The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps Part 13

No others were in sight. The two burly Teutons looked in amazement at the aeroplane, as if unable to grasp the fact that it was plainly marked with the red, white and blue circles stamping it as a machine belonging to the Allied armies.

While the boys knew well where they were, and how impossible it seemed that they could escape capture eventually, the sight of two German soldiers right at the spot upon which they had so unfortunately been compelled to land, was a real disappointment to them. Perhaps it was just such a disappointment, however, that was needed to key them up to prompt action.

Bob did not dare to try to clear the tall, thick hedge which separated the field he had chosen for a landing place from the one next to it.

He must stick to his original intention. As he swooped down to the fairly level ground d.i.c.ky took one last glance at the pair of soldiers, who had started toward the point where they thought the plane would land. The question in d.i.c.ky's mind was as to whether or not the Boches would take a pot shot at the airmen before the machine came to rest. Evidently that had not occurred to them, however, and they merely started on a run, with the humane idea of taking the aviators prisoner.

The machine taxied the full length of the pasture and went full tilt into the hedge at the end of it. Luckily this hedge was just thick enough to stop the aeroplane effectively and yet prevent it from breaking through and capsizing. While the machine did not go on through the hedge, the two boys did. They crashed through and landed on the soft earth on the other side at almost the same moment.

Each turned quickly to the other as they picked themselves up.

Neither was seriously hurt, though Bob was badly shaken, and had sc.r.a.ped most of the skin off the front of both shins. d.i.c.ky's head had burrowed into the soft turf, and but for his aviator's cap he might have been badly bruised. That protection had saved him all injury save a skinned shoulder.

"Come on, let's give 'em a run for it!" yelled d.i.c.ky, who was first to recover his breath.

He started off, keeping close to the hedge, Bob close on his heels.

As they approached the corner of the field they were faced with another hedge, evidently of much the same character as the one through which the boys had been hurled so unceremoniously a moment before.

Inspired by a sudden thought, he put on a burst of speed, ran straight up to the leafy barrier, and dove right at it, head first as he used to "hit the center" for dear old Brighton. His maneuver did not carry him quite through, but he managed to wriggle on just in time to clear the way for Bob, who dived after him.

It was no time for words. d.i.c.ky started off to the right as fast as he could go, ever keeping close to the protecting hedge, running swiftly and silently over the gra.s.s, Bob not many feet behind. One hundred yards of rapid sprinting brought them to a lower, thinner hedge through which they climbed easily. Fifty yards away was a stream, which they jumped, finding themselves in a small wood. They made their way through this and debouched on a narrow country lane.

The countryside seemed to contain no one except the two fleeing Americans and the two pursuing Germans. No sort of ground could have suited better the game of hide-and-seek they had started.

Each time the Boches came to a hedge or a bit of brush they had to guess which way the Yanks had turned. Only once were they guided by footprints.

Fully accoutered and loath to throw off any of their equipment, the two Germans soon became thoroughly winded, and finally stopped short.

They had no doubt lost some minutes at the start by warily examining the plane and all around it for signs of the former occupants, which had given the Brighton boys just the start they so badly needed.

But the lads were really but little better off when they came to the conclusion that they had, for the time, at least, shaken off their pursuers. They had pa.s.sed fairly close to a cottage, which was apparently untenanted. Now they came upon another. No signs of life could they see around it. They pulled up for the first time and stood behind a rude shack nearby.

"Lot of good it will do us to run away from those two," growled Bob, panting. "If they don't find us some other Boches will. It is only prolonging the agony."

"I prefer the agony of being free to the agony of being a prisoner, just the same," replied d.i.c.ky. "Those two soldiers may have a job on that will not allow them to hang around here long. We have come quite a distance, and they would be very lucky to find us now. I'll bet they have gone on about their business. They will report the fact that a plane came down, and whoever comes to find it will think some other fellows have picked us up. This is too big a war for anyone to worry much about two men. Besides, the very hopelessness of our fix is in our favor."

"I don't mind looking for silver linings to the cloud," said Bob.

"But how you make that out I cannot see."

"Why, who would ever dream that we could get away? Who would even imagine it possible? Will the Germans spend much time searching to see if two Americans are hiding so far inside their lines? Of course not. They will think it absolutely impossible that we could get any distance without being picked up. Why should they waste their time over us?"

"Well, is that cheering?"

"You bet it is!"

"Do you mean that there is a chance that we will not be picked up?"

"Of course I do. Cheer up! We are not caught yet. Sicker chaps than we are have got well. True we can't get back to our front; and true again the chances are thousands to one against our escaping capture, but Holland is somewhere back of us and to the north---and we have that one chance, in spite of all the odds."

"And what'll they do to us in Holland---intern us for the duration of the war!" Bob was still pessimistic.

"Oh, you can't tell. If we can get away from the Boches we can surely get away from the easy-going Dutchmen---and anyway, if we must be interned I'd rather it happened in Holland than in Hun-land.

Let's play the game till time is called."

"You're right," said Bob. "I ought to be ashamed of myself for losing heart. Let's forget that we came down in that plane, and think of ourselves as pedestrians. I remember reading somewhere that if you want to play a part you've got to imagine yourself living it. Let's think we are Belgians."

"Good! And let's look like Belgians too---I guess to do that we will have to turn burglar, eh? Well---they say all's fair in love and war, you know. Come on! Let's break into this house and see what we can find?"

CHAPTER X

PLANNING THE ESCAPE

No breaking in was found necessary. The back door opened readily enough. The boys stepped into the rude kitchen and closed the door, listening for a moment in the silence. A meal of sorts was still spread on the plain deal table, but it had evidently been there for some days. The place seemed to have been deserted by its inhabitants without any preparation or warning. The stillness was uncanny, and Bob's voice sounded unusually loud as he remarked:

"Not even a cat left behind."

The poverty of the former occupants was apparent from a glance about the room, on one side of which was a half-cupboard, half-wardrobe, the open door of which showed sundry worn, dirty garments, little more than collections of rags.

"There is another room in front," remarked Bob. "From the look of things here, though, we can hardly expect to find any clothing that will serve our purposes."

d.i.c.ky stepped toward the door leading to the front of the building.

"It is as silent as the grave, without a doubt," he said as he turned the handle and pushed gently. The door would not open.

"Stand back and let me shove," said Bob.

He put his shoulder against the door and threw his weight against it. The flimsy lock broke at the first strain, and Bob caught himself just in time to save himself from falling. No sooner had the boys gained an entrance to the room than they saw they were not the only occupants of it. On one side stood a low bed, upon which rested the wasted form of an old woman, her white hair pushed smoothly back from her forehead, but spread in tumbled disorder on the pillow.

The old woman was dead.

The locked front door showed she had shut herself in to die, and had died alone. How long she had lain there, as if asleep, for so she appeared, was a matter of conjecture. The thin, gnarled hands, brown with outdoor labor, were folded on her breast. Her face showed that calm with which death stamps the faces of long-suffering, simple-minded peasant folk. The patient resignation through the long years of toil, through years, perhaps, of pain and suffering, suffering more likely than not borne in silence, taken as a matter of course---all seemed to have culminated in the quiet peace on the seamed dead face.

No wonder the boys involuntarily uncovered and stood for some time without speaking.

"Somebody's mother," said d.i.c.ky at last, with a catch in his throat as he uttered the words.

"Yes, perhaps," said Bob, as he gently covered the body with a blanket.

"We must bury her decently. Who knows how long she might have lain here but for our chance coming?"

Under a dust sheet, strung on a bit of string along the side of the room, the boys found many women's garments, of the cheapest, simplest sort, and some men's clothing. d.i.c.ky stripped off his uniform and pulled on a random selection of what lay to his hand. With the addition of a dirty cap, found on the floor at the foot of the bed, and a pair of coa.r.s.e boots, one without a heel, that were discovered in the cupboard in the kitchen, d.i.c.ky's disguise was complete. Given a plentiful application of dirt on face and hands, and a couple of days' growth of stubble on his chin, no one could have imagined him a smart young officer.

Bob was not so easy to outfit. His larger size made it impossible for him to find a coat that he could get into, so he had to content himself with an old shirt and a dilapidated pair of trousers which did not come near his feet. No other hat or cap could he find.

Toward dusk, at d.i.c.ky's suggestion, they went out and made a search for some rude instrument wherewith to dig a grave. They found a broken shovel and a dull adze-like implement. The grave prepared, and dusk having come, Bob was struck with the idea that they had best bury their uniforms.

"If the Germans should happen to clap eyes on us and decided to search us, it would be all up with two Brighton boys," said Bob.

"So it's my think that we'd better hide the certain evidences as to our ident.i.ty."

d.i.c.ky not only agreed to this, and started at once to put the idea into practice, but made a further suggestion. "We might give the poor old woman a better resting place further afield, if we knew where to find a graveyard," he said.

"We can search for one," replied Bob. "To carry her away from here would be the best plan, and bury her when we find a proper burial ground. We certainly should not have to take her far."

"If we were discovered doing so, I suppose the fact we were actually carrying our dead, or what the Germans would think was our dead, would help us to get a bit further, too," d.i.c.ky argued.