Tom Slade, Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer Part 10

"I think the best way to get into the village," said Roscoe, "is to follow the edge of the wood around. That'll bring us to the by-path that runs into the main road. They've got the woods pretty well cleared out over that way. There's a road a little north of here and I think the Germans have withdrawn across that. What do you say?"

"You know more about it than I do," said Tom. "I followed the brook up.

It's pretty bad in some places."

"There's only two of us," said Roscoe, "and you've no rifle. Safety first."

"I suppose there's a lot of places they could hide along the brook; the brush is pretty thick all the way up," Tom added.

Roscoe whistled softly in indecision. "I like the open better," said he.

"I guess so," Tom agreed, "when there's only two of us."

"There's three of us, though," said Roscoe, "and _Tommy_ here likes the open better. I'd toss up a coin only with these blamed French coins you can't tell which is heads and which is tails."

Roscoe was right about the Germans having withdrawn beyond the road north of the woods. Whether he was right about its being safer to go around the edge of the forest remained to be determined.

This wood, in which they had pa.s.sed the day, extended north of the village (see map) and thinned out upon the eastern side so that one following the eastern edge would emerge from the wood a little east of the main settlement. Here was the by-path which Roscoe had mentioned, and which led down into the main road.

Running east and west across the northern extremity of the woods was a road, and the Germans, driven first from their trenches, then out of the village, and then out of the woods, were establishing their lines north of this road.

If the boys had followed the brook down they would have reached the village by a much shorter course, but Roscoe preferred the open country where they could keep a better lookout. Whether his decision was a wise one, we shall see.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHOWING PATH TAKEN BY TOM AND ROSCOE THROUGH THE WOODS]

Leaving the scene of their "complete annihilation of the crack poison division," as Roscoe said, they followed the ragged edge of the woods where it thinned out to the north, verging around with it until they were headed in a southerly direction.

"There's a house on that path," said Roscoe, "and we ought to be able to see a light there pretty soon."

"There's a little piece of woods ahead of us," said Tom; "when we get past that we'll see it, I guess. We'll cut through there, hey?"

"Wait a minute," said Roscoe, pausing and peering about in the half darkness. "I'm all twisted. There's the house now."

He pointed to a dim light in the opposite direction to that which they had taken.

"That's north," said Tom in his usual dull manner.

"You're mistaken, my boy. What makes you think it's north?"

"I didn't say I thought so," said Tom. "I said it _is_."

Roscoe laughed. "Same old Tom," he said. "But how do you know it's north?"

"You remember that mountain up in the Catskills?" Tom said. "The first time I ever went to the top of that mountain was in the middle of the night. I never make that kind of mistakes. I know because I just know."

Roscoe laughed again and looked rather dubiously at the light in the distance. Then he shook his head, unconvinced.

"We've been winding in and out along the edge of this woods," said Tom, "so that you're kind of mixed up, that's all. It's always those little turns that throw people out, just like it's a choppy sea that upsets a boat; it ain't the big waves. I used to get rattled like that myself, but I don't any more."

Roscoe drew his lips tight and shook his head skeptically. "I can't understand about that light," he said.

"I always told you you made a mistake not to be a scout when you were younger," said Tom in that impa.s.sive tone which seemed utterly free of the spirit of criticism and which always amused Roscoe, "'cause then you wouldn't bother about the light but you'd look at the stars. Those are sure."

Roscoe looked up at the sky and back at Tom, and perhaps he found a kind of rea.s.surance in that stolid face. "All right, Tommy," said he, "what you say, goes. Come ahead."

"That light is probably on the road the Germans retreated across," said Tom, as they picked their way along. His unerring instinct left him entirely free from the doubts which Roscoe could not altogether dismiss.

"I don't say there ain't a light on the path you're talking about, but if we followed this one we'd probably get captured. I was seven months in a German prison. I don't know how you'd like it, but I didn't."

Roscoe laughed silently at Tom's dry way of putting it. "All right, Tommy, boy," he said. "Have it your own way."

"You ought to be satisfied the way you can shoot," said Tom, by way of reconciling Roscoe to his leadership.

"All right, Tommy. Maybe you've got the b.u.mp of locality. When we get past that little arm of the woods just ahead we ought to see the right light then, huh?"

"_Spur_ is the right name for it, not _arm_," said Tom. "You might as well say it right."

"The pleasure is mine," laughed Roscoe; "Tommy, you're as good as a circus."

They made their way in a southeasterly direction, following the edge of the woods, with the open country to the north and east of them.

Presently they reached the "spur," as Tom called it, which seemed to consist of a little "cape" of woods, as one might say, sticking out eastward. They could shorten their path a trifle by cutting through here, and this they did, Roscoe (notwithstanding Tom's stolid self-confidence) watching anxiously for the light which this spur had probably concealed, and which would a.s.sure them that they were heading southward toward the path which led into Cantigny village.

Once, twice, in their pa.s.sage through this little clump of woods Tom paused, examining the trees and ground, picking up small branches and looking at their ends, and throwing them away again.

"Funny how those branches got broken off," he said.

Roscoe answered with a touch of annoyance, the first he had shown since their meeting in the woods.

"I'm not worrying about those twigs," he said; "I don't see that light and I think we're headed wrong."

"They're not twigs," said Tom literally; "they're branches, and they're broken off."

"Any fool could tell the reason for that," said Roscoe, rather scornfully. "It's the artillery fire."

Tom said nothing, but he did not accept Roscoe's theory. He believed that some one had been through here before them and that the branches had been broken off by human hands; and but for the fact that Roscoe had let him have his own way in the matter of direction he would have suggested that they make a detour around this woody spur. However, he contented himself by saying in his impa.s.sive way, "I know when branches are broken off."

"Well, what are we going to do now?" Roscoe demanded, stopping short and speaking with undisguised impatience. "You can see far beyond those trees now and you can see there's no light. They'll have us nailed upon a couple of crosses to-morrow. I don't intend to be tortured on account of the Boy Scouts of America."

He used the name as being synonymous with bungling and silly notions and star-gazing, and it hit Tom in a dangerous spot. He answered with a kind of proud independence which he seldom showed.

"I didn't say there'd be a light. Just because there's a house it doesn't mean there's got to be a light. I said the light we saw was in the north, and it's got nothing to do with the Boy Scouts. You wouldn't let me point your rifle for you, would you? They sent me to this sector 'cause I don't get lost and I don't get rattled. You said that about the Scouts just because you're mad. I'm not hunting for any light. I'm going back to Cantigny and I know where I'm at. You can come if you want to or you can go and get caught by the Germans if you want to. I went a hundred miles through Germany and they didn't catch _me_--'cause I always know where I'm at."

He went on for a few steps, Roscoe, after the first shock of surprise, following silently behind him. He saw Tom stumble, struggle to regain his balance, heard a crunching sound, and then, to his consternation, saw him sink down and disappear before his very eyes.

In the same instant he was aware of a figure which was not Tom's scrambling up out of the dark, leaf-covered hollow and of the muzzle of a rifle pointed straight at him.

Evidently Tom Slade had not known "where he was at" at all.