The Forest of Swords Part 10

"I hope so," said John. "I'm not anxious to get killed, but I'd rather be in the battle than wait. I wonder if I'll meet anywhere on the front that company to which I belong, the Strangers."

"I think I've heard of them," said de Rougemont, "a body of Americans and Englishmen, volunteers in the French service, commanded by Captain Daniel Colton."

"Right you are, and I've two particular friends in that company--I suppose they've rejoined it--Wharton, an American, and Carstairs, an Englishman. We went through a lot of dangers together before we reached the British army near Mons, and I'd like to see them again."

"Maybe you will, but here comes an extraordinary procession."

They heard many puffing sounds, uniting in one grand puffing chorus, and saw advancing down a white road toward them a long, ghostly train, as if a vast troop of extinct monsters had returned to earth and were marching this way. But John knew very well that it was a train of automobiles and raising the gla.s.ses that he now always carried he saw that they were empty except for the chauffeurs.

General Vaugirard began to whistle his mellowest and most musical tune, stopping only at times to mutter a few words under his breath. John surmised that he was expressing deep satisfaction, and that he had been waiting for the motor train. War was now fought under new conditions.

The Germans had thousands and scores of thousands of motors, and perhaps the French were provided almost as well.

"I fancy," said de Rougemont, who was also watching the arrival of the machines, "that we'll leave our horses now and travel by motor."

De Rougemont's supposition was correct. The line of automobiles began to ma.s.s in front, many rows deep, and all the chauffeurs, their great goggles shining through the darkness, were bent over their wheels ready to be off at once with their armed freight. It filled John with elation, and he saw the same spirit shining in the eyes of the young French officers.

General Vaugirard began to puff like one of the machines. He threw out his great chest, pursed up his mouth and emitted his breath in little gusts between his lips, "Very good! Very good, my children!" he said, "Oil and electricity will carry us now, and we go forward, not backward!"

True to de Rougemont's prediction, the horses were given to orderlies, and the staff and a great portion of the troops were taken into the cars. General Vaugirard and several of the older officers occupied a huge machine, and just behind him came de Rougemont, John and a half-dozen young lieutenants and captains in another. Before them stretched a great white road. Far overhead hovered many aeroplanes. John had no doubt that the _Arrow_ was among them, or rather was the farthest one forward. Lannes' eager soul, wound or no wound, would keep him in front.

They now moved rapidly, and John's spirits continued to rise. There was something wonderful in this swift march on wheels in the moonlight. As far back as he could see the machines came in a stream, and to the left and right he saw them proceeding on other roads also. All the country was strange to John. He could not remember having seen it from the aeroplane, and he was sure that the army, instead of going to Paris, was bound for some point where it would come in instant contact with the German forces.

"Do you know the road?" he asked of de Rougemont.

"Not at all. I'm from the Gironde country. I've been in Paris, but I know little of the region about it. A good way to reach the front, is it not, Mr. Scott?"

"Fine. I fancy that we're hurried forward to make a link in a chain, or at least to stop a gap."

"And those large birds overhead are scouting for us."

"Look! One of them is dropping down. I dare say it's making a report to some general higher in rank than ours."

He pointed with a long forefinger, and John watched the aeroplane come down in its slanting course like a falling star. It was a beautiful night, a light blue sky, with a fine moon and hosts of clear stars. One could see far, and soon after the plane descended John saw it rise again from the same spot, ascend high in air, and shoot off toward the east.

"That may have been Lannes," he said.

"Likely as not," said de Rougemont.

John now observed General Vaugirard, who sat erect in the front of his automobile, with a pair of gla.s.ses, relatively as huge as himself, to his eyes. Occasionally he would purse his lips, and John knew that his favorite expression was coming forth. To the young American's imaginative mind his broad back expressed rigidity and strength.

The great murmuring sound, the blended advance of so many men, made John sleepy by-and-by. In spite of himself his heavy eyelids drooped, and although he strove manfully against it, sleep took him. When he awoke he heard the same deep murmur, like the roll of the sea, and saw the army still advancing. It was yet night, though fine and clear, and there before him was the broad, powerful back of the general. Vaugirard was still using the gla.s.ses and John judged that he had not slept at all.

But in his own machine everybody was asleep except the man at the wheel.

The country had grown somewhat hillier, but its characteristics were the same, fertile, cultivated fields, a small wood here and there, clear brooks, and church spires shining in the dusk. Both horse and foot advanced across the fields, but the roads were occupied by the motors, which John judged were carrying at least twenty thousand men and maybe forty thousand.

He was not sleepy now, and he watched the vast panorama wheel past. He knew without looking at his watch that the night was nearly over, because he could already smell the dawn. The wind was freshening a bit, and he heard its rustle in the leaves of a wood as they pushed through it.

Then came a hum and a whir, and a long line of men on motor cycles at the edge of the road crept up and then pa.s.sed them. One checked his speed enough to run by the side of John's car, and the rider, raising his head a little, gazed intently at the young American. His cap closed over his face like a hood, but the man knew him.

"Fortune puts us on the same road again, Mr. Scott," he said.

"I don't believe I know you," said John, although there was a familiar note in the voice.

"And yet you've met me several times, and under exciting conditions. It seems to me that we're always pursuing similar things, or we wouldn't be together on the same road so often. You're acute enough. Don't you know me now?"

"I think I do. You're Fernand Weber, the Alsatian."

"And so I am. I knew your memory would not fail you. It's a great movement that we've begun, Mr. Scott. France will be saved or destroyed within the next few days."

"I think so."

"You've deserted your friend, Philip Lannes, the finest of our airmen."

"Oh, no, I haven't. He's deserted me. I couldn't afford to be a burden on his aeroplane at such a time as this."

"I suppose not. I saw an aeroplane come down to earth a little while ago, and then rise again. I'm sure it was his machine, the _Arrow_."

"So am I."

"Here's where he naturally would be. Good-bye, Mr. Scott, and good luck to you. I must go on with my company."

"Good-bye and good luck," repeated John, as the Alsatian shot forward.

He liked Weber, who had a most pleasing manner, and he was glad to have seen him once more.

"Who was that?" asked de Rougemont, waking from his sleep and catching the last words of farewell.

"An Alsatian, named Fernand Weber, who has risked his life more than once for France. He belongs to the motor-cycle corps that's just pa.s.sing."

"May he and his comrades soon find the enemy, because here is the day."

The leaves and gra.s.s rippled before the breeze and over the eastern hills the dawn broke.

CHAPTER IV

THE INVISIBLE HAND

It was a brilliant morning sun, deepening the green of the pleasant land, lighting up villages and glinting off church steeples. In a field a little distance to their right John saw two peasants at work already, bent over, their eyes upon the ground, apparently as indifferent to the troops as the troops were to them.

It was very early, but the sun was rising fast, unfolding a splendid panorama. The French army with its blues and reds was more spectacular than the German, and hence afforded a more conspicuous target. John was sure that if the war went on the French would discard these vivid uniforms and betake themselves to gray or khaki. He saw clearly that the day of gorgeous raiment for the soldier had pa.s.sed.

The great puffing sound of primeval monsters which had blended into one rather harmonious note ceased, as if by signal, and the innumerable motors stopped. As far as John could see the army stretched to left and right over roads, hills and fields, but in the fields behind them the silent peasants went on with their work--in fields which the Republic had made their own.

"I think we take breakfast here," said Rougemont. "War is what one of your famous American generals said it was, but for the present, at least, we are marching _de luxe_. Here comes one of those glorious camp-kitchens."