The fact that they lost their oars was what saved them. For now, its attention evidently attracted by the sudden outburst of firing, the nearest monitor sent its searchlight flashing down upon them, and the little boat, with its helpless burden, was plainly visible from the shore. With a quick and ready wit, the two scouts leaped to their feet, at the risk of upsetting the boat, and waved their hands, in token of their helplessness. They were seen at once, and there was a sharp cry from the shore, and an order to cease firing.
"We're in luck," said Steve, quietly, as he sat down again in the boat. "That's an Austrian officer. If he had been Hungarian, he wouldn't have stopped firing just because he saw we were helpless. But he must have come lately from Vienna. He hasn't had time to get the border hatred of us into his system yet."
Dick already knew that there was particularly bad and bitter blood between Servians and Hungarians, but he made no comment. By this time he was heart and soul with Servia in the war that must have begun, but this was partly because of his swiftly formed friendship for Steve Dushan, and partly because Servia seemed to be the under dog. Yet he knew that there were probably two sides to the question, and even the way Mike Hallo had behaved had not filled him with a prejudice against the whole Hungarian nation.
Now that the immediate danger was over, there was time for them to look to the wounded ferryman. Dick thought he was dead. He had never seen a man shot before, but when he turned the man's body over, Steve laughed, not callously, but happily.
"Good for old Mischa!" he said. "I thought a man who fought at Kumanovo and helped to storm Adrianople after the Bulgarians yelled for help wouldn't go out so easily! See? It's only a scratch! The bullet grazed his head. Dip your handkerchief in the water, and we'll have him all right in no time."
The cold water, as a matter of fact, did revive Mischa almost at once, and he sat up, rueful at the loss of his oars. When he was told that a bullet had grazed his scalp and stunned him, he actually grinned.
"So that is what it feels like to be shot!" he said. "Good! Now I shan't be afraid the next time there is going to be a battle, as I was at Kumanovo. What next?"
"I think everyone is wondering about that," said Dick, with a grin. "They don't seem to want to come out after us, and we certainly can't row ashore without oars, even if we wanted to. And I suppose if she's cleared for action, that monitor isn't carrying so many boats that she'll want to send one for us."
"I wish her searchlight would break down!" said Steve, venomously. "Then our fellows on the other side might help us. Mischa, I've got to get over if we can do it. It's very important for me to report what I discovered during the day. Has war been declared yet?"
"It has not been formally declared," said Mischa. "But the King and all the government have gone all the way back to Nish, and most of the troops have marched away to the west, toward Schabatz and Losnitza. There is only a small garrison left in Belgrade."
"To Nish, eh?" said Steve, frowning a little. "That was not the plan of which I heard. The withdrawal was to be only to Kragujevac. They must mean to draw the Austrians on. But I am sorry. I hoped for an invasion."
Suddenly to the east there was a dull roar. The three in the boat stared at one another, and at the same moment there came a wild outburst of cheering from the soldiers on the Austrian bank of the river.
"What is that?" asked Dick. As he spoke the sound was repeated.
"Cannon," said Mischa.
"Yes, cannon!" repeated Steve, his face lighted up. "The first gun of the war! Who knows how many echoes that shot will have? They said that in your country a shot was fired once that was heard around the world. I believe that this is just such a shot, Dick!"
"Where is the firing?"
"It must be from one of the Austrian batteries near Semlin. They are bombarding the city of Belgrade, I suppose."
And then there was a deafening roar, a sound far greater than the firing of even the heaviest guns of modern warfare would make, and to the east, toward the Danube, there was a great flash of fire. Instantly the searchlight swung away from them and pointed in the opposite direction, and as the beams of light were concentrated on the spot where the flash had been, the three observers in the boat saw a strange and wonderful sight. The lights played full on the great steel railway bridge across the Save, and in their white glare they could see the beams collapsing, the piers melting away, while the whole central span of the bridge collapsed in utter ruin, leaving a gap where the river now flowed unbridged.
"Yes, the war has come!" said Steve impressively. "That was to be our first act—the destruction of the bridge. They will not send their troops into Servia so easily as that!"
"P—ss—t!"
A sharp hiss came to their ears, seemingly from the water. And not only seemingly. Looking down, they saw the upturned face of a swimmer. Mischa hailed him joyfully.
"Peter!" he said.
"Take this rope. We saw what had happened," said the swimmer, "and so I swam out, and waited until their accursed searchlight was not playing on you. We will draw you ashore. If they fire, lie low in the boat, and they will never hit you. But you are safe now unless the searchlight comes back again. They can never see you in this darkness."
"Good man, Peter!" said Steve, his voice hushed. "Swim back, now. We have the rope. It is better for you not to come into the boat now."
Peter did not answer, but turned at once and began cutting the water with long, powerful strokes. Nevertheless, though he made good progress, he disturbed the water very little, and he had not gone more than a few yards before it was almost impossible for even those in the boat to see him. Only a faint rippling of the water behind him marked his trail.
"That was good work," said Dick, admiringly. "We'll get ashore safely yet, Steve! And a minute ago it certainly didn't seem possible."
There was a tug at the rope a moment later. The searchlights were still turned downstream, and now there was a brisk cannonading from the Semlin batteries. There had been no more explosions. It was plain, as, indeed, they had already been able to see, that the Servian sappers who had mined the railway bridge had done their work well.
"Down in the boat now!" said Dushan. "They are drawing on the rope, and they'll begin pulling us along in a moment. I'm going to try to keep her as she is, but it may be hard if they pull too fast. If they will keep their searchlight away for just five minutes, we shall be all right."
"You'd better make that rope fast to something in the boat instead of just holding on to it," said Dick. "If you don't, you might lose your hold. Remember how Mischa lost his oars."
"That's a good idea, Dick. I didn't think of it. Here, it's looped around one of the thwarts now. That ought to hold it all right, if they do hit me."
Then they all dropped, and in a moment the boat was being drawn along swiftly through the water. It proved impossible to keep her bow on to the Servian shore, but there seemed no reason to fear anything from the Austrians behind them. Yet suddenly a bullet whistled over their heads, following the crack of a rifle.
"Never mind that!" said Dick. "They just want us to know that they're still thinking about us, that's all!"
But the shot had another motive, as they soon guessed. It had been fired in an interval of silence, when there was no firing from the batteries at Semlin—to which, incidentally, the Servians had as yet made no reply from Belgrade—and it was soon apparent that it had been fired to attract the attention of the monitor. In a moment the searchlight came winking back, and instinctively, as the great beam of light swept over them, all crouched lower still in the bottom of the boat. There were quick wits on the Servian side, for the dragging of the rope stopped at once, and their motion with it.
For a moment nothing happened.
"Perhaps they won't notice that we've moved," said Steve, hopefully.
But that was a vain hope. More faintly now, they could hear shouting from the Austrian bank, and then Dick understood as a volley rang out and a hail of bullets swept over them and pattered into the water near by.
"They saw that we had disappeared. That's enough to make them suspicious!" he cried. "Shake that rope! Maybe they'll understand that we want them to pull again."
But that was unnecessary. The pull on the rope had been resumed, and they were moving fast again.
Once more the Austrian rifles spoke, and this time half a dozen bullets pattered against the side of the boat. Some came through, but she was stoutly built, and these had lost most of their force. But the searchlight followed them, and now there was a loud roar near by. This was followed in a moment by a dull explosion that seemed to be within a few feet of them. The boat rocked violently and a shower of spray descended, wetting them all.
"Stay down!" cried Steve. "That's a shell from the monitor!"
"Gee! They're anxious enough to get us, aren't they?" exclaimed Dick. "That was a close call, Steve! But I'll bet it was just a lucky shot! We're too small a target, and we're moving pretty fast! I don't believe they will really hit us."
"Too close to be comfortable," agreed Steve. "It feels funny, doesn't it, being under fire? I never was before."
"And I don't care if I never am again," rejoined Dick. "I'm frightened, and I don't care who knows it!"
"So am I!" admitted Steve, a little tremulously. "And I hoped I wouldn't be! I wanted to be a soldier, but a coward can't be a soldier."
Before Dick, who didn't think that it was cowardly to be afraid, could answer, another shell plumped into the water beyond them, and again showered them with spray, while it set the boat to rocking. But in a way even this danger was a source of safety, for the upheaval of the water had spoiled the aim of the rifleman each time, and though they dared not rise to look, they felt that they must be very near the Servian shore by this time. And then big Mischa laughed aloud.
"You need not be afraid, Stepan Ivanovitch," he said. "You need not be afraid that you are a coward, I mean. I am afraid at first every time I am under fire, and so are most soldiers. Ask your father, now that you have been under fire yourself. It soon wears off, that fear. But the bravest men need not be ashamed to admit they are afraid when the first bullets sing in their ears, or when they hear the shells burst near them!"
Twice more, in a few moments, shells dropped in the water near them. But either luck was with them, or the monitor's target practice was poor, for neither damaged the boat. And now they could hear the encouraging shouts of the Servians from the shore. Then there came an explosion louder than any of the rest, and the boat seemed to go to pieces under them. The water rushed in. Luckily, no one of them was hurt, but all were thrown into the water. They began to swim lustily, striking out blindly for the shore, until Mischa raised his voice in a great laugh, and seized one of them in each arm.
"Here, I'll carry you ashore!" he cried.
They were safe!
Safe, but only for the moment. The searchlight had been following them, and now it played on them and the Servians, a little party of five or six men, who had dragged them thus to safety.
"Look out! Scatter!" cried one of these, the only one who was in uniform. "They'll try another shell, just to get even, now that you've got away from them."
They scattered at once, flinging themselves to the ground after running a few paces. And, sure enough, a shell struck close to the brink of the water, half burying itself in the sand before it exploded and sent sand and dirt flying all over them. The fire of the riflemen carried across the river, too, from the other bank, but the bullets had little force left after carrying so far.
Dick, lying face down, his back to the river, and within a few paces of Steve, lifted his head a little, and looked about him. He saw that a little way back from the water's edge the ground began to rise quite sharply, culminating in what was almost a bluff, but was still easily to be climbed. And where the ground began to rise, there was a sturdy growth of bushes and young trees, too, that would afford good shelter. If they could only get so far! It was easy to see. The searchlight from the monitor was playing all over and around them, making the scene weird in the extreme but serving them, in a way, by making their path as clear as it would have been in broad daylight.
Then the searchlight winked out and swung away for a moment. In that instant the man who had given the first order rose and began running toward the shrubbery.
"Come on!" he cried, turning and stopping, while he waved his hands. "The light will be back in a moment!"
They obeyed willingly, and swept up the slope in a wild rush. The searchlight swung back again, and now a shell burst high in the air above them. In a moment there was a curious tearing sound, and then a pitapat on the ground about them. Dick guessed it was shrapnel, though he had, of course, never been under shrapnel fire before. That was not from the monitor, he knew. It meant that the Austrians on the other side must have got a light field piece into action after some delay.
But he was not hit, and in a minute he was at the top of the rise, panting. Steve Dushan came up to him.
"All right, Dick?" he cried. "I didn't have any idea of bringing you into anything as hot as this. You might better have stayed and taken your chance in Semlin! Perhaps your consul could have helped you."
"I don't care! We're all right now," said Dick. He laughed nervously. "I'm not sorry a bit!" he declared. "It's the most exciting thing that ever happened to me! Now that it's all over I—yes, I believe I have enjoyed it!"
"So have I! I mean it, too, Dick! I'm not saying that just to make myself think I'm brave, because I was awfully frightened all the time. But now that it's over, it's something to look back at, isn't it? It isn't everyone who's under fire, after all."
Then they heard Mischa calling.
"Captain!" he cried. "Captain Obrenovitch!"
There was no answer. And suddenly Dick knew that there would be none. His mind recalled something that he had only half grasped as he ran up the hill, with the patter of the bursting shrapnel, with its load of slugs and bullets, nails and pieces of iron, all about him. He had seen a man stumble, the one man in uniform.
"Is Captain Obrenovitch the one who was in uniform?" he asked.
"Yes, Dick. Why? Was he hit? Did you see him go down?"
"I'm afraid so, yes. Here, I'm going to find out!"
Before Steve realized what he was doing, Dick had turned and plunged back in the direction from which he had just come.
"Dick!" cried Stepan. "Where are you going? What are you doing?"
"I'm going after him!" Dick shouted back.
"Wait! That's madness! Let me go with you!"
But if he heard, Dick made no answer. He did hear, but he paid no attention, and scarcely understood the words. All that Dick knew was that he had run away from a man who had been wounded because he had braved death to save his, Dick's, life. He had seen him fall, as he understood now, and he had not stopped to see if he could help! Dick felt a surge of shame. He felt as if he could never respect himself again unless he tried to make atonement now for having run on! It was fantastic, quixotic, absurd perhaps, but it was Dick Warner's way, as anyone who had known him at home in New York would have realized at once!
"I saw him fall. I know just where he is," Dick told himself again and again, as he ran on, stumbling over roots, tripping repeatedly in his hasty descent of the slope that had seemed so hard to climb a few moments before. "It's up to me to find him and make up to him for sticking to that rope!"
That was Dick's thought. He owed his life to this man Obrenovitch, whose very face he would not know if he saw him now. And that life, he felt, would be of no use to him if he kept it at the expense of leaving his debt of gratitude to Obrenovitch unpaid.
The Servian captain had fallen out in the open, and Dick came to him at last. The searchlight was still playing. It lit up the body for a moment, and then winked away again. But Dick had his own pocket flashlight out in a second, and in its light he saw that the captain, if he was not dead, was in a bad way. Like all scouts, Dick knew something of the first aid, and a very hasty glance showed him just what had happened. Obrenovitch lay straight out, and the blood was gushing out from his leg above the knee. One of the great arteries had been cut. In a few minutes he would bleed to death if help did not come to him.
"Oh, I hope I'm in time!" cried Dick.
And then he wasted no more of the precious seconds. He knew that Obrenovitch, as an officer, in uniform, and in time of war, would have somewhere about him a Red Cross packet containing the absolute essentials of first aid treatment. In a moment he had found this packet and torn it open. He was close to the river, and in a twinkling he found two small, flat stones. These he pressed into the open wounds where the bullet had passed in and out, and then he drew a tight bandage about them.
All this time, be it remembered, he was under heavy fire. Bullets pattered about him constantly. Once a stick he was using in an effort to improvise a still better tourniquet was shot right out of his hand. But he never faltered. Fortunately the shooting was wild. The searchlight had not picked him up, and so he was not a real target for the enemy, as he might have been had they seen him in the glare of the great light.
The blood soon ceased to flow, and then Dick leaned over to listen for the beating of the captain's heart. He caught it in a moment. It was faint, but regular enough.
"I think he'll do all right now," said Dick to himself, with intense satisfaction.
And then he had time to think of himself, and to realize that he was tired and shaky about the knees. He collapsed for a moment, and lay beside the wounded and unconscious officer. But he realized something that was like a tonic; he had not been afraid, not once, while his work remained unfinished! Perhaps it was just because he had been too busy in his fight with the death that was reaching out to seize the Servian. Whatever the reason, it was something to make him proud and happy, and to fill him with a tingling sensation that was worth a night's sleep, almost, in making him forget his own exhaustion.
"Now to get him away!" said Dick to himself. "There's no use in staying here. Something is sure to hit one or both of us if I do."
But Obrenovitch was rather a heavy man. Dick could have dragged him along, but he was afraid that that would start the bleeding of the wound afresh, and he knew that if the Servian lost even a little more of the blood that he had already shed so freely nothing could save him.
For a moment Dick was near to despair. There seemed nothing to do but stay there and hope that the Austrian fire would slacken. Even so, however, things were bad enough, for it was highly important, as Dick understood very well, to get the Servian officer into a doctor's hands as soon as possible. His improvised bandage and tourniquet would do very well for an hour or so, but better treatment was necessary, since it was dangerous to arrest the circulation of the blood, what there was left of it, too long. And then Dick heard footsteps, the most welcome sound he had ever heard, he thought—except for the hail that followed a moment later.
"Dick! Where are you?"
It was Stepan Dushan. He had come after Dick, determined not to let a stranger outdo him in courage!
"Here!" cried Dick. "I found him! I believe he'll pull through, if we can get him away. I've been puzzling my brains trying to think how to do it. But now we can make a stretcher."
"How? We haven't any material, Dick!"
"Haven't they taught you that?" said Dick. "All our scouts know how to turn that trick! Stay here! I'll be back in a minute."
Dick always carried his big knife, which had been a present from his scoutmaster as a reward for a particularly good piece of work that Dick had once done at home. Now, with its biggest blade, he managed to cut away two stout branches of a tree, and to strip them of leaves and twigs. Though they were thin, he knew that the live, green wood was stout, and that while it might bend and give, it would not readily break. He returned with the two poles, and called to Steve.
"Take off your coat and give it to me, Steve," he directed.
Steve obeyed, and Dick laid the coat, and his own, which he now took off, on the ground. Then he passed the poles through the sleeves of the two coats, having laid them end to end, and then he proceeded to button both coats.
"Now do you see?" he said. "Isn't that a fine stretcher for a home-made one? Take his feet now, and lift him very carefully. He's too tall, but if we pass our hands and arms under him, we can support his head and his feet when we start to carry him. It'll be a hard job, but it's the only chance. It's better to let him take the risk of being carried that way than to leave him here. He hasn't any chance at all here, and he will have some this way. How soon can we get him to a doctor?"
"Very soon, once we're up the hill," said Steve. "The men can help there. They didn't know I had come back, but they will soon miss us and come back to see what has happened. Mischa has been my father's servant for years, and he would go through fire and water for me, I know."
"Good! Steve, have you noticed? They've stopped firing!"
"About time, too! What a lot of ammunition they have wasted! Well, they have plenty! We haven't, and when we shoot it will be when we're pretty sure that there are Austrians in the way!"
"Yes. Steady, now—careful! Don't jolt him even a little—it won't take much to start that bleeding up again."
Tenderly, carefully, they lifted the wounded man and got him on the stretcher. Then with the utmost care, lest they disturb the rough bandaging, they raised it. And when they had it up and were about to start, in broken step, to make the movement smoother, there came a fearful test of their nerve. A dull roar sounded behind them, and above their heads a whistling, shrieking sound, that they had learned to know well that night! It was the hiss of a shell, and in a moment it burst. But it had overshot the mark, and when it burst, though their hands shook, they held their firm grip on the stretcher, and that last, wanton shot had no more effect than its predecessors. It was the last. They finished the ascent safely. And there they found Mischa and the rest, who relieved them and carried the stretcher to the road a few hundred yards beyond, where, by great good luck, they met a marching regiment, with a real surgeon.
Their work for Obrenovitch was done.
Dick dropped into the background when they encountered the soldiers, and let Stepan do the talking. Now that the strain was over, he was feeling very tired and he wanted only to get to a place where he could sleep. But Stepan would not allow him to escape so easily. He told everyone within hearing of Dick's feat in going back to look for the wounded captain. The surgeon, bending over the bandages and making little adjustments, looked up quickly.
"Whoever applied this tourniquet saved this man's life," he said, briskly. "He would have bled to death in a very little time. As it is, he will do very well, if the wound has not been infected, and there was so much blood that I doubt if there was any great danger of that."
Then the colonel of the regiment appeared, and drew aside Stepan, whom he evidently knew. When they returned the colonel spoke to Dick very quietly.
"This is not the time to try to thank you for what you have done to-night," he said. "I can only tell you that, if I live long enough, I shall see that your heroism is properly known and fittingly rewarded. You have helped to bring Stepan Dushan to this side in safety, too, for he tells me that your cool behavior in the boat under the Austrian fire had a good deal to do with getting you all ashore. Now I shall send you to Belgrade, since Stepan Dushan tells me that you have reasons for wishing to stay with us for a time. You have earned the right to do as you please."
Captain Obrenovitch was being sent back to Belgrade, and Steve and Dick volunteered to care for him on the way, since that would make it unnecessary to detail a hospital corps man to act as orderly. They had already proved that they could be trusted in any emergency that might arise. And so in a few minutes the column began the march again, moving westward. Dick noticed that no bugles or drums were sounded, and that the order to march was passed along from company to company, the officers giving the brief commands in low voices.
"It's a secret troop movement, of course," said Steve, when Dick commented on this. "I can explain a little. The Austrians think, or we hope they do, that we will concentrate in defense of our capital. We would like to, but, after all, Belgrade is not the historic capital of Servia. Our chief city in the olden times was Uskub, which we regained from the Turks in the first war. We have made a capital of Belgrade because it is the most convenient city and because it is the centre of most of our trade."
"And you're going to let them take it?"
"Oh, I didn't say that!" said Steve, with a grin. "Perhaps they will take it but they won't hold it very long! No, what I mean is that our armies will defend Belgrade not by standing a siege, but by attacking the Austrians in other places. Belgrade will have a small garrison, and its situation makes it very strong, of course. But if the Austrians were to enter the city to-morrow it could make no real difference to the plan of our campaign."
They were not very far from the city, which they entered, of course, from the land side. They drove to the military hospital first, and there Captain Obrenovitch was turned over to those who could complete the work Dick had begun. Then when it was certain that he was in good hands, and they had had a confirmation of the regimental surgeon's optimistic verdict, they were ready to rest.
"Haven't you got to make a report?" asked Dick, when Steve announced that they were going to his home to sleep.
"I've made the important report already," said Steve. "The chief information I had was military, and Colonel Tchernaieff will give the facts I had gathered to the staff when he reports at Schabatz. The rest can wait until morning. I don't know what has happened here yet. I suppose the information department still has quarters here, but most of the men will be with the army in the field. I may have to go to Schabatz in the morning—later in the morning, I mean."
That was a good correction to make, because it was morning now, and streaks of light were beginning to appear beyond the Danube. And Dick, who had lived through the fullest day of his life, was eager to get to bed. The Austrian bombardment, which it seemed had not been very bad, had stopped altogether, and the strong probability that it would be resumed when the sun rose didn't deter Dick from his desire to sleep.
"We'll be at my house soon," said Steve, who knew how tired Dick was. "If old Maritza is still there, she will look after us. I don't believe anyone else will be in the house. My mother and my two young brothers have probably gone away. My father said they must when the war began."
Dick found that his friend's house was in that new quarter of Belgrade that he had admired so much when he had made his trip across from Semlin. And the inside of the house was as pleasant as its outer aspect. It was not luxurious. Few houses in Servia are, since Servia is a country where great wealth is practically unknown. But so, for that matter, is extreme poverty. Most of the Servian people make enough for a living, and not a great deal more, and so they have remained a simple people, and have maintained their ability to rise as a nation in arms.
But Dick wasn't thinking of such things. All he needed to know about that house or any other was that it contained a bed. Yet first before they went to bed, both he and Steve took a bath.
"Heaven only knows when we'll get another chance," said Steve, cheerfully. "There are going to be exciting doings, my friend Dick, for a time. We may have to leave here in a great hurry. You know, the Austriansmayfind out how easy it would be for them to come over into Belgrade! It would be a great stroke for them to say they had captured our capital in the first week of the war, even if they couldn't keep it."
"Well, I hope they don't come until we've had a good sleep," said Dick. And with that he rolled himself into bed and was snoring as soon as his head touched the pillow.
When he awoke it was broad daylight. But one thing surprised him. The window was in the west wall of the room in which he had slept, and yet the sun was pouring into it! It didn't seem possible, yet it was true. It was late afternoon, almost evening, and he had slept practically all day! In his surprise he called out sharply to Steve, who had slept in the same room, but in a separate bed. But Steve was not there. His bed was crumpled, but he himself had vanished!
Dick went to the window and looked out. Everything seemed to be peaceful. There were not many people about, but he knew that in this part of Belgrade few people were to be seen at this time of day in any case. At first he scarcely noticed a sound that came to his ears regularly, almost as regularly and monotonously as the ticking of a watch. Then he realized what it was; the sound of cannon. The bombardment, then, was still going on. He wondered about its success.
He looked out toward the business quarter of Belgrade. In a good many places black smoke was rising, shot through with yellow fumes. There was no wind, fortunately; he guessed that these pillars of smoke were from fires started by the Austrian shells. Had there been a gale to fan them they might have done serious damage. He was still looking out when the door burst open and Stepan Dushan came in.
"Hello! You're awake at last, are you?" he cried. "Well, you had sleep enough when you once started! You looked so comfortable that I didn't have the heart to wake you when the time came for me to get up."
"I'm glad you didn't," said Dick, honestly. "I'm feeling fine now, and if you'll give me some breakfast I'll tackle my weight in wildcats! But if I'd had five minutes less sleep it wouldn't have been enough! I don't believe I was ever tired enough to sleep through a bombardment before."
"This isn't much of a bombardment," said Stepan, contemptuously. "I don't believe there'll be much damage done. Come on out—though I'll see that you get some breakfast first. I think I'll have something interesting to tell you before long."
"All right. But why don't you tell me now?" asked Dick.
"Bad luck to talk about things until they're done," said Steve, with a grin. "Don't you know that in America?"
"All right," said Dick. "But just when are you going to know?"
"Pretty soon—but that's no sign that you'll know it as soon as I do, you know. How would you like to go back to Semlin?"
"I'm game, if you'll tell me why."
"That's just what I'm afraid I won't be able to do. That is, it would be a whole lot better if you didn't know."
"Oh, all right! I don't care, anyhow! I've enlisted for the war. By the way, what's happened to your scout troop? I thought perhaps there'd be some good work here in Belgrade for it to do."
"There will be, only there isn't any troop any more. About everyone in it is with the army, except the very little chaps. I think they'd have let me fight this time if there wasn't other work for me to do. You see we lost so many men against Turkey and Bulgaria that we haven't really enough men to fill the ranks. We have regiments that aren't half filled—or we did have until this started. By this time, though, I think there aren't many short battalions left. The old men and the boys will fight, and they say that some of the country regiments have a lot of women in them."
"Women? Fighting with the men? That's not allowed, is it?"
"How can you stop it?" asked Steve, with a shrug. "You don't know much about us yet, Dick, my friend. You don't know what it is to have lived with the Turks for centuries. I have read about your American women on the plains, in the times when the Indians went on the war-path. Most of them could handle a rifle, couldn't they? And they were pretty good shots, too!"
"Yes, but that's different—"
"Not so very different. I don't believe your Indians were ever worse than the Bashi-Bazouks. They hated us Servians, you see, because we were infidels and Christians. And so for hundreds of years they harried us, burned our homes, carried off our women, killed our men. That sort of thing gets into the blood after a time. For centuries we Serbs have stood between all Europe and the Turks. They never wiped us out, though they beat us by sheer weight of numbers. But here, and in Bosnia, that the Austrians stole, and in the Black Mountains—Montenegro—a few Serbs have always held out.
"That's why we aren't so civilized as some of the other countries of Europe. We haven't had the time to be civilized. We have had to fight just to keep alive. We have had to fight the Turks for life itself, and when they did not kill, they burned our fields with the standing grain, summer after summer, so that the harvest was lost. Yet once there was a great Serb empire that stretched from the Black Sea to the Aegean—" Stepan's eyes flashed, and there was a look in them that might have been worn by his great ancestor and namesake, the last of the great medieval Servian Tsars.
"There is a day that we still mark every year," he went on. "The day of the battle of Kossovo, when the Turks annihilated us—though that was more than five hundred years ago. But in the last war we had our revenge, on the great day of Kumanovo, when, though the Turks outnumbered us, we drove them before us and crushed them.
"But I spoke of the women, and I am wandering from the point! We do not want the women to fight, but they come from the villages, where whole companies are recruited from relatives, since we still have almost a patriarchal system. The woman wears men's clothes, and she marches with her husband or her brothers. The officers do not know, and—they fight well. They have known what it is, some of those women, to see their homes burned and their mothers slain by Turks. They know that a free Servia means more than a name!"
"I hadn't thought about it just that way," said Dick. "But I see that you are right. It is just the same thing as with our pioneers. The women of those days did fight the Indians, and for just such reasons. I'm going to get you to tell me more about Servian history some time. You know, until the Balkan War Servia and Bulgaria weren't much more than names to us in America or to most of us. We were surprised and mighty pleased, of course, when you smashed the Turks the way you did."
"Everyone was surprised," said Stepan. His face grew dark. "And there is another thing we hold against Austria. We were good friends, we little states of the Balkans. We had fought a great war, and we would have continued to be good friends had it not been for Austria. But she stepped in when peace was to be made, and said what we could have and what we must not touch. She would not give us the window on the sea that we had paid for with our blood. And she tricked Bulgaria into attacking us and so starting the second war."
"How was that?"
"She thought Bulgaria was strong enough to beat us, and she promised to help if Bulgaria were too weak. Everyone thought, you see, that the Bulgarian troops were the best in the Balkans. They forgot that we helped them to win Adrianople, and that we and the Greeks won our great victories unaided. And then, when we crushed Bulgaria within two weeks, Austria broke her word, and Bulgaria was left helpless. We acted in self defence, but we were sorry."
"I supposed that Servia hated Bulgaria now, Steve. And Greece, too."
"As to Greece, I cannot say. Her people are not Slavs. But we and the Bulgarians are blood brothers. We would not have fought except for Austrian trickery and Austrian lying—that they call diplomacy."
"Will Bulgaria fight again in this war?"
"I do not know. There is a great effort being made to revive the Balkan League and add Roumania to it. Roumania is stronger than any of us now, because, though she helped us at the end of the war with Bulgaria, she did no real fighting at all, and it did not exhaust her to gain what she did from the wars. If we can win what Austria denied us before, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, perhaps, as well, we will not grudge Bulgaria what we had to keep from her in Macedonia after the war with Turkey, and we will help her, too, to recover Adrianople. You remember that the Turks took that back from her when we had beaten her down."
"So Bulgaria may be on your side?"
"Yes. And I think it very likely, because she is near us and far from Austria, which might offer to help her. If she attacked us, too, Greece would come to our aid. But that depends on many things. If Russia helps us, that will make a difference. And it is a question of what Italy will do, also. But this is not getting us anywhere. You are game to come with me?"
"Yes."
"Then let us start. We are going to get a motor boat on the Danube—not on the Save—and try to run the gauntlet of the Austrian monitors. I think it is safe enough, because they believe that they have the river entirely under their control. I think it will be easier to get into Semlin than it was to get out last night."
"Well, I'm ready whenever you give the word."
It was beginning to grow dark when they set out from Steve's house.
Maritza, the old servant who seemed to idolize Steve, had given them a wonderful meal. Dick liked the old peasant woman. She reminded him of the stories he had read of old southern mammies. It was plain that she was wholly devoted to the Dushan family, and that she would do anything for them. But in spite of that, she ordered Steve around as if he had been a child of her own, and Steve, who seemed to Dick to possess a goodly share of independence, accepted her orders with the utmost meekness.
"She was with the family before I was born," he explained. "I can remember how she used to order me about when I was a little chap. And she's pretty nearly as bad with my father, too. I can tell you he does what he's told. It's a wonder she hasn't insisted on going with him in the campaign, just to make sure that he changes his shoes when his feet get wet and wears heavy clothes when it's cold!"
Dick laughed, but he could understand Maritza's attitude well enough. She had mothered him, too, and, despite his excitement, which made him inclined to slight his meal, had insisted on his eating generously.
"I don't know what mischief you two boys will be up to to-night," she had said, "but if you've got a good hot meal in your stomachs you'll be in a better condition for it, whatever it is."
As they left the house, Steve explained that they had a long walk before them.
"Horses are at a premium," he said. "Otherwise we might have ridden, because I could have got them. But they are so badly needed in the field that everyone has given up all the animals that are at all fit for service."
"You don't use cavalry very much, though, do you?"
"No, not as a rule. Our men fight better on foot, and a great deal of our fighting is done in mountainous country that is all split up with ravines and clumps of woods. It was so, at least, against the Turks and the Bulgarians. But in this war there will be some chance for cavalry, at first, anyhow. And, besides, the horses are needed for the guns."
"Oh, yes! I didn't think of that. You don't use motor cars much, I suppose?"
"We can't. We haven't the roads. If the French get in, they and the Germans will use cars a great deal, I suppose, for all sorts of things. But our roads are too bad for that. It's just as well, because the Austrians have had so much more money to spend than we that they are far ahead of us. They've got better heavy guns than we, too, but I don't think they'll get much more chance to use them. We are not going to shut ourselves up in fortresses. And when it comes to field pieces we can hold our own with them a good deal better."
"Field guns will be the ones most used, won't they?"
"We think so. We've got light guns that are easy to move about, and we've got the men who know how to handle them, too. Our men are all veterans, and that is going to make a lot of difference. They know what it is to have hard fighting, and if things go against them at first it won't bother them. My father says that the experience we have had in actual war will be worth five army corps."
"Who is the commander-in-chief?"
"General Pushkin. Everyone agrees that he was the one great soldier that the Balkan wars produced. He won his battles against the Turks easily, and without the loss of great numbers of men, and when the Bulgarians attacked, we and the Greeks fought the campaign according to his strategy. The German military attaché said that General Pushkin was fit to command the greatest army in the world. He said he was a military genius of the first rank, and one of the greatest soldiers developed in Europe since the time of von Moltke."
"Then he must be good, because the Germans know a good soldier when they see him."
"He has done everything that has been required of him so far. This war with Austria will be his great test—only he doesn't regard it as a test, but as an opportunity. My father says that that is the true mark of a man's character. He says the weak man, who hasn't got it in him to succeed, thinks of a difficult thing he has to do, or to try to do, as a trial, a test, and that the big man, who is sure to amount to something, simply looks at it as a chance to show what he has in him."
"I know what you mean." Dick nodded. "My own father used to say that, too. That was the trouble with Mike Hallo, I guess. If things looked hard he was always complaining, and my father used to get pretty sore at him sometimes. My father just gritted his teeth and went to work. I remember hearing them talk about the panic a few years ago. An awful lot of business houses were smashed then, but my father pulled through, though Hallo wanted to quit. He said they would only be throwing good money after bad if they kept on."
They had been walking briskly while they talked, and it was not long before they came to the flat, marshy ground near the banks of the Danube. Here it was a sluggish, thick, yellow stream, flowing along impressively because of its bulk, but lacking every element of beauty and romance.
"This doesn't look much like the beautiful blue Danube, does it, Steve?" Dick suggested.
"No," said Steve, with a laugh. "It's not pretty—not here. There is some fine scenery between here and the coast, though, where it marks the boundary between Roumania and Bulgaria. And it's all historic. On the Bulgarian side further down, the ground is high, with a sharp ascent from the river. There was some fierce fighting in the Russo-Turkish war—the war that freed Bulgaria, you know, and really helped a lot to make Servia free, too. At one place the Russians crossed in boats and stormed the heights, with the Turks above, firing down on them."
"They must have been brave in those days!"
"The Russians? There are no braver troops in Europe—there never have been!"
"They didn't do very well against the Japanese."
"It wasn't the fault of the soldiers. Their generals were poor, and everything was badly managed. I think that if the Germans despise the Russian army they are making a great mistake. Russia learned many lessons in the war with Japan, and when she fights again, soldiers will be in command, not politicians. Here we are; this is the boat."
Dick looked curiously at the little craft. She was painted a dull, leaden grey, and he could guess that at a very short distance it would be almost impossible to detect her. In other ways, too, she was especially designed for the business she was intended for.
"Isn't she a little beauty?" said Steve, enthusiastically. "See—that's armor plate, very thin, of course, but tough and strong, that covers her entirely on the outside. Then she's decked over with armor plate, too, so that one can be inside and expose practically nothing. The engine is sheathed the same way, and all the essential working parts. She can pass through a rain of bullets without being hurt; it would take a shell to make any real impression on her, and she's so fast that it would be a hard job for a man to get her with one."
"I never saw anything like her," said Dick. "You say she's fast, too?"
"Twenty-five miles an hour easily, Dick! That's fast enough for anything she's ever likely to have to do. The Austrians have launches, armed and armored ones, but nothing that's in a class with this boat for speed and power."
"She doesn't carry any guns, though?"
"No. She's meant to run away, not to fight. There are a couple of rifles and automatic pistols and ammunition aboard, but really she is a scout, pure and simple, and she would only fight to escape. You see, with such a lot of armor plate and defensive equipment generally, they had to figure pretty carefully on weight, or they'd have lost speed. And speed's the most important thing with a boat like this. All aboard, now! We'll be off in a minute!"
Dick took his place aboard, and found that there was plenty of room under the plate of steel that covered almost the whole length of the little boat. Then Steve followed him, and in a moment the engine was purring and they were moving away.
"That's the quietest motor I ever heard in a power boat," said Dick.
"Exhaust under water and a special muffler as well," said Steve. "She'd be useless if she gave herself away when she was a mile from anyone, wouldn't she?"
"It means less speed, though."
"Yes, that's so. But it doesn't make difference enough to make up for the safety it gives. You see, we could pass within a cable length of one of those Austrian monitors now and they'd never know it. We'll have to do just about that, too, before the night's over, I'm afraid."
"Where are you going to land, Steve? In Semlin itself?"
"No. That would be too risky and there's no need for it. I'm going to keep right on up the Danube, past the mouth of the Save, and we'll land above the town and circle back. They'll keep a very sharp lookout now along the river bank in Semlin, but I don't think they'll be so careful on this side. They'll trust to their river patrol and the mines."
"You think the river will be mined?"
"Oh, surely!"
"Wouldn't it be a good thing for your side to do some mining, too?"
"It's probably been done already, especially in the Save. We have only one or two small gun-boats, which wouldn't have a chance in a fight with the Austrians on water. But I think we'll be able to make them see that it isn't any too safe for their monitors. We can't beat the Austrians by main strength, so we'll have to use all the tricks we can. I think they'll find out before very long that there are more ways of killing a dog than by shooting him."
Now they were out in midstream. Perhaps a mile above them, as they swung diagonally across the river, an Austrian monitor, painted a dun color so that she was almost the hue of the river, was swinging at anchor, squat and ugly, but menacing and business-like in her appearance, too. Steve did not lay his course up the middle of the broad stream, however. Instead, he slipped well over to the east bank, and began moving swiftly upstream when he was under the shadow of the eastern bank, here rising fairly well.
If anyone on the monitor observed them there was no sign of it. They passed her, and another of the same type. On the Hungarian shore, above them, occasionally they could hear the calling of sentries. The Austrians were guarding the river carefully, and Steve chuckled a little as he heard these evidences of careful watching. Then they passed the mouth of the Save, and were wholly in Austrian or, rather, Hungarian territory. For now the bank on both sides was part of the Dual Monarchy.
At the confluence of the two rivers a blaze of light swept the water constantly, but there was still dense shadow under the eastern bank of the Danube, for the chief concern of the Austrians seemed to be for a dash of some sort down the Save. Danger from the other direction seemed not to be thought of at all.
Once past that pool of light, it was a matter of ten minutes of fast running. Then Steve swerved sharply and cut across the river, to run into a little, sheltered inlet, and under a door that was raised at a blast from a peculiar compressed air whistle. They were in a small boathouse—a perfect concealment for the little motor boat. The house was built right over the water, and there was no danger now that prowlers would find her.
Inside, as the boat glided under the door, which slipped down into place beside her, was a man in Austrian uniform, a fact that startled Dick tremendously at first. Steve noticed this, and grinned.
"Don't be afraid," he said. "This man is a good Serb, though he is not a Servian. He is one of us, but he is an Austrian subject, and forced to serve in their army—which he does willingly enough, since he can help us greatly by doing so. There are many such Serbs in Austrian uniform to-day, but most of them will be sent to other parts of the theatre of war, if Austria has brought on a general war."
The soldier had a boat hook out, and now he drew them to a landing stage and made the boat fast as they leaped out.
Steve indulged in a low-toned conversation with the Austrian, and frowned. Then he turned to Dick.
"Dick, I don't like to ask you to do this," he said, "but will you stay here alone for a few minutes? I find I have to join a secret meeting. They don't know about you yet, and it is absolutely forbidden to introduce a stranger at such a meeting without notice. You understand? I'll be back soon."
"Go ahead!" said Dick. "I don't mind staying here a bit, Steve, and I see how it is, of course. You can't help it."
"I thought you'd say that," said Steve, greatly relieved. "All right! I'll be back just as soon as I can, and it certainly won't be long."
Then Steve and the soldier went out. For a few moments there was silence. And then a closet door opened, and Dick, paralyzed with fear and dismay, saw a face emerge—the face of Mike Hallo!
"Where is Milikoff?" Steve Dushan asked the soldier, as soon as they were outside. They had left the boathouse, of course, by the land side, and moved swiftly away from the water side.
"He is at the house by the pond," answered the soldier. "The others were there too, ten minutes ago. But since then anything may have happened!"
"Yes," said Stepan, grimly. "It was stupid work—letting Hallo get away, when once they had him in their grip! Still, there is no use in crying over spilt milk. We must get him back, that is all. He knows the thing that we have got to learn, and I think we shall be able to persuade him to share his knowledge with us!"
"No doubt," said the soldier, shrugging his shoulders. "The man who plays with both sides is always weak. It is always a dangerous thing to run with the hare and ride with the hounds!"
The country hereabout was flat and waste, low-lying marsh lands, with here and there a pond coming close to the road. Beside one of these ponds, which, at a guess, might be useful in winter for the ice it would carry, stood a small house, from one window of which a light showed.
"Wait for me here," said Steve to the soldier, and went inside. He gained admittance by a peculiar knock, and the door was opened for him at once by a man in the garb of a priest. Stepan laughed at himself for starting back.
"Aha, you didn't know me!" said the priest, with a merry laugh. "Now I know that this is a good disguise!"
"Yes, it's a good one, Milikoff," said Stepan. "But what is this about Hallo? Did you actually let him escape after holding him here?"
"Yes," growled Milikoff, all his pleasure in the excellence of his disguise vanishing. "He has been here fifty times before; that was the chance we took, since we had to meet him somewhere. He came alone to-night, and we were able to seize him very easily. And then, just as I saw that it was nearly time for you to come, he had gone!"
"How did he get away?"
"He fooled us all by showing something none of us thought he had—a little courage! He dropped from the window above. That was how we knew he was gone, for he broke a pane of glass in one of the greenhouse beds as he dropped. We rushed out—"
"You were so near as that, and still he got away?" said Stepan, with a groan.
"Oh, we were out after him at once!" said Milikoff. "He ran toward the river, and we were after him. We drove him in. We have that much consolation, Stepan—we drove him into the water, and though we watched a long time for him to come up, there was no sign of him. I think he drowned like the rat he was!"
"You think so, and it does seem probable. But we can't be sure! And, even so, he is worth more to us alive than dead. For the time, at least. He is a wretched traitor—treacherous to both sides. I wouldn't mind his death, because he has sent hundreds of men better than himself to death of late. But I wish we had been able to hold him and use him. He would have been afraid of us, I think, when he discovered how much we knew!"
"It would have been enough for him to see you, Stepan, and know that you were one of us, I think. He would have guessed very quickly what you were doing during all those weeks when you were so close to him. That is what has saved us. If it had not been for you we would have trusted him, I think, with his tale of how the Austrian government had wronged him, and his pretence that he was one of a group that wanted a free and independent Hungary!"
Stepan was thinking hard.
"Where are the others?" he asked.
"They are busy in the town. We are almost ready to blow up the arsenal, and perhaps we shall be able to finish the tunnel and plant the mine to-night."
"That will be good," Stepan nodded, "unless Hallo has warned them. It was he who gave us the information as to just where we should have to place the mine, and he must have guessed what use we would make of it."
"Perhaps so. But they have not moved any of the stores. If we can explode our mine, we shall strike a good blow for Servia."
"We may say that without boasting, Milikoff. The reserve ammunition for two corps is here. They have been careless because they did not expect anything like a general engagement for some time, especially when the government moved to Nish. But I am uneasy still about Hallo."
"I think you need not be, Stepan. I tell you we were right on his heels, and there was no way for him to escape. He went into the water beyond a doubt, and I do not believe that he was strong enough to swim the Danube. Besides, we would have seen him had he done that, and shot him."
"I don't think he swam the Danube, I'm quite sure he could not have managed that. What I am afraid of is that he doubled on his tracks in some fashion and got ashore."
"But that was even more impossible, I tell you! We expected him to try to do that, and we watched out especially to make it too hard for him to do it, even though he is as slippery as an eel."
"And still I should like to make sure, I think. I shall have to go into Semlin."
"To look for him? It will be risky."
"Perhaps, but it can't be helped. I doubt if it will be so risky, though. I'm not sure that even Hallo suspects yet that I was more than I seemed."
"Wouldn't your sudden disappearance just at this critical time give it away to him?"
"I don't think so, because I was very careful to arrange a good excuse. I have talked for two or three weeks of the illness of my uncle in Buda-Pesth, and have said that if he became worse perhaps I might have to go home very suddenly. And I left a note in the office when I came out yesterday, because I was sure I would not be back, saying I had been called away. I didn't say I was going to Buda-Pesth—just that I was called away."
"Well, if no one else had any reason to suspect you, you will be safe enough, for you won't see Hallo."
"I am going, anyhow. But first, Milikoff—you are to stay here, I suppose?"
"Yes, until daybreak, at least."
"Good! I left a friend at the boathouse—an American, but one who is with us, heart and soul, and has proved it at the risk of his life already. I want him to come here and wait for me."
"You are sure he is all right? We have to be careful, Stepan."
"If you can trust me, you can trust Dick Warner," said Stepan.
"That is enough. Let him come!"
"Right! I will send Vanya."
He stepped to the door and called to the Serb in the Austrian uniform, who was waiting outside.
"Vanya," he said, "will you go back to the boathouse and return with the friend I left there? Tell him that I want him to come, and show him the way."
"At once," said the soldier, and was off.
Stepan returned and found Milikoff studying some papers.
"You had better keep a guard at the boathouse when you have a man to send there," suggested Stepan. "Vanya will be on duty before long, I suppose?"
"Yes. We shall not be able to use him again. Not at once, at least. I am surprised that we have had the chance to use him at all. But, as a matter of fact, two Serbo-Croatian regiments are here, or near here."
"The Austrians are in a tight place," said Stepan, with a laugh. "They know that they may have to fight Italy, and so they are sending the Italian troops from the Trentino and Trieste to the Galician frontier, to fight the Russians. And they have to use every regiment. They might as well keep their Serbs and Croats here—they will fight as readily against Servia as against Russia. If they could spare first line troops for garrison work and for watching the Italian border, they might manage. But they cannot. That duty they must leave to the reserves and the old men. I believe their plan is to surround the troops that may be disaffected with Hungarians and true Austrians who can be depended upon absolutely."
"They can depend upon their Hungarian levies now," said Milikoff. "But for how long will that be true? If a few battles are lost, if Russian troops pour through the passes of the Carpathians and the Cossacks come within sight of Buda-Pesth? After all, Hungary is an independent kingdom, and a part of the Austrian empire only of her own free will. Her army is her own, and she has her own parliament and her own ministers. There is no reason why she should not have a king of her own again when she chooses. We may see the rise of another Kossuth, who would force Hungary to make peace with Russia and with Servia. At least you may live to see it."
"Do you really think so?" asked Stepan, eagerly. "That would be glorious! Oh, we are lucky, after all, Milikoff, we Servians! Our country may be small, but it is our own. We do not have to rule a score of different subject races. All those who live under our flag do so willingly. We do not have to drive our soldiers into the ranks with whips and threats of shooting."
"No! And after this war, if God is still with us, as he has been, our brothers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Albania, too, will come under our flag. The old Serb kingdom will be fully restored. Montenegro will join us, and we shall have borders that are made by the limits of the Serb race."
"There has been talk of annexing part of Hungary when we win," said Stepan.
"Slavonia we can take, because it is peopled by our kin, Stepan. But we want no Magyars under our rule. Let them keep their country. Or else we should face the troubles we have brought upon them."
Stepan looked at his watch and tossed his head impatiently.
"Time for me to be off," he said. "Why are they so long? I want to see Dick before I go, but I can't wait much longer—"
He was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Vanya, the soldier who had gone to fetch Dick.
"He is not there!" he cried. "The boathouse is empty—except for the boat in which you came!"
Stepan and Milikoff stared at one another, aghast.
"This is Hallo's work!" said Stepan, furiously. "He has a grudge against this friend of mine! Ah, I see it all now, Milikoff—how he escaped! He went into the water—you are right! But tell me, now—was it near the boathouse?"
"Yes, now that I remember, it was."
"Then can't you see what happened? He dived and swam under the door. It would be easy enough for anyone who could swim at all well and knew the ground. Heavens, he must have been in there when we first came in with the boat!"
And now their dismay knew no bounds. Milikoff saw that Stepan was right; it was exactly what must have happened.
"I'm a dolt—a fool!" he cried, bitterly. "That I never thought to search the boathouse!"
"Who would have thought?" said Stepan. "But it is no time to think of what is done and can't be undone. Now, more than ever, I must go after him. I have to try to save my friend, and it is doubly imperative now that we should catch Hallo."
"Let me come with you!"
"No. Your work is too important for you to take risks. I will go alone."