Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line Part 34

So we did what we could. We tried to make our way to the Allied lines, but this was as far as we could get. Tell me, Professor, do you think the Americans will come?"

"Oh, of course! Yes!" a.s.serted Professor Snodgra.s.s, who would have said anything, just then, to gain time to think, and not to worry the girls. "Of course they'll be here, but perhaps we had better go to meet them."

"Oh, yes! Let's!" cried Dorothy. "Poor Uncle Emil! If he were only here! He was very kind to us."

"Yes, we loved him," added Gladys softly. "He was so much like you, Professor Snodgra.s.s--you remind me very much of him."

"I am glad I do," was the simple answer. "Emil Petersen was a man to be proud of. He was my friend. And now let us consider what is best to do. I think we had better leave."

And so, though only after much protest on the part of the kind Frenchman, who warned them of their danger, the three set out. A hat was provided for Professor Snodgra.s.s. They were going to try to reach the American lines.

"I fear you will all be captured," said their host. "And, if you are, it will go hard with you. The Germans hate the Americans worse than ever since the recent defeat of the Kaiser's best troops. I fear you will not get through."

And they did not. Just as they seemed on the point of success, having reached a French village at a place opposite the Allied line, they were halted as they were about to cross in a secluded spot, and during a lull in the fighting.

In his innocence the professor made no effort to conceal his purpose, and he and the young ladies were turned back, while a German officer, smiling in contempt, said:

"You will do for hostages if the Americans come too close!"

"Oh, are they that near?" cried Dorothy.

"Too near--the pigs!" muttered the officer.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Gladys. "Maybe they'll save us after all!"

But, in spite of her brave words, she looked worried as she and her cousin were led back. As for Professor Snodgra.s.s, he bowed his head.

He had failed. Oh, if only the boys had come!

CHAPTER x.x.x

RECAPTURED

Once more the desperate fighting was resumed. Ned, Bob, and Jerry, after a brief rest, were again thrown into the conflict after their rescue from the dense Forest of Argonne. That wood had not yet all been won, but it was in the way of being. The Germans were fighting their last desperate battles, and full well they knew it. Only a miracle could save them now, and there was no miracle for them.

Not that they did not fight, for they did. The resistance to the American and Allied advance was stiff and formidable, but it was overcome, and immense losses inflicted on the Huns as they made counter-attack after counter-attack.

It was one day, after some of the most severe fighting of the war that they had ever seen, that the battalion, in which Ned, Bob, and Jerry then were, crossed a little stream, driving the desperately defending Germans beyond it, and entered a small French village. When the echo of the shots had died away, and it was seen that the Huns were in full retreat, the three chums and their comrades, at the head of a victorious force, marched down the main street of the quaint and ancient little town.

Forth from their hiding places came the French population, weary and scarred from four years of enemy occupation. Here and there the tricolor, so long hidden, waved in the wind. The hated and dastardly Germans had departed, never, please G.o.d, to come again!

Forward, into the recaptured town, marched Ned, Bob, Jerry, and their comrades in arms. With tears in their eyes the French people watched the Americans come. It was the day so long prayed for.

Near one of the half-ruined houses, which had been their abode--their prison, in fact, since their capture,--stood Professor Snodgra.s.s and the two young ladies.

"Oh, can you believe it, Gladys!" exclaimed Miss Gibbs. "It doesn't seem possible, does it, that we are saved?"

"No, but I am beginning to believe that it is not a dream any more.

Those American soldiers are real, aren't they?"

"They are, indeed, young ladies," said the professor. "At last I shall be able to go back to my collection, and finish, I hope, the moving pictures of insects under the influence of big guns. Oh, I shall also hope to take you to safety with me," he added, as he thought of his wards. "If only the boys were here!"

"What boys do you mean?" asked Miss Petersen. "You have so often spoken of 'the boys,' but you have never mentioned who they were."

And this was true, for, just as the professor had been on the point of doing so, he and the girls had been captured by the Germans, and, since then, he had not had the heart to speak of his friends.

"Well, I can tell you now," he said as he and the two nieces of Professor Petersen watched the victorious troops go marching by.

"There are three boys--three young men, American soldiers who----"

The professor paused, and looked hard at a certain group of marching Americans. He took off his gla.s.ses, wiped them, and put them on again to stare with all his power at three youths who swung along with the _sang-froid_ of veterans.

"Why!" exclaimed Professor Snodgra.s.s. "Why--bless my--bless--why, it's Ned, Bob, and Jerry themselves!" he fairly shouted. "Oh, there they are! There are the boys themselves!" and he rushed forward, tears of joy for the moment dimming the gla.s.ses he had so carefully cleaned a moment ago.

"There are the boys. Jerry! Ned! Bob! Here I am! And here are the girls! Hurrah! Hurrah for the U. S. A.! Hurrah for President Wilson!

Hurrah for General Pershing! Down with the Germans! The United States and the Allies forever! Hurrah!"

There was a laugh in the ranks of the marching Americans. Most of them did not catch all that the little, excited, bald-headed man said, but they laughed at his enthusiasm and loved him. But Ned, Bob, and Jerry heard.

"It's him!" yelled Bob.

"It's the professor!" cried Ned.

"And the girls are with him!" added Jerry.

The lieutenant of the boys' company, seeing that something unusual was in the wind said:

"You may fall out. Join us later. We'll probably stay here a while.

This is our objective, and we've made it."

And then the boys fell out and such a reunion as there was!

The stories were told and retold, and Ned, Bob, and Jerry, after having been presented to the young ladies, listened to their accounts of what had happened to them since they were caught in war-torn Europe.

"And do you think we are safe now?" asked Miss Petersen.

"As safe as in a church," declared Bob. "We've come to stay!"

And so the Americans had. As General Pershing, in his report of the operations culminating in the last phase of the Meuse-Argonne battles, said:

"The strategical goal which was our highest hope was gained. We had cut the enemy's main line of communications, and nothing but surrender or an armistice could save his army from complete disaster."

And the armistice of November 11, 1918, came, bringing an end to the war.

And it also brings to an end this story. Not that the fighting was all over, for there was some after the boys and the professor and his charges were so happily reunited. But the Motor Boys had no further part in it. They remained in the village where they had met the little scientist, as a guard, until the Germans were so far away as to render them harmless.

"And to think you found the girls all by yourself!" exclaimed Ned, as they were talking over the events after the first day of the capture of the French town.