Army Boys on German Soil: Our Doughboys Quelling the Mobs Part 26

"What's the big idea, Frank?" asked Bart, as the boys hurried after their leader.

"Can't stop to talk about it now, old fellow. Tell you later what I think I've stumbled on. I think I know now what my hunch meant.

I'm streaking it straight for headquarters as fast as my legs will carry me."

Bart saw how wrought up he was, and followed him without further questioning.

Straight to his captain Frank hastened and told his story. He had not finished before the captain sent out hastily for others higher in authority. Then Frank, often interrupted by excited questioning, narrated every detail of the night's discovery. The phial was handed over to the chief medical officer, and Frank, after hearty commendation, was bidden to hold himself ready for call at a moment's notice.

He hurried off to the barracks, where his comrades were eagerly awaiting him. To them he poured out all he knew and suspected.

That night and the next day witnessed busy scenes at the headquarters of the medical staff. The contents of the phial were a.n.a.lysed and justified Frank's suspicions. A force was organized in which the Army Boys were included to seize the arch-plotter. It would have been possible to have entered his house from the front, but the broad street on which it stood was a thoroughfare thronged with people at night, and in order to avoid possible riot and attempt at rescue it was deemed best to enter from the trap door in the alley.

As soon as it was fully dark, the detachment was set in motion.

Sentries were posted on either side of the alley to prevent any one from entering, and one by one the arresting party swept down through the pa.s.sage from the alley and they made their way, with Frank as guide, to the oaken door. Here they paused and listened.

Far from being empty, as on the night before, there were sounds in the room that amounted almost to tumult. Loud exclamations were interspersed with bursts of laughter. The main note seemed to be approval. Some one who aroused the enthusiasm of his hearers was speaking.

Slowly, very slowly, Lieutenant Winter, who was in charge, drew the door open by imperceptible degrees. It was the doctor himself who was holding forth, almost with frenzy. His gestures were wild and his words came so fast as to make his speech almost incoherent.

But the listeners caught enough from that wild torrent of words to know that their darkest suspicions were more than justified. The man was gloating over his wickedness, over the deaths that had already resulted, and the deaths he hoped to cause through his diabolical discovery.

He stopped at length, and others in the party had their turn. Here was something beyond what the raiding party had looked for. They had stumbled upon a nest of conspirators who, in their way, as the doctor in his, were deadly enemies of society in general and the Americans in particular.

Through this secret pa.s.sage into the alley, for how long none of them knew, these desperate men had been going to and fro, avoiding attention and hatching in the doctor's office a plot that had kept the entire zone of the American Army of Occupation in a state of unrest. The proof was all-sufficient, and the conspirators were weaving the noose for their own necks.

The lieutenant lifted his hand, swung the door wide open, and, followed by his men, rushed into the room.

CHAPTER XXV

THE TREATY SIGNED

It was a scene of wild confusion. Men jumped from their seats with shouts and execrations. One man leaped for the electric switch to turn out the light, but Frank reached him at a bound and felled him to the floor. Pistols were drawn, but the doughboys knocked them out of the conspirators' hands, and in a twinkling had the men gripped and powerless.

The doctor crammed some papers into his mouth with the evident intention of swallowing them, but Tom's sinewy hands were at his throat and choked them out.

It was all over in a few moments. The surprise had been so great that resistance was futile. The baffled conspirators stood huddled together, disarmed, and under guard.

The doctor's rage was fearful as his eyes rested on Frank, for whom he had cherished bitter enmity since their first encounter, and who he felt instinctively was the cause of his undoing.

The lieutenant gave a few curt commands and the prisoners were led out through the pa.s.sage, secret no longer, and conveyed under guard to American headquarters.

Here a number of leading American officers had gathered to await the results of the raid. The prisoners were remanded for examination on the morrow, with the exception of the doctor, who was brought at once before the tribunal and sternly questioned.

At first he remained stubbornly silent, refusing to say a word.

Then the crumpled papers that he had attempted to swallow were opened and read.

They proved to be the formulas relating to the deadly germs contained in the phials. Step by step the process was described.

The proof was positive and overwhelming. But most important of all was the setting down of the antidote that would neutralize the effect of the germs.

The doctor's face during the reading of the papers was a study in emotions. Rage, disappointment, hate succeeded one another. Upon the faces of his judges the prevalent expression was one of horror, tempered somewhat by the relief afforded by the knowledge that the antidote was within their reach.

Being asked if he had anything to say, the doctor at last broke his stubborn silence. Denial was impossible. The game was up.

There was nothing to gain by repressing his feelings, and he broke out in a wild tirade.

Yes, he said, it was true that he had discovered and isolated this deadly germ and had made numberless cultures of it to be spread broadcast. He boasted of it. He gloried in it. He had already killed many of the hated Americans, and if he had been given time he would have swept the whole American Army of Occupation off the face of the earth. It was true that he had not confined his operations to the Americans alone. He had sought revenge on his own cowardly countrymen who had yielded supinely and permitted the Americans to occupy the fairest districts of Germany. He had offered his deadly discovery to the German commanders before the armistice was signed, but either through doubts of its value or fear that their own troops would share in the contagion they had refused to make use of it. Then his rage had turned against countrymen and foes alike. Like Caligula, he had wished that the whole human race had but a single head so that he might cut it off with one blow. He would have done it, too, if this accursed young American--

Here he made a savage lunge at Frank, and there was a terrific struggle before he was overpowered by the guards. He fought with the strength of a maniac, which indeed he was, for the wild rage under which he labored had reached its climax in the overturning of his reason. He was dragged away, struggling, fighting, and foaming at the mouth.

There was unmeasured joy and relief at American headquarters that night, for the shadow of the plague that had hung over the army for months was lifted and the remedy was known. Frank and his comrades came in for praise and commendation that made their faces glow, and it was promised that promotion and crosses of honor would be a reward and recognition of their splendid work.

And now the date had been set for the signing of the Peace Treaty.

Germany was at white heat in protest against the terms. She swore that she would never sign. She raged like a wild beast that had been caught in a trap. With characteristic treachery she sank the interned fleet at Scapa Flow. A mob burned the French flags in Berlin, of which the treaty demanded the surrender. Sign the treaty? Never! Never!

The Americans were ready on the instant to march toward Berlin.

Twenty-four hours before the time set for signing, tanks, airplanes, guns and men poured over the Rhine. If the Germans wanted more fighting they could have it. If they did not sign the treaty at Versailles, they would be compelled to sign it in Berlin. The guns were ready to thunder, the men ready to charge.

The Germans saw those preparations and wilted. Their boasting changed to whining.

On June the twenty-eighth they signed the treaty. _The war was over_!

And when that night the booming of guns at Coblenz told that the treaty had been signed, the Army Boys hugged each other in delight at the knowledge that their work was done and that now they were free to go back home!

"Hurrah!" cried Billy in wild jubilation.

"Back to the States!" shouted Bart.

"Three cheers for Old Glory!" exclaimed Tom.

"And a tiger," added Frank. "Well, fellows, our work is over. Our boys came over here to! whip the Hun. They did it. They came over to help win the war. They did it. The job is done, and now we Army Boys can go back in triumph to G.o.d's country!"

THE END