The Boy Scouts on the Trail Part 19

Even the enemy, the hated Germans, found that the Boy Scouts were useful. There was constant danger of an outbreak, and the Germans had no desire to destroy Amiens. Had they been attacked from the houses, they would have lost heavily; in house-to-house fighting civilians, battling at close range, can inflict great damage on the best of regular troops.

Such an outbreak would have meant the killing and the wounding of hundreds of German soldiers. The punishment would have been terrible, indeed, but that would not have brought a single Prussian back to life--a single Bavarian, rather, since these were Bavarian troops.

The Boy Scouts served as intermediaries between the Germans and the French civil authorities. They carried messages, and, at the order of the mayor, they submitted themselves to the orders of the German staff when it was necessary to explain a new decree to the citizens. They had many other things to do, also. It was largely the scouts who saw to the gathering of the supplies requisitioned by the Germans. The enemy had been inexorable in this respect; they set a definite time limit for the filling of every requisition they made, and it was well understood that drastic measures would be taken were they not satisfied.

Each day a new group of hostages was taken into the Hotel de Ville, now occupied as headquarters by the German staff, rather than the buildings formerly used by the Second Corps d'Armee of France. These hostages, it was explained, would be shot at once if orders were not obeyed or if Germans were attacked. There were many irksome rules. Every citizen was required to salute a German officer whenever he saw him. Lights must be out at a certain hour each night, and after that hour any citizen found in the streets without a permit was liable to arrest and execution without trial. They were under martial rule.

But always the sound of heavy firing in the southeast continued.

"I really believe the great battle is being fought at last, Henri!" said Frank. "We have heard that firing now for three days. It comes from the direction of the Marne. There is another thing. Since yesterday no troop trains have gone south through Amiens."

"But empty trains go through!" cried Henri. "And they come back, loaded with German wounded! You are right, Francois! We have begun to drive the Prussians back to the Rhine!"

News they had none. All Amiens was cut off from the world. Whatever the German invaders knew they kept strictly to themselves. It was only by such inferences as they could draw from the sound of firing in the direction of Paris and by the pa.s.sage of trains through the city that they were able to form any opinion at all.

"I feel sure that there's a real battle going on," said Frank. "The firing is too heavy and too continuous for a rear guard action. But as to who is winning, we can't tell. Sometimes the firing seems to be a little nearer again, but that might be because of the wind. And as for the trains that are going through, that doesn't really mean anything.

They might have decided to send troops to the front by another railway.

They control the line through Rheims, too."

But the morning after they had decided that there was no real way to tell what was happening, something definite did come up. Nearly all the troops in Amiens moved south. Only a few hundred remained, enough to garrison the town and control the railway, since there seemed no danger of an allied raid. But the fact that the other troops were being sent up to the front indicated that the fighting was a.s.suming a character far more desperate than the Germans had expected.

"They must be fighting on the line of the river Marne," said Frank. "You see, during that long retreat, there was time to entrench there. And open field entrenchments seem to be better than fortified places. Look at how quickly Namur fell, when everyone thought it would hold the Germans back for days."

"The country there is difficult, too," said Henri. "My father said once that it was there that the garrison of Paris should have fought first in 1870, instead of waiting inside the forts for the Prussians to come."

"I think that everything favors us now, for the first time," said Frank.

"The Germans have been winning--they have made a wonderful dash through Belgium and France. They must have got very close to Paris. I believe the roar of guns is as easy to hear in Paris as here. And then, suddenly, when they think they are to have it all their own way, their enemy turns and faces them, and holds them. That much we may be sure of.

The battle has been raging now for four days at least, perhaps for five.

And the firing has certainly not gone further away. Even if we are not gaining, it is a gain if the Germans cannot advance."

They were glad now that they were busy. A few refugees from the south were coming, driven back by the Germans. Perhaps they would rather have tried to reach Paris, but the battle stopped that. And always there were errands to be run, and messages to be carried. It went against the grain to obey the orders of German officers, and to be obliged to salute these officers whenever they were encountered, but it was necessary. And the scouts of Amiens, when they knew what their duty was, did it, no matter how unpleasant it might be.

Now the troops who formed the garrison of Amiens changed almost daily.

Older men were now in the tents, and some young boys.

"The last cla.s.ses of their reserves must have been called out," said Frank. "These are not first line troops that are up, but the ones who are supposed to guard lines of communication and to garrison interior fortresses."

There were times when more officers than men seemed to be in the town.

Amiens seemed to be used as a point where shipments of supplies and of ammunition for troops at the front were concentrated and diverted to the various divisions at the front. This involved the presence of a great number of officers of the commissariat department, who seemed to work night and day.

Men fight best on a full stomach, and the Germans understood this thoroughly, and saw to it that their soldiers did not have to go into battle hungry. Amiens also formed the headquarters of one branch of the German flying corps. Here aviators in great numbers were present constantly. Damaged monoplanes and biplanes were brought back for repairs. And it was this fact that brought a startling experience to the two scouts. For one day, as they rode on their bicycles on an errand through the square before the Hotel de Ville, they were arrested by a sudden fierce shout. An officer ran out toward them, his face distorted with anger. And Frank, with a sinking heart, recognized him as the man who had fired at Henri on the night they had burned the Zeppelins.

"Arrest that boy!" he cried, pointing to Henri. "He is a spy! He is a French, spy, I say!"

For a moment Frank hesitated. Then he rode away, leaving Henri to his fate. He looked back, to see two Germans holding his chum.

CHAPTER XX

A DESPERATE GAME

Frank had sped away because he was afraid that the officer might recognize him in a moment also. And yet it was not fear, in the sense that he was fearful of what might happen to him, that led him seemingly to abandon his comrade. It was the knowledge that were he too a prisoner, there would be no hope for either of them. He knew how the Germans must have regarded the destruction of the Zeppelins. It was a blow that might prove, when the final accounting was made, to have cost them the success of the invasion of France. And he had no illusions as to the fate of those who might be proved to be responsible for that.

Technically, they had not acted as spies when they had played the daring trick that had resulted in such a disaster to the German cause. But they had been non-combatants, civilians, and by the laws of war the civilian who takes active measures of any sort against the enemy is liable to death. The German army enforced this rule strictly and invariably.

Neither age nor s.e.x was a reason for sparing one who had violated it. A woman spy, a boy of fifteen who fired at Germans, would alike be made to face a firing squad.

No. If he and Henri were caught, and this officer, who had already shown his venomous hate for them, was their accuser, they would never live to see the German defeat for which they prayed. Frank hoped that Henri would understand, that he would know that he had taken to flight because it afforded the only chance of saving him.

Frank had reasoned quickly. He had been sure that the next move of the German officer would have been to denounce him also. But while the German officer had had a good look at Henri on the night of the Zeppelin disaster, he had not seen Frank. Frank had been in the shadow when the officer had tried to murder Henri; he had taken the German by surprise, and stunned him. And so there was no way in which the German could know him again, unless he saw him with Henri and so leaped to the conclusion that he must also have been with him on the night of disaster.

By that process of reasoning Frank argued that he might remain free to go about the town. The Germans had come to trust the Boy Scouts, understanding that their honor was pledged when they gave their word, even to an enemy. Some of the restrictions applying to the other citizens of Amiens did not restrain them. They were allowed to be on the streets after the hour of curfew, for one thing. And between the scouts and a good many of the German privates and younger officers a relation almost friendly had been established. Frank, for instance, was welcomed at one Bavarian mess, which contained several soldiers who had studied at English schools, and liked a chance to air their knowledge of the English tongue. He hoped to gain some information in this way.

Nor was he wrong. His friends had heard of the arrest of Henri, who, like Frank, was popular with them. And it turned out that they had little use for the officer who had caused the arrest. He was known as a tyrant who had more than once during the campaign shot down his own men for slight breaches of discipline. Frank learned that he had been degraded for the destruction of the Zeppelins, for which he had been held responsible. His superiors had scouted his story of two boys who had burned the dirigibles, and had a.s.sumed that he had been careless.

Therefore Frank found it easy to discover where Henri was confined. He was to be tried by court-martial early in the morning, and for the night he was in a room on the ground floor of the Hotel de Ville.

"He's only a boy," said a Bavarian corporal. "No need to guard him closely. Even if he escaped, where could he go? Our men are everywhere."

Frank smiled to himself. He had made a discovery a day or two before that had not escaped his mind. That afternoon he managed to make certain preparations un.o.bserved. And when night came he was ready to hazard his own liberty, and his life, if that should prove to be necessary, in an attempt to rescue Henri. He knew the room in which Henri was confined. It was on the side of the Hotel de Ville that overlooked the river. No sentries were posted there, and it was easy for Frank to get to a spot directly underneath Henri's window. The other bank of the river was well guarded, and that was why no sentries watched the side on which was the town hall. It was argued, Frank supposed, that anyone escaping must attempt to swim the river and that when they tried to climb the other bank it would be easy to find them.

In principle, too, that was a good idea. What it did not take into account was the discovery that Frank had made--and kept to himself.

It was just before midnight when he began a faint tapping at Henri's window. He used a light bamboo cane, tipped with soft cloth, so that the sound, audible to anyone in the room, would not carry more than a few feet. And he tapped out his signal in the Morse code very slowly, knowing that Henri would hear and understand.

In a few moments there was the sound of the window opening very gently.

And then Henri slipped down beside him, taking the short drop by hanging from the window with his hands. He seized Frank's hand.

"I knew you would try to help me," he whispered. "But I had better go back. We cannot escape. There are sentries on the other bank of the Somme. They would catch us together, and you would be a prisoner, too."

"Follow me," said Frank. "Take off your shoes. Drop quietly into the water--make no sound of a splash. Swim after me. I shall show you something you do not expect to see."

Frank slipped into the water. Both boys were expert swimmers, and Frank, leading the way, slipped along in the deep shadow, without a sound.

Henri swam after him. At last Frank stopped and whispered to Henri.

"You see this b.u.t.tress? Dive just beyond it, and swim under water for ten feet. Put up your hands then, and rise. There will be room."

At once he dived and disappeared, and Henri followed. When they came to the surface they were in a dark, damp hole, that smelled of slime and filth. But in a moment Henri felt steps, and then there was a faint light that illuminated a vault full of water. And, to his wonder, he saw a boat, covered, except at one end, with a dark cloth.

"In with you!" whispered Frank. "Under the cloth, and lie still!"

Frank followed when Henri had obeyed. And then the boat began to move in a direction different from that by which they had entered the vault.

"I am pushing it with my hands along the wall," explained Frank, still in a whisper. "That will bring us to the opening--the smallest possible that would allow the boat to pa.s.s into the stream. Then the current will carry us down. I have a rudder, that will hold us in the shadow of the left bank through all the turns. It is a chance--the only one we had. If all goes well, we shall drift down below the city and be safe!"

Soon they were caught in the current of the Somme. There followed a time of terrible and desperate trial and terror. At every shout they heard they thought they had been discovered. Never did they dare to raise their heads to look out. Their chance was a double one, but of the faintest, at best. Perhaps they would not be seen at all; perhaps, even if the boat was seen, no sentry would consider it worth remark.