Tom Slade with the Boys Over There Part 25

Almost to the Swiss border it ran, but no one could get across the Swiss border here without running into Prussian bayonets. To the east, where the Rhine flowed and where the mountains were, some reckless soul might manage it in a night's journeying, if he would brave the lonesome fastnesses; though even there the meshes of forbidding wire, charged with a death-giving voltage, stretched across the path. It was not an inviting route.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DON'T LOOK SURPRISED," TOM SAID IN AN UNDERTONE. Page 198]

You may believe it or not, as you please, but along this new road score upon score of young women and mere girls toiled and slaved with pickaxe and shovel. And some fell and were lifted up again, with threats and imprecations, and toiled on. There were some who came from Belgium, whose hands had been cut off, and these were harnessed and drew stones.

They lived, if you call it living, in tents and wooden barracks along the line of work, and in these they spent their few hours of respite in fearful, restless slumber.

Over them, like a black and threatening cloud, was the clenched, blood-wet iron fist. Now and then one broke down in hysterics and was "arrested" and taken before the commander who sprawled and drank wine in a peasant cottage nearby. For the road must be made and German militarism tolerates no nonsense....

Across the fields toward this road pa.s.sed a young fellow in the uniform of a petty officer. He carried in his hand a paper and a pair of handcuffs. He was repeating to himself a phrase in the German language in which he had just been carefully drilled. "Wo ist sie?"

It was all the German that he knew.

Approaching the road, he pa.s.sed along among the workers, who glanced up at him covertly and plied their implements a little harder for his presence. Coming upon a soldier who was marching back and forth on guard, the officer showed him the paper and said, "_Wo ist sie?_" The guard pointed farther down the line at another soldier, whom the officer approached and addressed with his one, newly-learned question.

The second soldier scanned the workers under his charge, then made as if to take the paper and the handcuffs, but the officer held them from him with true German arrogance, intimating that all he wished was to have the worker identified and he would do the rest. He did not deign to speak to the soldier.

When the subject of his quest had been pointed out to him he strode over to her, with a motion of his hand bidding the soldier remain at his post. The girls, who were working ankle-deep in the thick earth, fell back as this grim embodiment of authority pa.s.sed and stole fearful glances at him as he laid his hand upon the shoulder of one of their number who was throwing stones out of the roadway. She was a slender girl, almost too delicate for housework, one would have said, and her face bore an expression of utter listlessness--the listlessness that comes from long fatigue and lost hope. Her eyes had the startled, terror-stricken look of a frightened animal as she looked up into the face of the young officer.

"Don't speak and don't look surprised," he said in an undertone, as he snapped the handcuffs on her wrists. "I'm Tom Slade--don't you remember? You have to come with me and we'll take you across the Swiss border tonight. It's all planned. Don't talk and don't be scared. Answer low--Is your mother here?"

A heavy stone that she was holding fell and he could feel her shoulder trembling under his hand. She looked at him in doubtful recognition, for the face was grim and cold and there was a look of hard steel in the eyes. Then she glanced in terror at one of the soldiers who was marching back and forth, rifle in hand.

"He won't interfere--he won't even dare to salute me. If he comes near I'll knock him down. Is your mother here?"

"She iss wiz ze friends in Leteur. Her zey do not take."

Her voice was low and full of a terror which she seemed unable to overcome and as she looked fearfully about Tom was reminded of the night when they had talked together alone in the arbor.

"They didn't catch me yet and they won't," he said. "They're not scouts.

Come on."

She followed him out of the upturned earth and down the line, where he strode like a lord of creation. Never so much as a glance did he deign to give a soldier. A few of the young women who dared to look up watched the two as they cut across a field and, whispering, some said her lot would be worse than she suspected--that her arrest was only a ruse.... They came nearer to the truth in that than they knew.

Others spoke enviously, saying that, whatever befell her, at least she would have a little rest. The more bold among them continued to steal covert glances as the two went across the field, and fell to work again with a better submission, noticing the overbearing demeanor of the brutal young officer who had arrested their companion.

"You are come again," she finally said timidly; "like ze good genii." It was difficult for her to speak, but Tom was willing for her to cry and seem agitated, for they were coming to houses now, where crippled soldiers sat about and children scurried, frightened, out of their path and called their mothers who came out to stare.

"My father--I may not yet talk----"

"Yes, you can talk now. I know all about it."

"Everything you know--you are wonderful. He told us how ze zheneral, he say, '_Lafayette, we are here!_' And now you are here----"

"I told you you could sing the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_ again," he said simply.

"When we get over there, you can."

"You have come before zem, even," she said, her voice breaking with emotion. "I cannot speak, you see, but some day ze Americans, zey will be here, and you are here ze first----"

"Don't try to talk," he said huskily. "Over in America we have girl scouts--kind of. They call 'em Camp Fire Girls. Some people make fun of 'em, but they can climb and they don't scream when they get in a boat, and they ain't afraid of the woods, and they don't care if it rains, and they ain't a-scared of noises, and all like that. You got to be one of them tonight. You got to be just like a feller--kind of. Even if you're tired you got to stick it out--just like France is doing."

"I am ze daughter of France," she said proudly, catching his meaning, "and you have come like America. Before, in Leteur, I was afraid. No more am I afraid. I will be ziss fiery camp girl--so!"

"Not fiery camp girl," said Tom dully; "Camp Fire Girl."

"So! I will be zat!"

"And tomorrow we'll be in Switzerland. And soon as we get across I'm going to make you sing the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_, so's when I get to Frenchy--Armand--I can tell him you sang it and n.o.body stopped you. You remember the other feller that was with me. He says we're going to take you to Armand as a souvenir. That's what he's always talking about--souvenirs."

It did not occupy much s.p.a.ce in the American newspapers for there were more important things to relate. The English were circling around some ridge or other; the French were straightening out a salient, and the Germans had failed to surprise the Americans near Arracourt. The American airmen got the credit for that.

So there was only a brief account. "Two American Ship's Boys Reach France," heading said, and then followed this summary narrative as sent out by the a.s.sociated Press:

"Two American boys are reported to have reached General Pershing's forces in France, having escaped from a German prison camp and pa.s.sed the Swiss frontier at an unfrequented spot after picking their way through the wilder section of the Black Forest in Baden. They subsisted chiefly on roots and grapes. Both are said to have been in the U.S.

Transport Service. A despatch from Basel says that the Red Cross authorities are caring for a French Alsatian girl whom the fugitives rescued from German servitude by impersonating German military authorities. The details of their exploit are not given in the despatches.

"The American Y. M. C. A. at Nancy has no knowledge of such a girl being brought across the border and doubts the truth of this story, saying that such a rescue would be quite impossible. Another account says that the two boys upon reaching the American troops, notified a brother of the girl who was training with the expeditionary forces and that this brother was given a furlough to visit Molin, just below the Swiss frontier, where the girl was being cared for. This soldier's name is given as Armand Leteur. He is reported to have found his sister in a state of utter collapse from the treatment she had received while toiling on the roads in Alsace. One report has it that her wrist had been branded by a hot iron. The two youngsters are said to have chosen an unfrequented spot where the frontier crosses the mountains and to have manipulated the electrified barbed wire with a pair of rubber gloves which they had found in the wreck of a fallen German airship. The correspondent of the London _Times_ says that one of these gloves has been sent to President Wilson by its proud possessor as a souvenir.

"Washington, Oct. 12.--Administration officials here have no knowledge of any rubber glove being received by President Wilson but say that the arrival of two boys, fugitives from Germany, has been officially reported by the military authorities in France and that they brought with them a letter taken from a dead German soldier which contained references to the impending German a.s.sault near Arracourt, thus enabling our men to antic.i.p.ate and confound the Hun plans. Both of the boys, whose names are given as Archibald Slade and Thomas Archer, are now in training behind the American lines. A _Thomas_ Slade is reported to have been in the steward's department of the Transport _Montauk_ which was struck by a submarine last spring.

"Reuter's Agency confirms the story of the rescue of the girl and of her reunion with her brother."

THE END

THE TOM SLADE BOOKS By PERCY KEESE FITZHUGH Author of the ROY BLAKELEY BOOKS

The Tom Slade books have the official endors.e.m.e.nt and recommendation of THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA. In vivid story form they tell of Boy Scout ways, and how they help a fellow grow into a manhood of which America may be proud.

TOM SLADE, BOY SCOUT

Tom Slade lived in Barrel Alley. The story of his thrilling Scout experiences, how he was gradually changed from the street gangster into a First Cla.s.s Scout, is told in almost as moving and stirring a way as the same narrative related in motion pictures.

TOM SLADE AT TEMPLE CAMP

The boys are at a summer camp in the Adirondack woods, and Tom enters heart and soul into the work of making possible to other boys the opportunities in woodcraft and adventure of which he himself has already had a taste.

TOM SLADE ON THE RIVER

A carrier pigeon falls into the camp of the Bridgeboro Troop of Boy Scouts. Attached to the bird's leg is a message which starts Tom and his friends on a search that culminates in a rescue and a surprising discovery. The boys have great sport on the river, cruising in the "Honor Scout."

TOM SLADE WITH THE COLORS _A WAR-TIME BOY SCOUT STORY_

When Uncle Sam "pitches in" to help the Allies in the Great War, Tom's Boy Scout training makes it possible for him to show his patriotism in a way which is of real service to his country. Tom has many experiences that any loyal American boy would enjoy going through--or reading about, as the next best thing.