At last he fell asleep. When he awoke the sun was shining in his face. He was alone, for his bed-fellows of the night were already astir. They had tucked him in as warmly as possible before leaving him.
Closing his eyes, Dick slumbered again. When he next opened his eyes he sat up.
"Good morning, comrade!" called one of the two between whom he had slept.
"Ah, good morning," Prescott answered in French, and stood up."My, but the mattress in this bed is a beastly one."
The officer who addressed him, a young man of twenty-five or so, laughed good-humoredly.
"What time is breakfast to be had here?" Dick asked.
"I fear, comrade, that we shall not have any this morning, for the news is that we are to be entrained to-day and sent away."
"To Germany?"
"It must be. And on embarkation mornings no food is served."
"They start us away hungry?" Dick asked.
"Always, so I have been told. But you are not missing much, comrade, for you are not yet accustomed to the food the Germans feed their prisoners, and no one eats much of it until he has been hungry for a few days. Then something like an appetite for the stuff comes to one."
Finding himself somewhat chilled and cramped Prescott began to go briskly through some of the Army setting-up exercises.
"That is a fine thing to warm the blood," said one of the French officers, "but I warn you that it will make you hungry."
The other French officers now came forward to make themselves known to the only American officer in this prison camp.
"We are moving to-day," said one. "Will it be better in the new prison than here, do you think?" Prescott asked.
"In some ways at least. We shall undoubtedly be housed in a wooden building, and that should be warmer at night. Besides, I hear we are permitted straw mattresses when in Germany."
"That begins to sound like luxury," laughed Dick.
"And there our friends can send us food through neutral agencies."
"Do you suppose, if they do, we shall be allowed to have some of the food?" Dick asked.
"Some of it, at least, or our friends would quickly stop sending it to us when they heard from us that we did not get it."
"It will be a dog's life," broke in another, "even with such better treatment as may be accorded to officers."
Dick Prescott's heart was as stout as any American's heart could be, but as he listened to the talk of his French brothers in arms he could not help feeling glum.
For one thing, it was hardly for this that he had sailed from America to be taken at the outset and to be shut off from all service with the men of his own country!
A German under-officer who spoke French came to the wire to call out:
"You officers will march from here soon. Begin to get your packs ready. There must be no delay."
"It won't take me long," Dick told his new friends. "When capturedI had only my uniform and my pistol. The latter was taken."
He turned to, however, to help his French brothers who possessed blankets, water bottles and other small belongings, for some of them appeared almost too weak to prepare for the march.
The same order had been given to the enlisted men in the next enclosure. For a few minutes there was some bustle over getting petty belongings together and marshaling them into a pack that could be slung over the back.
"Officers ready!" ordered the under-officer, returning. "Fall in by twos and march after me to the office."
He marched the little detachment through the larger enclosure, and in through the rear of the office building. Here there was a roll-call. Then the officers, again in twos, were marched outside, where a corporal and four soldiers fell in with them as guard.
Down the road the captured officers were marched for something like a quarter of a mile.
"Halt, but keep your places in the ranks," ordered the corporal."Any prisoner disobeying will be shot."
"There is something that promises!" cried Captain Lescault, pointing to the sky.
Southward, over the lines, appeared a squadron of swift French airplanes, coming over the German lines. Almost instantly German aircraft began to rise from the ground, going to meet the invaders of the air.
Over the purring of the engines sounded the sharp, continuous rapping of machine guns as the opposing craft fought each other.
Two German planes came crashing down to earth. More appeared in the air, until the French flyers, outnumbered, turned and flew back over the French lines.
"I believe our flyers got what they wanted," whispered the sameFrench officer to Prescott.
Five minutes later the Frenchman whispered exultingly:
"Ah, I was sure of it! Our airmen were spying for the artillery.Now you shall see things happen."
In the air sounded a screech. Then, less than three hundred yards further down the road a French shell exploded, overturning a motor truck and killing both Germans on its seat. The truck itself was a wreck.
Crash! Another shell landed in the road, bowling over two officers at the head of a body of oncoming soldiers. The next shell landed in a mass of marching German infantry, killing and wounding several. Then, for five minutes a hurricane of shells descended on that road, wrecking trucks, killing and wounding more than a hundred men in German marching detachments, and chasing all troops from the road.
"That does not win the war!" growled the German corporal in charge of the officer-prisoners. "It is only French mischief!"
Hardly had the shell hurricane ceased when some hundred men, under guard, came marching down from the prison camp. These were halted, at the edge of the field, just behind the officers.
An hour passed before another detachment of prisoners was marched down the road and halted. Later more came. Noon had passed before the final detachment arrived.
It was wearisome, but Dick Prescott did not feel that he had wasted his time. Full of the hope of escaping, some day, he had watched covertly everything that he could see of German army life and movements behind the fighting line. Also, from several incidents that he witnessed, he gained a new idea of German military brutality.
One scene that made his blood boil was when a French officer, a wounded man, and suffering also from hunger, let himself slide to a sitting posture on the ground.
"Here, you!" ordered the German corporal advancing threateningly."You have been told that you must stand in line."
"But our comrade is weak from loss of blood," interposed anotherFrench officer who spoke German.
"Take that for your meddling," retorted the corporal, landing the back of his hand stingingly on his informant's face. It was a humiliating blow, that a prisoner could not resent in kind.
"Get up," ordered the corporal, "or I shall aid you with my bayonet."
Though the words were not understood by the sufferer, the gesture was. He tried to obey, but did not rise fast enough to suit the corporal.
"Here," mocked the fellow. "That will help you!"
His bayonet point passed through the seat of the victim's trousers, more than pricking the flesh inside.
"Coward!" hissed Prescott and three of four of the French officers.
"If you don't like it, and are not civil," raged the corporal hoarsely, "I shall beat some of you with the butt of my gun."
Subsequently a French officer who had stepped a foot further than he was supposed to stand was rebuked by the corporal's gun-butt striking him on the knee-cap. After that the prisoner limped.
"These brutes ought to be killed—-every one of them!" Dick muttered disgustedly to a French officer near him.
"Most of them will be, before this long war is over," nodded theFrenchman, "but a soldier's death is too fine for such beasts."
Finally a German officer arrived. Under his crisp orders the now long column of prisoners moved out into the road, forming compactly and guarded by at least forty infantrymen. The order to march was given. With only two halts the prisoners were marched some eight miles, arriving late in the afternoon at a railway yard.
Here the column was halted again for an hour, while the German officer was absent, presumably, in search of his orders. When the march was taken up again its course led across a network of tracks to a long train.
"Why, these are cattle cars," uttered Prescott, disgustedly, when the column had been halted along the length of the foremost part of the train. "And, judging by the odor, these cars haven't been cleaned."
"They won't be until we are through riding in them," returned the French officer at his side. "This is what comes to soldiers who surrender to the German dogs!"
Only one car was given over to the officer-prisoners, who were forced to climb into the unsavory car through a side door. No seats had been provided, but there was not more than room to stand up in the stuffy car. Fortunately the spaces between the timbers of the car sides gave abundant ventilation.
Into cars to the rear the enlisted prisoners were packed. To stomachs that had been empty of food all day the odors were especially distressing.
As the officer in charge of the prisoners came to the side door of the first car Dick made bold to prefer a request.
"We have had no water all day. May we have a bucket of it in here before the train starts?"
"There will not be time," replied the German officer coldly, and moved away. Yet two hours passed, and the train did not start.
Suddenly German guns behind the front, along a stretch of miles, opened a heavy bombardment. Dick and his French friends gazed out at a sky made violently lurid by the reflection of the flashes of these great pieces. Then the French guns answered furiously, nor did all the French shells fall upon the German trenches or batteries. The French knew the location of this railway yard. Within twenty minutes five hundred large caliber shells had fallen in or near this yard. Freight and passenger coaches were struck and splintered.
Into the forward cattle car bounded the corporal who had tormented them that day. Behind him, in the doorway, appeared the German officer.
"Count the prisoners," ordered the latter, "and make sure that all are there. We are going to pull out of here before those crazy French yonder destroy all our rolling stock."
Fifteen minutes later, though the French shell-fire had ceased coming this way, the train crawled out of the yard. It ran along slowly, though sometime in the night it increased its speed.
Dick Prescott will never forget the misery of that night. When the train was under way the cold was intense in these half-open cattle cars. No appeal for water to drink was heeded.
Despite their discomforts, most of the prisoners managed to sleep some, though standing up.
In the middle of the night Prescott awoke, stiff, nauseated, hungry and parched with tormenting thirst. Though he did not know it at that moment, the train had halted because of a breakdown in a train ahead.
Along the track came that tormenting corporal. While a soldier held up a dim lantern the corporal unlocked the padlock, sliding the side door back.
At that moment an order was bawled lustily in German.
"Will you be good enough to repeat, Herr Lieutenant?" called the corporal, glancing backward down the length of train.
Heavy footsteps were heard approaching. Corporal and private turned to take a few steps back to meet their officer. Dick, standing in the open doorway, saw that a fog had settled down over the night.
Acting on a sudden impulse, without an instant's hesitation, he leaped down, striking softly on the balls of his feet. Without even turning sideways to see if German eyes had observed him, Prescott stole across another track, and down to the foot of an embankment.
"They'll shoot me for this!" he muttered. "Let them! Death is better than being a German prisoner!"
In another instant the French officer who had been standing next to Dick attempted the same trick. He had just gained the ground when the German lieutenant, turning his gaze from the corporal's face, and glancing ahead, broke off in the middle of his instructions to cry out:
"There's a prisoner escaping! Halt him or shoot him!"
Realizing that he was hopelessly caught, and trusting to better luck next time, the Frenchman held up his hands.
"Get back into the car," ordered the German lieutenant. "Corporal, take the lantern and see that all the prisoners are in there."
As the corporal obeyed, the lieutenant looked in and nodded.
"There was no time for any to escape," he remarked. "We nipped the first one. You are scoundrels when you try to disgrace me by escaping. Just for the attempt of this comrade of yours, gentlemen, you shall have no breakfast in the morning."
The door was moved quickly into place, the padlock snapped, and then the guard turned to other matters.
Not a French officer in that car but would sooner have died than betray the fact that Dick had slipped out of sight. Though they themselves were still in the car, they prayed that he might find either safety from the Germans, or that better thing than captivity, death.
As for Captain Prescott, he had slipped into a field beyond. When he halted to peer about he was perhaps sixty feet from the train. Moving cautiously he made the distance another hundred feet. Yet he did not dare to go far at present, nor rapidly.
"I'm out of the car, if nothing more," Dick reflected, inhaling a deep breath of the foggy air. "I shall always feel grateful to that German engineer. His blowing off steam made noise enough so that my jump and my footsteps weren't heard."
One of Dick's feet, moving exploringly, touched a stone. Bending over and groping, he found three fair-sized stones.
"Good enough!" he thought, picking them up. "Sooner or later, to-night, wandering around in an American uniform, I'm going to be heard and halted. I'll throw these stones at the sentry who tries to halt me, and then he'll fire. After he shoots there'll be no German prison ahead for me!"
This wasn't exactly a thought in the cheerful class, yet Prescott smiled. More contented with his prospects he moved softly away.
For the first hundred feet from the embankment his shoes touched grass. Then he came to the edge of a ploughed field. Here he felt that he must proceed with even greater caution, for now most of the train noises had ceased and he feared to slip or stumble, and thus make a noise that might be carried on the still night air to the ears of the train guard.
However, he soon struck a smooth path leading through the ploughed ground, and now moved along a little faster.
"This is just where caution ought to pay big dividends," he told himself. "A path is usually made to lead to where human beings live and congregate. I'll stop every few feet and listen."
The first sound that came to his ears from out of the veiled distance ahead made the young American officer almost laugh aloud. It was the crowing of a rooster.
"If you know how hungry I am, my bird, I doubt if you'd make any noise to draw me your way."
However, the crowing had given him a valuable clew, for he reasoned that the barnyard home of Mr. Rooster must be near the general buildings of a farm. These buildings he decided to avoid. So, when he came to a fork in the path he chose the direction that led him further from what he believed to be the location of the farm buildings.
By this time he was moving more rapidly, though striving to make no noise in moving. Suddenly he came to a road and stopped, gasping.
"I don't want anything as public as this," Dick told himself. "Troops use roads. However, as I've reached the road, and want to get as far from the train as possible, I believe I'll take a look from the other side of the road. There may be a field there better suited to my needs."
Directly opposite, at the other edge of the road, two tree trunks reared themselves close together, looking tall and gaunt against the white of the fog. After listening a moment Dick started to cross the road to them.
Just as he reached the trunks he saw something move around the further one, and drew back quickly. It was well that he did so, for the moving thing was a man armed with an axe which he had swung high and now tried to bring down relentlessly on Prescott's head.
But Dick's arms shot up, his hands catching the haft and wrenching the ugly weapon away from its wielder.
"No, you don't!" Dick muttered in English, taking another step backward from the wild-looking old peasant who had attempted to brain him.
"But a thousand pardons, monsieur!" cried the old man hoarsely in French, and now shaking from head to foot. "I did not see well in the fog, and I mistook you for a German. You are a British soldier!"
"An American soldier," Dick replied in the same tongue.
"Then, had I killed you, grief would have killed me, too, as it has already sent my wits scattering. For I am a Frenchman and hate only Germans."
"Is this a safe place to stand and discuss the Germans?" askedDick mildly, in a voice barely above a whisper. "This road——-"
"No, no! It is not safe here," protested the peasant. "Soldiers and wagons move over this road. That was why I was here. I hoped to find some German soldier alone, to leap on him and kill him—-and I thought you a German until after I had swung at you. Heaven is good, and I have not to reproach myself for having struck at the American uniform. But you are in danger here. You are——-"
"An escaped prisoner," Dick supplied in a whisper. "I have just escaped from the Germans."
"If you are quick then, they shall not find you," promised the old man, seizing Dick by the arm. "Come! I can guide you even through this fog."
There was something so sincere about the old peasant, despite his wildness, that Prescott went with him without objection. Both moving softly, they stepped into another field, the guide going forward as one who knew every inch of the way.
Presently buildings appeared faintly in the fog.
"Wait here," whispered the peasant, and was gone. He soon came back.
"There are no German soldiers about the place," the old man informed Dick. "I will take you into the house—-hide you. You shall have food and drink!"
Food and something to drink! To Dick Prescott, at that moment, this sounded like a promise of bliss.
To a rear door the old man led the American, and inside, closing and bolting the door after him. Here the man struck a light, and a candle shed its rays over a well-kept kitchen.
As Dick laid the axe down in a corner he heard a sobbing sound from a room nearby.
"It is the dear old wife," said the peasant, in an awed tone. "To-day the German monsters took our son and our daughter, and marched them off with other young people from the village. They have been taken to Germany to toil as slaves of the wild beasts. Do you wonder, monsieur, that the good wife sobs and that I haunted the road hoping to find a German soldier alone and to slay him? But I must hide you, for Germans might come here at any moment."
Throwing open a door the old man revealed a flight of stairs. He led the way to a room above. Here a door cunningly concealed behind a dresser was opened after the guide had moved the dresser. At a sign Dick entered the other room, only to find himself confronted by another man, whose face, revealed by the candle light, caused Captain Dick Prescott to recoil as though from a ghost.
"You know each other?" cried the old peasant, as he observed the amazement of two young men. "You are enemies?"
As he saw the pair fairly hug each other he added hastily:
"But no! You are friends!"
Then he added, as if he were saying something new:
"Friends, quite certainly."
"You, Dick Prescott!" gasped the other young man.
"Tom Reade!" uttered the young captain delightedly.
The old peasant held the candle higher that he might see better what was taking place. In that light Dick made another discovery.
"Tom, you're in uniform! Aviation service, at that!"
"What else did you expect?" Tom demanded. "Especially after I wrote and told you all about it."
"When?"
"Last July."
"Where did you send the letter?"
"To you at Camp Baker."
"It was in July that we left Camp Baker for Camp Berry. Your letter must have gone astray. I heard from the old home town of Gridley that you and Hazelton had gone across—-something to do with welfare work. I couldn't make it out," Dick hurried on," neither did I know where to address you."
"That's just it, though!" exclaimed Tom Reade, with a happy laugh. "Welfare work explains it to a dot. We're working for the welfare of the world by helping to kill as many Huns as possible!"
"But how came you to be here?"
"I might ask as much of you, Dick, as you and I appear to be in exactly the same boat."
It looked rather ungrateful toward the old peasant who had brought these old, old friends together, but for a few moments both forgot him. When they remembered him they found that the old man had gone, closing the door.
Then Dick told what had befallen him, after which Reade explained that, three nights before, on a night flight over the German lines, his plane had been damaged by a fragment of shell from an anti-aircraft gun. Reade had been obliged to descend some forty miles behind the German front lines. Fortunately he had come down in a field near the house in which he now hid. He had cautiously come to this house, and as cautiously aroused the inmates, reasoning that they must be French and should befriend him. This the peasants had cheerfully done.
"I've been hiding here since, and my machine was found, but I wasn't," Tom wound up.
"You see, this room has no windows, and I keep very quiet, and so, perhaps, I could remain here safely a month. But I won't. I have plans for escape back to the French lines."
At this moment the door opened again. The old peasant came in with a tray on which was a dish of smoking meat, dark bread and potatoes and a pot of coffee.
"Now, since you are old friends I shall leave you," said the old man smiling, as he patted both young Americans on the shoulder. "But Monsieur Reade knows how to call me if I am wanted. Good rest and stout hearts, young gentlemen!"
"We'll feast a bit!" cried Prescott eagerly.
"You will," Tom corrected. "I've had my evening meal and am not hungry. Eat before the candle burns out, and while you do so I will fix the ventilator for the night. When you have eaten we can turn in on the bed, for we can talk there as well as when sitting in the dark." Dick fell to ravenously on the food and coffee, while Tom attended to ventilation by removing a loose brick from a chimney, half of which was in this blind attic.
"We must pay this peasant well," Dick proposed, when he had nearly finished the meal, "for I'll wager he is not rich."
"I can pay him all right," declared Reade, striking a hand against his waist-line. "In my money belt I have a stock of American gold. Gold is a money that is very popular in Europe in these days of hardship."
Later the chums disrobed and turned in. There was abundance of covering to the bed.
"Now," proposed Tom Reade, talking in whispers, "for my plan of escape. It's dangerous, and it sounds impossible, fantastic. But now that you're here, Dick Prescott, I feel equal to putting anything through! So here's for the plan!"
It was dangerous enough, certainly, as Tom Reade outlined it. It didn't even strike Captain Prescott as being possible of performance, but he didn't say so. It was the only plan of escape that presented itself, and Tom had evidently put in all his hopes on that idea.
From the plan the chums fell to talking of other days. In the end, however, their whispers became more indistinct, then died out. Both were asleep.
Dick, as he slumbered and tossed, still felt the motion of that hideous prison train, but at last fell into deep slumber.
When he finally awoke he beheld Tom Reade, fully dressed in his uniform, seated at some distance under a little opening in the roof, reading a book.
"Awake, eh?" asked Tom, when he heard his chum stir. After glancing at his wrist watch, he added:
"You've slept nine hours and a half, and I guess you needed it. There is water for washing, and I'll consult our host about breakfast. What do you think of this way of letting in daylight? Toward night I shove this black cover over the hole in the roof, so that candle light may not show through the roof and give us away to the Germans."
Stepping to the chimney, from which the "ventilator" brick was still absent, Reade put his hand inside, finding a cord and giving it a gentle tug.
By the time that Prescott was partly dressed the door opened and the old peasant looked in.
"We are wondering what you can give us for breakfast?" Tom said in French. "Are eggs to be had to-day? Omelettes?"
"Yes, I can get eggs," nodded the old man.
"As you've not seen the color of my money yet," Tom continued, "please take this on account."
At first the old peasant hung back from accepting the proffered gold coin, though at last he took it, remarking:
"I will admit that I am poor, and yet it seems a crime to accept money from an American."
Half an hour later their host returned, bringing two hot omelettes, dark bread, potatoes and the inevitable pot of coffee.
"It is with difficulty that we keep food hidden," he murmured, in a low voice. "A dozen times the Huns have appeared and have taken from us all the food they could find. But we still have flour, potatoes and coffee hidden where they cannot find them. We shall hope to continue to exist until you Americans have helped drive the Hun from our land."
From the nearby road came the sound of moving trucks. The old man paused and shook his fist in the direction of the sound. After he had served the breakfast he climbed upon a stool, putting his eyes to the hole in the sloping roof and peering toward the road.
"Ah, the vermin!" he hissed. "A regiment of their accursed infantry marching toward the front. Oh, that your men and ours might kill them all this day!"
"Give us time, and we'll do it," Tom promised unconcernedly.
After breakfast the two chums talked almost without stopping until it was time for luncheon. In the afternoon Tom stretched, then walked toward the bed, declaring:
"When one has no chance to exercise I believe sleep to be the next best thing, even extra sleep. I believe that I can sleep until supper time. And after that—-perhaps it will be tonight, Dick, that we make our fantastic effort to place ourselves on the other side of the German battle front!"
"The sooner the better," cried Dick, "only provided that speed does not waste our chance to escape."
"If we must go down in defeat," yawned Reade, "I believe we may at least look for the satisfaction of carrying a few Huns with us. I believe I have forgotten to mention the fact that I have my automatic pistol with me. It's hidden, but I could show it to you."
"I'm glad you have it," murmured Dick, as he closed his eyes."I never before felt the desire to slay human beings, but sinceI've struck the French front I've had a constant desire to killHuns!"
"To-night, then," said Reade drowsily, "we may find the chance both to kill Huns and get back to the French lines."
"After dark, by a whole hour!" whispered Reade, after waking, striking a match and looking at his wrist watch. "Hustle, Dick!"
Tom's next act was to light a candle. "Want supper?" he asked.
"I could eat it," Prescott replied. "But what's the use?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why waste time with eating when there's the slimmest chance to get away?" Dick continued.
"It may be hours before we can really put our plan into execution."
"Our plan?" repeated Dick. "What on earth did I have to do with making the plan? But, if you feel that we're not wasting time over a supper I'll admit that I am ready to eat."
So Reade summoned their host, as before.
"Is the night good and foggy?" Tom asked, when the aged peasant appeared.
"There is not a trace of fog, monsieur," was the reply. "Still, the sky is cloudy, and the night is dark."
"That's only second-best weather," grumbled Reade. "However, I'm impatient to have a try to-night. I think we will try for it. Can you help us?"
"Undoubtedly I can find out how clear the coast is," replied the old man. "I would be glad to do far more than that for you."
"If you can supply us with supper," Tom proposed, "and then find out the news, it will be a great service."
Later, while the chums ate, the old peasant went abroad. Tom and Dick were waiting impatiently until he returned.
"All is as well as it will be any night," the Frenchman reported, and added details.
"We'll try it, then," Reade decided, after glancing at Prescott, who nodded.
"And may you succeed!" cried the old peasant fervently. "And may you both come safely through the war, and have the good fortune to slay Huns and Huns and Huns!"
"Promise me, my good old friend, to use your axe only for chopping wood," Dick urged,
"And I will promise to think of you whenever I have the chance to destroy a Hun."
"It is a bargain, then!" cried their host.
"It will be kept, on my side," Dick rejoined gravely.
"And on mine, too," agreed the old man.
It was quiet abroad when the three stealthily left the house. The Americans had wished to leave a word of cheer with the peasant's wife, but she had fallen asleep and they would not disturb her.
Through a wood and across fields their guide led the young Americans until they neared the spot they sought.
"From here on one will have to be cautious," suggested the Frenchman. "You are about to cross a road, and then, on the other side, one comes to the aviation station."
"Then here is where you should leave us," Dick remarked considerately. "Very likely we shall fail and be sent on to a prison camp, this time in irons. Perhaps we shall be shot. But we do not care to let an old man, and a Frenchman follow us to a death that he should not invite."
"I would go with you until I see you safely in sight of the station," objected the Frenchman.
"It seems unnecessary, and contemptible in us to risk your life along with our own. Do you understand the lay of the land, Tom? Can you find our objective without risking the life of our good old friend here?"
"I am sure that I can," Reade nodded. "Like yourself, Dick, I feel that he should not come further with us. And see here, monsieur. You have not asked our names, neither have we known yours. Some day, when all around here is French territory again, and the beastly German has gone forever, we shall want to look you up, or write you. I am Lieutenant Tom Reade, of the American aviation service, and my friend is Captain Richard Prescott, of the American Infantry."
"And I am Francois Prim. My neighbors call me Papa Prim."
"Show us the way we are to go, Monsieur Prim," Dick urged.
"It is simple," replied Papa Prim. "You see, without fail, the little building to which I am pointing, over by the roadside?"
"Yes."
"That was our school-house. Now it is an office for the Prussians. They have a battalion or more of infantry camped in the field across from the building. They are a guard to keep us afraid. Sometimes one will see three or four regiments camped further along on that field, either regiments going to the front or coming back for rest. Now, from that building you turn and go in that direction"—-Papa Prim made a motion with his crooked forefinger—-"and so you come to four sheds that are easily missed in the night, for they are camouflaged so as not to attract the eye of French flyers in the day time. From here it will be the first shed that you come to that is more likely to be open at night. In each shed are two airplanes. They are kept here for the purpose of sending up at night when French planes pass over to bomb railways or perhaps to bomb German towns. When our own French airmen come then these airplanes shoot up into the sky and give battle. But the Huns have lost twelve planes here in half that number of months," Papa Prim added proudly, "and only lately have enough new ones arrived from Germany to make up the eight required for this station."
"Where do the airmen sleep?" Dick interjected.
"In the camp with the troops; in the hangars there are no sleeping places."
"And the hangars are at some distance from the troop camp?" Tom asked.
"The troop camp begins over that way," Papa Prim continued, pointing, "for, as you will understand, there must be ground on which the airplanes may run before they rise. So there is some distance. I came near forgetting to tell you that, behind the hangars, are four tents in which the hangar guard sleeps."
"And how many sentries at a time walk post around the hangars?"Dick inquired.
"I do not know," confessed Papa Prim, "but I do not believe there are more than three or four sentries on duty at a time. Of course, there are other sentries on post at the camp."
"And airships leaving fly directly over the camp?" Tom wanted to know.
"You have said truly," replied Papa Prim. "And are there anti-aircraft guns in the camp?" Tom asked.
"In the troop camp, so I have heard, but I have not seen them," answered Papa Prim.
Removing his steel helmet and taking it in his left hand, Dick bent over, seizing Papa Prim's hand.
"Good-bye for a little while, monsieur," he said earnestly. "We go away with hearts full of gratitude to your own fine, loyal heart. May you prosper and be happy, with your children safely returned from Germany. May all good things in life be with you. Our thanks will always be with you, and our thoughts often of you, monsieur."
Tom Reade took leave of Papa Prim in equally hearty and grateful words.
The two Americans watched the slim, bent old figure plodding homeward. After looking the ground over critically, they stole forward on their way.
"I didn't want him to see what disagreeable business we may have on our hands within a few minutes," Dick whispered. "But see here, Tom, I've just remembered that you didn't pay Papa Prim for all his trouble, as you had planned."
"Didn't I?" Reade chuckled. "I did it without any dispute from him, either. Dick, I wrapped five twenty-dollar American gold pieces in cloth, so they wouldn't jingle, and stuffed the whole tightly into a small canvas bag. While you were talking I slipped it into one of his blouse pockets. Papa Prim will find the money there, and he'll know who put it there, but he won't be able to return it."
"American gold?" Dick echoed. "If the Germans ever know of his having American gold they'll think it reason enough for hanging him."
"No, they won't," Tom retorted, "though they would undoubtedly think it reason enough for taking the money away from him. But I've seen plenty of American gold in France, and plenty of English gold, too. Anywhere in the world gold is gold, and having American gold isn't proof, during this war, that the possessor got it from an American. I'll wager that there is plenty of American gold locked up even in Germany. But the Germans will never find Papa's gold. Papa Prim will hide it until the day comes when, like the good Frenchman that he is, he can turn that gold into a French war bond."
Nearing the former school-house that had been pointed out to them, the two chums took their bearings afresh. Crossing the road one at a time, with utmost stealth, they reached the other side without having been challenged.
A little further on they espied a German sentry, pacing post. Waiting until the fellow had gone to the furthest limit of his post, the chums, flat on their stomachs, crawled forward until, on looking backward, they judged it safe to rise and move on crouchingly. Then they came in sight of the aviation station.
"Better crawl all the way now," Dick whispered. "We have reached the point where any attempt at speed will be sure to place a few bullets in our bodies."
Tom nodded, without speaking. It was trampled, withered grass through which they now crawled. It offered fair concealment, but there was danger of making a noise that might betray them to a keen-eared sentry.
At last, near the first hangar, they reached a spot where two trees stood close together. Crawling to this shelter, they still remained lying down, though the tree trunks gave them greater safety against being seen.
In front of the hangars paced a sentry; at the rear another soldier walked post. At some distance from this latter sentry stood four tents, in which, Papa Prim had declared, slept the reliefs of the guard.
"I see how we could get the sentry at the rear," Dick whispered, after a few minutes' silent survey. "But it's at the front that we want to get in, and I don't see any way of creeping up on the front sentry without the rear sentry seeing us and firing. That would give the alarm."
"Then we've got to 'get' the rear sentry first?" Tom asked, his lips at his chum's ear.
"That's it."
"Nasty business, and double chance of losing the game."
"It's the only way, Tom, unless your head is working better than mine."
For some minutes Tom Reade studied.
"I guess it will have to be the rear sentry first," he conceded.
At that moment a small door at the rear of the hangar opened.The two friends heard the noise, and judged by sound more than sight.
"Sentry!" said the man who had stepped outside, in a low voice.
"Herr Lieutenant!" responded the man. "I am not locking the door, sentry. I shall be back before long."
"Very good, Herr Lieutenant." Passing to the front of the hangar this German aviation lieutenant waited until the sentry there had reached him, then delivered the same information, after which the aviation officer strode off briskly toward the troop camp that could be only vaguely seen in the distance.
"It sounds as if he intended to make a flight," whispered Dick uneasily.
"That wouldn't be so bad," Reade replied. "It will be worse if his machine is out of order and he is coming back to fuss over it."
"We must make our break now," Prescott whispered.
"Lead the way," answered Reade. Fortunately, at this moment, the sentries were at the outer ends of their posts. Bending low, keeping his gaze on the sentries, Dick scurried noiselessly over the ground until he paused, erect and panting, under the shadow of the building near the rear.
So far safe, for Reade was with him an instant later. While the rear sentry finished his post at this end just beyond the hangar, the front sentry, as far as had been observed, came only as far as the sliding doors of the hangar.
"Get your automatic ready!" Dick whispered. Then they heard the rear sentry coming toward them.
There came that tense instant when the sentry's passing form loomed up within three feet of Captain Prescott. Losing not an instant Dick sprang upon him with the bound of a panther.
There was no outcry, for Dick's fingers sought and found the fellow's throat, encircling it. Wrenching the enemy soldier off his balance, Prescott laid him low, the man's bayoneted rifle falling across his body.
It was Dick's eyes that said, "Ready, Tom!" Reade hesitated for a second or so, then struck the prostrate, choking enemy between the eyes. It was a fearful blow, and the man collapsed.
"One down, but we must get the other!" Dick whispered sternly.
They stole forward along the side of the building, Dick in the lead. Peeping around the corner he saw the sentry almost finishing the nearer end of his post. Back came Prescott's head like a shot. He waited until he knew by the tread that the sentry had turned and was going back over his post. Then it was that Dick stole upon him from behind. Another leap, a grip around the man's throat, and sentry number two was on his back, where Reade gave him the grace blow.
Without a word the chums picked up this sentry, carrying him around to the rear. Then Dick sought the small rear door of the hangar. It opened softly, and they entered, closing it behind them.
All was darkness in here until Reade, producing his pocket electric torch, threw a beam of light over the scene.
While Dick stood still, now holding the automatic pistol, Tom took a rapid look over each of the two air machines.
"This nearer one looks like the newer, better one," Reade declared."I'll look over the machinery to make sure that the engine isall right and that I understand the engine and the controls.Her machine-gun is ready for business and we may need it."
Dick stood patiently by, wondering how soon the guard was due to be relieved. If that happened soon, and the knocked-out sentries were discovered, the chance for escape looked like three less than nothing!
"All right," whispered Tom at last. "I can handle her, and there is water enough in the radiator and the gas tanks are filled. Now, then, we must open the doors as noiselessly as possible."
Dick taking the left-hand one, Tom the right, they rolled the doors back. These moved almost noiselessly.
"Here's the way you turn the engine on," Tom whispered, holding the torch and getting Dick up into the cockpit of the craft. "Turn it on as soon as I say, but not a second before."
Placing himself in front of the propeller Tom gave it a few brisk turns.
"Now!" cried Tom, leaping back. The ignition caught at once. Tom clambered over into the cockpit, Prescott now being in the observer's seat forward.
With the wheel in his hands and his feet resting against the controls Tom Reade suddenly dropped all apprehension. He was as much at home now as Prescott was with an automatic pistol in his hand.
Waiting only until the engine had gained its speed without missing,Tom cried:
"Ready, pal!"
Out through the open doorway Reade sent the airplane "taxying" or running along the ground.
Across the field toward them came racing a German aviator with a startled look on his face. He had to jump out of the way as the "taxying" airplane bore down on him. But he reached for his automatic and brought it forth.
"Stop!" he roared. "Turn out the guard!" Bang! bang!
Two bullets whizzed by Tom's head. Prescott fired three shots instantly, one of them taking effect, for the German officer went to earth and lay there, his pistol now silent.
From behind the hangar several members of the guard came rushing from their tents. By the time they were in front of the hangar they could shoot only by guess, and might hit their own comrades in the troop camp. So they fired into the air, wildly, rapidly.
So much shooting was bound to rouse the troop camp, and did. The sentries came out on the jump. While some fired star shells that lighted the sky, others took quick aim with their rifles.
Aiming at the figures on the ground as best he could, just as Reade left the ground for the air, Prescott fired, loaded and fired, jamming in a fresh magazine whenever the automatic became emptied.
Twenty feet up in the air, fifty, a hundred! Tom Reade rose as fast as he could make the machine move. More star shells, and now the anti-aircraft guns came into action.
At three hundred feet above the ground shells exploded about the fugitives. One lucky shot of the enemy would be enough to bring them to earth.
The pistol was now too hot to use further. Dick sat back, closing his eyes, while Reade drove at all the speed he could compel, ever rising higher. Both Americans knew that other anti-aircraft guns further south would be turned upon them.
Finally Tom, after a glance at the barograph, roared at Prescott:
"Five thousand feet up on a dark night, and we're going to fifteen thousand feet. All we now have to fear will be other German aircraft, but there'll be fleets of them sent out to look for us!" Prescott nodded, though he could not hear in the roar of the motors and the rush of the air past him.
A mile below them the blackness of the night was punctured by a lively little volcano of red and yellow jets. A dozen anti-aircraft guns opened fire on the fugitive airplane, whose course must have been telephoned along the line. Some of the shells burst so close that fragments of metal whizzed about the ears of both Americans; some of the shells went far wide of the mark, but at least two of the gunners followed the moving craft for the distance of a mile with an accuracy that caused the two fugitives in the sky the liveliest uneasiness. The gunners were aiming by the sound of the engines.
"Give us fifteen minutes more at this speed,"
Tom roared, "and we'll be back over our own French lines!"
They were soon going at terrific speed, fifteen thousand feet up in the air, when a terrifying peril beset them.
Out of the blackness ahead, bearing straight at them, came a dozenGerman airplanes in splendid formation!
"Hurrah!" yelled Tom Reade. "Sink or swim—-but never say die!Now we'll give it to 'em, real Yankee Doodle, 'over there' style!"
It sounded like sheer bravado, but Reade was fired with the new genius of the war.
Tom headed straight for the nearest plane, and Dick turned the machine gun loose. Almost immediately he had the great good luck to cripple that enemy and send the craft fluttering down to earth.
But another plane had attempted to go under them with a view to shooting up. It came too near, in the maneuver shot too badly, and Dick let loose with the machine gun again. Down came the enemy plane while Reade took a wide swerve to the right.
So swift and daring had been Reade's tactics that he was through and past the opposing fleet ere the German aviators realized their failure. Now the survivors wheeled and gave chase, though they soon abandoned it, for the plane that Reade drove was a new one and faster than any of his pursuers. For a minute or so more the two Americans survived by sheer good luck. Then they were out of enemy range.
Higher Tom mounted in the air. Dick fairly chattered with the cold, but he kept the machine gun ready for instant use.
A few minutes more, then Tom, shutting off the power for a glide, inquired, at the top of his voice:
"Where do you want to be put down?"
"For choice," Captain Prescott answered, "as close as possible to General Bazain's divisional headquarters."
"I know the place," Tom nodded. "There's an aviation station about three miles beyond there."
Tom threw on the power, straightened away, and three minutes later began to glide again until he was not more than six thousand feet from earth.
"Keep your eyes turned low," Tom counseled. "Soon we ought to see something."
Nor was that "something" long in appearing. Not far ahead, yet so much below them as to look tiny, hundreds of flashes were seen.
"German artillery," Dick told himself.
Another minute, and he beheld flashes turned against the Germans.
"Between the two lines of artillery are the fire trenches of the opposing armies," Prescott realized with a thrill.
Next he found himself, at lower altitude, going squarely over a line of French batteries.
"Now comes the really ticklish work of the night!" Reade shouted back. "When we try for a landing we'll endeavor to make our own crowd understand that, though this is a German machine, it comes on no hostile errand. If we can't make the Frenchmen understand that, then they'll blow us back into the sky as soon as we range low enough!"
Guided by that instinct which is the aviator's best compass at night, Reade steered toward the landing field.
Bang! came the report of a gun below, and a shell exploded dangerously close to the aircraft. Tom switched on an electric light signal beneath the craft to show that a friendly craft sought safe landing. At the same time Dick leaned as far over as he could and waved an arm slowly. Then just ahead a flare began on the ground, next burned up brightly—-a can of gasoline lighted and allowed to burn to indicate the neighborhood in which to come down.
Going past and turning, Reade volplaned gracefully earthward, landing just beyond the blazing gasoline.
Instantly they were surrounded by two-score French aviators and mechanicians.
"It is all right!" the cry went up. "They are Americans, though the machine is German."
M. le Commandant Perrault, chief of squadron, stepped rapidly forward, receiving the salute of the two American officers and asking questions at volley-fire speed. His face betrayed amazement, but when the brief narrative had been finished he grasped the hands of each.
"It was splendidly done," he declared.
"And now, sir, on behalf of my friend, may I ask how far we are from the front line?" Tom inquired. "Captain Prescott wishes to return to the trenches immediately."
"It is ten kilometers," replied the commandant. "Yet speed shall not be impossible. Within five minutes I will have here a car that will take Captain Prescott to the communication trenches, and in that car will be a trench guide."
"And I'm going, too, Dick," Tom added, squeezing his chum's arm."We have a lot to talk over yet."
As the German airplane had been turned over to Commandant Perrault, Reade had no further concern with that. He bounded into the motor car when it arrived. Later the trench guide conducted them into the front trenches, even to the section from which Prescott had been taken. Major Wells was now, with Captain Holmes and Lieutenant Terry, at a point about a third of a mile to the westward.
Thither Dick and Tom turned their steps, still with the trench guide showing the way. Unexpectedly this little party came upon Major Wells just as the latter was saying:
"The greatest blow to us was the loss of Captain Prescott. Of course he may be a prisoner, and unharmed, but we much fear that he was killed."
"I beg to report, sir," Dick broke in smilingly, as he saluted, "that I was not so indiscreet as to be killed."
Like a flash Major Wells turned upon him. "Prescott!" he cried, "I can't believe it." But he did, just the same, and, coming to his senses, went on hastily:
"General, I have the great happiness of presenting Captain Prescott!"
Again Dick came to the salute, and when it was finished he stood very erect, hands straight at his sides, for he had caught sight, above the horizontal braid on the general's coat, of four stars, instead of the two stars of a major-general. There was but one officer in the United States service who could wear four stars—-the American Commander-in-chief.
Under the general's questioning Prescott and Reade, who was also presented, told their stories with soldierly brevity and directness.
"And how do you feel now, Captain?" inquired the Commander-in-chief smiling.
"Utterly happy, sir, for I've realized my sole ambition for months,"Captain Dick answered fervently.
"And what was that?"
"To be in France, with General Pershing, and at grips with mankind's enemies."
"You've made a gallant start, Captain," smiled the Commander-in-chief. "And in that I include your friend, Lieutenant Reade. You are officers after my own heart."
Captain Greg Holmes coming upon this scene, stood back as long as etiquette in the presence of a general demanded, then rushed forward to give joyous greeting to both chums.
Dick and his friends were destined to go even further in the realization of their fondest hopes. Up to this moment the United States was only in the infancy of her part in the great war. Greater days were coming, and did come, and what happened then will be found truthfully set forth in the next volume in this series, which will be published under the title:
"Uncle Sam's Boys Smash The Germans; Or, Helping the Allies Wind Up the Great World War."