the tumbled earth and
smashed country-side, solitary little crosses, and farther along on
the left again, as he went to Bapaume or Peronne, that shattered
factory with the old sugar-tanks, smashed and crumbled and perforated
by shrapnel and machine-gun bullets, lying three hundred yards from
the road, sole relic of the once flourishing and pretty village of
Pozières, now relic only of a spot which was the scene of some of the
bitterest fighting in 1916.
"In you go," said Bill. "These ruins will hide us, and we can sit down
and have a feed. Nobby, you know the place you say--tell us all about
it, so that we may know what we're in for. Any good hiding-places?"
"Know the place?" grinned Nobby, as they entered the shattered walls
of the factory and sat themselves down on the floor, which was still
littered with much of the broken material left by the British. "Well
now, when I was here--seems months and months ago--there was a medical
post stationed 'ere, covered up in sand-bags. And, my word, didn't
they want 'em! Shrapnel was comin' over all the time, and you've only
got to see those tanks outside to realize how machine-gun bullets were
buzzing. Yet it was a comfortable enough crib then, though rough, and
gave fair shelter."
"Fair shelter?" said Bill, suddenly pricking up his ears and thinking.
"Supposing now we were forced to protect ourselves, it would----"
The gallant Nobby realized his meaning promptly. "It would," he said
with emphasis. "These 'ere old walls, what you can see of 'em in the
mist and the darkness, are thick--that is, what's left of 'em is--and
there used to be a cellar underneath the floor. If Fritz becomes
inquisitive and tries to round us up, why, believe me, this 'ere place
might do us a treat. Better'n being in the dug-out anyway. 'Sides, as
I remember it, it just tops a rise, and the ground slopes gently away
from it all round. That'ud be nasty for the Boche, eh?"
"It'ud provide us with a hiding-place perhaps," said Bill thoughtfully,
as they all sat down and munched a ration. "Looks to me, Larry, as
though we'd better have another council of war, we fellows, right
forward there. We might with a bit of luck get right through the lines
during the night. On the other hand, we mightn't. We'd stand a better
chance if we could hide up in a place like this, which, as Nobby says,
ain't a dug-out, but gives us shelter. We could then get an observation
post and look round the neighbourhood. Of course the place might be
searched; but then we always stand a chance of being discovered, even
if we move on, eh? What's your idea? What do you say about it?"
"Yep," said Larry, pursing his lips. "Gee! this here's a conundrum! I'd
like to treat it as our folks say in 'judgematical' manner. Supposin'
we move on--well, soon we've got to get off the road, for we've come
somewhere near the line where troops are moving. You may say that the
Germans have pushed right ahead, past the Butte of Warlencourt and
beyond Pozières. They've made a tidy advance in the few hours that have
passed since their offensive opened, and now they're held up, or nearly
held up, let's hope, somewheres just in front of us. But where is
that somewheres? It may be just a mile ahead; it mayn't, on the other
hand. Supposin' we moves on, then we may barge into a whole crowd and
get bayoneted for our trouble; we may get shot down by our own guns;
or we may even find ourselves mixed up in a German offensive and get
done in by German machine-gun bullets, perhaps American machine-gun
bullets--for some of our boys will get rushed up to help the Allied
line. No, siree, I vote that we sits down here for the night, and, come
morning, hides away. Then we'll look up some place from which we can
observe, and will try to get an idea of what's happening."
"And Jim?" asked Bill, for Jim was one of those quiet Americans who
never spoke unless he had something worth saying, but whose opinion was
valuable.
"I'm in with Larry," he said. "There's uncertainty either way, whether
we go forward or remain here. We may get hunted out to-morrow, or caged
in this place like rats in a trap. If so, we can put up a fight at
least, same as I guess many other pockets of soldiers overrun by the
Germans will be doing. Better that than push on and shove our noses
into a noose."
One after another the men gave vent to their own particular personal
opinions, and so it became apparent that the general consensus of
thought was that the party should halt where it was and rest till dawn
came. After that--well, their fortunes lay in the lap of the gods.
It was hardly likely that they would escape from such a predicament
without trouble or danger, but, if it came, they would be better able
to face it after having rested.
Trust the British soldier and his American chum to make the most of any
sort of surroundings and to gain comfort in spite of bleak conditions.
Half an hour later the whole party--with the exception of one man who
watched at the exit of the factory--lay fast asleep, snoring, in their
greatcoats under the blankets, which each of them had carried. The
sentry stood on a piled-up heap of shattered masonry which had once
supported the upper floor of the factory, looking through one of the
exits. We have said one of the exits, though that hardly gives a good
idea of the condition of the place, seeing that British guns and German
guns had each in turn hammered this property, with the result that
walls had been flattened and holed. The upper story had gone entirely,
windows were no more, and but a battered wreck remained, with hardly a
semblance of a factory about it, gaping to the skies with wide rents in
all directions. Its interior was a mass of fallen stones, save where
lay relics of previous British occupation.
Morning found the party, refreshed by their sleep, fit once more
and ready for anything. The mist, too, was not sufficiently thick to
prevent their inspecting their immediate surroundings, and Bill, as
leader of the party, at once proceeded to make himself familiar with
them.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Some hundreds of sand-bags here. Some of 'em
rotten and going to pieces, but others quite sound. They formed, of
course, the protection to the aid post. And here's the 'elephant'
shelters still standing. Better still! they'll keep the rain out. Now
for a squint all round, and then for the cellar. Seems to me we might
hold out here for some time."
Months before, parties of natives and others employed by the British
had swept over the Somme battle-field, throughout its vast extent, and
had salvaged a great amount of material for future use: guns here and
there, munitions elsewhere, telephone wires, every sort of warlike
material had been gathered in to one collecting centre, even timbers
had been extracted from the deep dug-outs constructed by the Germans.
But sand-bags and this heavy iron sheeting forming the "elephant"
shelter were not worth removing, and were therefore left to rot like
the remainder of their surroundings. To Bill and his friends they
promised a certain amount of security.
"You see," said Bill, "we could set to work now, select the bags that
are in good order, and form a strong post here, out of which no sort
of machine-gun fire could drive us--they'd have to bring guns along,
or bombs, to do us in--eh, Larry? What about it, Nobby? Suppose the
Germans did track us to this spot, are you going to surrender without
putting up a fight?"
Nobby looked distinctly annoyed. He glared at Bill, and looked more
enormous and more formidable in his hairy coat in that morning mist
than he had done previously. He smote himself violently on the chest
and tilted his tin hat forward.
"Me give in to Fritz without a fight?" he asked. "'Ere, young chap,
what d'yer take me for?--a blinkin' blighter?"
Bill didn't. He mollified the great Nobby by placing one hand on his
stalwart shoulder, and then turned to Larry. It was characteristic of
the latter that he merely smiled.
"What should I do? What'ud you do yerself, Bill? Give in, of course!
Walk out and ask Fritz to be friendly! That's you all over, that is.
Just what you'd do, Bill: hob-nob with him--ask him to take a cup of
tea--sit down and be pally."
"Huh!" It was then that Jim laughed--Jim, the usually silent American.
Larry's sarcasm tickled him wonderfully, and then, of course, he knew
Bill so thoroughly. Was it typical of Bill, the young fellow who led
them, cool, quiet, and calm on most occasions, yet already an approved
fire-eater--was it typical of him to suggest surrender without putting
up a strenuous opposition? Jim cackled loudly.
"There'll be trouble here soon, Larry," he went on, "ef you carry on
like that. This here Bill was only asking a polite question, and it's
up to you to answer politely--you and Nobby, who's about the biggest
and most pugnacious man I've come across this side of the water. As ef
we didn't know that both of you are crazy for a fight, and believe me,
yep, you'll be having it soon, to your heart's content. Here we are,
boxed in, we might say, only in nicer surroundings than we was back
there in the dug-out, and d'you mean to say that we're going to give up
these comfortable quarters because Fritz asks us to do so?"
Jim stood up and stretched his hands out on either side, pointing to
their immediate surroundings--those shattered masses of bricks and
mortar, tumbled beams, and wrecked and twisted ironwork--for all the
world as if it were a palace. And, indeed, to these men, accustomed to
the decimated country of France, in which war was now raging, these
shattered factory walls did present the aspect, if not of a palace,
then of a place which offered some sort of protection. Those sand-bags,
for instance, the ironwork of the "elephant" shelter, the heaps of
bricks also, all offered something which would allow them to put up a
formidable resistance. It was not a matter that needed explaining to
any one of the party, it was merely a question of coming to a decision
as to their plans. Not a single one of the party was likely to be
behindhand in his determination; yet it was good to hear Larry talking
so sarcastically to Bill, Jim laughing at them, and to see the huge
Nobby getting red with indignation at the very suggestion of surrender.
It was encouraging to see the spirit of cheerful confidence, as well as
defiance, that animated all.
"In course we all comes in," blurted out one of the party, himself
no inconspicuous person, inasmuch as he stood nearly six feet in his
socks, and was as fine and clean-limbed a young Englishman as one could
wish to find. "I ain't got no particular 'down' on Fritz, I ain't,
though I bears in mind the fact that he's murdered women and children
and old men up and down the country; all I asks for is a clean fight,
if he can give it, which I doubts. If not, then let's have a fight
that'll do for him, and if I don't give Mr. Fritz 'is stomick full,
why, you can send me home to Blighty. Fight, Bill? In course we will!
Nobby knows you will, only he likes a row, he does. What about fixing
the plans up--eh? so as to make ready."
The upshot of it all was that they put their heads together, and very
soon every one of the party, save one particular man, was hard at work
perfecting their defences, selecting the best of the sand-bags and
piling them into the openings in the brickwork, so that the shell of
the factory, no very considerable place, was soon converted into a
species of filter, in the centre of which a ragged hole gave access to
a rotting and severely damaged staircase, and that in turn to a cellar
which would give protection from gun-fire.
In the meanwhile a single man had clambered to a post of vantage on
the walls, where his figure was concealed by a mass of ivy, which
already was invading the interior of the factory. From that point he
could survey the country-side, and, as the mist lifted, was able to
report to his friends what was going forward.
"There's guns and men and carts of all sorts filing along the
road--thousands of 'em--all making towards Albert; and--'arf a mo!
bless me, if there ain't aeroplanes comin' along in this direction!
What's they got, naughts or crosses? Ah, it's naughts! They're British.
Oh, and ain't they givin' 'em 'arf a time! Believe me, they're
a-clearin' this 'ere road from Albert to Bapaume, divin' down and
droppin' things! And Fritz ain't 'arf a-boltin'. Look at them blighters
scuttlin' in among the trees like a flock o' scared chickens!"
The announcement brought every man of the party to some aperture from
which he looked craftily towards the road, but a little way distant;
and there, as he watched, as the sentry had told him, he could see
columns of Germans pressing on after the British line, which had
retreated, some of the battalions marching across the ploughed-up and
shell-destroyed land on either hand. Overhead, flights of aeroplanes
could be seen, and some of these were skimming low over the road,
emptying their machine-guns into the massed infantry, which in turn
either broke up in confusion, and dived from the road, or fired with
their rifles upon the aeroplanes, though with little or no effect.
From the far distance came the muffled roar of guns, sometimes
silenced, as it were, by the nearer staccato rattle of machine-guns,
and then from perhaps five hundred yards away was heard the sharp
report of anti-aircraft weapons.
"And it do yer good," said Nobby, hidden well behind the masonry,
staring up into the sky, "it do yer good to see them boys up there
fightin' their aeroplanes same as ships is fought at sea. Gee! as
our one and only Larry says, if they ain't cleared the road already!
There's not a bloomin' German left on it, which says somethin' for
aeroplanes and more for British machine-guns, lettin' alone the young
chaps as works 'em. If only some of 'em could see us down 'ere and drop
to the ground to take us off! I wouldn't be scared, give you my word,
though I'd rather go through any sort of battle in the front line than
go up in an aeroplane. They don't look safe, and they ain't, that's my
belief, though to see them boys of ours a-goin' off in 'em you'd think
it was just a joy ride. S'welp me! 'Ere, what's happenin'?"
Bill, standing close beside him, gripped his arm.
"Get down!" he said; "they're coming this way. Our machine-guns have
driven them from the road, and they are looking for shelter. This is an
awkward business."
"Awkward! It's--it's--rotten!" said Nobby.
"Yep," they heard the inevitable lisp from Larry. "Gee! it is real
awkward that! Them German chaps don't like your British machine-guns
firing down on 'em, and I don't wonder; but that didn't ought to make
'em want to come poachin' here on our shelter. We ain't got no use for
'em! See here, Bill, it's likely to show us up."
Necks were craned round odd corners, eyes peered out across the broken
ground towards the road, and fixed themselves upon numbers of crawling
figures--the figures of German infantry who a little while before had
been marching full of confidence along the Albert road. But those
swirling aeroplanes which had drawn the admiring glances of Bill and
his friends had swooped down upon them, and, as we have described, they
had cleared the road in little time, but for the men who lay killed
or wounded upon it, and now had shot off towards Bapaume, bombing and
machine-gunning other troops behind. But they might return at any
instant, and, with that in mind, the Germans, swept from the road, were
seeking the closest cover. Some of them had been attracted by the ruins
where Bill and his party hid, and were coming rapidly towards them.
"And there's quite a whole heap of 'em," said Nobby.
"Ah!" he heard Bill exclaim. "If it was a matter of a dozen, or even
two, we might take 'em one by one as they crawled in, and----"
"And do 'em in," whispered Nobby. "Here, let me get down to that place
there for which they are making. I'll do 'em in, 'struth I will!"
"No!" Bill told him abruptly. "Hun or no Hun, we'd play the game and
take 'em prisoners; but there's too many of 'em."
"And a jolly good job too," Nobby growled. "If it's to be a case of
taking prisoners and playing the game, or a case of fightin', let's
fight. There's not one of us as ain't ready for it."
"Not one." A glance round at the assembled men showed them all eager,
some gripping their rifles with bayonets fixed, others already
opening pouches which carried their bombs, while Larry had produced
from amongst the ruins an iron bar some two feet in length, which he
proposed to use as a club. Bill smiled upon them.
"Good boys!" he said. "One of you chaps pitch a bomb over, just to let
'em know that they ain't welcome; then the fight'll start fair. Now,
all the rest get down under cover."
It was Nobby who stepped into the centre of the ruin so as to give his
arm free play, and, pulling the safety-pin from his grenade, measured
the distance with his eye and lobbed it over, all eyes following its
path till presently it struck the ground perhaps twenty yards in front
of the leading German. Then there was a violent explosion; the enemy
advancing upon the ruin halted, looked at one another, discussed the
situation, and even began to retreat. But, a minute later, one, who
proved to be an officer, crawling right behind the others, came to
the head of the column, and, realizing that none but an enemy could
have tossed that bomb, and that here, quite by accident, he and his
men had unearthed a party of the British, sent scouts out to surround
the place, and presently, calling other men to his assistance, opened
rifle-fire upon them. The action had begun. From the numbers engaged
upon it on the enemy's side it looked as though Bill and his friends
had little chance of pursuing their journey.
CHAPTER XV
Attacked from All Sides
"It's going to be an attack from all sides," said Bill, as he crouched
behind a mass of masonry which stood rather higher than the rest,
and which, while giving a certain amount of shelter, also allowed
him to look out over the wreckage of the factory, to peer into
neighbouring shell-holes, past shattered and rent tree trunks towards
the Albert-Bapaume road in one direction, to Courcellette in the other,
and elsewhere across the desert of churned-up earth which represented
the heart of this once beautiful Somme country. "And I can see heads
bobbing up here and there and everywhere, and, yes, there go the
bullets!"
One of them splashed debris and rotting mortar in his eyes as it struck
the fractured masonry just above his head, while another thudded into a
sand-bag not a yard from him--a sand-bag which had lain there rotting
since 1916, and which now, receiving the sudden blow, burst asunder,
the earth which it had contained spouting out in a cascade. It was
answered almost instantly by a shot fired from a crevice somewhere down
below him. He searched for the figure of the man who had discharged
his weapon, and after a while distinguished the well-known form of
Nobby, his broad shoulders squeezed in an angle of broken masonry, his
head thrust forward, his tin hat covering him like a halo, legs bent
beneath him, arms pressed to his sides, weapon at the ready. Glancing
across the open space towards Courcellette, Bill saw one of those
dodging German figures suddenly rear itself erect, bend forward as if
about to fall, then with an effort straighten up, only of a sudden to
give vent to a shrill shout--a shriek almost--and collapse into the
shell-hole from which he had originally clambered.
"One Hun the less," grinned Nobby, turning round, "and he won't be the
only Fritz as'll 'go west' in this 'ere skirmish. Larry boy, d'yer want
our commanding officer to be shot down out of hand, just because he
must put himself up where there's no cover. I'm only a humble private,
you're a full-blown sergeant, why don't yer see to the chum that's
commanding us?"
It wasn't the first occasion, perhaps, when the good-natured Larry
had shown unusual energy and decision. Not that he was incapable of
either or both those virtues, but it was typical of Larry that as
a general rule he lounged and drawled and lisped, and really made
pretence that he was a person of no great consequence and of no great
ability in any way. Yet friends knew that he was stanch, that danger
did not daunt him, that fear was almost foreign to the nature of this
diminutive, delicate-looking, nonchalant, and unconcerned American. He
turned swiftly in the narrow angle where he lay near Nobby, and cast a
threatening glance at Bill.
"Hi! Here, you, young Bill, you come right out of that!" he shouted.
His face reddened with emotion as he gave the order. "You ain't got
no call to stand up there like a darned fool, askin' the Hun to shoot
you! Look at that? What did I tell you? Chips of mortar all round you!
They've got a machine-gun going! Come down! d'yer hear?"
Jim, on the far side of the ruin, watching the shell-seamed earth
between the factory and the main road, turned round too, lay flat on
his back for a moment under the shelter of the wall, and shook a fist
at Bill. Till then he had not noticed the perilous position in which
the young fellow had placed himself, but now he saw it clearly, and, as
showing what he thought of Bill, he too became heated, and that, let us
add, was something foreign to Jim's calm, contented nature.
"Yep," he roared. "You come right down! What d'yer want for to get
right up there, a-starin' round, when there's heaps of ruins down here
to cover anyone? Ef yer don't move quick I'll be up after yer!"
Bill surveyed the two with something approaching curt disdain. He
peered over the top of the masonry which protected his head, and
turned slowly until he had made a complete circle; then of a sudden he
pointed.
"Boys," he called out, "the officer that's commanding them is yonder
on the way to the road, and he's got a machine-gun mounted. They are
loading fast, so as to keep our attention while the rest of the men are
collecting right opposite and are making ready just now to rush us.
You'll----"
The rattle of the machine-gun in question drowned his next words, and
as the splutter died down, and the chips of mortar and bricks and stone
dropped and flew about Bill's figure, it was Jim's voice and that of
Larry that again were heard.
"You ain't heard us, Bill," Jim shouted. "Come down, won't yer! Yer
askin' to get killed."
"I'll Fritz yer, yep!" Larry called, rising from the spot in which he
lay, and jamming his tin hat closely down. "If yer don't come yerself
I'll be up there to make yer."
But Bill scarcely noticed them; he turned to look first at Jim and then
at Larry, and then cast a glance over his shoulder towards the spot
where the attacking party of Germans were forming.
"You'll stay in your places," he ordered sharply. "Someone's got to be
here to watch those fellows, and that someone's going to be the one
you've put in command. If you're not contented with him, get someone
else, for while I'm in command of the party here I stay. Jim, stop
cackling! Go over there and lie down by Larry. Here, boy!" he called
to another of the men, "your rifle'll be useful over here to stop the
rush, and, Nobby, you're the boy for the bombs--get 'em ready and heave
'em over as the Huns get within distance!"
The incipient mutiny collapsed as rapidly as it had commenced. Not
indeed that Larry or Jim or any of the others were inclined to quarrel
over-much with the young leader they had themselves appointed. The
urgency of the situation in the first place made argument undesirable
if not impossible, and then Bill's abrupt commands, his obvious control
of a difficult situation, the fact that an attack was just about to
be launched, caused them to think of other matters; the rattle of the
machine-gun, too, assisted, and to that was presently added heavy
firing from many points, which caused all to keep under cover, that
is, all but Bill, who stood stoically peering out over the top of the
ruin, watching that party of Germans as they crept from shell-hole to
shell-hole, firing an occasional shot, and getting closer every minute.
But if Bill remained aloft in his post of vantage and of danger, and if
he had summarily quelled the anticipated mutiny, he could not arrest
entirely the growls of Nobby, the surreptitious scowls of Larry, and
the almost open threats thrown at him by Jim. Then Nobby put an end to
the matter.
"He's right," he said. "That there young Bill is a-doin' just like what
one of our young orficers would do, same as your orficers would take
on, Larry, and here are you a-cussin' of him for it. You ought to be
ashamed of yerself, you ought!"
That, with bullets flicking just above the wall and half an inch over
the top of Nobby's tin hat! Not that it upset this gallant British
soldier, not either that it could upset Larry--the quiet and somewhat
retiring Larry. To speak the truth, in all his experience of Bill,
Larry had never been so abruptly silenced, and, conscious as he was
that his young friend was quite in the right, he yet burned with
indignation at the summary way in which his own efforts had been
worsted, and, finding Nobby close at hand and now trying to turn the
tables on him, he swung round, leant up on one elbow, and poured a
torrent of invective upon him.
"Say, here, this is real fine! Here's you and me and Jim gets turned
down by that there young cuss of a Bill, and when he's put in the
last word and fired the last shot, as you might say, there's you come
roundin' on a pal--you, Nobby, what never could keep yer mouth shut.
See here, sir; you're British, I'm American--only just as British as
you are, if you know what I mean--I----"
A bullet put a very sudden end to Larry's explosion; it hit the tip of
his tin hat and sent it off amongst the ruins booming and clanking,
while the shock of the blow partly stunned the American. He blinked at
Nobby, who just a second before had raised a huge grimy fist and placed
it within an inch of his nose. Larry blinked again. Nobby grinned. Jim
roared outright, and thus, with the help of an enemy bullet, the little
fracas was brought to a friendly ending. A second later Bill's voice
was heard.
"Boys!" he called out; "there's a bunch of Huns within sixty yards of
us, and they've all converged into one shell-hole. I don't suppose
there's a man here who could pitch a bomb that far--only if there
was----"
"Look 'ere, young chap," came from Nobby, "sixty yards! and yer don't
think a man can do it! You watch. Larry, stand by to corpse the first
Fritz that puts his head up and tries to shoot at me. Jim, you do the
same. Same over there. You watch the boys with that machine-gun. I
don't take much notice of a single rifle, but being filled up with lead
ain't healthy, as Larry likes to say; it ain't good for a fellow. So
just you watch, and yer mates with you. Now then for brother Fritz in
the shell-hole!"
He stood up, deliberately measured the distance from the ruin to the
shell-hole at which Bill then pointed, pulled the pin from a bomb, and,
swinging his powerful shoulders back, sent it hurtling towards the
object. It struck a shell-hole three yards nearer, and for a moment
obscured the one at which he had aimed, flinging up a cloud of mud and
grass and loose material. By then Nobby had poised himself for a second
attempt, and, hardly pausing to measure the distance, launched his
missile, and then stood watching its curve as it approached the object.
It was Larry then who shouted, and Bill too joined in.
"Bang! Right in the centre," the latter called. "If they don't pick
it up they'll be done for. They can't! Look at 'em! They're trying to
bolt."
"They ain't got time--not any," Larry told him as they peered over the
top of the breastwork. "There she goes!"
There was a dull detonation, a bright flash of flame, and then shouts.
A second before, the shell-hole, into which Bill could look to some
extent but the interior of which was hidden from the eyes of his
comrades, had appeared empty but for a drain of water at the bottom;
but, as the bomb fell, heads had bobbed up, and, just before the
explosion occurred, fifteen or more men had struggled desperately to
dash away from it. That explosion caught them in the midst of the act,
and every one was killed or wounded. It was indeed a brilliant ending
to this first attempt to defend themselves against the enemy, and
caused the garrison of the shattered factory to set up a shout.
"But they ain't done--not by a whole heap," said Larry, producing his
cigar. "It stands to reason, seeing we are here right in the midst of
the enemy, that they'll have reinforcements. The noise of the bomb'll
bring 'em along if the officer's whistle don't do it. Hear that? You
can hear him a-whistlin' now for help. Boys, there's goin' to be a
stand-up tussle."
Whereat Larry gripped his cigar and wetted his lips, while his eyes
flashed. It was plain indeed that this diminutive American felt no
fear, but rather that he was full of enthusiasm and ready for anything
that might happen. That Jim, too, was thirsting for adventure there
was little doubt, while the rest of the party could be relied upon
to support their young commander and his two American friends. Nobby
himself was likely to be quite a formidable opponent.
"You see, Bill," he called out after a while, "having had one sort of
lesson, and now that they know we've got bombs with us, they'll keep
at a distance and'll turn machine-guns on us. Seems to me we've got
to think out some clever way of fightin' 'em. What d'you think, boy?
Supposin' they gets shootin' bombs in here, same as we've been throwin'
'em out--as they will, 'cos Fritz is a nasty chap at thinkin' things
out--and supposin' we're a-lyin' as we are now--not healthy--eh, boy?"
"You bet!" Larry chimed in; "we should get 'done in', like Fritz over
there in the shell-hole."
"Then we'll separate," Bill told him. "What d'you say to this,
boys? That German officer and his men have seen us here in this
ruined factory, and every shot they've fired has been put in in this
particular direction. If shell-holes are good enough for Fritz, ain't
they good enough for us too? Why not separate, though still forming a
sort of circle? I'll stay up here and can call out to any one of you;
then if bombs are thrown in, as Nobby says----"
"As you can see for yourself," said Nobby dryly, as a rifle sounded
in the distance and a grenade flew over the wrecked factory and burst
beyond it, "as you can see for yourself now, Bill."
"As I know," went on Bill, "then there's only one that's likely to be
damaged."
"And that's you," said Larry.
"And who else?" Bill asked him curtly. "We've had all that before. You
clear off, Larry, and you too, Jim. Boys, scatter in the same direction
as you're lying in now. Slip off to the nearest shell-hole, get the
best cover, and hold your fire till you know you've cause to use your
rifles--we've got to keep the enemy out till night-fall."
And then what was to happen to this gallant and somewhat forlorn little
party? Could they, having regard to all the circumstances in which they
stood, really look forward to securing their liberty and to gaining the
Allied line? Could they, when they remembered that between them and
that line there stretched a host of Germans, and reflected also that
at the moment they were surrounded--could they reasonably expect to
make further progress? It was hardly possible, certainly not probable,
though, fortunately for all the members of the little band commanded by
Bill, such thoughts hardly crossed their minds, and there was no time
for reflection. Even as they wriggled off from the ruined walls of the
factory, sidling in behind layers of brick, dodging between battered
and perforated boilers and so gaining shell-holes, enemy bullets came
buzzing thicker than ever over the scene, while every minute or so a
rifle grenade reached the ruins, and, bursting, filled the air with
bits of iron, with fragments of stone and mortar, and threw up such a
cloud of dust, in spite of recent wet weather, that life became more
difficult.
"Still, we've got pretty good cover," Bill thought, as, perched in a
niche he had selected, he hung to his post and watched carefully all
round, every now and again raising his rifle and firing at a German
figure. "If only it would get dark. But it won't, not for hours yet,
and there's no mist--nothing to cover us. Hi, Larry!" he shouted;
"they're bunching up in front of you and Nobby. Break 'em up, if you
can!"
Nobby, with a cigarette hanging to the very corner of his mouth,
grinned in Bill's direction and then at Larry. It was an extremely
cool and methodical Nobby who then proceeded to pip, as he termed it,
brother Fritz, his shots, together with Larry's equally well-aimed
fire, soon dispersing the band of Germans approaching from the point
directly in front of them. But there were other points from which the
enemy were advancing also. Unpleasant little rushes were indulged in
here and there, all of which served to bring the enemy still nearer,
till, as the minutes grew to an hour, and that hour into two, the
defenders were more closely surrounded, engirdled by an increasing
number of Germans, whose offensive became increasingly insistent.
Bombs, too, became more frequent, bursting amongst the ruins, and in
course of time driving Bill and the defenders completely out of them.
"It's no go!" Nobby was at length forced to admit, smiling grimly and
somewhat wryly at Bill.
"See here, Bill," Larry joined in, for the three were now in a
shell-hole together, "ef it was a case of dying hard, so as we might
hold the line that meant the safety of our pals yonder, we would be
right to do it, and we'd do it willingly. But a live man, Bill, is much
better than a dead one, eh?"
"Yep, a live man lives perhaps to fight again, while if he's dead he
ain't no longer any use. Nobby's right: there ain't nothin' degradin'
in giving in. Things has gone against us."
That was the opinion of them all, though quite loyally they had
supported their young leader without a grumble. Yet already more than
one of the defenders had paid the price for resisting the enemy,
while of the latter quite a number were grovelling lifeless in the
surrounding shell-holes. It was a little after noon, therefore, that
Bill, tying a somewhat dirty handkerchief to the top of his bayonet,
lifted the latter over the top of the shell-hole and waved it. The
machine-gun answered it with an angry rattle and then ceased, while a
glance over the top showed him an answering signal. Then there came
an order shouted in a loud voice: "Stand out, all of you, and advance
without your arms. You've put up a good fight and shall have fair
treatment."
[Illustration: BILL, TYING A SOMEWHAT DIRTY HANDKERCHIEF TO THE TOP OF
HIS BAYONET, WAVED IT]
"Fair treatment!" scoffed Larry. "That's a prison, with skilly, with
food at which the lowest criminal would turn up his nose. However,
we're beggars this time and can't choose. But, Bill, there's still a
chance to get out. Some of our boys has escaped, why not us, eh? We can
do what others has done."
"You bet!" Bill answered. "Now, boys, out we go; we've made a fight,
there's nothing to be ashamed of!"
Presently they were surrounded by Germans, who, contrary to their
expectations, treated them quite fairly. There was no roughness
displayed, for, indeed, the two hours or more during which the contest
had lasted had filled the enemy with admiration for this sturdy little
party. After all, German or no German, the enemy could appreciate
bravery. He may be, and is undoubtedly, a cruel and ruthless opponent;
he wages war in a manner which has sullied his name for ever, but in
individual bravery he is by no means lacking, and he can appreciate
similar qualities in his opponent.
Therefore, having placed an escort round the prisoners, the officer
marched them away to the adjacent road, and presently sent them along
it. Yet Bill and his friends had not quite done with incident. Ere
they gained a German prison that evening, they were herded in a camp
near by; and, just as the light was falling, observed an aeroplane
making ready to take the air and join in the enemy offensive. Yet was
it merely for ordinary purposes that this machine made ready to depart?
Bill of a sudden grabbed Larry's arm as they stood close to the wire
entanglements which surrounded them.
"It's--" he gasped, "it's Heinrich Hilker!" and in his excitement he
clutched at the barbed railing.
Larry stared and then started. A second later he clasped his thin
fingers firmly round Bill's arm and pulled him back.
"Get hold of him on the other side, Jim," he said hoarsely. "Gee! If
that isn't that traitor! If that isn't the man who shot Bill's father
way back in the saloon in the Utah mine camp! If that ain't the agent
that fired the bomb aboard the ship that brought us to Europe! Come
back, Bill; if you shout you'll give yourself away, and the man, once
he recognizes you, wouldn't stop at anything. Gosh! what a meeting! And
what's he after?"
"After! After!" said Jim, beginning now to fully appreciate the
position. "He's getting aboard that aeroplane as a passenger. He's
dressed as a American. You bet he's--he's going off to be dropped in
the American lines, where he'll act the traitor again, where he'll be a
spy."
"Stop him!" Bill tried to shout, but Larry clapped a hand over his
mouth and just stopped him; and there, as they stood, helpless to
intervene, they watched the aeroplane take flight, watched the figure
of the man they knew to be a despicable spy, dressed in American
uniform, steal off into the heavens. Without doubt the man was gone to
carry on his nefarious work amongst their unsuspecting comrades.
CHAPTER XVI
Heinrich Hilker, Master Spy
Time sweeps along, and this gigantic contest which has engulfed the
world spreads and grows constantly greater. The times in which we live
are so momentous, and the incidents so numerous and so close at hand,
that one is apt to lose grip of the general situation and to forget, in
the vastness of our own responsibilities, that others than ourselves
are concerned. Yet it were wise to dissever ourselves for a moment
from our own particular and personal interest in this world-contest,
and, standing aside as it were in some quiet niche--if one is actually
discoverable when the world is aflame--to look out and survey the whole
area of operations from that niche or point of vantage. We should
see Britain and France, and now America too, locked closely with the
enemy along the line of trenches from Nieuport to far-off Belfort
on the Franco-Swiss frontier. In Italy we should catch a glimpse of
King Victor's hosts, driven back from the Isonzo, in October, 1917,
mourning the loss of a fertile province, and awaiting the onslaught of
the Austrian hosts along the Trentino front and throughout the whole
length of the Piave River.
In Salonika and adjacent parts there would appear British and French
and Serbians and Greeks and Italians facing the Bulgarian cohorts. In
Palestine, General Allenby's troops beyond Jericho and Jerusalem, in
touch with the King of the Hadjiz, steadily driving the Turk before
them. Farther east, in Mesopotamia, other British and British-Indian
troops, sweeping steadily upward along the courses of the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers, leaving the Persian frontier behind them, with
their right flank thrown out in the direction of the Caucasus. Behind
these two last groups of British troops, in Egypt itself, would be
seen teeming masses of troops ready to reinforce the Palestine and
the Mesopotamian fronts, and prepared at any moment to subjugate the
tribes in the western desert should they again venture to rise. But the
Senussi have learnt their lesson. Elsewhere the Arabs, stirred up by
German agents, and fed and paid by them, have likewise learnt that the
British arm is a strong and a long one, and they too are glad to be at
peace with us.
Go east across the ocean to East Africa, where German columns still
trek through swampy and forest country, and where British troops, with
Indians amongst them, pursue them relentlessly, having already captured
practically the whole of this, the last of the German colonies. Then
turn to Russia. Was there ever such a wretched country? Revolution
having first deposed the Tsar, the Revolutionists have turned upon one
another. Armies have disappeared, the German has invaded the Muscovite
provinces without difficulty; for while the hand of brother was raised
against the hand of brother there were none to oppose the invader. We
have dealt already in some detail with this lamentable condition of
affairs, and have shown how it reacted on the Western Front, but we
have not so far dealt with its meaning in other directions.
Siberia borders China and runs down to the sea which washes the
Japanese islands. Not only are Russian revolutionists swarming in these
parts, but the many hundreds of thousands of Austrian prisoners and
the many thousands of Germans captured by Russia in the early days
of the war, when the Russian armies were triumphant, are at large,
seizing arms, electing leaders, and at this very period threatening the
security of the Chinese provinces across the Siberian border, and the
interests of Japan in Manchuria and elsewhere.
Thus as, ensconced in our niche, we look out and survey this world-wide
scene, another aspect of affairs is presented to us. China, like many
of the South American provinces, indeed as in the case of nearly every
nationality throughout the world other than the Central Empires of
Europe, has declared war against the Kaiser and his allies, or has
severed diplomatic relations with them, while it needs not to be added
that the Japanese have long since joined Britain and her allies. But
till this stage of the war neither China nor Japan has taken active
military steps against the enemy, though the navy of Japan has already
lent much assistance. The time has now arrived, however, when China
must seriously consider the protection of her Siberian frontier, when
Japan must likewise protect her interests on the coast washed by the
Sea of Japan.
At this stage of the conflict one is unable to prophesy what will
happen in this particular direction; yet, bearing in mind the course
of this gigantic war, its constant spread, it seems only reasonable to
expect that presently China and Japan will be brought actively into the
fighting.
One last point in our survey. The Caucasus, captured in such
magnificent manner by the Russians, has now been abandoned by the
Revolutionists, and the Armenian people, released from the torture of
Turkish rule, have again been thrown into the hands of that remorseless
people. Thus, while the outbreak of revolution has dismembered Russia,
and brought infinite misery upon the people, it has automatically, as
it were, brought even greater misery upon the Armenians. Yet it has not
found them irresolute or without strength to protect their homes. As we
write, they are fighting the Turk, and may success follow their efforts!
Then let us turn to the active centre of the world-wide contest--to
France. We have already set down the outline of the German offensive
which commenced on 21st March, 1918, when Bill and Larry and Jim and
Nobby and their comrades were engulfed. We can conveniently, then,
follow this offensive to its end, and, advancing the story a stage or
two, describe events that followed.
The Fifth British Army, opposed to the bulk of the German host, fell
back by force of circumstances, fighting a brilliant rear-guard action,
while the Third Army, just to the north of it, swung its right flank
farther to the west to keep in touch with the left of the Fifth Army.
At the same time French troops were rushed forward to reinforce the
right flank of the Fifth Army, while American battalions were brigaded
with British and French troops, so that, as the Fifth Army retired, its
resistance was supported by others, and reinforcements accumulated.
The German drive was presently stopped definitely before Albert.
In effect that drive had carried the enemy across the conquered
battle-fields of the Somme, and the line now established was that held
for so many weary months through the years 1914, 1915, and 1916.
Then followed a short lull and another German offensive in the
neighbourhood of Armentières, which carried the enemy over Messines
Hill, across the flats of French Flanders, beyond Bailleul, in a big
bow which encompassed Kemmel Hill, the village of Locre, and many
other villages from a point south of Ypres down to Festubert to the
north-east of Bethune. Once more British and French and American
reserves checked the rush, and the Allied line once again held up the
enemy advance.
Another pause, more frantic efforts on the part of the enemy, whose
policy it was to smash the French and British before American troops
could arrive in sufficient numbers, and a third offensive was launched
towards the Aisne River, which swept the defenders back right to the
Marne and carved out another huge section of French country, till this
third wave of advance reached the Marne River at a point thirty-four
miles from Paris, encircling Reims to the east, and running from the
Marne past Villers Cotterets--scene of British gallantry in 1914--to
Noyon.
The position is one to consider for a moment. How had this trio of
retreats affected the Allies, and what success had it brought to
the Germans? In the case of the former it had caused losses, it had
secured country, it had devastated fertile areas, and it had rendered
homeless thousands of hapless French people. Moreover, it had brought
the Germans within easier striking distance of Paris, on which at least
three of their long-range guns had for some weeks now been casting
shells. But it had not broken Britain and her allies. Those losses
had already been made good, and now, instead of some three or four
hundred thousand Americans standing shoulder to shoulder with Britain
and France and Italy and Portugal and Belgium, there were a million
Americans, with more swarming on ships to cross the Atlantic and come
to our assistance.
What then of the Germans? What was in the first place the ultimate aim
and object of that first offensive, which, successful enough, we admit,
had yet caused them stupendous losses? What was the net result of
these three successful attempts, all accompanied by losses, which, if
published broadcast and fully known, might well stagger the people of
Germany? Ground had been won, prisoners had been taken, but the effort
was a failure--a ghastly failure--because its main object had been to
smash and drive a wedge in between the British forces to the north
and the French troops farther south--a position which would have been
pressed to the fullest and which would have enabled the Kaiser to have
thrown the whole of his forces upon the British and so overwhelm them.
That had not eventuated; that was the main object of the German High
Command, and its failure spelt failure in all directions. Those three
offensives had taken time--valuable days had slipped by, valuable
weeks had gone, and during those weeks, running into some three
months, America, stimulated by the danger, had made good the gaps in
the fighting-line of the Allies, and had sent her troops to France in
unprecedented manner.
What then of the future? There stood now in France a solid wall of
British and French and American troops, with Italians, Portuguese, and
Belgians, a wall growing stouter every day as American troops arrived.
On the other side of the line there stood a German host, staggered in
spite of itself by its losses, shaken by the stupendous task still
before it, doubtful of the future, hesitating as to the course it
should pursue.
As to the other theatres of war: in Italy another blow was given to
the German Alliance, for the Austrians, having staked their all on an
offensive, were hopelessly defeated, and Italy was advancing her line
across the Piave. Thus July arrived, and with it the crisis of this
world-wide conflict.
What of Bill and his friends? What, too, of Heinrich Hilker, the German
spy whom they had seen whisked off in an aeroplane, obviously with the
intention of landing behind the Allied line, there to mingle with the
American soldiers?
"It's--it's----" spluttered Bill, as the machine took the air and went
off. "I--we----"
"You shut up," Larry commanded, still gripping him by the arm and
beginning to lead him away. "Sakes! D'you want every one of the Germans
outside to hear you--to see that something's happened? Come over here!
Stuff that into your mouth! Smoke, man! Now, Jim, sit down; we'll have
a talk. Nobby, you come across here. Of course you don't understand.
Well, sit down; now listen!"
"See here!" said Jim, tapping the huge Nobby on the knee as he sat
in front of him, for Larry was now engaged in talking sternly to
Bill. "This here is a real drama: our Bill--our young Bill, him as
we've been along with these weeks now--was a chum of ours out west in
America. There was Germans there, Nobby; you know as I'm speakin' of
times when America wasn't at war with Germany. Them Germans was up to
all sorts of stunts--dirty stunts; you get me?"
Nobby nodded. He opened a capacious mouth and popped in the tip of a
tiny cigarette, looking almost as though he would swallow it.
"Yep!" he said, unconsciously mimicking Larry.
"Well now, there was a bar down there, and Bill's father was the man
in charge of it. One of these here German skunks shot him because he
was talkin' about the Kaiser. That man was the man dressed in American
uniform that's just gone off aloft in that aeroplane. Say, Nobby,
what d'you think a German skunk like that wants to get dressing up in
American togs for? What d'you think?"
"Think!" Nobby's brow was wreathed with furrows, his eyes sank a trifle
deeper into his head, and for the first time since they had known
him he actually scowled. "Think! As if I wanted to think!" he said.
"Ain't I been out 'ere these months and months? Ain't we had spies
before?--nice, dear old gentlemen, who you'd think were real till you'd
stripped them of their beards and some of their clothes. Haven't I
known German officers dressed up as old Flemish women? Ain't they tried
every game on?--even to dressin' in British uniforms!--and you get
askin' me the sort o' question you'd put to a child! 'Ere, Jim, I've
took a likin' to you, but if you fling things like that at me, you and
I'll part--savvy?"
He blew out a puff of smoke directly into Jim's face, perhaps not very
politely; but then on active service the refinements of civilization
are not always observable--men think deeply and sometimes forget the
niceties they practised at home.
"D'you get me?" asked Nobby, blowing out another cloud of smoke, and
becoming quite American in his drawl, "or d'you really take me for a
child?--me as 'as been on active service almost since the war begun.
So young Bill's father was killed by that dirty scoundrel, eh?" he
asked, "and that explains his excitement just now. Bill, boy," he said,
holding out a hand and gripping Bill's arm with his huge fingers,
"don't you take on, you'll get even with that chap one of these days,
and I'll help you. Pull yerself together! Now let's talk! Of course
you mean to escape out of this place--so do we. Of course, you want
to get back to your folks as quick as possible, so as to give 'em a
warning--well, so do we. You ain't the only one as thinks of such
things or worries over the Americans. Well then, we're agreed. Then
let's put our heads together and talk it over and make plans and so on."
Nobby sat down, blew his cheeks out, grimaced at Bill, winked at Larry,
and jerked his head as much as if to invite Jim to be seated near him.
"Stand up, you English swine!" a German non-commissioned officer
shouted at them, using the English language.
"English swine!" Nobby grunted, while his cheeks flushed. "Well,
I don't know; suppose you've got to hold yerself in these days,
because it don't do to quarrel with the Germans when you're a
prisoner--but----" His big fist doubled, while with the other hand he
dashed the sweat from his forehead.
As for Bill, he appeared to take no offence at the coarse command.
Automatically, as it were, he stood up. All his thoughts were bent upon
the scoundrel, Heinrich Hilker, whom he had seen leaving the place on
that aeroplane, undoubtedly bound for the American lines. "American
lines!" They were the Allied lines; for was not America one of the
stanchest of the Allies? and had not he, Bill himself, the closest
relationship and friendship for America? Whatever did Heinrich Hilker's
presence bode for those friends of his? What danger did it mean? In
any case, his presence as a spy could hardly signify anything else but
trouble for the Allies, trouble which might lead to disaster.
"It must be stopped. We must get away," he said.
"Sure!" grunted Larry, "but you hold yer jaw, young Bill!" he added,
_sotto voce_. "This German chap speaks English, don't you forget it.
Perhaps he's been a waiter--most of 'em seem to have been that--and has
made a small fortune out of your people or out of mine. That's why he
hates us, perhaps; for see how he scowls at us. But escape, boy? Sure
we will--eh, Jim?"
Jim merely glanced at them, but as he did so his eyes flashed an answer
which there was no mistaking, and he nodded.
"March! No talking! I'll bayonet the man who speaks! Fall in, you dogs!
Listen to me. We've broken the British line; we've separated the French
and the English. We're marching to Paris. We shall soon have conquered
both England and France, and then America shall feel the weight of our
blows. Ha, America!"
The German swung round upon the diminutive Larry, and, stepping a pace
nearer, stood over him as if he would trample upon him and crush him.
Whereat Larry, no doubt unconsciously, felt for his cigar end, and,
discovering it had gone, merely stood staring up at this giant, this
bully.
"Say, mister!" he said in gentle tones, "you ain't got no call to try
and skeere me--I ain't the American army. You won't find the American
army and our boys so jolly small as I am. You wait! Marching on
Paris, eh? Waal, you ain't there yet, I'll bet. As for whoppin' the
British----waal! My! I've seen something of them fellows, and they'll
take some whopping! And then you'll beat the Americans. Oh ho, you
will! Waal, that too'll want a bit o' doin'."
The man scowled down at him, and, gripping his rifle, lifted it up
above his head as if he would dash the butt against Larry's face.
Then he thought better of the matter, lowered it, and, finally turning
on his heel, marched away. Who knows? The very mildness of Larry's
appearance, the gentleness of his voice, may have taken the man by
surprise. Or was it that in that gentle and diminutive exterior he
had seen something, perceived something hidden before, had grasped
some idea, as it were, of the indomitable courage of this gallant
American? Yes, it must have been that. Those who looked into Larry's
eyes under similar circumstances saw a glimmer there of warning. This
was the little man who in the mines was feared by evil-doers. Even as a
prisoner he was not to be derided. In point of fact, that swinging butt
had caused him to brace every muscle and every sinew. Unknown to the
German, unsuspected by his comrades, he was on the point of springing
at the man's throat, when luckily the bully turned abruptly.
"I'll know him next time," said Larry in the same gentle tone. "Things
then may be a bit more even. Suppose now he's got a gun, and I too.
Waal, boys, guess I'll do more than stand still and talk to him."
Nobby's big broad fingers were stretched out, and gripped the frail
shoulders of the American. Nobby, broad-shouldered, powerfully built,
and perhaps a little obtuse and dull of understanding, could yet
realize what had passed in those last few moments. Long since this he
had developed an enormous admiration for Larry and his other American
comrades, for Bill, too, let us say, and none the less for his British
comrades. Larry was such a queer fellow; so calm, so deliberate, so
full of pluck and spirit, and yet so fragile in appearance.
"Say, Larry," he gulped, mimicking the American's drawl, "you do get
me. Blest if I can understand a chap like you. Now if I was to take you
by this same shoulder, I could shake yer as a dog does a rat, and blest
if I don't think you look as though you'd fall to pieces. But when you
gets a squint at me, I knows that, like the rat, you'd turn and get yer
teeth into me, and then it'ud be a fight to the death. Blimey! I'm glad
I ain't that German, because some day you'll meet him, that's certain,
and then---- Well, as I said, I'm real sorry for 'im!"
"March!" They were hurried out of the barbed-wire entanglements, and
presently joined another column of unfortunate prisoners. A few hours
later they reached the railway station at Péronne, where they were
driven into cattle trucks preparatory to the journey into Germany. That
night the train pulled out of the station and lay in a siding. Far off,
very far off indeed, they heard the sounds of strife. British guns,
American guns, French guns, in the far distance, defending the Allied
line against the German rush. Then they lost these sounds as the train
which carried them steamed out on its journey.
When would they hear those reassuring sounds again? What chance
had Bill and his friends of ever returning to their comrades? And,
worst thought of all, what opportunity would they have to circumvent
the plans of Heinrich Hilker, the villain who by this time, in all
probability, had landed behind the American lines, and was no doubt
already fraternizing with those whose destruction he plotted?
CHAPTER XVII
An American Encampment
A small crescent of the moon illuminated the country-side, thrusting
pale beams through the mist which rose from the ground, sodden after
days of rain, lighting up the roofs of houses, the white walls of
barns, camouflaged tents and huts, and gleaming now and again from the
wings of an aeroplane soaring over the line. A man in that aeroplane,
masked and clad in leather garments, bent forward, tapped his pilot on
the shoulder, and spoke to him through the telephone which connected
their head-pieces.
"A little lower, Fritz; now to the right. Wait! I think I see the
church tower which was to be our mark. No, not that one; farther on.
Listen!--there are guns! I saw the flashes down below, so that we are
still in the area of operations."
The pilot grunted. He was a huge, broad-shouldered beast-like
individual. He turned his head impatiently and growled something into
the telephone, though what it was Heinrich Hilker, seated behind him,
did not understand. How could he? How could he realize that these
gruff words shouted at him contained all the venomous contempt of
which the pilot was capable, and yet a contempt which he dared not show
too openly.
"This--this Hilker--a spy--yes!" the pilot was saying to himself. "Not
that I blame him for that, for it's a dangerous game to play, and calls
for courage. But is the fellow honest with anyone at all?--with us,
for instance? I doubt it. Yet, what is one to think? For his record
for America is splendid, and now he goes to join the Americans again.
Bah! it's a dangerous game to play; that is, dangerous for us should he
elect to tell the Americans all he knows about us."
So Heinrich Hilker, intriguer, ruffian, rascal that he was, had
succeeded in arousing the suspicions of one at least of his
compatriots, while certainly he had aroused in the minds of Bill and
Larry and his chums something far beyond suspicion. Not that Heinrich
Hilker himself cared what others thought. To him the work that he was
engaged on was the height of enjoyment. America, for some unexplained
reason, seemed to have aroused all his enmity. Well, Americans were
down below there. He would soon be amongst them. A friend--yes, a
friend for the moment. And what would his coming portend? Disaster!
He rubbed his gloved hands together and chuckled into the telephone.
"Wait until I get there," he told himself. "Wait till I learn all
about them! Wait until my signals bring shells smashing into their
batteries! Then they'll know. Then they'll learn what it means to hunt
Heinrich Hilker from their country."
"Stop!" he shouted. "That's the church tower! Now steer her to the
right, then drop! The ground is clear behind, and you can make a
landing."
The broad back in front wriggled and writhed, the strong shoulders
heaved upwards. If Heinrich Hilker had been a man of discernment, and
less engaged with his own affairs and his own importance, he would have
appreciated the fact that that heave, that wriggle, denoted something
not altogether pleasant. Indeed it denoted the anger of the pilot, his
hatred for his passenger, his indignation with this man who ventured to
give him--an experienced pilot--instructions. He growled a reply into
the telephone, and, sighting the spot to which Heinrich had referred,
sent his machine down in a spinning nose-dive.
"I'll scare the life out of him," he thought. "Let him believe he's
about to be dashed to pieces--there!" and he threw his hands up from
the "joy-stick".
But Heinrich never even blinked his eyelids. His thoughts were upon the
task he had before him, and his eyes were riveted upon the ground. All
thought of his own personal safety had left him for the moment, while
that heaving of the shoulders in front of him, like the reply the pilot
had growled at him, escaped his attention.
"Down!" he shouted. "Faster!"
"Faster! The man's crazy," thought the pilot, pulling his machine out
of its spinning nose-dive with some little difficulty. "What if we find
a crowd of the enemy there! But the landing-place looks broad enough.
Get ready to move out! I shall drop here like a stone, give you half a
minute to dismount, and be off again instantly."
Heinrich's answer was to begin to unbuckle the belt which strapped him
securely to his seat, and to make sure that no part of his clothing
was entangled in the framework. He bent easily over the side of the
fuselage, which was now lying horizontally, and then half rose to his
feet as the machine, already within a thousand feet of the ground, shot
down at a steep angle. Presently the pilot flattened it, dropped it
again, bumped his wheels, and, having already switched off his engine,
finally brought the aeroplane to a standstill.
"Au revoir!" shouted Heinrich, for by then the pilot--a skilful
fellow--had got his engine going again.
"To the devil with you!" muttered the latter. He waved an arm, turned
one glance upon the figure now standing a few feet from his machine,
opened his throttle, and went bounding off and so into the air and away
from the spot where he had landed.
As for Heinrich, he watched the departure for two minutes, and then,
turning, walked towards the church-tower which had been his landmark.
It was perhaps a minute later when a man accosted him.
"Say!" someone cried; "halt! Who goes there? Advance and give the
countersign!"
"Hundred and forty-first Regiment!" came the prompt answer. "Name--John
Miller--American Expeditionary Force, same as yourself, sonny. Say, did
you see that aeroplane just now?" he asked, approaching the sentry.
"Yep. Must 'a been one of ours. Thought it landed on the flats yonder,
but wasn't certain, and couldn't get a view from just here."
"Good-night, sonny!"
The two men stood opposite one another for just a brief moment, and
then Heinrich passed on towards the American encampment which this
sentry guarded.
"John Miller--eh? Oh! Just John Miller! Now I'd have sworn----" the
sentry told himself as he paced to and fro--a lithe, tall, sinewy
young fellow, a magnificent example of American manhood. "Gee, now!
Where have I met that chap before?--and not liked him either. John
Miller--why, bless us! Now, where?"
He swung his rifle to his shoulder and marched to and fro far more
rapidly than the regulations warranted. His beat took him as far as
the church tower in one direction, and back to the post to which
barbed wire was attached, and which marked the limit of the encampment
occupied by his own particular comrades. Something was agitating this
fine young fellow--some fleeting memory the essence of which just
escaped him. In his mind's eye he could picture the figure--the
somewhat sloping shoulders, the rather bullet head, and the particular
cast of countenance of this John Miller, who had just answered his
challenge, had given him the correct counter-sign without faltering.
That he was not American born he felt quite sure; that he was of alien
extraction he was ready to venture upon a wager; but that did not say
that John Miller was not an altogether reputable person. For there are
thousands of alien-born Americans who are now in the American ranks
fighting against the nation which threatens the liberties of all the
free peoples of the world. The man's eye absorbed the thoughts of the
sentry.
"Same sort of gleaming optic," he said. "Now where? This gets me! I----"
He suddenly halted and grounded his rifle, the butt-end striking the
hard earth with a clang. One hand grabbed the muzzle just below the
bayonet, while the other went to his waist, where the thumb stuck
within his belt. Then a low deep-drawn whistle escaped from between the
pursed-up lips of the sentry. He shouldered his weapon, and, turning
abruptly, walked with even more decided step toward the guard-tent.
"Sergeant of the Guard!" he called.
Presently a man, taller than himself, with tin hat tilted somewhat over
his eyes, turned out of the tent and approached him.
"Aye?" he asked, in brusque yet kindly tones; "what now, Dan? Somethin'
special?"
Dan! Could Larry and Jim have caught but a glimpse of this fine young
fellow, what shouts of joy they would have given. How they would have
rushed towards him and gripped his hands. For this Dan was none other
than their chum away in Salt Lake City at the copper-mine--the same Dan
whom Heinrich Hilker had shot down in that famous encounter. And here
was a coincidence! Dan, recovered of a desperate wound--thanks to his
magnificent physique and wonderful health--had volunteered, and had
followed his chums across the water. Here he was--tin-hatted, arrayed
in khaki, drilled, and thoroughly well informed in matters pertaining
to modern warfare--on sentry duty, and for a moment face to face with
the man who had done his best to kill him. More than that, that man was
a spy--none other than Heinrich Hilker--and Dan, with the swiftness for
which he was notorious, had recognized him.
True, the fleeting glance he had obtained of this ruffian as he peered
at his face under the thin beams cast by the moon-crescent had given
him hardly even an inkling, but it had set some odd corner of his brain
at work, had stirred, as it were, some cell in his cerebral matter,
which, since the affair in the mine, had until that moment been lying
dormant. Dan had caught a glimpse of Heinrich Hilker in a similar
way when the light had been thrown full upon him in the heart of the
copper-mine, just before Dan himself had been put out of action by the
bullet he had fired, and now this second fleeting glance recalled
that old memory, and that memory had developed to the point where he
recognized that he, Dan, had information of the utmost importance.
"Well, Dan," repeated the Sergeant of the Guard. "Report, eh?"
"Serious, Sergeant. I'd like to go before the officer right now. Will
you take me?"
"Jim, there," the Sergeant called, "I want a relief at once. Turn out,
Jim!" And straightway he relieved his sentry. "Now, Dan, boy, we'll
go right off. Say, Lootenant, this here's Private Dan Holman, same as
you know, and he's asked to come along with a report that he considers
important."
The officer, who had been hastily summoned--a stoutly-built, thick-set
fellow--took a long look at Dan, and answered him in business-like
fashion.
"Report, eh? Sentry duty--what? Come over here! Now," he said.
"Confidential, Lootenant," Dan told him. "No offence to the Sergeant,
but my report's a matter of no end of importance, not only to you
and to me, sir, but to all us Americans. It's a report that a
Commander-in-Chief should have right now--the sooner the better."
Those who knew Dan knew him to be a strong and steady and promising
young soldier, not the sort of fellow upon whom the moonbeams could
have played a trick, or a man given to imagining something out of the
ordinary. The officer merely took another glance at him, ordered the
Sergeant back to the guard-tent, and, turning upon his heel, led the
way to Divisional Head-quarters. There it was that Dan told his story.
"And you recognized this man as a German--a German agent who shot the
barman at a saloon near Salt Lake City, and afterwards nearly put you
out of action for good? You're sure?"
"Certain, sir!" Dan told him promptly. "I've only had, as you might
say, a peep at the fellow once, way over by Salt Lake City, and the
second time just now, but I'm as sure as sure! You've a spy landed
right here and right now--a spy dressed in American uniform, who speaks
English same as you and me--a spy who'd do his utmost to damage the
American army."
That the information might well prove of the utmost importance was
clear to the Divisional Commander, just as it was to the Intelligence
side of his Staff. There followed a discussion, and presently sharp
orders were issued.
"We'll muster every man at dawn," the Commander ordered--"every man,
whether he's serving with his battalion, or as a cook, or what-not;
fatigue parties, men in camp, men in billets--every single man of this
division--and we'll call the roll-call from end to end of the camp. If
that John Miller's here, we'll get him. 141st Regiment, eh?" he said.
"Now how did the fellow get his information? He must have had news from
this quarter, for see how he got into the camp! This private will be
attached to the Intelligence for the time being. We shall have to hunt
for this man, for he's likely to prove, while at large, a real danger."
He was likely to prove, in addition, a spy so cunning as to be not so
easily captured as the Commander imagined. Did they think, indeed,
that Heinrich Hilker, a man who had spied in many countries and under
varying conditions, would be so easily trapped? Why, even then, as the
order was issued for an early morning muster of the whole division,
Heinrich heard the news. At the moment he stood at the entrance to a
tent, for all the world as though he had just turned out to see whether
daylight were coming. He stretched his arms and yawned, and, seeing a
sergeant about to pass, hailed him.
"What time o' day?" he asked.
"4.30."
"Be daylight in another hour," he suggested, smothering another yawn.
"Yep, an hour or a little more. There's a muster a half an hour after
that--six o'clock sharp--every man-Jack of the division."
"A muster! A blame nuisance! What for?"
"Dunno! It's a blame nuisance, as you say--some! But guess they've got
a reason!"
Heinrich guessed also. He stood outside the tent stretching his arms
until the man was out of sight, and then, looking about him for a few
moments, he sped off into the darkness and presently disappeared from
sight. Yet, when the muster was held in the misty early hours of the
morning, Heinrich, though absent, though not to be found among the
American ranks, was yet within sight of the parade. In a little corner
of a church tower, hidden beneath the tiles of the broken roof, lying
full length on a truss of straw, placed there for him by a peasant who
was his accomplice, he watched the whole scene and chuckled.
"My brave Alphonse!" he said, as the parade he witnessed was presently
dismissed. "You see that! These American swine, eh? And you chuckle!
Ha! where are you, Alphonse? You are a sly, slippery, cunning fellow."
But a few minutes before, the figure of a man had actually been beside
Heinrich, staring out between the cracks in this tower, and pointing
and gibing, and then, as the German turned, the man was no longer
there. Now, however, as he called, there was just the merest trace
of a sound on the rungs of the ladder which led to this loft in the
tower of the church, and half a minute later a long, hooked-nosed
visage was thrust over the edge of the floorway, up through the square
opening--a leering, bleary, pock-marked face, crowned by a head of
hair which was thin at the temples and decidedly so on the crown--the
face of an inebriate, followed by the figure of a man who had once
upon a time been powerful. Now, creeping and cunning and noiseless in
his movements, it was clear from his attenuated frame, from his big
bones and joints, his sunken flanks, his thin calves, and his claw-like
hands, that the man was no longer what he had been. And what was his
nationality? French? Bah! The man spoke like a peasant of those parts,
and yet trace his history back.
Alphonse, as he was generally known, had dropped upon this part of
the country as if literally from the skies. He had simply arrived
there late one evening, when only a young man, and, having put up at
a local cabaret for some few days, he presently blossomed forth as
the owner of the local forge. Pierre, the man who had controlled the
forge for many and many a year, had died, conveniently it seemed,
and here was Alphonse installed in his stead--Alphonse, who charged
such ridiculously low prices, who did his work so well, who was such
a "hail fellow" with all the French farmers and their men--Alphonse,
who seemed to have so much money jingling in his pockets, who was so
curious about other people's affairs, who travelled now and again to
the neighbouring cities, who, it was whispered, had more than once been
met by strangers--yet, Alphonse, the shoesmith, who did good work and
charged the most reasonable prices.
Years went by, and Alphonse grew older. Perhaps it was the lonely life;
perhaps it was some secret grief which preyed upon him. In any case,
Alphonse's visits to neighbouring cabarets became more frequent and
lasted longer; and here was the result. A fine figure of a man at one
time, he was now attenuated, horrid to look upon, while his face was
that of a leering, cunning, crafty, and unscrupulous drunkard. Let us
whisper more--in his cups, Alphonse spoke German with perfection.
"See!" he said hoarsely, pushing forward a gnarled finger and pointing
out through the cracks between the tiles from which Heinrich the spy
was peering. "They thought to take you so easily, these Americans!
But it is you--no, it is I--who have outwitted them--outwitted them,
you hear? and the wretch broke into a dry, echoing chuckle which
reverberated from the tiles around him, and from the walls of the old
tower, till Heinrich was startled.
"Peace, you fool!" he growled, turning upon him. Whereat the big, bony
fingers of the other man assumed the shape of claws, his brow knitted,
and for a moment he scowled at his companion; then he pointed again.
"Outwitted--yes!" he whispered hoarsely, as though fearful that the
Americans down below, all unconscious of their presence, might overhear
them. "And what a prize! How we shall still further upset their
plans! In a little while--in a week or two perhaps--in less for all
we know--the signal will come to us; we shall know that our comrades
yonder are about to strike once more, and it may be for the last time,
for the Fatherland. Then----"
The wretch broke again into that dry, creaking, rusty cackle which
grated upon Heinrich's nerves so much.
"Then! What?" he asked abruptly, angrily.
"Then! I'll tell you," the man responded. "We--you and I--will see
to it that it is here that our comrades break through. That it is
we who discover ourselves to the great German general and claim our
reward. Reward! Money, money, money in plenty; far more than the German
Government has sent me in these past years that I have lived in this
vile country amongst these vile peasants, and have done the bidding of
the Fatherland--money with which to live. Ah, that will be worth while!"
Heinrich positively shivered. The man's face acted like a douche of
cold water upon him, and then those huge, bony fingers positively gave
him the creeps.
"Worth while!" he said rapidly. "Money for what? More visits to the
cabaret? Well, we will see; but we must work, and work hard, together."
"Ah! Yes, work hard, as I have worked for years, and you too, no doubt,
my comrade, work for the Kaiser and the Fatherland."
Down below American battalions were dismissing--those fine Americans
who had come four thousand miles across the Atlantic to meet the
barbarians of the twentieth century--were strolling off to their
bivouacs, their cook-houses, their rest-huts, and so on. Not one,
perhaps, suspected that so near at hand lay the spy for whom their
general was searching; not one, as he cast an eye upward and caught a
glimpse of that picturesque yet half-shattered tower, realized that
there lay the man whom they were seeking; and he, this Heinrich and the
odious creature by his side, boded no good to these gallant men who had
come to stand beside the British and their allies.
CHAPTER XVIII
In Search of Liberty
"Getting nearer Germany," said Jim laconically.
Larry kicked the sides of the cattle-truck in which they were
incarcerated, pulled that tin hat of his down over his brow--his
unconscious yet characteristic habit--scowled and then grinned.
Nobby got angry; he doubled his fist, projected his head until his face
was within a few inches of Larry, and growled something at him.
"You're always laughin'--you, Larry," he said. "If we gits into a tight
hole, 'stead o' bein' serious-like all the time, you gits a-laughin'.
Now, look 'ere!"
Bill took the huge fellow by the shoulder and pulled him back.
"Stop talking rot, Nobby! We're alone for a moment, but you never
know when the train'll stop and the guard'll put his head in. 'Nearer
Germany,' Jim said."
"Aye--sure," the latter grunted. "I'm thinking of it all the time. Here
are we--come all this way, been through all these things--and say,
boys, we've enjoyed it, haven't we?"
"Aye, aye," they grunted.
"Well, we've been all through these times waitin' for our boys to come
out and join in with 'em, and then we gets scooped up by the Hun, and
won't have a chance of seein' all the fightin'."
"No?" lisped Larry. "I ain't so sure. I ain't going to Germany, Jim,
not if I can help it. See here, chums! we're gettin' near Germany, and
we've got to do something."
That was the sort of speech that pleased Nobby. He grunted his
approval. He was the sort of man--steady, strong, and fearless--who was
ready to carry out any sort of desperate enterprise; but to think one
out, to make plans, that was entirely beyond the genial, hard-fighting
Nobby.
"You get in at it, Bill," for, like his comrades, he had a great
appreciation of that young fellow's shrewdness. "How 'ud you do it?"
It was Bill's turn to shrug his shoulders. "Do it?" he asked. "Ah! But
chaps have jumped from a train before now--eh? What's to prevent us?"
"Them doors!" declared Nobby, pointing to the iron-bound doors which
had been bolted on them.
"Aye, but there's a roof and a floor," said Jim.
"Sure!" Larry exclaimed, beginning to peer about him in the
semi-darkness of the truck.
The very suggestion, patent though it was, brought them all to their
feet, and for the next few minutes they were walking about the truck,
feeling in all directions, they and half a dozen comrades with them.
Then came a sharp, shrill cry from one of the men.
"What is it?" demanded Nobby roughly. "Ah! A loose board! Let's get
there! Loose at one end. You wait--get out of the way! Christopher!
It's coming!"
Nobby came with it too! For, getting his fingers underneath the end of
the board which one of the men had discovered to be loose, he threw all
his bull-like strength into it, tore the board up, and fell backward.
But a moment later he was on his feet again, and had his fingers at the
next board to that which was already wrenched out of position. This
one, too, came away to the sound of thudding, thumping iron wheels on
steel rails, and to the sound of splitting timber. A third time he
ventured to pull, and there, at his feet, lay a hole through which
three men could have gone together, a hole through which what little
light there was outside penetrated, a hole which might easily lead to
liberty, perhaps even to the road back to their comrades.
"There!" exclaimed Nobby, mopping the sweat from his forehead with the
dirty sleeve of his khaki jacket.
"Sure!" grinned Larry, peering over the hole and watching the ground
fleeing away from them.
"Interesting!" Jim ventured, lying flat on the floor, his head thrust
through the square which Nobby's powerful fingers and muscles had
provided for them. "But this here raises a conundrum; droppin' through
on to the road would mean getting smashed by the axle of the wagon just
behind it. One man might have a bit of luck, but t'others would get
brained. Here's the hole right enough--but yet----"
"But, yes," said Bill thoughtfully.
"Ha!" gurgled Nobby, pushing his way nearer to them now that he had
recovered from his effort, while other men pressed round them.
"Only," ventured Bill, breaking the long silence which followed, "only,
you know----"
Nobby interrupted him. "I know what you're after, young Bill," he said.
"It's always you as is makin' plans and thinkin' things out while
the rest of us is puzzling. You shut up, mates; give him a moment to
think. Now then!" he said when a few more minutes had passed--passed
painfully, be it mentioned; for the opening at their feet, the gleam
of light which came through it, the swiftly-passing road it disclosed,
were tantalizing to the prisoners. In a measure their cage was broken
open and they were free to go; but that rushing train, the swiftness of
its pace, made escape from their open cage still an almost impossible
matter.
"Only it ain't altogether impossible," said Bill. "No, not altogether."
"Ah! Oh!" Nobby gurgled.
"You see," said Bill, "a chap might sling himself out here with his
head to the back of the wagon. T'other chaps would then hold his
two legs and his two hands, so that he could get his head 'way out
under the last beam and take a squint round. There'll be buffers,
perhaps--that's certain in fact; there'll be couplings, perhaps
there'll be handles. He'll get slung back here and give directions;
and then out he goes again, and you chaps'll let go one hand, when he
shouts or wriggles you'll let go the other, and the fellows with the
feet'll help him to move backward; finally one leg will go, then the
second, and after that----"
"Ah! ah!" lisped Larry. "Yep, it is after that. You ain't yet out of
the wood--not by a long bit. Say, sonny, it's a bright idea; it's a
really bright brain-wave, but----"
"Here, catch hold!" said Bill with decision. "Larry, you stand by
and direct operations. Jim will hold one hand, Tom, here, the other.
Nobby's the boy for the legs; I should be safe, I know, if he'd got a
grip of 'em. Now then, swing me down. Don't be frightened! Here I go!"
And go he did. They gripped him by all four extremities and lowered him
through the opening as they would have lowered a bundle or a bed, then
very carefully they allowed his form to drift, as it were, backward
till his head was under the farthest edge of the wagon. Peering up
through a cloud of dust, which almost smothered him, Bill caught sight
of a coupling clanging just overhead, and, on either side, of buffers,
as he had suspected. Better than all, there was a strong iron handle
or grip beside the coupling, and one immediately opposite it on the
next truck, while below it was a foot-rest by means of which one could
mount the side of this truck, which, like the one in which they were,
was covered. He wriggled, and at the signal was hauled back.
"Waal?" demanded Larry hoarsely, while Nobby leaned over the opening
and peered into his face, breathing heavily on him.
"Can't say," came from Bill, "only the trick can be done right enough.
Next time I'll clamber along and see if the doors can be opened. Now
you swing me down again, holding my wrists and ankles. When I double
up my right hand, let it go, and keep me as far swung back as you can.
When I've got a grip I'll move the other hand and you can let that go
too. I'll jiggle my feet in turn as I want you to liberate 'em--get me?"
"You bet!" Nobby grunted. "Got you square! Take care, young Bill, now.
We don't want to see you dashed to pieces, but----"
"But someone's got to do it," said Bill, "and I'm as active as any one
of you and fairly light. Down I go! Hang on tight. And don't be afraid
to let go when you get the signal."
He was swung through the opening again, and then allowed to drift
backward. Once more he caught a glimpse of the clanging couplings
just above his head, and of the grating buffers on either side. Then,
measuring his distance, he closed the fingers of his right hand, and
rather reluctantly that member was released, while he felt the grip on
the ankles and the other wrist tighten as if the men were fearful of
his escaping from between their fingers. Then he reached upward and
without difficulty gripped the first of the handles. Shifting his grasp
along it, he then closed the fingers of the other hand, and a minute
later was holding on to the single broad handle, while the men inside
the van allowed his form to drift still farther backward.
There was team work there between them all--intelligent team work.
For though Larry and Jim and the others could not see what Bill was
attempting, they could imagine it well enough, and the writhings of
his body gave them a hint as to how they were to behave under every
circumstance. Yet it was not without reluctance that they let his
right leg loose, as he wriggled the ankle, and Nobby, who released
it, was more than relieved when Jim, bending over the hole, called
to two of them to grip his wrists, and was himself lowered through
the opening, head downward, his feet and legs resting on the floor
of the wagon. Twisting his head, he could see Bill's right leg swing
backward, and presently watched as it was hooked over the foot-rest.
Then came another wriggle of the other ankle, and a minute later Bill
had practically disappeared, one leg only still showing hooked over the
foot-rest.
By the time Jim had been hauled back, Bill had gone, and those within
were left staring at the ground below fleeing past them. It seemed ages
before there was a clang at one of the doors--the clang of a bolt
being shot backward. Then a crevice of light appeared, and, to the
amazement and joy of all, a hand was pushed into the compartment--a
hand which Nobby gripped and presently drew on--drew on until he
finally pulled Bill in amongst them.
"So you did it! Bravo!" he cried, while Jim pushed the sliding door,
which Bill had liberated, farther back. As for the latter, he grinned
upon his comrades.
"Easy as eating dinner," he said. "There wasn't a padlock, but only
bolts, and they didn't take much opening. After that the trick was
done. Here we are, boys--there's the road to liberty--only, of course,
we've got to slow the train up first. Another conundrum I hadn't
thought of."
"I have," Jim joined in. "See here, boys, this train may go rushing on
for hours yet, and every foot of the way takes us farther into Germany.
You might shout yourself hoarse and the driver of the locomotive would
never hear. If we was to take those planks that we've torn from the
floor and chuck 'em on the rails, they'd be cut up like carrots, and
wouldn't no more derail her than if you was to chuck out Nobby there."
At that the worthy and pugnacious Nobby looked threateningly at the
American, and opened his mouth to expostulate.
"No," went on Jim, in deep earnest, unmindful of what he had said, "you
couldn't wreck the train if you wanted to. So next thing is to stop
her."
"Aye, stop her!" Nobby grinned. "Ain't we all aware o' that? Clever,
Jim--eh?"
"And to stop her," said Jim, unperturbed by Nobby's sudden explosion,
or by his sarcasm, "ain't such a difficult task, I should reckon.
Bill's done his bit; you boys wait here while I do my share; I'm going
to uncouple the chains right here in front of us."
That, too, was no easy matter. Indeed it was one full of danger, as
Jim himself appreciated when he gained the end of the truck, and,
standing upon the foot-rest and clinging to the handles, endeavoured
to manipulate the couplings. The truck in front wobbled and swayed
horribly; that upon which he rested jerked to and fro, threatening to
throw him from his hold, and the couplings were drawn tight--so tight
that there was no possibility of unhooking them--while the buffers
were parted by an inch or more of space. And so the position continued
for a long ten minutes--those coupling chains in strongest tension,
the buffers separated, no power that he could exert, nor indeed that a
hundred men could exert, being able to unhook them.
And then came the sudden scream of the vacuum brakes, the buffers
tapped gently together, and at once the ends of the two trucks between
which he clung drew closer together. They were on a decline, and the
driver of the engine had applied his brakes all along the train to keep
her in control and steady the trucks as they ran downwards. As for
the couplings, taut a moment before, they swung loosely now, so that
Jim, bending over, picked up the link hooked upon the coupling in front
and threw it off with an ease which surprised him. That link provided
the only means of attaching them to the forward part of the train, and
when, perhaps a minute later, the long line of trucks had gained the
level again, and steam was given to the engine, of a sudden the truck
in front leapt away from him, sped away, rushed off at uncommon speed,
leaving Jim clambering there with only space in front of him.
It was a very hot and dishevelled Jim who clambered back into the
compartment, and it was a very dishevelled and excited party that stood
at the open doorway as the speed of this latter half of the train
slowly diminished. Then anxiety took possession of them, for far away
in the distance they heard the shrill whistle of the locomotive--the
locomotive which had dragged the train from which they were now parted.
"Driver's discovered it--sure! Yep. Awkward! That means that he'll stop
the blamed train, and perhaps come back to us--what's that, eh?"
"Conductor right behind has wakened up and made the same sort of
discovery," said Bill; "reckons the train has broken in half--as it
has--eh? There go the hand-brakes. Couldn't ask for anything better.
Boys, make ready!"
From outside the car came the scream and scrape of brakes, while
the landscape, which had been flashing past them, now glided by at
respectable speed, which encouraged the prisoners immensely. They
crowded to the door, waited till Bill gave the order, and then, as the
car slowed down to quite reasonable speed, that made a leap to the
ground quite practicable, they dropped off one by one--some fifteen of
them--and presently, gathering together, moved off along the track. But
first of all, as the last man left the car he had been careful to close
the doorway.
"You never know," said Bill, as he warned them. "Perhaps they'll think
that putting the brakes on down that decline somehow unhooked the
coupling. If they saw the door open they'd realize at once that a trick
had been played on them. Let 'em talk about the breaking in two of
the train and wonder how it happened, and get to work to hook the two
trucks together again. Perhaps they won't suspect that we've got out,
for there won't be anything to tell 'em. Now, boys, here we all are!
About turn! Quick march! This trek ought to take us, with a little more
luck, into the lines of the Allies."
CHAPTER XIX
Plots within Plots
"You're sure--certain, Private Dan Holman?" the Divisional Commander
asked him for perhaps the twentieth time, some two or three days after
that parade which had followed the discovery of the presence of a spy
in the midst of this particular American division. "Certain you'd
recognize him? Remember, boy, you caught only one single glimpse of
him, and that under torchlight. A man looks queer under the glare of a
searchlight--different from what he looks under the moonbeams."
Dan gulped. Even an American soldier, with all that assurance born
of the freedom of the vast country in which he lives, may feel
disconcerted under the gaze of a superior officer, indeed under the
gaze--the almost incredulous gaze--of a number of officers. Dan gulped,
therefore, but his eyes, steadily fixed on those of the Commanding
Officer, never wavered.
"Sure, sir," he answered. "It sounds queer, I know, but I've laid in
bed thinking it over, and I'm as sure as sure--surer than I was when I
first came along with the information. That man that came down in the
aeroplane--for I take it he was dropped, as the Germans have dropped
spies before--was the same man that shot the father of a chum of mine
way back in a saloon by the copper-mine near Salt Lake City, the same
chap as drilled me through with a bullet from a revolver. I ain't
dreamin'; the thing's sure; and the fellow's somewhere about in these
parts dressed in our uniform."
A long and secret discussion followed. Dan was closeted with the
Intelligence Branch of the division for many hours, and on more
than one occasion, and thereafter, though the life of the camp was
unaltered, though nothing untoward seemed to be occurring, and though
the ordinary rank and file and their officers were entirely ignorant of
what had been or of the suspicions in their Commanding Officer's mind
that a spy was lurking in the neighbourhood, active steps were being
taken to come upon Heinrich Hilker.
"We'll telephone along to the other commanders, and notify the French
and the British; we'll get every billet, every hut, even the woods
searched. If the chap's in the neighbourhood we'll see if we can ferret
out the hiding-place he's selected. Gee! it makes me feel uneasy to
think that there's a spy somewhere here--a fellow that knows all about
us Americans. What's more, it makes me feel worse to believe that he's
got an accomplice; for otherwise how could he have slipped through
our clutches when we guessed his presence within a few minutes of his
arrival?"
Up and down the line, from the trenches to a point some miles behind,
French and British and American military police and Intelligence
branches caused the closest search to be made--a search which naturally
enough included that church in which Heinrich Hilker and Alphonse,
a spy like himself, had taken shelter. But granted that Heinrich
himself was cunning, Alphonse was still more so. One of that band of
individuals sent out broadcast by Germany to penetrate peacefully the
countries of their neighbours, to prepare the ground in case of a
German invasion, and to keep Berlin informed as to all local affairs
and on every matter of importance, Alphonse had lived the life of a
schemer for many years. He, in fact, chuckled on numerous occasions at
the ease with which he had hoodwinked the simple peasants with whom he
had taken up his residence. Even in his cups he had, as a general rule,
been extraordinarily careful and crafty; and now, as he went his way,
unsuspected by the Americans, his craft and his guile allowed of his
throwing dust in their eyes also.
"You've got to stay here," he told his accomplice as he visited him one
night in his lair at the top of the tower. "Here's better than anywhere
else, because every billet is being searched. There isn't a hut, an
outhouse, or any farm or hovel in these parts and right along the line
that isn't being looked into. They've been to the church, too, but----"
and then he began to cackle, that horrid cackle which grated upon
Heinrich's nerves so much.
"But!" the latter ejaculated curtly; "what then? How is this place
secure? Tell me," he asked anxiously; for indeed he had observed much
coming and going of American soldiers, had seen staff cars arriving
bearing French and British officers, and, though that was no unusual
occurrence, he could guess from the bustle which he could see and note
from his peep-hole, that something unusual was happening.
"But----" began Alphonse again, crouching beside the spy, his huge
knuckles taut as he clenched his fists, "but----" and then cackled once
more, so that Heinrich could have hit him so great was his vexation.
"But--you fool! Go on!"
"S--sh! Steady! Men down below, I hear them."
Heinrich had heard not so much as a sound, but the crafty villain
beside him had spent years in eavesdropping--in listening and avoiding
people whom it was undesirable he should meet--and now, above the
gentle rustle of the straw in which he lay, he heard the distinct
murmur of voices, the slip and slither of booted feet, the sound of men
in the body of the church. He lifted a finger to his lips, and, turning
silently with a snake-like movement, bent over the square opening
leading to the loft. Lights were flashing down below. He could see
men walking about, catching only a glimpse of them as the flash of an
electric torch settled upon their figures. He heard steps on the broken
and wrecked stone stairs which led to the chamber down below, and
then he became active. Those powerful if attenuated arms of his were
stretched out, the two hands gripped the rickety ladder by which he had
ascended, and swiftly, yet with the utmost care and silence, he drew it
upward. To cover the opening with some straw was an easy matter, and
presently, long before the American soldiers arrived in the chamber
referred to, the square through which Alphonse had entered Heinrich's
hiding-place had been, as it were, obliterated. So much so, that though
the light was cast upward, the broken boards above, the wisps of straw
dangling through the crevice, the wrecked appearance of the place, in
fact the very stars visible through the shattered tiles above, and the
lack of all means of reaching this aerie, persuaded the searchers that
no spy could be lurking there.
"Empty--sure!" came a voice. "'Taint likely that he's here. Looks as
though the tower might fall to pieces any moment. So down we go! Easy
with it, boys, those stairs take a lot of climbing."
Sounds receded. Footsteps were heard again in the body of the church.
Lights flashed hither and thither and then disappeared. Silence
followed, except that from outside came again the murmur of voices
as the soldiers departed. Heinrich breathed freely once more, while
Alphonse gave vent to a deep-throated, husky cackle.
"And so I cheated 'em time and again," he breathed, his eyes riveted
now to a crevice between the tiles through which he could see the
search-party of the Americans receding, "cheated 'em--these fools of
French peasants--same as I'll cheat the soldiers down below, and help
Germany to gain Paris--to gain Paris," he repeated, this time with
something approaching a hiss, his eyes flashing. "Paris, my friend
Heinrich!"
His companion, who a little while before had shrunk from contact with
this bony, attenuated scoundrel, and who, to speak the truth, was half
fearful of him, now actually put up with a grip of his fingers as they
closed round his arm, and, crouching on his knees, Heinrich Hilker
repeated that word.
"Ah!" he said, "Paris! Paris!--ah! that is the aim we have! But
listen, Alphonse! We failed to drive a wedge between the British and
the French, we failed to reach the Channel ports, but there is always
Paris--the heart of France and the French people. Let us but reach it,
let us but get our fingers about it, and--ah!--and we will strangle the
life out of these Frenchmen."
His eyes blazed. Sitting there he gripped his two hands together,
squeezing the palms and interlocking his fingers, feeling as though he
had already a strangling grip upon our gallant ally. Thereafter the
two lay quietly together discussing matters in whispers, and had there
been someone at hand to hear their words, what a commotion would have
resulted when the information was transmitted to the Americans and sent
to the French and British armies. For Heinrich had penetrated into
the Allied line with the knowledge that presently Germany was to try
another onslaught. His duty it was to obtain further and more intimate
information, and once he had secured it he was to return by any means
available and repeat that information to the German High Command.
But the time had not yet arrived. So close was the hunt for Heinrich,
thanks to the report which Dan Holman had given his Commanding Officer,
that he was held a close prisoner in the tower, and would have starved,
indeed, had it not been for the crafty and creeping Alphonse.
"But never mind," he told the latter one day some two weeks later.
"Thanks to this note which one of our aeroplanes dropped, and which you
brought to me, I know that our people are prepared. The blow will fall
shortly; not, you understand, my friend, the great blow--the big blow
that will take us and our armies to Paris--but the preliminary one,
just to open the way, to give us elbow room, to let us bring on the
forces which will then dash on to the city. Alphonse, that will be the
time for you. Dream of it--a German army in Paris! Think of what you
and I will do! Think of the loot!--of the gold! of the jewels!--think!"
The big, bony rascal beside him sat up abruptly to think. His eyes were
sunken, only half filling the enormous sockets, and they were staring
out into the darkness of the farthest corner of the tower. "Ah!" the
wretch gasped, and, catching a fleeting glance of him a moment later,
Heinrich felt almost alarmed, for those staring, sunken eyes had a
suspicion of madness in them; the man's intent face, his hook-like
nose, his parted lips and gaping nostrils made him look like a vampire,
and then the hoarse dry cackle which followed completed the illusion.
Heinrich shuddered.
"The man is mad," he thought; "he is a devil. He lives for gain, and
would perpetrate any cruelty to make money. Well, soon I shall be quit
of him; soon he will have carried out his purpose, and I shall have
no further need of him. That will be a good day. I am tired of this
dog-kennel."
They became bolder as the days passed and search on the part of the
Americans practically ceased. They wormed out numerous secrets, and by
means of craftily-arranged signals, and with the help of an aeroplane
which once more descended close to the tower, they transmitted
information to the enemy. It was then that of a sudden the Germans
flung themselves upon the Chemin des Dames, which overlooks the
Aisne River, and thrust forward across the ground where the British
Expeditionary Force of 1914, that "contemptible" yet ever glorious
army, fought its way across the river. They swept south to Fère en
Tardenois, and even gained the Marne, though they were unable to cross
it. Yet they had achieved a huge success, a sudden advance, which
caused stores and guns and men to fall into their clutches, and which
won for them a closer approach to Paris, now but thirty-five miles
distant, indeed but half the distance of the range of those gigantic
guns humorously called "Big Berthas", able to project shot seventy
miles, which for weeks past had been playing upon Paris.
It was the first milestone, one may say, on the road to the capital
city of France. A success to be followed up as rapidly and violently
as possible. It was a time when information of French military
preparations to protect their beloved city would be of the utmost
assistance to the Germans, and a time, therefore, when the activities
of Heinrich and Alphonse redoubled.
"We must get through! We must find our way past these American curs to
the Marne, and so into the German lines. These American curs, I tell
you," Heinrich said, "they suspect something. The search-parties are
about again, and for me, I feel that if we remain here longer we shall
be taken. So to-night we move on. You agree?"
He cast a half-nervous glance over his shoulder, for, to tell the
truth, longer acquaintance with Alphonse had made him even more fearful
of that strong, uncouth individual; and what wonder? For the strained
life which this agent of the German Government had lived so many years
among the people of France had tended to throw him off his mental
balance; loneliness had preyed upon his mind, and those frequent visits
to the cabaret had not assisted to retain his mental powers in equal
balance. There were times, though Heinrich hardly guessed it, when
Alphonse raved, when he was apt to be violent, when that dry, harsh,
cruel chuckle of his became the scream of a madman. Now, as Heinrich
turned upon him, the man was kneeling up, bent forward and leaning
upon his closed fists--those huge, bony fists of his--his chin pushed
forward, his lips agape and teeth showing, his sunken eyes staring at
nothing in particular. He chuckled hoarsely, and then turned swiftly
upon the German.
"The time--" he said, "the time to return, to cross the Marne to our
people--yes, for you, Heinrich, but for me, no!"
"For you, no?" the other asked incredulously; "but----"
"But Paris, man," Alphonse gurgled.
"Paris! of course, of course!" Heinrich laughed, though there was
little merriment in his tone. "Of course, later on, with our comrades
as they advance over the Marne. In the meanwhile you are the man to
guide me back to them."
The big, sprawling, bony figure of the man beside him was jerked upward
and that pugnacious chin shot towards Heinrich Hilker, while the
deep-set eyes gleamed--gleamed dangerously.
"What, leave Paris! the loot!" the man gasped, as if the news astounded
him. "Direct you over the Marne to our comrades! Get behind the
advanced lines of our troops, and so reach Paris after they have
entered! What, lose that splendid opportunity! Man--!" and Alphonse
brought a huge, bony hand down on Heinrich's shoulder, making the
spy wince. "Man, it's a moment I have lived for--dreamed of night and
day--this pillage of Paris. Why, I have been there a hundred times and
have marked out the way of entry, the path I would take first of all,
the spot for which I would make, the spot where---- Listen, listen,
man!" he whispered in his rusty voice; "the place where all the gold
and the jewels are concentrated. It will be a haul. A bomb to burst in
the door, no _poilus_ to intervene, none of these infernal soldiers
to shoot at you, no fear of watchers--a plain straightforward action,
careless of who looks on. A bomb I say--the door burst in--then a dive
in amongst the riches--jewels, man, sparkling jewels--pockets filled in
five minutes--afterwards, wealth--wealth of a Crœsus!"
Heinrich was peering round at his companion now--peering in a cunning,
half-frightened way, his eyes now and again turning to those sunken
orbs which stared into the farthest hole beneath the shattered tiles
of the church tower. He could feel the hand on his shoulder trembling;
the bony fingers closed and gripped him with such force that he could
have called out for pain. The man beside him was a maniac, he told
himself--a maniac to be got rid of at the first opportunity, but a
man to be handled carefully, to be cajoled, to be humoured until he
had carried out the work required of him, and "after that a shot will
finish the brute", Heinrich whispered, "a shot in the back. Once we are
across the Marne, and with our people, Alphonse shall go to a place
where he can dream on for ever. Only--ah, yes!"
[Illustration: THE MAN BESIDE HIM WAS A MANIAC, HE TOLD HIMSELF]
Heinrich Hilker's eyes sought the depths of that dark corner just as
Alphonse's had done. For a moment or so he became thoughtful, moody,
while the expression of his face denoted cunning, slyness--the cunning
of a man who has suddenly thought of something worth noting.
"And why not? A shot? Yes--in the back. But first this path into
Paris--a place full of riches. Alphonse may be crazy, but he is
a cunning fellow, and--yes, he has been thinking of Paris often.
Listen!" he said aloud a few moments later; "this scheme of yours,
Alphonse--splendid! magnificent! Riches beyond thought, and all
obtained in five minutes and quite openly, without fear of arrest. But
supposing the Army Commander places a guard on all public buildings,
and private also?"
"Ha!" Alphonse's face grew black--grew terrible, while his strong teeth
grated together. "Ha!" he grunted.
"But," went on Heinrich, "get back to our army now with this valuable
information and I can obtain a special pass which will send us ahead
with our advanced troops. You would not mind, Alphonse? For, as you
say, there are riches there to make both you and me rich beyond belief,
tell me--eh? We go back to our people now, and your chances of getting
that wealth will be improved. It is a magnificent suggestion."
It was. It captured the fancy of the madman beside him on the instant,
and set him rubbing his two big bony, attenuated hands together, while
the man sat up on his heels, and, still staring into that dark corner,
chuckled hoarsely, his rusty voice awaking the echoes of the deserted
tower.
See them then two days later creeping away from the place disguised as
peasants; watch them a day later dressed as _poilus_--the one driving
a cart in which Alphonse lay at full length, for no helmet, no blue
uniform, could disguise the bony Alphonse. See them far up towards the
Marne, and watch them as they take shelter in a hovel, already badly
battered by German guns, within easy reach of the river, within almost
calling distance of the Kaiser's troops on the far bank.
Let us look about the spot where those two ruffians had taken shelter.
Situated in "No-Man's-Land", under the German guns and under those of
the Allies, it offered no great security from shell-fire, though it
afforded as it were a jumping-off post from which anybody secreted
there might reach the Germans in one direction and the watching Allies
in the other. Yet, what a coincidence that Bill and Jim and the
inimitable Larry, with the formidable Nobby, too, close at hand, should
have almost at the same moment discovered a little dwelling, likewise
battered, within a hundred and fifty yards of that spot--Bill and his
friends, whose fortunes and misfortunes now claim our attention.
CHAPTER XX
A Turn in the Tide
Weeks had passed since that train had thundered along the rails into
Germany, carrying its truck-loads of British prisoners. It was ages
since the brilliant and powerful Nobby had wrenched up the flooring of
the truck and had thereby discovered an opening, which might or might
not lead to liberty, and it seemed a positively endless period since
Bill had been swung out by hands and feet, since Jim had thrown off the
couplings, since the moment when this gallant little band had escaped
from their captors and had plunged towards the west, where lay friends
and safety.
But consider the difficulties before them. That part of Germany was
not so thickly populated that movement of a band of men was out of the
question; across the Rhine Germans swarmed--German soldiers--while
farther west, in the invaded French territory, the movement of a mouse
was almost likely to be noted.
"It's got to be a slow game," Bill said, when after their first night's
journey they lay down in a wood, hungry and feeling desolate. "Of
course we may have unusual luck, but there's little doubt that we
shall have to go quietly and very secretly. Let's sleep, boys, then
we'll forage for food, after that--well, leave it."
"Aye, leave it," laughed Nobby--laughed uproariously, for this gallant
fellow was in the highest spirits. "As for taking time and all that,
what's it matter, so long as we do get back one of these days? Seems to
me, slow but sure--the pace of a tortoise--is the thing we're out for.
But food! crikey, ain't I hungry!"
"Aye!" gasped another of the band, a lusty eater like Nobby himself.
"But there'll be food round about, and we'll take it--eh, Bill?--eh,
Sergeant Bill?--sorry, Sergeant!"
Bill laughed. Yet it was a sign of the times. These comrades of his
were becoming a little careful how they addressed him. Perhaps the
feeling of discipline had something to do with it, and perhaps it was
the fact that they recognized in Bill a born commander, the sort of
young man of which our officers are made, and let us say at once we
include the officers of all the Allies.
Then they lay down, and presently all were asleep, nearly all indeed
slept heavily till the early morning. Sounds of someone approaching,
and the sudden appearance of a cow and a calf with a soldier behind
them, threw the band into a commotion. The men seized the sticks with
which they had armed themselves, Larry dashed towards a tree; then the
soldier laughed.
"My! Ain't I frightened the whole lot o' you," he shouted. "A-feared
of Nobby and a couple of cows a-walkin' into the camp, and lookin' as
though you'd like to chuck 'em out, when I'm bringing food, too."
The gallant Nobby, for he it was, hurled two fowls in amongst his
comrades. "Didn't know I was a sort of gamekeeper in peace times, did
yer? I'd almost forgotten it meself, for them days seems a long way
off; but I chanced to wake at the first streak of dawn, and went off
to see what was around us. This 'ere cow and calf was mighty handy.
Right down below there's a settlement, and I happed on a convenient
Hun residence. What's this--eh? Why, bless me soul!--it's bread! My, I
am surprised! Believe me, when I saw that in the larder of a house--a
farmhouse, you know--I felt like leaving it for the Huns. Then I
thought of you chaps, and I guessed it 'ud do you more good than it 'ud
do any German. Sit up, boys. Here's milk and meat and bread for to-day;
to-morrow, if we can't move off, we can kill the calf, and there'll be
more meat for a week perhaps; after that--well, we'll be able to look
round by then, eh? What about some breakfast?"
"What abaht it?" one of the band sang out, while the rest were
convulsed with laughter or ran forward to congratulate the gallant
Nobby.
Indeed his was a find--a valuable find as it proved. For it so happened
that though the band had managed to escape to a part of the country
which was sparsely populated, their escape was noised abroad, and
search-parties were sent in all directions.
"Only they don't seem to have thought of these woods," said Larry, as
he and Bill watched from the fringe of the cover in which they had
taken shelter. "I guess they think we've made along the railway. Waal
now, the longer we stick here without moving into the open the better,
for then we'll throw them off the scent. Nobby's calf will be useful.
Mebbe we'll take to the cow yet, but it'll want some killing, seeing
that we've only sticks and knives with us."
Yet another early-morning jaunt on the part of Nobby, with Bill in
company, secured a couple of old rifles and revolvers, beside more
bread; and thus armed, and with plenty of food, the band settled
themselves in the wood for two weeks till the search-parties had
returned and the matter had blown over. Then they issued forth, and
little by little, sometimes gaining a dozen miles in one night,
sometimes lying up in a friendly wood for a week or more, now and
then half starved--for provisions were short throughout the whole of
Germany--and again well fed--for they did not hesitate to take fowls
and calves when they came across them--the band gained France, and
finally filtered through the German lines to the spot we have indicated.
The journey had taken weeks--those eventful weeks during which the
Kaiser, careless of the losses he incurred, had thrown his hordes
against the Allies, had thrown to win, and so far at least had
failed to achieve his object. But now the moment for the last throw
had arrived. Germans, massed in that salient which stretched to the
Marne, were about to make a desperate push--a last push for Paris. Guns
were ready; every device of war was there to slaughter the Allies;
the All-Highest, himself less arrogant than of yore, less certain of
success, was himself present; the hour had come for Germany to strike a
final blow for victory.
And strike she did, driving a reckless path over the Marne River in
the neighbourhood of Château Thierry and to the east of that pleasant
provincial town, while her forces swept to the west, pushing the Allied
line backward. It was a critical time for British and French and
American troops, and the Entente generally; for the rush carried the
Germans to within some thirty miles of Paris, and further success would
have thrown a road to that city wide open, with, no doubt, disastrous
results to the defenders of human liberty. But the Allies, though taken
in some measure by surprise, were by no means found wanting. Unity of
command on the part of Germany and Austria and their Allies had, during
almost four long years of warfare, given enormous advantage to the
troops controlled nominally by the Kaiser: one brain and one man, in
fact, commanded the situation, striking blows here, following them up
swiftly, supporting a threatened spot, and massing effects where the
Allied line appeared weakest. But the Allies themselves had not failed
to see the vital importance of this unity of command. It had taken
time; it had required many conferences; there had been much discussion
before a decision was reached; but Mr. Lloyd George, the Premier of
England, Monsieur Clemenceau, France's able leader, and Mr. Wilson, the
President of the United States, and all the prominent leaders had come
forward and insisted upon this one condition.
Thus, just prior to this final German rush, the whole of the Allied
armies in France and Italy had been placed under the command of General
Foch, the hero of the Marne fighting in 1914. This unity of command
placed in his hands a power not hitherto wielded by any single one of
the Allied forces. It allowed him to mass his reserves, to control the
movements of all the troops, and permitted of his disposing of his
forces so that within a few days the enemy rush was successfully held
up, and almost at once a counter-attack, similar almost to that of the
Sixth French Army in 1914, which was cast upon the right flank of Von
Kluck's army, but a little north of the part where that army operated,
was hurled against the flank of this dangerous German irruption.
A few lines and we may dismiss further mention of the fighting.
French and British, aye, and Americans in much force, took part in
that brilliant counter-offensive. They smashed in the German flank,
they drove deep into the Tardenois, they sent the enemy fleeing back
from the Marne and its wrecked villages and towns, till his back was
against the Aisne, and until the Vesle alone divided the combatants.
That single dramatic movement smashed the hopes of the German people,
and wrecked for ever the already severely damaged prestige of the once
arrogant Crown Prince of Prussia.
We will carry the tale a short stage further. The fighting in this
neighbourhood was scarce ended, and the fifth year of the war but just
commenced, when on the 8th August, the Fourth British Army, with a
French army acting in combination with it, suddenly advanced upon the
Germans between Albert and Montdidier, and assisted by numerous small
tanks, called "whippets"--more speedy and more efficacious than the big
tanks first used in 1916--drove a huge hole or salient into the German
position, capturing hundreds of guns and a vast number of prisoners.
Since then fighting has extended north and south, and all along the
line the invader--the ravager of France and Belgium--has been driven
back reeling before our blows. The tide has turned without a doubt. The
Allies march irresistibly on to final victory.
Thus was the fifth year of this awful contest inaugurated. It brought
success to the Allies, it found their numbers increasing daily by the
influx of American troops, and, significant too, it discovered those
American troops to be stanch and sturdy fighters, fresh to the country,
keen to destroy the power of the Kaiser.
As for Bill and his friends, that sudden irruption of the Germans over
the Marne swamped the hovels in which they were lying, swamped, too,
the shattered dwelling in which Heinrich Hilker and Alphonse lay in
waiting. It drove both parties in fact to the cellars, and thence into
the subterranean passages which joined them. There, late one morning,
it brought the two parties face to face; though, to be sure, Heinrich
and Alphonse were as yet unaware of the presence of Bill and his party.
"It's a noise! It's someone around!" said Nobby, when the party had
sat in the dark cellar for perhaps a couple of hours listening to the
roar of guns above, and sometimes hearing voices. "Always them Germans!
Ain't that a German voice yahring away? Listen!"
"Sure!" said Larry; "German, and not so far away. It'll be Fritz
searching these dug-outs, these cellars. Boys, is it your wish that
Fritz should come down here and take you into the open? Have you come
all this way, right along here to within almost speaking distance of
your mates, just to be hiked out by a few Fritzes?"
Bill stopped him.
"There's a row going on," he said; "it's men fighting, and not many of
'em--two or three at the most, I should say. Stay here, you boys. Let's
get along, Jim and Larry and Nobby; we'll come back and report in a few
minutes."
They crept along the passage, full of cobwebs and dirt and debris, and
pitch dark at first, till they had traversed perhaps a hundred yards,
passing here and there the entrances to other cellars; for bear in
mind they were in the country of the vine-growers of France, and huge
cellars are required to store the wines produced by the vineyards which
cluster along the sides of the Marne valley. Then a gleam of light
lit the passage, and pushing on they came in time, after many twists
and turns, to another cellar, from which issued now the voices of men
engaged in a strenuous struggle. Creeping in, they found themselves in
a large cellar of brick, on the floor of which two men rolled hither
and thither, locked in a firm embrace, breathing heavily, sometimes
shouting at one another. Their figures were fully lit up by an opening
above, which gave light and ventilation to the cellar, and which
presently allowed Bill and his friends to take in every atom of their
surroundings.
"Two _poilus_ fighting! and----" gasped Larry.
"And talking German!" said Nobby. "German!--listen to 'em!"
Bill clutched Jim by the arm. "Jingo! that one with his head close to
the ground, it's---- I'd swear it!"
Jim took a firm hold of his young friend, for standing there at the
entrance, peering into the cellar, he had at first not obtained so
good a view of the combatants. But now for a moment the two men,
locked in one another's arms, ceased their struggles to gain breath
for a continuance of the conflict. Then it was that he obtained a
full view of the face of the man who lay nearest the ground. It was
Heinrich Hilker; no French uniform could disguise the scoundrel. But
the other--no, he did not know him.
"It's--gee!--it's Heinrich the spy caught by a Frenchman," he muttered.
"A Frenchman! not it!" came bluntly from Nobby. "He's a-talkin' German
now. It's two spies in the midst of a ruction."
As for Bill, Jim could feel him straining forward already, and
heard his breath coming in deep gasps, and knew well that his
young friend had recognized the wretch so near him who had been
the cause of his father's death. A little more and Bill would have
torn himself from Jim's grip and hurled himself upon the spy; but
Alphonse intervened--Alphonse, now crazier than ever, Alphonse driven
to desperation by the thought and the knowledge that Heinrich had
hoodwinked him, and had dragged him here to the Marne only to dispose
of him.
It was but ten minutes ago that he had suddenly detected Heinrich in
the act of lifting a heavy stick with which to brain him, and thereupon
Alphonse had cast himself upon the traitor. For those ten minutes the
two had been locked in a deadly struggle, but now, as Bill and his
friends looked on, it ended. For with a superhuman effort the madman
suddenly freed his hands and gripped Heinrich by the neck. He lifted
him upward, and then suddenly dashed him back, breaking his head upon
the brick-lined floor as though it were an egg shell.
"And so--and so you are dead!--wretch! villain! spy!" Alphonse gasped,
his rusty voice echoing in the cellar. "You, who enticed me to agree to
your plans to lead you safely through the American lines so as to join
our comrades. Ha! You--you were to slay me, and then, free of me, were
to join the Germans, forgetting the reward I was to have, forgetting
Paris and the loot to be obtained there. Well, you are dead--dead, you
dog!"
The huge form of the pseudo-Frenchman was erected to its full
height--the huge, bony frame standing out gaunt in the rays descending
from the skylight above, the hands clenched, the blue uniform of a
_poilu_ skin-tight upon him--for there was never found a Frenchman
requiring such a suit of clothes as Alphonse needed--he stood there
leering, grinding his teeth, staring at the dead man. He kicked the
inanimate body, and then, turning, glared up at the skylight, while
Bill and his friends, horrified by the scene of which they had been the
silent witnesses, crouched backwards into the passage which had led
them to it, moved back from the entrance, waiting there, wondering what
they should do.
It was then, within a few seconds, as Alphonse made ready to depart,
his crazy mind still fixed upon looting some house in Paris, that there
came a terrific crash above. Clouds of dust and bits of brick and dirt
were projected into the passage, and then there was an appalling
detonation, which shook these subterranean workings, which dislodged
blocks and stones from the roof of the gallery, and which brought the
roof of the cellar in upon Alphonse and the dead body of Heinrich, the
German spy--the roof and the mass of wrecked dwellings above it. Indeed
it was only by a miracle that Bill and his friends escaped destruction.
They crept off through the dust-clouds to their comrades, and there sat
down, moody at first, and then telling their story curtly, for it had
moved them deeply. An hour later the sounds of conflict waned, and soon
afterwards, peering up from the cellar which sheltered them, they found
the Germans in rapid retreat and Allied troops approaching.
"It's an American lot!" shouted Bill at the top of his voice.
"Sure!" gurgled Larry, and Jim was certain that the diminutive little
fellow's legs positively shook. Perspiration was dropping from his
forehead, and though Larry made every effort to appear nonchalant as
of yore, and tipped his helmet farther forward, and even searched
involuntarily, by force of habit, for that long-departed stump of
cigar, yet he could not deceive Jim. Larry was upset--greatly so. The
sight of those Americans had set him shaking, while it brought tears
to Jim's own eyes. And then, who should suddenly accost the party?
It was Dan--magnificent Dan--a true type of American manhood. Do you
wonder that they fell upon each other, gripping hands? If they had
been Frenchmen they would have embraced each other; as it was, even
the stoical Nobby was gulping as Dan took his huge hand and shook it
forcibly.
"Fine, fine!" was all that gallant soldier could say. "Fine! I'm glad
to meet you."
No need to trace their movements further, and no need to say that
within two weeks Nobby and his friends had been transferred to
the British force, while Larry and Jim, and Bill too, by special
arrangement, were attached to that American division in which Dan
served. They are in France as we write. Shoulder to shoulder with those
comrades of theirs they are opposing the most ruthless enemy that has
ever threatened the liberties of mankind; shoulder to shoulder they
will go through the work till the war is finished, till the Kaiser and
his myrmidons are vanquished. They have seen much, these gallant men.
They will see more before the war is done--when they have served longer
under Foch's command.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
_By Blackie & Son, Limited, Glasgow_
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