145CHAPTER XVIIITHE SCHOOL JANITOR
Just how it happened that the Salvation Army worker had ventured into that place of death none knew, and none stopped to inquire. Probably the man, in his eagerness to serve, did not realize where he was nor how he got there. Naturally he would have been denied permission to go forward during an engagement—that was no time nor place for a noncombatant. But he probably had not asked. He had made his way through a rain of lead and steel to a zone of comparative safety. And there he stood, as if bewildered, with his baskets of cheer on his arms.
And now a sudden change in the battle made the zone of comparative safety one of danger. For the range of the German guns became shorter. The muzzles were being depressed to seek out those intrepid Americans who had rushed over the first Hun trenches and were waiting to rush onward again. This must not be, thought the Huns, and so they sought them out to kill them.146
So it was that as Bob spied the “fried holes” the dispenser of them gave a start as a bullet or a piece of shell flew close to his head. He was in grave danger now, and realized it. But he did not falter. He gave one backward glance, not with an idea of retreating, that is sure, but to see if there were any near him in that direction whom he might serve. Then he saw the prone lines ahead of him.
“Me for some of those!” yelled Bob, as he rose from his improvised trench.
“Lie still, you chump!” shouted Ned. “Do you want to be killed?”
“No more than you did when you got the wood from the busted truck,” was the answer. “But I’ve got to have some of those doughnuts!”
And Bob, never heeding the fact that he would be a shining target for the guns of the Germans, started to run toward the Salvation Army man.
Some of the officers, from where they were stationed among the troops, saw him.
“Come back! Come back! Who is he? What’s he doing? Is he going to desert in the face of the enemy?” were some of the commands and cries.
But it needed only a glance to show that Bob never had a notion of deserting. He ran toward the man with the baskets of doughnuts on his arms. Crisp, golden-brown doughnuts they were,147fresh from one of the traveling kitchens where, behind the lines, the Salvation Army lassies made them—a devoted service that will never be forgotten, but will rank with that of the Red Cross and be immortal.
And now, as might have been expected, the Germans saw the two figures—the only upright ones in that particular neighborhood. And the inevitable followed. They were fired at.
Both offered good marks, but Fate, Providence, or whatever you choose to call it, favored them, or else the Germans were wretched shots, which last, in a measure, is known to be true.
At any rate, Bob and the Salvation Army man met and Bob took charge of one of the baskets of doughnuts. That, too, was to be expected.
“Come on—run for it!” yelled the stout lad. “This place is getting hot!”
And indeed it was, for all about their feet were little spurts of earth, showing where the bullets were striking. And together they ran on toward the war-worn, weary figures of the men in the shallow trenches. Straight to where he had left his comrades Bob led the brave man, and they were received with a cheer.
Though it was desperately against all orders and discipline for Bob to do what he had done, not an officer rebuked him. And then the “fried holes” were quickly handed out to the fortunate148ones in that section of the line, the officers refusing any, so that the weary men might have some little refreshment.
“Halves only—each man only take a half!” cried Ned, when he saw how many men there were and how few—in spite of the two big baskets—the doughnuts were.
Bob looked a trifle crestfallen, but he agreed with a smile, and to his eternal credit be it said that when he broke the one doughnut he saved for himself, and it came apart in two unequal pieces, he gave the larger section to a comrade on his right.
“Bravo, Chunky!” said Jerry softly, as he observed.
And then, as if in horrible contrast to this peaceful scene, the battle began again.
“Forward!” came the orders, and the three chums, with their comrades, sprang from their shelter.
And as Bob left the shallow hole he had dug for himself to see what became of the Salvation Army man, he saw him roll gently over on his side, a little hole in his forehead showing where death had entered from one of the hundreds of bullets that were now sweeping down among the troops. But there was a smile on his lips.
And there died a very brave and gallant gentleman.149
Burst and roar and rumble and thunder and shriek and yell and cry and sob succeeded, accompanied and overlapped one another. The battle was on again in all its horrid fury.
Forward rushed the troops, freshened by their rest, with more ammunition of death. Forward they rushed, driving the Germans back, out of the trenches improvised by the Huns. Forward they rushed while the American guns lifted the barrage to protect them, and the German cannon crashed out their answer.
On they went, stumbling, falling, getting up again some of them, never rising again many of them. Bloody and mud-stained, powder-grimed and sweat-marked, torn and panting, cut and bruised, with dry tongues that swelled in their blackened mouths. With eyes that saw nothing and everything—the sight of comrades torn to pieces beside them, the falling of beloved officers, the tearing of great holes in the ranks, and the closing of those holes by a living wall of others who offered themselves for the sacrifice.
Forward they rushed, shouting and firing, tossing hand grenades into the midst of the dust-gray bodies of the Huns that opposed them. Onward they leaped and ran and staggered and jumped, but always onward.
A yell on their left caught the ears of Jerry and his chums.150
“Are we giving way?” asked Ned, grimly despairing.
“No! It’s the tanks! Look!” screamed Bob.
And the tanks it was. A score of them, great lumbering giants, impervious to everything save heavy guns, on they crawled, smashing concrete machine-gun nests as though they were but collections of vipers’ eggs in a field.
These tanks turned the tide of battle at that particular point. For the Germans were putting up a stiff resistance, and were about to launch a counter-attack, as was learned later.
But with the tanks to protect them, to splatter death from their armored machine guns, to spread terror and fear among the Huns, the day was saved.
On rushed the Americans, Ned, Bob, and Jerry among them, while all about them thundered the big guns, rattled the rifles, adding their din to the tat-a-tat-tat of the machine guns.
And then the Germans, unable to withstand this withering fire and being inadequately supported by their artillery, broke in confusion and ran—ran to escape the terrible death that awaited them from the avengers of a world dishonored by the Boches.
Wave after wave of storming troops now surged over the positions lately occupied in force by the Germans. Up the wooded slopes they151swept, taking possession of dominant heights so long desired. The objective was more than won, and the American position much improved.
The fury of the fighting began to die away. But it was still terrific in spots, for there were many machine-gun nests left behind when the Huns retreated, and the holders of them were told to die at their posts. Many did.
When Ned, Bob, Jerry, and some of their comrades, led by an officer, approached one of the dugouts there was no sign of life. It had been spouting death from a machine gun but a little while before, however.
“Look out!” some one shouted. “Maybe they’re playing possum!”
And so it was, for as the group advanced there was a burst of fire, and half a dozen men went down. Ned and Bob had a vision of Jerry crumpling up at the very entrance of the dugout, and their hearts seemed to stop beating.
“Drive ’em out! Kill the Boches! Wipe ’em up!” yelled the survivors.
With a fierce yell, Ned tossed into the open doorway a hand grenade. It exploded with terrific force, partly wrecking the place, and then in rushed he and his comrades, with gleaming bayonets.
“Kamerad! Kamerad!” came the cowardly appeal from the Germans.152
And a moment later out of the dugout where the machine gun had been concealed came four German soldiers, all that was left alive of a company of twenty, and of these four two were badly wounded.
Ned and Bob, seeing that the place, the last of any opposition in that section, was captured, were about to turn back to see if Jerry was still alive, when a second look at one of the German prisoners caused Ned to cry:
“Nick Schmouder!”
“Ja!” came the answer, and then, in German, he asked:
“Who speaks my name?”
“Nick Schmouder!” said Ned again.
“Do you know this man?” asked an officer sharply.
“Yes,” answered Ned. “He used to be a janitor at Boxwood Hall, a school I attended.”
And the face of Nick Schmouder showed as much wonder as did that of Ned Slade.
153CHAPTER XIXNEWS AT LAST
“Well, well, Nick! To think of meeting you here!” exclaimed Bob.
“Don’t speak to the Hun!” some one called, and then, for the first time, Ned and Bob seemed to realize that the little man, with whom they had been on friendly terms at college, was an enemy.
But such was the case. It was only one of many queer incidents of the war, and more than one fighting American found among the prisoners sent back, after he and his comrades had cleaned up a Boche nest, some man he had known back home—a former waiter at a club, perhaps, or a man who delivered his groceries.
“How came you here?” asked Nick Schmouder, with scarcely a trace of German accent, as he and the other prisoners stood with upraised hands, though one of the survivors had to drop his as he fell in a heap because of weakness from his wounds.
“We came here to teach the Kaiser how to walk154Spanish,” said Bob. “I didn’t think you’d fight against us, Nick, after what you learned at Boxwood Hall.”
“Ach! I was forced to,” was the answer. “I am glad it is over—that I am a prisoner. I did not like this war. I shall be glad when it is over and you have won. It is terrible! Listen, I will a secret tell,” and he did not seem afraid of the effect it might have on his apathetic comrades. “Every time I shoot the machine gun I point it at the ground so it will kill no Americans. I do not want to kill them.”
“Hum, that’s a good story to tell now!” said the incredulous officer. “Take ’em to the rear with the other prisoners. Wait, though, this one can’t walk. He’ll have to have a stretcher. I’ll have his wounds patched up. But take the others back. Corporal Hopkins!” he called.
“Corporal Hopkins is wounded, Sir,” reported Ned, with a catch in his voice. “He may be dead. He fell just as we stormed this place, Sir!”
“Oh, I did not know that. See to him at once. Here!” he called to some stretcher-bearers who were coming up, “we may need you!”
They hurried forward, and, leaving Nick Schmouder and the other German prisoners under guard, the officer, with Ned, Bob, and some other Americans, went back to where Jerry had been seen to fall. It was just outside of a little defile155leading to the dugout where the machine gun had wrought such havoc.
“There—there he is!” faltered Ned, as he pointed to the crumpled-up body of his chum, and Bob turned his face away, for it seemed to be the end of Jerry Hopkins.
There was blood on Jerry’s head, and blood had seeped out from his right leg, near the knee. Poor Jerry lay very still, and about him were heaped others, who were unmistakably dead.
The lieutenant bent over the corporal and made a hasty examination. There was relief on his face—relief which was reflected on the countenances of Ned and Bob as he said:
“He’s still alive, but badly hurt, I’m afraid. Take him back as gently as you can.”
Ned and Bob helped lift him on to the stretcher. Jerry did not move, and so faint was his breathing that there were times when it seemed to stop altogether.
Desperately as Ned and Bob wanted to go back to the dressing station to learn how it fared with their chum, they must stay on duty in the advanced position they had helped to win. It must be consolidated as much as possible before night, or the Germans might launch a counter offensive.
And so, when the Hun machine gun had been turned about, ready to rake any advancing lines of its recent owners, other measures were taken156to insure the holding of the position won at such cost.
“I’d like to have a talk with that Nick,” said Bob, as he and Ned paused for a moment in their work of digging trenches.
“Yes, isn’t it strange to meet him here like this? If he fired any of the shots that did up Jerry Hopkins, why––”
Ned did not finish, but Bob knew what his chum meant.
Feverishly the Americans worked, and to good purpose, for when darkness began to fall they were in strong front trenches with supporting lines back of them, and the artillery was partly in place. If the Germans wanted to take that particular hill again they would have to work for every inch of it.
And now the commissary department got busy, and hot soup and coffee was rushed up to the well-nigh exhausted men. Never was a meal more welcome.
“But it doesn’t taste any better than those doughnuts did,” declared Bob, as he sat on a pile of dirt, sipping coffee from a tin cup, his face and hands plastered with mud and other dirt.
“You took an awful chance, though, Chunky,” said his chum.
“No more than that Salvation Army man did. He was braver than I, because it was my business157to be where I was, and he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to.”
“Well, that’s so,” agreed Ned. “But say, I’m going to see if we can’t find out how Jerry is. If he—if he’s––”
But he did not have the heart to finish.
As much had been done as was possible that day, after the terrific battle, and with the arrival of fresh reserves those who had borne the brunt of the fighting were sent to the rear to rest. Ned and Bob were among these, and, obtaining permission, they went to the dressing station to learn Jerry’s fate.
Their hearts leaped with joy when they were told that, aside from a bad scalp wound and a bullet through the fleshy part of his leg, their chum was all right.
The high-powered bullets do infinitely less damage than the old-fashioned slower-moving sort, and the wound in Jerry’s leg was a clean one.
Not so, however, the cut on his head, which was from a piece of burning shell, making a jagged wound that, however, did not touch the bone.
“He’ll be back in line again in three weeks,” declared the surgeon to Ned and Bob, and those were the happiest words they ever had heard.
The next morning, after a feverish night in which they slept but little, they were allowed to158see Jerry, and they found him in better condition, relatively, than themselves. For he had been given a bath and cleaned after his wounds were dressed, whereas Ned and Bob were still caked with the mud, dirt, and grime of battle. But it was honorable dirt, as a Japanese might say. Most honorable and cherished.
“Well, how about you, old man?” asked Ned, as the Red Cross nurse said they might talk a little to their injured chum.
“Oh, I’m all right. Feel fine! Just knocked out a little. Save a few Huns for me for the next rush.”
“Oh, we’ll do that all right,” agreed Bob. “Too bad you had to get yours just as we won the game.”
“We won it, so I hear,” observed Jerry.
“Yes, cleaned ’em up,” went on Ned. “And whom do you guess we caught in the last batch of prisoners?”
“Not Professor Snodgrass!”
“No. But some one who knows him. Nick Schmouder!” exploded Bob.
“What? Not the janitor at Boxwood Hall? The fellow who helped us get the goat upstairs into the physics class?”
“The same!” laughed Ned; and Jerry chuckled so at the recollection of one of the jokes of their college days that the nurse was forced to say she159would order his chums away unless he remained more quiet.
“I’ll be good!” promised the tall lad. “But that is rich! How did it happen?”
“Don’t know,” admitted Ned. “I’m going to have a talk with him if I can.”
“Let me know what he says,” begged Jerry. “I don’t suppose you have heard anything about the professor or his quest for the two girls?”
“No,” answered Bob. “I guess he’ll never find them. It’s worse than looking for a cent down a crack in the boardwalk at Atlantic City. But I don’t suppose you could convince the professor of that.”
“No,” agreed Jerry. “I’m mighty sorry, too. You remember what he said about losing the money he had lent to a friend of his and needing this bequest from Professor Petersen. Well, if you see or hear from him let me know. I won’t be able to get about for a week—maybe more.”
Bob and Ned stayed until the nurse sent them away, but they promised to call again as soon as allowed. Then, as they were relieved from duty, they went to an officer and received permission to talk to the prisoner, Nick Schmouder, after explaining about him.
The man had been a janitor at Boxwood Hall when Ned, Bob, and Jerry attended there. He had been a good friend to the three chums, and,160as mentioned, had assisted them in performing what they were pleased to term a “joke.”
The boys had forgotten all about him, and it was with the utmost wonder they met him again under such strange and strenuous circumstances.
“How did you come to get into the war?” asked Bob, as he and Ned talked to the prisoner, who was in a wire cage with hundreds of others.
“Oh, it was an accident, yet. I came back to Germany to see my old father, and I was caught here when the war broke out. I had not served my full time in the army, and so I had to go in again. Ach! how I hate it. But tell me—why are you here?”
“The same reason that brought every other good American over,” replied Ned sharply. “We want to wipe Prussian militarism off the face of the earth.”
“And a good job, I say!” declared Nick Schmouder. “It is like a bad disease germ. One of those bugs Professor Snodgrass used to show me in the microscope. Ah, I wish I was back at Boxwood Hall with him. He was a nice little man.”
“Yes, he was,” agreed Ned. “And you may see him, if you stay around here.”
“See him? Is the professor in the war, too?”
“Not exactly,” Bob answered. “He is here on a scientific mission. Something about war noises161and insects. But he is after something else, too. A friend of his, Professor Petersen––”
“Professor Emil Petersen?” cried Nick Schmouder in such a strange voice that Ned and Bob stared at him. “Did you say Professor Emil Petersen?”
“I don’t know that I mentioned his first name, but it is Emil,” answered the stout lad. “Why, do you know him?”
“Know him? Why, he once lived in the same German town where my father and mother lived,” declared the former janitor. “They were friends,—my father worked for him and my mother had looked after him when he was sick—and when the professor, who was studying or something, had to go away, he left his two nieces––”
“Two nieces!” burst out Ned and Bob together. “Do you mean Miss Gladys Petersen and Miss Dorothy Gibbs?”
“Yes! Those were the names,” announced Schmouder easily. “He left the two nieces with my father and mother. They were nice girls!”
“Listen to that!” cried Ned, thumping Bob on the back. “News at last! We must tell Jerry this!”
162CHAPTER XXA QUEER QUESTION
So unexpected was the news given by the captured Boxwood Hall janitor that for a moment or two Ned and Bob could scarcely believe it. That the information, so much desired and so ardently sought after, should come to them by accident, while, doubtless, Professor Snodgrass was using every energy to that end, seemed scarcely believable. Yet there could be no doubt of it. Still Ned was a bit cautious, and restrained his stout chum from rushing to the hospital to tell Jerry.
“We don’t want any mistake in this,” remarked Ned. “Are you sure, Nick, that this is the same Professor Petersen whom we mean, the same one Professor Snodgrass means?”
“I don’t see how there can be any mistake,” declared the former janitor. “I often heard Professor Petersen speak of Professor Snodgrass, and I know him well enough. I could tell him in the dark.”
“Yes, I guess that’s right,” assented Ned.163
“But there may be two Professor Petersens—the name is not uncommon in Germany, at any rate.”
“There is no mistake,” declared Schmouder. “I admit there may be several Professor Petersens, but hardly two who would have nieces named Dorothy Gibbs and Gladys Petersen.”
“That seems to clinch it,” declared Bob.
“Yes, I guess so,” agreed his chum. “But what else can you tell us about them, Nick, and where are the girls now?”
The German prisoner shrugged his shoulders.
“As for where they are now, I do not know,” he answered. “My father and mother live in a little town not far from Metz. It was there Professor Petersen came sometimes to study and write his books, when he was not in his own country or in your country, lecturing or visiting Professor Snodgrass.
“Just before this terrible war, which I wish with all my heart I had never seen, Professor Petersen came to this little town, bringing for the first time his two nieces. I happened to be there on a visit—I came to see my parents, and now I wish I hadn’t.
“No, I will not say that!” quickly exclaimed the man. “I am glad I saw them; but I wish I had sent for them to come to the United States to see me. It would have been safer for them and me, for we shall lose this war—I can see that.”164
“You said it!” declared Bob, with energy.
“Tell us all you can,” urged Ned. “We have a great interest in finding these girls.”
“Well, I am sorry I cannot tell you more,” replied Schmouder. “As I said, I came back just before the war broke out, was caught and sent to the army. I saw Professor Petersen in my home town then with the two young ladies. There was some story about his having been reconciled to them after a long estrangement, but I did not pay much attention to that.
“All I know is that I saw the young ladies and knew they were the nieces of the professor. They had been traveling in France and Germany, it was said. Then the professor left just before war was declared. He suspected it was coming, and said he had certain investigations he wished to make before the fighting started. He left the two young ladies in charge of my father and mother, telling them he would be back as soon as he could, and that, thereafter, he would look after them.”
“What happened next?” asked Bob.
“The war,” answered Schmouder succinctly. “That spoiled everything. I had to go away and leave my parents. What has become of them I do not know.”
“Haven’t you heard from them?” asked Ned.
“Not lately, no. Soon after I was forced to join the army I had a letter, in which they told165me they were going farther into Germany to be safer.”
“And what about the two girls and Professor Petersen?” Bob queried.
“What happened to Professor Petersen I cannot tell you,” was the answer. “As for his two nieces, my father wrote that they had gone on some scientific expedition shortly after the professor left them, and were not expected back for a month.”
“Were they scientists too?” asked Ned.
“I believe so,” answered the former janitor. “They loved study, as did their uncle. At any rate they, too, went into the interior of Germany just before the war broke out, and what has happened to them I do not know any more than I know what happened to Professor Petersen.”
“We can tell you what happened to him,” said Ned. “He died in America, and left a lot of money.”
“So!” exclaimed Schmouder. “Well, it will do no one any good these terrible days.”
“Maybe it will, and perhaps it won’t,” replied Bob. “At any rate, he left half his fortune to Professor Snodgrass on condition that our friend find the two nieces and give them the other half of the fortune.”
“Ach! Well, I shall be glad if the young ladies get something,” said Schmouder.166
“Yes, but the trouble is they won’t get it if they can’t be found,” said Ned. “And Professor Snodgrass won’t get anything, either. Now if you could only tell us where these two girls are to be found, why––”
“That I could not do—no one could in these days!” declared the prisoner earnestly. “I will help you all I can. I am an American at heart, and I hope you will believe me when I say that every gun I fired sent its bullets only into the ground. I could not shoot at my former friends. Germany is no longer a friend to me!”
“Nor to any one else,” declared Bob. “Gee! but it’s tough to be so near the solution and then to fail.”
“Don’t give up yet,” advised Ned. “We can tell Professor Snodgrass what we have learned, and maybe he can find a way to get in communication with the young ladies. It’s a pity Professor Petersen didn’t give them half his fortune when he was alive, and save all this bother.”
“Yes, it would have been a good idea!” scoffed his chum. “The girls and Professor Snodgrass would have been better off. But, as a rule, people don’t do that sort of thing. I haven’t noticed your father—nor mine—giving away half of his possessions. However, the money may be lost entirely now. I don’t see how it can be paid over, inherited or whatever the term is anyhow, in these167days. Maybe the war has wiped out Professor Petersen’s fortune.”
“I hardly think that,” said the former janitor. “He was not a German, and his wealth was not in that country. He was a very careful man, and if he left any money to any one you may be sure it is waiting for them, wherever they are.”
“That’s the point!” exclaimed Bob. “The money may be all right, but we can’t find those for whom it is intended. And if Professor Snodgrass can’t locate the girls, all the fortune goes to a humane society.”
“Ach! So?” exclaimed Nicholas Schmouder. “Well, it is better that than Germany should get it. Please tell your friends that I did never fire my gun at them—always into the ground,” he said wistfully, as the boys turned away from the prisoners’ wire cage.
“We’ll do the best we can for you,” they said. But there was little they could do to make life any easier for their old friend, who, through no fault of his own, was in a bad predicament.
When next they had a chance to visit Jerry the two chums told him all they had heard, and the wounded lad suggested that they should write to Professor Snodgrass at once, urging him to come on and have a talk with Schmouder. This Ned and Bob did, though there was no certainty that their letter would reach the scientist, or that he168would be able to obey the instructions in it. They had his last address, but he was, at best, uncertain in his movements, and now, with the great forward movement of the American armies beginning, it was hard for any one to get to the front.
“But we’ve found out something, anyhow,” declared Ned. “The girls are somewhere in Germany, if they are still alive, and it may be possible for Professor Snodgrass to give them half the money and keep the other half for his own necessities.”
“Yes, it may, and it may not. I hope it will, though.”
Jerry, thanks to the nature of his wounds and to his healthy constitution, made a remarkably quick recovery, and though he was not ready to go back to the front-line trenches when his chums had to report for duty, it was probable that after their next rest period he would join them.
It was hard for Ned and Bob to say good-bye to their chum. They might never meet again, and they knew it. But it was the fortune of war, and had to be borne.
Fate, however, was kind to them, and Ned and Bob were sent to a quiet sector. After some slight skirmishes, which, however, were hard enough on those engaged, they were again sent to the rear to recuperate. There they found Jerry chafing against being kept out of the fighting.169
“Feel all right?” asked Ned.
“Sure! Never better. I want to get at the Huns again.”
“Didn’t hear from Professor Snodgrass, did you?” inquired Bob.
“No. But I wrote to him again. Schmouder has been sent back to the rear to work with other prisoners, but I have his camp location so the professor can interview him if he thinks it needful. And say, a rather queer thing happened while you were away.”
“What?” asked Ned.
“Well, Noddy Nixon came to see me.”
“He did!” cried Bob. “Well, the nerve of that shrimp! After he took our wood!”
“What did he want?” asked Ned.
“Oh, nothing in particular, as far as I could make out. Just seemed to want to be friendly. Asked me a lot of questions about how I was treated in the hospital and whether I got enough to eat.”
“You did, didn’t you?” asked Bob.
“Sure. But I don’t quite see what Noddy was aiming at. However, I didn’t trouble my head much about it until yesterday.”
“Why yesterday?” Bob demanded.
“Well, the surgeon who patched me up came and inquired if Noddy was a particular friend of mine.”170
“Of course you told him he was!” laughed Ned.
“Like fun I did! No, I said I hadn’t any use for him, but I didn’t go into particulars. After all, Noddy is fighting on our side.”
“You mean he’s making a bluff at it!” growled Bob. “But go on. Where does the queer part come in?”
“Here,” answered Jerry. “The surgeon told me Noddy took him to one side and asked very particularly whether a wound in the hand or one in the foot hurt the most. That’s what he wanted to know.”
“He did!” cried Ned. “Well, what’s queer about that?”
“Don’t you see,” resumed Jerry, “it looks as though––”
But Jerry never finished that sentence, for as he was speaking came cries of alarm from outside the hospital and the firing of several guns, while some one shouted:
“An air raid! An air raid! The Huns are coming!”
171CHAPTER XXIA VISITOR
Jerry Hopkins, with his two chums and some of the hospital patients who were able to move about, rushed toward the sound of the shouting and firing. Jerry’s leg wound was healed, and save for a slight limp he was all right again.
The boys saw a group of soldiers gathered about a battery of guns erected a short time before to repel air raids. And that this was now a time to use the weapons was evident after a glance aloft.
For, hovering just below the clouds, were three big Hun planes, and that they had come over the lines to bomb the American positions was only too evident.
There was no time to stop and inquire how the hostile aircraft had managed to elude the vigilance of the Allied airmen at the front. It was time to act and act promptly, and at once the anti-aircraft batteries opened, while word was quickly telephoned to the nearest aerodrome, so that American, French, or British fliers might ascend to attack172the Germans. It was the shooting at the Hun planes with the guns nearest the hospital that had broken in on Jerry’s remarks.
“They won’t bomb the hospital, will they?” asked Ned, in wonder.
“They’re very likely to,” declared Jerry. “Then later on they’ll claim they couldn’t see the red crosses on the roof, or else they’ll say they meant to drop bombs on an ammunition dump or a railroad center and they miscalculated the distance—the beasts!”
If the Huns intended to bomb the hospital now it would not be the first time they had done such a dastardly trick. And that they purposed sending down explosives somewhere in the neighborhood was evident from the tactics of the hostile machines.
They flew about, so high above the group of buildings containing the wounded and convalescents as to make it difficult to hit them, and appeared to be waiting their best chance to drop a bomb where it would do the most damage.
Meanwhile, nurses and orderlies were moving out their charges into the open, so there would be less likelihood of their being caught in the collapsed structures.
For a few minutes the scene was one of wild confusion, and then army discipline was established and matters went on as they should. Ned,173Bob, and Jerry helped in taking out the wounded, while the gun crews increased their fire at the hostile planes.
Suddenly there was a terrific explosion just in the rear of the hospital. It shook the ground and brought forth screams of agonized apprehension on the part of men suffering from shell shock. But either the bomb was misdirected or the Huns were more merciful than they had been on other similar occasions, for the bomb, dropped from one of the aircraft, only tore a big hole in an adjacent field.
“Too close for comfort, though,” declared Ned.
“Our boys are gettin’ after ’em!” exclaimed Bob, as he and his chums hurried back into the endangered building to assist in taking out more of the helpless ones.
This was true in two senses, for the fire of the anti-aircraft batteries was increasing, and now several Allied airmen were mounting aloft in their swift machines to give battle to the attacking Huns.
It was high time, too, for now bombs were dropping on all sides of the hospital, and there was no telling when the entire building might go down in ruins. Whether the German airmen were deliberately trying to hit the place where wounded men were being saved from death, or whether they174aimed their infernal machines at objects near it, could not be said with certainty.
Fiercer and more rapid became the firing from the anti-aircraft batteries established near the hospital for this very purpose, and more Allied planes took the air, seeking to drive off the invaders.
By this time most of the wounded had been carried out and put under trees, in the open, wherever it was considered safest for them.
Though from the ruthless manner in which the Huns waged war no place was immune from their bombs—even in the neighborhood of a hospital.
“Look! Look!” suddenly cried Ned. “They got one!”
“That’s right!” echoed Jerry. “They’ve brought one down!”
Tumbling over and over, in a fashion no airman, however reckless, would dare to imitate as a ruse, was one of the German planes. It had been hit either by a shell from a battery, or the bullets from one of the machine guns on an Allied plane had found a mark.
Then, as the invading machine continued to fall, out of control, it burst into flames, and a small dark object was seen to detach itself from the mass and fall to one side.
“There goes the pilot!” said Bob grimly. “He’s done for.”
And so he was, and so was his machine. It was175a horrible death, but none the less horrible than he had planned for others—and helpless others, too.
“There they go! They’ve had enough!” shouted Ned, and as he spoke it was seen that the Hun machines, which had been circling about, as though looking for more targets on the ground below, had turned and were speeding toward their own lines, pursued by the American and other machines, eager to visit on them just vengeance.
And then the hospital patients, some of them wounded airmen themselves, watched the battle of the clouds, out of danger now that the Huns were in retreat.
The machines were so high that little could be seen, but some one had a pair of glasses and reported that one of the German craft was disabled and was coming down out of control.
This information afterward proved to be correct. Then during the battle which followed another German machine was set on fire; so that a total of three were destroyed, and another of the six engaged in the raid sent back damaged, and one of its occupants killed.
Nor did the Allied planes come off scatheless. One was shot down and both occupants killed, while another man was wounded. But the hospital had not been bombed, which was the great thing.176
“Do you wonder that I’m aching to get back into the fight against such beasts?” asked Jerry, when the patients had once more been carried back to the wards, and Jerry and his chums had resumed their conversation in a quiet place outside.
“Don’t blame you a bit,” assented Ned. “But we were talking about Noddy Nixon.”
“Yes,” resumed the tall lad. “I was saying he asked a mighty queer question of the surgeon and I have my own opinion––”
At that moment a smiling Red Cross nurse appeared and said:
“There’s a visitor asking to see you, Mr. Hopkins.”
“A visitor for me!” exclaimed Jerry.
“Yes, do you wish to see any one?”
“Man or young lady?” asked Ned, with a mischievous smile at his chum.
“Oh, a dear, little, bald-headed man, who peers at you in such a funny way through his big glasses and––”
“Show him in!” cried Ned, Bob and Jerry in one voice.
177CHAPTER XXIIAN UNEXPECTED CAPTURE
The smiling Red Cross nurse had no need to mention the name of the visitor. The boys knew him for Professor Snodgrass after that description, which could fit no one else. And the little scientist it proved to be a moment later.
“Ah, here you are, boys!” he murmured, as though he had just parted from them half an hour before, and under ordinary circumstances, instead of the great war being in the background. “I am glad to see you. I want––”
He made a sudden motion toward the smiling, Red Cross nurse, and instinctively she stepped back, with something of a look of alarm on her face.
“One moment—please!” exclaimed the professor. “There is a most beautiful and rare butterfly on your apron. I just want it for my collection,” and, a moment later, he had safe in one of his wire boxes the flutteringPapilio.
“Oh, how beautiful!” murmured the nurse. “What are you going to do with the poor thing?”178
“Preserve it so that others may gaze on its beauty,” answered the professor with a bow. “It will also aid me in my studies. This particular butterfly is one I have long sought, because of the peculiar markings. It is most lucky that I came here to-day.”
“Well, it might have been unlucky if you had happened to be hit by one of the German air bombs,” said Jerry. “But we’re glad to see you. We have good news for you about those two girls.”
“Yes, so I understand from your letters. So that janitor has seen them. Well, now I must follow them up and give them their share of the fortune. I came on as soon as I could after hearing from you boys. I thank you for having my interests at heart. Now where can I see this Nick Schmouder and have a talk with him?”
The camp where the German prisoners were detained was not many miles back of the hospital where Jerry had recovered from his wounds, and, as he would be able to travel the next day, and as Bob and Ned could get furloughs, it was decided that the four should make up a party and seek out the former janitor, so that the professor might hear, at first hand, all there was to be said.
These arrangements having been made, transportation provided and the necessary permissions having been secured, the professor and the three179Motor Boys, several hours later, sat down to have a long chat and exchange experiences. Professor Snodgrass told how he was progressing with his work of studying the effects of battle noises on insects, and the boys related their stories of fighting and battles.
“And we thought old Jerry was gone when we saw him go down outside the dugout where we captured Schmouder,” finished Ned, as a climax to his story.
“I thought so myself,” admitted the tall lad. “But I’m as well as ever, and next week I’ll be fighting again. What are your plans, Professor?”
“I must try to find those two young ladies. The military authorities have been very good to me. They have said I can go anywhere I like to study the insects, provided I do nothing that would betray any army secrets. And I have been very careful.”
That is he was careful not to disobey his instructions, but that he was anything but careful of himself the boys learned later. They heard stories of how he went up to the very front lines of the fighting, so he might be nearer the big guns, and he took with him cages of insects, noting the effect of the concussions of the great cannons on their nervous systems.
Professor Snodgrass would have laughed had you called him a brave man, but he dared as much180for his beloved science as others did for their country’s honor. And, moreover, only the age limit kept the professor out of the army.
The journey to the prison camp where Nick Schmouder was held took place the next day, and was accomplished without incident worthy of note.
But if Professor Snodgrass hoped to obtain any more information from the former janitor than the boys had about the two missing girls, he was disappointed. For Nick Schmouder could only repeat what he had already told. He was glad to see Professor Snodgrass, and it was quite pathetic to hear the man tell his story about having always fired his gun into the ground to avoid hurting any of those he called his friends.
“I didn’t believe there were any good Germans in Germany any more,” said Jerry, “but I guess Nick is pretty near one.”
So they listened to his stories, and Professor Snodgrass made notes about the girls. He said he would try to get into communication with them through the parents of the former janitor, though the latter did not know, himself, whether his father and mother were still alive.
“Is it not terrible—awful—this war?” he cried. “I wish all my countrymen were prisoners, and then they could no longer fight, and we would have peace.”
“Well, if it keeps on we’ll soon have most of181the Kaiser’s army in a cage like this,” declared Ned. “Don’t worry—we’re going to make a good clean-up of it.”
“I hope you do,” said Schmouder, and many of his fellow prisoners agreed with him.
At present all the professor could do was to depend on some message getting to the missing girls. As they were not prisoners of war it was thought that perhaps some missive might reach them, though all ordinary communication between Americans and Germany was held up.
The girls, though of Swedish parentage, were citizens of the United States, as the fathers of both were naturalized; therefore, the diplomatic channels of Sweden were closed to them, as the money had been left in Professor Snodgrass’ care. The Red Cross might aid, as a last resort, and if that failed all that could be done was to wait until after the war and then seek them out, if the two nieces were still alive.
So, having dispatched several letters by different routes, Professor Snodgrass prepared to spend some time with the boys.
“I might as well study the effect here of noises on insects, as to go back where I was,” he said. “Here I shall be nearer those two young ladies, if I can ever find a chance to reach them. We are heading toward Metz, are we not?”
“Yes, and we’ll get there,” declared Jerry, for182by this time enough of General Pershing’s plans had developed to show that his armies had this town for one of its objectives. But there was still a long way to go.
True to his determination, Jerry went back to the front with his chums, and Professor Snodgrass, by virtue of special permission, accompanied them. The chums were welcomed by their comrades, and once more took up the life of the trenches.
It was one afternoon, just before time for them to be relieved, that Ned, Bob, and Jerry had their attention drawn to a stretch of No Man’s Land in front of them, by hearing some of their comrades say:
“Look at the bug-hunter! What in the name of Billie Bejinks is he doing out there? He’ll be bowled over by a German bullet just as sure as guns!”
The three lads looked, and, to their surprise and horror, saw Professor Snodgrass with something supported on his back and partly in his arms, walking across No Man’s Land in the direction of the German trenches as unconcernedly as though peace had been declared.
“Look at him!” yelled Ned.
“We’ve got to get him back!” cried Jerry.
An officer, who had heard the commotion, came in from the nearest dugout and asked:
“Who gave him permission to go out there? Is he deserting?”