The Boy Scout Automobilists Part 4

"Yes, you would, Tom, if you knew it was the only thing you could do.

You couldn't be any worse scared than I was when we left the road--but I knew, you see, that there simply wasn't any other way out of it. When you have to do a thing, you can usually manage it. I've found that out."

"What's next?"

"The outskirts of Hardport. I want to skirt the railroad track. Their mobilization was at Smithville, back along the railroad about twenty miles, and if they've sent any force to Hardport, the railroad will show it. If they haven't, I'm going to mark the railroad cut."

"What do you mean, Jack?"

"In a real war, if people got a chance, this railroad would be cut. A lot of rails would be torn up and burnt. We don't want to interfere with regular traffic, so in this game we build a fire with spare ties, and mark as much rail as we'd have time to tear up, allowing ten minutes for each length of rail. Then if a troop train comes along and sees that signal, it is held to be delayed an hour for each torn up rail, as that is the time it would take the sappers to repair the damage."

They paused for thirty minutes, therefore, when they reached a spot about three miles and a half from the city line of Hardport.

"There," said Jack, when he had set his marks, "that will hold them up for three hours, and give General Bean a chance to occupy Hardport and destroy the railroad bridge. That will take a day to rebuild, without interference, and I guess it makes it pretty safe for us. Now we'll go on into town."

But they didn't go into the town. They did not have to, to discover that Hardport was occupied by a Blue regiment, which had outposts well scattered around the place, antic.i.p.ating an attack, just as Captain Durland had said he thought would be the case.

"We'll do some more circling, now," said Jack, "and get around their outposts. I know a way we can do that. What they're planning is to let General Bean advance and walk into a trap. They've got enough men waiting for him along here to smash him on a frontal attack. What we've got to do is to get word to him in time to prevent him from doing that."

Twice, as the grey car sped along, now on the road, now in the fields, they saw parties of the enemy, but never were they near enough seriously to threaten the Boy Scouts with capture. And at last, striking into the main road for Bremerton, they saw a cloud of dust approaching, which they recognized as the signal of the coming of General Bean's brigade.

The soldiers cheered them as they recognized the scout car, and opened up a way for the big car to pa.s.s through them to the brigade commander himself.

"What's your name, eh?" asked the General, sharply. "Danby, eh?

Excellent work, Scout Danby! I shall make it a point to report my appreciation to your Troop commander. You'd better come along in the rear now, and watch the rest of the operations. Thanks to you, I rather think they'll be worth watching."

And, touching the spurs to his speedy black horse, he cantered up to the front of the column, chuckling and laughing as he thought of how the enemy had been outwitted by his youthful Scout.

The direct forward march of the brigade was interrupted immediately. One regiment, indeed, continued along the straight road to Hardport, but the rest of the brigade was deployed at once.

"What will they do now, Jack?" asked Tom Binns.

"Well, I wouldn't be able to say for certain," replied Jack, with a smile, "but I rather think they'll manage to get behind the town in some fashion, and close in on the Blue troops in the garrison while the regiment in front here keeps them busy with a strong feint of an attack."

A colonel of regular cavalry, with a white badge on his arm to show he was serving as an umpire, drove past just then in a big white automobile.

"See, there's one of the umpires," said Jack. "He goes all about, and determines the result. I'm glad he's here--that means there can't be any dispute this time. General Bean has probably told him what he plans to do, and he will see how it comes out. Of course, he doesn't communicate in any way with the enemy, or tell them what we're planning to do."

"Of course not! That wouldn't be fair, Jack. I'm glad he's here, too. Do you suppose he's heard about the way we blocked the railroad?"

"I think he may have seen our signs and come this way just to find out what was doing."

"Listen!" cried Jack, suddenly. "There's firing ahead! Let's get on and find out what's going on."

There was heavy firing ahead of them for a few minutes, and then it became intermittent.

"Our attack is being repelled, I guess," said Jack. "That's the first engagement of the war, too. Well, we may seem to be beaten in that, but I guess we can afford to lose a skirmish, if we can capture Hardport and a whole Blue regiment."

Again, after the firing had almost ceased, a rattle of shots burst on the quiet air. Then, too, came the screaming of a sh.e.l.l, as it burst harmlessly above the city.

"Hooray!" cried Jack. "We've surrounded them! Come on!"

And this time there was no opposing the entry of the grey car into Hardport. The city had been surrounded and captured, just as Jack had predicted, and the Blue regiment that had been so completely outwitted, thanks to the cleverness of Jack Danby, was out of the war entirely. It was an important victory, in more ways than one. General Bliss could ill afford to lose so many men, and the capture of Hardport, moreover, was a crippling blow, since it interfered with the operation of the railroad which he had relied upon for bringing his troops across the State line in large numbers.

The umpires lost no time in telling General Bean of their decision, and in congratulating him on the strategy he had displayed.

"Cutting the railroad was a masterly stroke," said one of the umpires.

"That's what I say!" said the General, with enthusiasm. "And it was a little tike of a Boy Scout, in my grey scout car, who did it--and that without orders!"

CHAPTER V

OFF TO CRIPPLE CREEK

Jack and Tom Binns waited only to see the surrender of Hardport before Jack turned the car about and made for Bremerton, taking the direct road this time, since the advance of General Bean and his division of the Red army had swept aside all danger from the invading Blue forces. The outposts, of course, which Jack had had to dodge as he scouted in advance of the Red advance guard, had all been driven back upon Hardport, and they were prisoners of war now, and the way was clear for the day, at least.

Captain Durland listened with scarcely concealed enthusiasm to Jack's clear and concise account of what had been accomplished.

"You two saved the day," he said, finally. "We would have been in a very tight hole indeed if you hadn't cut the railroad, which was the only thing that made it possible for General Bean to effect the capture of Hardport as he did."

"How is that, sir?" asked Jack. "I thought we gave him useful information, and I cut the railroad because there seemed to be a good chance to do it, without thinking very much of the consequences of doing so."

"Why, if you hadn't cut the railroad," said Durland, "General Bliss would have thrown a division into Hardport as soon as he heard at his headquarters, by telegraph, that the place was threatened. Then he could have moved troops over from Mardean, where I imagine he had at least a couple of regiments, and General Bean's brigade would have been in a trap that would have been absolutely impossible to escape from. Now it's all different. We've got Hardport. By this time General Bean has unquestionably theoretically destroyed the railroad bridge and has artillery mounted so that the guns will have to be captured before General Bliss can make an attempt to rebuild it."

"I see! If the bridge is covered with guns, the theory is that the enemy couldn't do any work, eh?"

"Exactly! They've got to work in a narrow place, and they'd be blown to pieces, a squad at a time, while they were trying to work. That was the decisive move of the whole action. What did General Bean say to you?"

"He said it was good work, sir, and that he was going to speak to you of it."

"Excellent, Jack! I am very pleased that one of my Scouts should have played so important a part in the first decisive engagement of the campaign. And General Bean is the sort of a man who is sure to see that you get the credit for what you've done."

"What shall we do next, sir?"

"I'll hold you in reserve until I get further orders from headquarters, I think. General Harkness evidently plans an aggressive fight from the very outset. I have heard nothing from his headquarters direct as yet, but I probably shall pretty soon. I shall send in a report of General Bean's success at Hardport at once, though he has probably done that already."

The Scouts were working well all along the line. The enemy, as Pete Stubbs had reported, had crossed the State line in some small force at Mardean. Two regiments had occupied that village, which was on the Red side of the line, and had thrown out skirmishers for a couple of miles in both directions. Warner, one of the Racc.o.o.n Patrol, had been captured, but he was the only one of the Troop who had not made good his escape in the face of the enemy's advance, and even he had accomplished the purpose for which he had been sent out, since he had managed to wig-wag the news of the advance of a troop of cavalry before they had run him down, and the news had been flashed all along the line, from Scout to Scout, until it had reached Durland.

The wireless was not in use here, though experiments were being made with a field wireless installation some miles away, but the Scouts did not need it. They were spread out within plain sight of one another, and with their little red and white flags they sent messages by the Morse alphabet, and in a special code, as fast as wireless could have done.

They also were prepared to use, when there was a bright sun, which was not the case that day, the heliograph system, which sends messages for great distances.

In that system of field signalling, extensively employed by the British during the Boer war, since wireless had not at that time been at all perfected, a man stands on a slight elevation, and catches the rays of the sun on a great reflector. Those flashes are visible for many miles in a clear atmosphere, in a flat country, and the flashes, of course, are practically instantaneous.

"We don't need to worry about wireless for communications of a few miles," said Durland. "The system of signalling that depends on seeing flashes, smokes, flags and other signals, is as old as warfare, really.

The Indians, in this country, used to send news an astonishing distance in an amazingly short time. They used smokes, as we know, since we have all worked out those signals ourselves from time to time. And all nations in time of war have employed relays of men with flags, stationed at fixed intervals for scores of miles, for the sending of despatches and important news. Napoleon used the system on a great scale, and, until the telegraph was invented and made practicable for field work, that was the only way it could be done."