Book: Facing the German Foe

C >> Colonel James Fiske >> Facing the German Foe




"Go on!" he said to Dick, suppressing his pain by a great effort.

"I won't leave you!" said Dick. "I--"

"Obey orders! Don't you see you've got to go? You've got to tell them about
the wireless--and about where I am! Or else how am I to get away? Perhaps
if you come back quickly with help they won't find me until you come!
Hurry--hurry!"

Dick understood. And, with a groan, he obeyed orders, and went.




CHAPTER VII

A CLOSE SHAVE


Probably Dick did not realize that he was really showing a high order of
courage in going while Harry remained behind, caught in that cruel trap and
practically in the hands of enemies who were most unlikely to treat him
well. In fact, as he made his way toward the wall, Dick was reproaching
himself bitterly.

"I ought to stay!" he kept on saying to himself over and over again. "I
ought not to leave him so! He made me go so that I would be safe!"

There had been no time to argue, or Harry might have been able to make him
understand that it was at least as dangerous to go as to stay--perhaps even
more dangerous. Dick did not think that there was at least a chance that
every trap was wired, so that springing it would sound an alarm in some
central spot. If that were so, as Harry had fully understood, escape for
Dick would be most difficult and probably he too would be captured.

"I'm such a coward!" Dick almost sobbed to himself, for he was frightened,
though, it must be said, less on his account than at the thought of Harry.

Yet he did not stop. He went on resolutely, and, as he got used to the idea
that he must depend on himself, without Harry to help him in any emergency
that arose, his courage returned. He stopped, just as he knew Harry would
have done, several feet short of the wall. His watch told him that he had
time enough to make a dash; had several minutes to spare, in fact. But he
made sure.

And it was well that he did. For some alarm had been given. He heard
footsteps of running men, and in a moment two men, neither of them the one
they knew as the sentry, came running along the wall. They carried pocket
flashlights, and were examining the ground carefully. Dick sensed at once
what they meant to do, and shrank into the shelter of a great rhododendron
bush. He was small for his age, and exceptionally lissome, and he felt that
the leaves would conceal him for a few moments at least. He was taking a
risk of finding a trap in the bush, but it was the lesser of the two evils
just then. And luck favored him. He encountered no trap.

Then one of the men with flashlights gave a cry that sounded to Dick just
like the note of a dog that has picked up a lost scent. The lights were
playing on the ground just where they had crossed the wall.

"Footsteps, Hans!" said the man. "Turned from the wall, too! They have gone
in, but have not come out."

"How many?" asked the other man, coming up quickly.

"Two, I think--no more," said the discoverer. "Now we shall follow them."

Dick held his breath. If they could follow the footsteps--and there was no
reason in the world to hope that they could not!--they would be bound to
pass within a foot or two of his hiding-place. And, as he realized, they
would, when they were past him, find the marks of his feet _returning_.
They would know then that he was between them and the wall. He realized
what that would mean. Bravely he nerved himself to take the one desperate
chance that remained to him. They were far too strong for him to have a
chance to meet them on even terms; all he could hope for was an opportunity
to make use of his light weight and his superior speed. He knew that he
could move two feet, at least, to their one. And so he waited, crouching,
until they went by. The light flashed by the bush; for some reason, it did
not strike it directly. That gave him a respite. Fortunately they were
looking for footprints, not for their makers.

The moment they were by, Dick took the chance of making a noise, and pushed
through the bush, to reach the other side. And, just as the cry of the man
who first had seen the footprints sounded again, he got through. At once,
throwing off all attempt at silence, he started running, crouched low. He
was only a dozen feet from the wall. He leaped for a projection a few feet
up. By a combination of good luck and skill he reached it with his hands.
A moment later he had swarmed over the wall and dropped to the other side
just as a shot rang out behind. The bullet struck the wall; chipped
fragments of stone flew all over him. But he was not hurt, and he ran as he
had never known he could run, keeping to the side of the road, where he was
in a heavy shadow.

As soon as he could, he burst through a hedge on the side of the road
opposite the wall, and ran on, sheltered by the hedge, until, to his
delight, he plunged headfirst into a stream of water. The fall knocked him
out for a moment, but the cold water revived him, and he did not mind the
scraped knee and the barked knuckles he owed to the sharp stones in the bed
of the little brook. He changed his course at once, following the brook,
since in that no telltale footprints would be left.

Behind him he heard the sound of pursuit for a little while, but he judged
that the brook would save him. He could not be pursued very far. Even in
this sleepy countryside he would find it easy to get help, and the Germans,
as he was now sure they were, would have to give up the chase. All that
had been essential had been for him to get a few hundred feet from the
park; after that he was safe.

But, if he was safe, he was hopelessly lost. At least he would have been,
had he been an ordinary boy, without the scout training. He was in unknown
country and he had been chased away from all the landmarks he had. It was
of the utmost importance that he should reach as soon as possible, and,
especially, without passing too near Bray Park, the spot where the
motorcycles and the papers and codes had been cached. And, when he finally
came to a full stop, satisfied that he no longer had anything to fear from
pursuit, he was completely in the dark as to where he was.

However, his training asserted itself. Although Harry had been in charge,
Dick had not failed to notice everything about the place where they made
their cache that would help to identify it. That was instinct with him by
this time, after two years as a scout; it was second nature. And, though it
had been light, he had pictured pretty accurately what the place would
look like at night. He remembered, for instance, that certain stars would
be sure to be in the sky in a particular relation to the cache. And now he
looked up and worked out his own position. To do that he had to
reconstruct, with the utmost care, his movements since he had left the
cache. Up to the moment when he and Harry had entered Bray Park that was
easy.

But the chase had confused him, naturally. He had doubled on his track more
than once, trying to throw his pursuers off. But by remembering accurately
the position of Bray Park in its relation to the cache, and by
concentrating as earnestly as he could, to remember as much as possible of
the course of his flight, he arrived presently at a decision of how he must
proceed to retrieve the motorcycles and the papers.

As soon as he had done so he hurried on, feverishly, taking a course that,
while longer than necessary, was essential since he dared not go near Bray
Park. He realized thoroughly how much depended on his promptness. It was
essential that Colonel Throckmorton should learn of the wireless station,
which was undoubtedly powerful enough to send its waves far out to sea,
even if not to the German coast itself.

And there was Harry. The only chance of rescue for him lay in what Dick
might do. That thought urged him on even more than the necessity of
imparting what they had learned.

So, scouting as he went, lest he encounter some prowling party from Bray
Park silently looking for him, he went on hastily. He was almost as anxious
to avoid the village as the spy headquarters, for he knew that in such
places strangers might be regarded with suspicion even in times of peace.
And, while the war fever had not seemed to be in evidence in the afternoon,
he knew that it might have broken out virulently in the interval. He had
heard the stories of spy baiting in other parts of the country; how, in
some localities, scores of absolutely innocent tourists had been arrested
and searched. So he felt he must avoid his friends as well as his enemies
until he had means of proving his identity.

Delaying as he was by his roundabout course, it took him nearly an hour to
come to scenes that were familiar. But then he knew that he had found
himself, with the aid of the stars. Familiar places that he had marked when
they made the cache appeared, and soon he reached it. But it was empty;
motorcycles and papers--all were gone!




CHAPTER VIII

A FRIEND IN NEED


Harry listened, in an agony of fear rather than of pain, to such sounds as
came to him after Dick had, so reluctantly, left him pinned in the trap. He
could hear, plainly enough, the advance of the two searchers who had scared
Dick into hiding in the rhododendron bush; he could even see the gleam of
their flashlights, and was able, therefore, to guess what they were doing.
For the moment it seemed impossible to him that Dick should escape. It
would require more skill than he thought Dick possessed, and more of
another quality--concealment and patience. Dick, he thought, was likely to
shine more when impulsive action was required, or in following a leader.
His courage was unquestioned; Harry had seen him stand up to far bigger
boys without flinching.

As to himself, he was quite sure that he would be captured in a few
minutes, and, as a matter of fact, there were things that made the
prospect decidedly bearable. The pain in his ankle from the trap in which
he had been caught was excruciating. It seemed to him that he must cry out,
but he kept silence resolutely. As long as there was a chance that he might
not fall into the hands of the spies who were searching the grounds, he
meant to cling to it.

But the chance was a very slim one, as he knew. He could imagine, without
difficulty, just about what the men with the flashlights would do, by
reasoning out his own course. They would look for footprints. These would
lead them to the spot where he and Dick had watched the raising of the
wireless mast, and thence along the path they had taken to return to the
wall and to safety. Thus they would come to him, and he would be found,
literally like a rat in a trap.

And then, quite suddenly, came the diversion created by Dick's daring dash
for escape, when he sped from the bush and climbed the wall, followed by
the bullets that the searchers fired after him. Harry started, hurting his
imprisoned ankle terribly by the wrench his sudden movement gave it. Then
he listened eagerly for the cry he dreaded yet expected to hear, that would
tell him that Dick had been hit. It did not come. Instead, he heard more
men running, and then in a moment all within the wall was quiet, and he
could hear the hue and cry dying away as they chased him along the road
outside.

"Well, by Jove!" he said to himself, enthusiastically, "I believe Dick's
fooled them! I didn't think he had it in him! That's bully for him! He
ought to get a medal for that!"

It was some moments before he realized fully that he had gained a respite,
temporarily, at least. Obviously the two men who had been searching with
flashlights had followed Dick; there was at least a good chance that no one
else knew about him. He had decided that there was some system of signal
wires that rang an alarm when a trap was sprung. But it might be that these
two men were the only ones who were supposed to follow up such an alarm.

He carried a flashlight himself, and now he took the chance of playing it
on his ankle, to see if there was any chance of escape. He hooded the light
with his hand and looked carefully. But what he saw was not encouraging.
The steel band looked most formidable. It was on the handcuff principle and
any attempt to work his foot loose would only make the grip tighter and
increase his suffering. His spirits fell at that. Then the only thing his
brief immunity would do for him would be to keep him in pain a little
longer. He would be caught anyhow, and he guessed that, if Dick got away,
he would find his captors in a savage mood.

Even as he let the flashlight wink out, since it was dangerous to use it
more than was necessary, he heard a cautious movement within a few feet. At
first he thought it was an animal he had heard, so silent were its
movements. But in a moment a hand touched his own. He started slightly, but
kept quiet.

"Hush--I'm a friend," said a voice, almost at his elbow. "I thought you
were somewhere around here, but I couldn't find you until you flashed your
light. You're caught in a trap, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Dick. "Who are you?"

"That's what I want to know about you, first," said the other boy--for it
was another boy, as Harry learned from his voice. Never had a sound been
more welcome in his ears than that voice! "Tell me who you are and what you
two were doing around here. I saw you this afternoon and tracked you. I
tried to before, but I couldn't, on account of your motorcycles. Then I
just happened to see you, when you were on foot. Are you Boy Scouts?"

"Yes," said Harry. "Are you?"

"Yes. That's why I followed--especially when I saw you coming in here.
We've got a patrol in the village, but most of the scouts are at work in
the fields."

Rapidly, and in a whisper, Harry explained a little, enough to make this
new ally understand.

"You'd better get out, if you know how, and take word," said Harry. "I
think my chum got away, but it would be better to be sure. And they'll be
after me soon."

"If they give us two or three minutes we'll both get out," said the
newcomer, confidently. "I know this place with my eyes shut. I used to play
here before the old family moved away. I'm the vicar's son, in the village,
and I always had the run of the park until these new people came. And I've
been in here a few times since then, too."

"That's all right," said Harry. "But how am I going to get out of this
trap?"

"Let me have your flashlight a moment," said the stranger.

Harry gave it to him, and the other scout bent over his ankle. Harry saw
that he had a long, slender piece of wire. He guessed that he was going to
try to pick the lock. And in a minute or less Harry heard a welcome click
that told him his new found friend--a friend in need, indeed, he was
proving himself to be!--had succeeded. His ankle was free.

He struggled to his feet, and there was a moment of exquisite pain as the
blood rushed through his ankle and circulation was restored to his numbed
foot. But he was able to stand, and, although limpingly, to walk. He had
been fortunate, as a matter of fact, in that no bone had been crushed. That
might well have happened with such a trap, or a ligament or tendon might
have been wrenched or torn, in which case he would have found it just about
impossible to move at all. As it was, however, he was able to get along,
though he suffered considerable pain every time he put his foot to the
ground.

It was no time, however, in which to think of discomforts so comparatively
trifling as that. When he was outside he would be able, with the other
scout's aid, to give his foot some attention, using the first aid outfit
that he always carried, as every scout should do. But now the one thing to
be done was to make good his escape.

Harry realized, as soon as he was free, that he was not by any means out of
the woods. He was still decidedly in the enemy's country, and getting out
of it promised to be a difficult and a perilous task. He was handicapped by
his lack of knowledge of the place and what little he did know was
discouraging. He had proof that human enemies were not the only ones he
had to fear. And the only way he knew that offered a chance of getting out
offered, as well, the prospect of encountering the men who had pursued Dick
Mercer, returning. It was just as he made up his mind to this that the
other scout spoke again.

"We can't get out the way you came in," he said. "Or, if we could, it's too
risky. But there's another way. I've been in here since these people
started putting their traps around, and I know where most of them are. Come
on!"

Harry was glad to obey. He had no hankering for command. The thing to do
was to get out as quickly as he could. And so he followed, though he had
qualms when he saw that, instead of going toward the wall, they were
heading straight in and toward the great grey house. They circled the woods
that gave them the essential protection of darkness, and always they got
further and further from the place where Dick and Harry had entered. Harry
understood, of course, that there were other ways of getting out but it
took a few words to make him realize the present situation as it actually
was.

"There's a spot on the other side they don't really guard at all," said his
companion. "It's where the river runs by the place. They think no one would
come that way. And I don't believe they know anything at all about what I'm
going to show you."

Soon Harry heard the water rustling. And then, to his surprise, his guide
led him straight into a tangle of shrubbery. It was hard going for him, for
his ankle pained him a good deal, but he managed it. And in a moment the
other boy spoke, and, for the first time, in a natural voice.

"I say, I'm glad we're here!" he said, heartily. "D'ye see?"

"It looks like a cave," said Harry.

"It is, but it's more than that, too. This place is no end old, you know.
It was here when they fought the Wars of the Roses, I've heard. And come
on--I'll show you something!"

He led the way on into the cave, which narrowed as they went. But Harry,
pointing his flashlight ahead, saw that it was not going to stop.

"Oh! A secret passage! I understand now!" he exclaimed, finally.

"Isn't it jolly?" said the other. "Can't you imagine what fun we used to
have here when we played about? You see, this may have been used to bring
in food in time of siege. There used to be another spur of this tunnel that
ran right into the house. But that was all let go to pot, for some reason.
This is all that is left. But it's enough. It runs way down under the
river--and in a jiffy we'll be out in the meadows on the other side. I say,
what's your name?"

They hadn't had time to exchange the information each naturally craved
about the other before. And now, as they realized it, they both laughed.
Harry told his name.

"Mine's Jack Young," said the other scout. "I say, you don't talk like an
Englishman?"

"I'm not," explained Harry. "I'm American. But I'm for England just
now--and we were caught here trying to find out something about that
place."

They came out into the open then, where the light of the stars enabled
them to see one another. Jack nodded.

"I got an idea of what you were after--you two," he said. "The other one's
English, isn't he?"

"Dick Mercer? Yes!" said Harry, astonished. "But how did you find out about
us?"

"Stalked you," said Jack, happily. "Oh, I'm no end of a scout! I followed
you as soon as I caught you without your bicycles."

"We must have been pretty stupid to let you do it, though," said Harry, a
little crestfallen. "I'm glad we did, but suppose you'd been an enemy! A
nice fix we'd have been in!"

"That's just what I thought about you," admitted Jack. "You see, everyone
has sort of laughed at me down here because I said there might be German
spies about. I've always been suspicious of the people who took Bray Park.
They didn't act the way English people do. They didn't come to church, and
when the pater--I told you he was the vicar here, didn't I?--went to call,
they wouldn't let him in! Just sent word they were out! Fancy treating the
vicar like that!" he concluded with spirit.

Harry knew enough of the customs of the English countryside to understand
that the new tenants of Bray Park could not have chosen a surer method of
bringing down both dislike and suspicion upon themselves.

"That was a bit too thick, you know," Jack went on. "So when the war
started, I decided I'd keep my eyes open, especially on any strangers who
came around. So there you have it. I say! You'd better let me try to make
that ankle easier. You're limping badly."

That was true, and Harry submitted gladly to such ministrations as Jack
knew how to offer. Cold water helped considerably; it reduced the swelling.
And then Jack skillfully improvised a brace, that, binding the ankle
tightly, gave it a fair measure of support.

"Now try that!" he said. "See if it doesn't feel better!"

"It certainly does," said Harry. "You're quite a doctor, aren't you? Well,
now the next thing to do is to try to find where Dick is. I know where he
went--to the place where we cached our cycles and our papers."

Like Dick, he was hopelessly at sea, for the moment, as to his whereabouts.
And he had, moreover, to reckon with the turns and twists of the tunnel,
which there had been no way of following in the utter darkness. But Jack
Young, who, of course, could have found his way anywhere within five miles
of them blindfolded, helped him, and they soon found that they were less
than half a mile from the place.

"Can you come on with me, Jack?" asked Harry. He felt that in his rescuer
he had found a new friend, and one whom he was going to like very well,
indeed, and he wanted his company, if it was possible.

"Yes. No one knows I am out," said Jack, frankly. "The pater's like the
rest of them here--he doesn't take the war seriously yet. When I said the
other day that it might last long enough for me to be old enough to go, he
laughed at me. I really hope it won't, but I wouldn't be surprised if it
did, would you?"

"No, I wouldn't. It's too early to tell anything about it yet, really. But
if the Germans fight the way they always have before, it's going to be a
long war."

They talked as they went, and, though Harry's ankle was still painful, the
increased speed the bandaging made possible more than made up for the time
it had required. Harry was anxious about Dick; he wanted to rejoin him as
soon as possible.

And so it was not long before they came near to the place where the cycles
had been cached.

"We'd better go slow. In case anyone else watched us this afternoon, we
don't want to walk into a trap," said Harry. He was more upset than he had
cared to admit by the discovery that he and Dick had been spied upon by
Jack, excellent though it had been that it was so. For what Jack had done
it was conceivable that someone else, too, might have accomplished.

"All right. You go ahead," said Jack. "I'll form a rear guard--d'ye see?
Then you can't be surprised."

"That's a good idea," said Harry. "There, see that big tree, that blasted
one over there? I marked that. The cache is in a straight line, almost,
from that, where the ground dips a little. There's a clump of bushes."

"There's someone there, too," said Jack. "He's tugging at a cycle, as if he
were trying to get ready to start it."

"That'll be Dick, then," said Harry, greatly relieved. "All right--I'll go
ahead!"

He went on then, and soon he, too, saw Dick busy with the motorcycle.

"Won't he be glad to see me, though?" he thought. "Poor old Dick! I bet
he's had a hard time."

Then he called, softly. And Dick turned. But--it was not Dick. It was
Ernest Graves!




CHAPTER IX

AN UNEXPECTED BLOW


For a moment it would have been hard to say which of them was more
completely staggered and amazed.

"What are you doing here?" Harry gasped, finally.

And then, all at once, it came over him that it did not matter what Ernest
answered; that there could be no reasonable and good explanation for what
he had caught Graves doing.

"You sneak!" he cried. "What are you doing here--spying on us?"

He sprang forward, and Graves, with a snarling cry of anger, lunged to meet
him. Had he not been handicapped by his lame ankle, Harry might have given
a good account of himself in a hand-to-hand fight with Graves, but, as it
was, the older boy's superior weight gave him almost his own way. Before
Jack, who was running up, could reach them, Graves threw Harry off. He
stood looking down on him for just a second.

"That's what you get for interfering, young Fleming!" he said. "There's
something precious queer about you, my American friend! I fancy you'll have
to do some explaining about where you've been to-night!"

Harry was struggling to his feet. Now he saw the papers in Graves' hand.

"You thief!" he cried. "Those papers belong to me! You've stolen them! Give
them here!"

But Graves only laughed in his face.

"Come and get them!" he taunted. And, before either of the scouts could
realize what he meant to do he had started one of the motorcycles, sprung
to the saddle, and started. In a moment he was out of sight, around a bend
in the road. Only the put-put of the motor, rapidly dying away, remained of
him. But, even in that moment, the two he left behind him were busy. Jack
sprang to the other motorcycle, and tried to start it, but in vain.
Something was wrong; the motor refused to start.

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