Belgians to the Front

by Ralph Henry Barbour

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE UHLAN

  "Come along with me," said du Chaillu, when they had left Madame deFrenard in the station. "I'll see that you're put up for the rest ofthe night, and to-morrow we'll make other arrangements."

  "Thank you," said Paul, "but I think we'd better go back. A good manythings were saved, after all, when the house was burned. When so muchwas destroyed I think we ought to try to safeguard what remains, for myuncle's sake. And there is a place there where we can sleep very well,thank you."

  "H'm!" Du Chaillu looked more than doubtful. "But there is no tellinghow soon the Germans will be there. Had you thought of that?"

  "They won't hurt us, sir," said Paul.

  "No, I suppose not. There's no reason for them to make war on boys orany other non-combatants. One word of warning, though. If the Germansdo come before you can get away again, don't make any move againstthem. All the fighting must be done by soldiers. The Germans considerit is murder if a civilian fires on them, and they are in the right,according to the rules of war. They are justified in making anyreprisals. So be careful yourselves, and warn all the men about yourplace. Tell them the message is from me. General Leman has issuedorders that no civilians are to oppose the Germans or give them anyexcuse for destroying undefended places."

  "I understand, sir," said Paul. "Then we may go?"

  "Yes. But be careful. We have seen aeroplanes of the Germansalready--one of our flyers chased one of their Taubes early in theevening. They dropped bombs on Fort Boncelles."

  "I never thought of that!" exclaimed Arthur, sharply. "Do you supposeone of their aeroplanes could have dropped a bomb that would have setour house afire?"

  "It is possible," said du Chaillu, shortly. "They might not haverealized what they were doing. I hope they did not, if that is whathappened. It is not the sort of work for soldiers."

  "It makes very little difference now," said Paul. "The house isburned, so it doesn't matter, I suppose, how it came to catch fire. Wewill go back, then, major."

  "Very well. Report to me at headquarters here when you return,although by that time I may be on duty in one of the forts. I cannottell; we of the staff are in one place one minute, and far away thenext. Good-night, again, and better luck, this time, than my wishesbrought you before."

  "Good-night!" they echoed, and set out to find their carriage. Butbefore they reached it Paul stopped.

  "I want to go to Henri Creusot's house," he said. "There is somethingin the stable there we shall need. I suppose we can't wake him up, butI shall get what I want, even if we cannot."

  Arthur followed him willingly, although Paul volunteered no explanationof what it was that he was after. And he remained on guard outside thestable while Paul went in, to reappear presently with a large andcumbrous burden--a sack bulging with the spoil of his little raid.Then they went to the carriage, and soon they were driving back towardthe ruined house. When they reached it the dawn was beginning to breakin the east--toward Germany! It was a red, menacing dawn--the sort ofdaybreak one might well have expected to see in such a time. About thesmouldering remains of the fine house the men employed about the placewere still grouped. It seemed all had decided that in some mysteriousfashion the Germans were responsible for the ruin that had beenwrought, and they were talking sullenly of what they meant to do to theenemy.

  Paul gave quick directions for housing and hiding the pictures and thefew fine pieces of furniture that had been saved. When all that heordered had been done there seemed a good chance that what the flameshad spared would be safe from further risk. Then he and Arthur wentover to look at the garage, which had not been touched by the fire.

  "This is a piece of good luck, anyhow," said Paul, when he found thelittle building untouched. "I think we'll live here as long as theGermans will let us, Arthur, which probably won't be very long, even ifwe pretend to be stupid. We can be mighty comfortable."

  "Of course we can," said Arthur. "It will be like a picnic, or likecamping out, won't it?"

  "I'm afraid it won't," said Paul. "But we'll make the best of it,anyway. Come along to the house. I think the ruins are cool enoughfor us to find out what I want to know."

  He led the way and Arthur followed. But it was not to the house thatPaul went first. Instead, he led the way to a post that had carriedthe telephone wire, and, finding the wire, began to follow it towardthe wing where it had entered the house.

  "What on earth are you looking at that telephone wire for?" askedArthur, completely mystified. "It seems to me that that's the leastimportant thing there is left."

  "I think it's going to be about the most important thing!" said Paul,surprisingly. "Go get a shovel, will you? Or rather two, for we'vegot some digging to do."

  Arthur obeyed, as he always did, but he was thoroughly mystified. Andno light was shed upon the mystery when he returned, to find that Paulhad disconnected the wire in the ruins of the house and was dragging itaway from the post where it entered the grounds. But now Paulexplained.

  "Do you remember that several of the crosses on those maps we foundwere right over there?" he asked, pointing in a direction east of theburned house.

  "Y--es," said Arthur, with an effort to remember. "Oh, yes, I do, now!"

  "Well, that means that there will be a battery there. Do you see howit's screened? The woods hide it completely. It doesn't make anydifference to the Germans that they can't see their target--they've gota fixed range, because they know just where the forts are, and they'llget the range of anything else from their aeroplanes."

  "Yes, I see that."

  "Well, I think this battery is likely to turn out to be the mostimportant one on this side. I think that they will depend on it tosilence Boncelles and Embourg. We haven't many aeroplanes and it'sgoing to be mighty hard for our people in the forts to tell what theeffect of their shell fire is, and to correct the range, especially ifthe Germans use comparatively light guns that they can move about, as Ithink they will. Now do you see?"

  "Not quite--"

  "Suppose we stay here in the garage? There's a chance that they maylet us, isn't there? Well, if they do, we can see whatever goes on,with a little care. And if we have a buried telephone wire leading toBoncelles we can report just what happens when a shell is fired, andthey can correct their aim. That's why I want to dig a trench for thatwire from some distance outside the grounds here, and run it under thegarage--into the pit, you know."

  "Oh, now I see! You mean we would stay here and pretend not to haveany idea of what's going on, while we were really sending informationto the forts?"

  "Yes. Now the first thing we've got to do is to tap that wire and tellthem in Liege what we are doing, so that they can give us directconnection with Boncelles. Then we'll try to hide the wire, so thatthe Germans won't find it."

  Now the mysterious errand Paul had had in Liege was explained. He hadbrought with him all he thought he could use of a lot of wire andtelephone instruments that one of their fellow scouts had used insetting up a miniature telephone exchange of his own, with wiresconnecting his house with that of some of his chums.

  "We'd better dig the trench and bury the wire first because we've gotto be very careful in filling it up again, so that no one will noticewhat's been done," said Paul. "That's the most important part. Yousee, if we were caught at this we'd be treated as spies--and that'swhat we'll really be."

  "Isn't there a chance that they won't really come as far as this?"asked Arthur.

  "Yes, there is and a very good chance, too, I think. Really, if theydo come up to this point, I believe we won't have much chance. But thegrounds here will be well within the range of the guns from the forts,and I don't think they'll do any infantry work until they've tried tobeat down our forts with their big guns. Not from this side, anyway.If they try to take Liege by storm they're more likely to attackbetween Liers and Pontisse, or between the Meuse and Barchon. Thecountry's more open there. Here, you see, the Ourt
he runs betweenBoncelles and Embourg, and the two forts command all the approaches.So I think there's a good chance for us. But we have got to takeprecautions, of course, because they are almost sure to throw out theirscouts as far as this in the beginning, even if they recall them afterthe guns start firing."

  Neither of the scouts thought of being tired after that. Arthur beganthe work of digging out the shallow trench in which they meant to burythe wire, while Paul tapped the main wire and explained to an officerat headquarters in Liege what they planned. It took him some time toovercome the doubts of this officer, but finally it was arranged thathis wire should be connected with Fort Boncelles direct, and he talkedto that important link in the chain of defending forts for some time,making final arrangements.

  "No matter what happens, of course," he said, "you mustn't call us,because if we're quiet for any length of time, it may mean that theGermans are around us. We will watch the firing, after it begins, andtell you whatever we can find out."

  Then he returned to help Arthur, and they worked until it was broaddaylight. By that time they had the wire well hidden, so that it wasentirely invisible. It came out under the garage, and the instrumentat its end was well concealed in the pit under the place where the bigcar stood when repairs were to be made.

  "Well, that's done!" Paul exclaimed at last, with a deep sigh ofsatisfaction. "Are you tired, Arthur?"

  "I wasn't just a minute ago," said Arthur, rubbing his eyes. "But nowI'm so sleepy that I feel as if I could go off standing up!"

  "Well, there's no reason why we shouldn't get some sleep now. I'm likeyou. As long as we still had something to do I didn't feel tired. Butnow,--"

  A great yawn interrupted him. They surveyed their work with blinkingeyes, then they crept up to the little room above the garage, and inless than a minute were sound asleep.

  It was broad daylight when they went asleep; when they awoke dusk hadfallen. Paul woke first, and he went to the window and looked out.Everything, seemingly, was just as it had been when they had lastlooked out. The scene was one of profound peace. From the window hecould not see the burned house, a patch of blackened ruin in the fairlandscape. The fading light played on the leaves just as it had athousand times before; shadows lay along the little mossy patches, thecorners of the lawns that he knew so well.

  "Wake up, Arthur!" he said, turning to his chum.

  He had to shake Arthur before he could arouse him.

  "It isn't time to get up yet--it's still dark, Paul," protested Arthur,sleepily. But then he began to recover his wits, and he draggedhimself up, and went with Paul to the window. For a few moments theywere quiet, listening.

  "Perhaps they're not coming--perhaps it's all a false alarm. I don'thear any guns."

  "Look!" said Paul, gripping him suddenly by the shoulder. He pointedto the road. Against the sky stood a horse, on its back a silent riderwith a spiked helmet, in his hand a long lance. A German Uhlan!