The Boy Scouts on the Trail Part 3

"No," said Frank. "I hope there never will be! But, tell me, would they fight here? Are there fortifications?"

"Not new ones--no," said Harry. He pointed to the old citadel crowning one of the hills that commanded the town and the crooked, twisting course of the Somme river. "There is the old citadel. That still stands. But the ancient battlements have been dismantled. I believe that in time of war, if the enemy got past the troops in the field, they could come peacefully into Amiens. It is not a fortress, like Lille or Maubeuge. Oh, look, there are some of the scouts! I see Monsieur Marron.

He is the directeur of the troop--the scoutmaster. Let us speak to him."

They went over to a tall man in khaki, who was speaking to an officer in the red and blue uniform of the French army. Henri saluted, and when the officer went away, the scoutmaster turned to him with a smile.

"Well--so you are here, Martin," he said. "Are you going to join? We will waive formalities--we need all the scouts we can get."

"Yes, sir, and I have brought a recruit. He is half French--the rest of him is American. But he wants to join, too. May he?"

"Certainly," said the scoutmaster. "Report to-night or in the morning.

Get your uniforms. Who is your recruit?"

Frank was introduced, and the tall Frenchman shook hands with him.

"You will be welcome," he said. "My boys are at work, you see. They are serving as messengers. There has been plenty for us to do in these days, too. Pray G.o.d there may not be more--and of a less pleasant sort."

Frank observed the French scouts with interest. They were in khaki uniforms, with wool stockings, and short trousers that stopped just above the knee, and the soft campaign hats made famous by the pioneer scouts in England. Indeed, they looked like the English and American scouts in many respects.

"One moment," said Marron, checked by a sudden thought. "You speak French well?" He asked the question of Frank, who smiled.

"Yes, sir," he said, in French. "My mother was French, you see."

"That is very good," said the scoutmaster. "Never fear, I shall be able to keep you busy as long as I am here. Soon, I hope, they will let me go to the front, where I should be right now."

"I thought you would have gone, sir," said Henri.

"They wanted me to stay with my boys at the first," said Marron, with a shrug of his shoulders. "But they can do their work alone now, and there is no fear that they will not do it well."

Then Frank and Henri went off, on their way to Henri's house.

"So we have come to Amiens after all and we are to join the Boy Scouts, just as we planned that day when I said there would be no war this year!"

"Yes--but it's different, isn't it, Henri?"

"Yes, and we can be of some real use now."

"I am glad that we are here, aren't you? When we get our uniforms and go to work, I shall feel that we are really being used in the war. I--I'm an American, of course, but I've hated the idea that I was so close to this war and wasn't having anything to do with it."

"And I--I have been wishing, Frank, that they might have waited until I was old enough to fight for France!"

CHAPTER V

THE FIRST DUTY

Morning brought awakening to the two friends with the sounding of reveille from bugles, seemingly just outside their window. Together they sprang from bed, raced to the window, wide open as it had been all night, and looked out. Not far away, in a small park, one of those for which the city of Amiens is famous, they saw an array of white tents that they had not seen the night before when they had gone to bed.

Already the camp was stirring; even as they watched the soldiers were all about. And early as it was, they saw a scout ride up on a bicycle, speak to the sentry who challenged him, and wait. In a moment an officer came out, the scout saluted, and his salute was returned as stiffly and gravely as it had been given. Then the scout handed the officer a letter, saluted again and, receiving permission, turned away and vaulted on his wheel.

Henri was vastly excited.

"Come on!" he cried eagerly. "Let's get dressed, Frank. I see that we should be out already."

"Yes. It's time we were getting busy if the others are at work," said Frank. "Where do you suppose those chaps came from?"

"I don't know--that's exactly what's puzzling me," said Henri, his brow knitted. "They don't look like reserve troops. I don't know exactly why, either, but we can soon find out."

They bathed and dressed hurriedly, and went down to find that Marie, the cook who had been with the Martin family ever since Henri could remember, was ready to give them their breakfast. In a time when many families for reasons of economy were allowing their servants to go, Henri's mother had kept all of hers.

"Now, more than ever," she said, "they need the work and the wages. It is a time for those who can possibly afford it to engage more servants, rather than to discharge those they have already in their employ and service."

Madame Martin, who, like Henri's aunt in Paris, was busy all day long in helping the wounded, doing voluntary duty in the Red Cross hospital to which she had been a.s.signed, was not yet up. She had greeted the two boys on their arrival the previous evening, but had left the house immediately after dinner, since it was her turn to do some night work.

"She is wearing herself out," complained old Marie. "A fine lady like her dressing the wounds of piou-pious, indeed!"

Frank laughed. He knew by this time what piou-piou meant. It is the endearing term of the French for the little red-trousered soldiers who form the armies of the republic, just as the English call a soldier Tommy Atkins.

"It is for France," said Henri, gravely. "I shall perhaps be a piou-piou myself before so very long, Marie."

"You will be an officer, will you not?" exclaimed Marie.

"It may be. I do not know," said Henri. "But the best and the greatest men in France, those who govern us and write books and plays, and paint pictures, and make fine statues, are in the ranks to-day. It is a privilege even for my mother to nurse them."

"All very well--but I won't have her getting all tired out," grumbled Marie. "Your father told me himself, when he went off, to look after her. And I'm going to do it."

"Where did the soldiers who are in the park come from?" asked Henri, changing the subject.

"Who knows? They come, they stay a few hours or a day, then they go, and others take their places! More soldiers have been in Amiens than I knew were in the world! We had some English--strange, mad men, who wore dresses to their knees and had music that sounded like a dozen cats fighting at night on a back yard fence."

Both the boys laughed at this description of the kilted Highlanders with their bagpipes, but they exchanged meaning glances. Paris did not know where the English troops were; barely knew that some had crossed the channel, and had landed in France. How many had come no one knew except those who would not tell. All that was announced was that England had sent help to her ally, and that English troops were again, as on so many occasions in the past, on French soil. But this time they came as friends, not as the enemies that Marlborough and Wellington had led.

"Well, we'll soon know, even if she can't tell us," said Henri. And as soon as they had had their breakfast, they slipped around to the kitchen. Henri and Frank both laughed, for they surprised half a dozen blushing, awkward infantrymen, who were receiving hot coffee and rolls--fare of a different sort from that afforded by the camp kitchens.

"Welcome, welcome!" said Henri. "My father is with his regiment, or he would speak, so I speak for him. Of what regiment are you, my friends?"

One of them mentioned its number, and Henri exclaimed in his surprise.

"But you are of the Nancy corps--the twentieth!" he cried. "You were fighting in Lorraine! Were you not among those who captured Mulhouse?"

"Yes." The soldier's face grew dark. "Ah, you are right! Of a truth we captured Mulhouse! How the Uhlans ran! We beat them there, and we were chasing them. Ah, the delight of that! There we were, in Alsace! The lost province! For the first time in forty-four years it saw French uniforms. For the first time since 1870 it was free from the Germans.

The people sang and cheered as we went into the villages. They brought us food. The young women spread flowers before us. And then--we came back. We were not beaten! We had orders to recross the border. And we were put on trains and brought here. The shame of it!"

"But you came?"

"Soldiers must obey! But even our officers, I can tell you, did not like it!"