The Guns of Europe Part 42

Daylight found them at a small river. The bridge was not broken down, and they inferred that it was within the lines of defense. An hour later they learned from a peasant that a British force was camped about fifteen miles north and west, and they induced him with good gold to drive them nearly the whole way in his cart. About a mile from the roadside he insisted on their getting out and drove back rapidly.

"He's afraid his cart and horse would be seized," said Carstairs. "We could have forced him to go on, but we'll not set a bad example."

The road now led over a hill and at its crest Carstairs took off his hat and waved it proudly.

"Don't you see?" he exclaimed. "Look! Look! The British flag!"

"What British flag?" said Wharton. "You've a lot of your rags."

"Never mind they're all glorious. See it, waving there by the tents!"

"Yes, I see it, but why are you English so excitable? Any way it's probably waving over valiant Scotchmen and Irishmen."

"Wharton, you grumpy old Yankee, descendant of sour Puritan ancestors, we've won our way through in face of everything!"

He seized Wharton about the waist, and the two waltzed up and down the road, while John laughed from sheer joy.

"Bill come an' look at the crazy Frenchmen dancin' in the road," said a voice that reeked of the Strand.

Bill who was from London himself came out of some bushes by the side of the road, and gazed with wonder at the whirling figures. John knew that they belonged on the first line of the British outposts and he said politely:

"You're partly wrong. My friends are crazy right enough, but they're not Frenchmen. One is an Englishman like yourselves, and the other is an American, but regularly enlisted in the Franco-British service, as I am too."

Carstairs and Wharton stopped dancing. Carstairs took off his hat, and made a deep bow to the astonished pickets.

"I'm not bowing to you, though G.o.d knows you deserve it," he said. "I'm bowing instead to the British nation which is here incarnate in your khaki clad persons."

"Touched a bit 'ere, Bill," said one of the men, putting his finger to his forehead.

"A bit off says I too, 'Arry. We used to get 'em sometimes on our 'bus in the Strand. Speak 'em gentle, and they'll stop carrying on."

Carstairs exuded joy and he extended a welcoming hand.

"I take it that you were the driver and conductor of a 'bus in the Strand."

"Right you are sir," they replied together, and then one added:

"If you'll go down to the foot of the hill you'll see the good old 'bus itself with all the signs still on it. But I'll 'ave to ask you first, sir, who you are and what do you want?"

John had never thought before that the c.o.c.kney accent would be so grateful to his ear, but his pleasure at seeing the men was scarcely less than that of Carstairs. They did not come from his own land, but they came from the land of his ancestors, and that was next best.

Carstairs and Wharton quickly showed their dispatches. Bill promptly took them to a sergeant, and in a half hour they stood beside the general's tent in the center of ten thousand men, the vanguard of the British army. Dispatches have never been read more eagerly and when Wharton, in addition, told the story of the chateau roof and the wireless the general felt a great thrill of excitement.

"I'm bound to believe all that you say," he said looking into the three honest young faces. "Darrell, see that they have refreshment at once, because we move in an hour."

Darrell, a young aide procured them food and horses. Soon the whole detachment was marching toward the main force, and the three true to the promise of their c.o.c.kney friends saw London 'buses, still covered with their hideous signs lumbering along as transports. At noon they joined the chief British army, and the next day they were in touch with the French.

The preceding night the three received places in wagons and slept heavily. By morning their strength was fully restored and pending the arrival of the Strangers, with whom they intended to remain they served as aides.

Several days pa.s.sed, but not in idleness. Incessant skirmishing went on in front, and the Uhlans were nearly always in sight. John felt the presence of vast numbers. He surmised that the British army did not number more than a hundred thousand men, but mult.i.tudes of French were on their right and still greater mult.i.tudes of Germans were in front. It was a wonderful favor of fortune or skill that the British had not been cut off and as the German hosts, fierce and determined, poured forward, there was no certainty that it would not yet happen.

John soon became at home among the English, Scotch and Irish. He found many of his own countrymen in their ranks and he continually heard his own language in more or less varied form.

The thrilling nature of the tremendous spectacle soon made him forget to some extent the awfulness of war. Riding with his comrades at night along the front he saw again the flashing of the German searchlights, and now and then came the mighty boom of the great guns.

Belgian refugees told them that the advance of the Germans was like the rolling in of the sea. Their gray hosts poured forward on every road.

They would be going through a village, for hours and hours, for a day, a night and then the next day, an endless gray tide, every man perfectly equipped, every man in his place, hot food always ready for them at the appointed time, cavalry in vast ma.s.ses, and cannon past counting.

The knowledge lay upon John like a weight, tremendous and appalling, and yet he would not have been elsewhere. He was glad to be on the battle front when the fate of half a billion people was being decided.

Many of the spectacular features afforded by earlier battles disappeared, but others took their place. In the clear air they sometimes saw the flashes of the giant cannon, miles away, and flying machines and captive balloons sprinkled the air. An army could no longer hide itself. Forests and hollows were of no avail. The scouts of the blue, looking down saw every move, and they brought word that the menace was growing heavier every hour.

"We'll fight on the morrow," said John as he stood with Carstairs and Wharton before a camp fire. "I feel that the Germans will surely attack in the morning."

CHAPTER XIV

THE GERMAN HOST

John was turning away from the camp fire with his friends, when he saw something drop out of the dark, and disappear in a little valley near them.

"Another of those aeroplanes," said Carstairs. "I can't get wholly used to the way they zigzag and spiral about at night like huge birds of prey. They always give me a chill, even when I know they're our own."

John had secured one good look at the machine as it swooped toward the earth, and he asked his friends to walk with him toward the improvised hangar, where it would surely be lying.

They saw a man of slender but very strong build step from the aeroplane, and throw back his visor, showing a tanned face, a somewhat aquiline nose, and eyes penetrating and powerful like those of some bird that soaring far up sees its prey on the earth below. It was an unusual, distinctive face, and the red firelight accentuated every salient characteristic.

"Lannes!" said John joyfully. "I thought it was the _Arrow_ when I saw you descending!"

John stood in the shadow, and the young Frenchman took a step forward to see better. Then he too uttered an exclamation of gladness.

"It's Monsieur Jean the Scott, my comrade of the great battles in the air!" he said. "It was my hope rather than my expectation to find you here."

He grasped the extended hand and shook it with great warmth. Then John introduced him to his friends. Lannes and Carstairs surveyed each other a moment.

"Frenchman and Englishman have been on the same battle fields for a thousand years," said Carstairs.

"Usually the only ones there, and fighting each other," said Lannes.

"Whichever side won, the victory was never easy."

"You are a brave people. We French are the best witnesses of it."

"We are always slow to start. We are usually the last to reach the battle field."