CHAPTER XV On the Way

Wash, listen: You know how to use this. Magazine’s full. You’re to use it—just when I tell you, or maybe before. There’s a chap around that’s got to go along with us, Wash, and there’s a cord in the tool-box to tie him with. Mind you don’t shoot me! Lie low till I shout.”

Don went back to the crippled car.

“Well, does it work? Got it out?” he asked of the little man and received a muffled reply from beneath the chassis. Don walked around the mudguard past the rear end, and looked along the other side. No one was in sight. Had the tall man slipped into the car? He would find out.

“Nice car you have here—don’t see many as fine in the service,” he remarked to the man beneath. Again a muffled reply. One can hardly give attention to needless questions and wrestle with a refractory bolt. “How is she fitted inside?” Don queried, putting one hand on the latch of the full-length doors and the other on the butt of his revolver in its holster. But the doors were fastened on the inside.

“Don’t open those doors! Don’t try to, for the love of God!” yelled the small man, from the ground and instantly his wrinkled face emerged, followed by his wiry little body. “We’re loaded with explosives for mines and they’ll go off. Keep away from it!” Whether this was true or not and whether the fellow really felt frightened or was pretending, he certainly assumed it well. Don involuntarily backed away from the car.

“Oh, but that was a narrow escape! We’d all be sky-high if—” he began again, but the boy quickly regained his nerve.

“Well, tell me, how does it carry them; stand the jolt? And how are you going to unload it? Looks to me as if you’re kidding. But I don’t see any joke in it.”

“Kidding? Indeed I’m not, man! But I can’t stop now—”

“Oh, yes you will, too! My business is more important right now than yours. I want to see inside and I’m going to. You come here and open these doors for me!”

“What? Trying to act smart, ain’t you?” The little man was about to turn back to his work, but Don caught him by the shoulder, whirled him around and he gazed into the muzzle of the boy’s revolver.

“S-s-say, what you—?”

“Open those doors! There’s a fellow in there that’s going back with us. He’s in there and I want him! Come on, open that door and be quick about it. Wash, bore a hole in this fellow if he makes a break!”

“S-say, put down that pistol! I haven’t done anything to you. Listen to reason: there ain’t anyone in there. The man who was here—some fellow I don’t know went up the road. Guess he’s a Frenchman.”

“I guess he is—not!” said Don. “I know him; saw him before in the United States and up here near Montdidier. Come, open up or chase him out!”

“I tell you there’s explosives—”

“Bosh! Think I’m green; don’t you? Before I have to tell you again to open those doors I’m going to blow the lock off ’em. Now, get busy!”

Don Caught Him by the Shoulder and Whirled Him Around.

The weazen little man was most deliberate. Coming around to the rear end of the ambulance, he reached up to the door latch. But this action was a bluff—the boy felt sure of that. The lad didn’t feel like carrying out his threat. To shoot through the doors might kill someone and he didn’t want to kill. At most it was desirable to inflict only a wound. Surely there must be a way to win out here and Don had already learned to depend on the power of his shooting-iron. He had every inch of his nerve with him at this moment.

“Can’t open it, eh? Can’t? Well, I’ll show you how then.” He walked quickly to the car and taking the revolver by the chamber in his left hand—not a thing a wise gunman would do at any time, under stress of threatening circumstances he caught the lower corner of one door that was warped enough to gap at the bottom, and, with a wrench he tore off the frail fastening. The doors flew open.

The next instant Don was tumbling on the ground, struggling to rise. He felt a determination to fight, and hold this man still uppermost in his mind, in spite of a heavy blow over the head from within the car. Where was his weapon? Why could he not instantly regain his feet? Was that the noise of the crippled car getting away? Where was Wash? Why did he not shoot?

Then there was a period of unconsciousness until, a few minutes later, he did get to his feet to stare into the frightened eyes of Washington White.

“Oh, by cracky, they hit me and—they’re gone! Wash, Wash, why didn’t you shoot ’em? Why didn’t you—?”

“Shoot nuthin’! Man, man, how come yo’ lef’ de barrel plum empty? Dey wuz no ca’tridge in de barrel. Ah cocked her ’en pulled de trigger ’en cocked her again ’en pulled ’en she wouldn’t go off nohow ’en by de time Ah projecated whar de troble was, dem fellahs wuz a flyin’ down de road lak Ol’ Man Scratch wuz a huntin’ ’em. But ’tain’t so much Ah keer ef dey is gone so’s yu ain’ daid.”

“Well, I care!” Don was clearly regaining his senses. “But it was my fault, Wash. I never thought to pump a cartridge into the barrel, and what a fool I was to pull that door open and not be ready. That villain was laying for me and, say, their car wasn’t crippled much, either.”

In the roadway, where the disabled car had stood, lay two monkey-wrenches and a small bolt which probably had pivoted a brake rod. At the rate of speed that car had started to gain, there would probably be no use for brakes!

“We’ve got to get back and report this fellow,” Don said, returning his rifle to its case, and the revolver to its holster on his belt. “We’ve got only about twenty minutes’ run yet, I think. Say, I feel like ten fools to let those devils get away. Keep your eye open for an M. P. on the road.”

But not more than five minutes elapsed before the boys sighted a big touring car, with half a dozen khaki-clad men in it, tearing along toward them. Don stopped and signaled to the soldiers to do the same. They dashed up with screeching brakes, and Don stared. In the front seat, with the driver sat Clem Stapley.

All ill feeling in Don’s mind was swept aside by the business at hand. Its nature and the comradeship that natives of the same distant country in a foreign land and in a common cause naturally abolish personal ill feeling. So he shouted:

“Hello, Clem! Say, fellows, there are two spies right ahead; they just—”

“In a Red Cross car?” asked a man on the rear seat; he was an M. P. “We’re looking for them. Got word at the French evacuation hospital. Two did you say?”

“Yes, and they’re getting away at a lively rate. Clem, one of them is the same German we saw in the train; the one that got away after they blew up the mills, over home. I’ve seen him before, too, north of here. He—”

“Sure he’s a German?” asked the M. P. Clem had said no word and seemed to wish to avoid acknowledging Don. The M. P. turned to Clem.

“Say, Corp, if you know this spy we’d better be getting on. That’s the orders. The P. C. told you to get these fellows.”

Corporal Stapley turned slowly to reply. “Ask you informant here how he came to discover these Germans.”

“Ask him yourself,” retorted the M. P.

“Look here, Clem, don’t be a fool—twice!” Don blurted, angrily. “This is big business and allows for no petty child’s play.”

“How did you get on to them?” Clem deigned to ask, then. And Don briefly related the adventure with the two signalers back of the Mondidier front and then told of the incident just past.

“Couldn’t hold them,” remarked Clem. “Fool trick. I guess you’re better when you’ve got another that’s some account backing you. Let them get away! Fierce! Poor work!”

“Hey, yo’ white fellah, hit ain’t so!” Wash put in, angrily. “Yu ain’t in yo’ right min’, Ah reckon. Wha’d yu done ef yu’d ben thar?”

Clem paid no attention, but asked another question. “Did they scare you very much?”

Don, though hurt at his townsman’s words, decided to let them pass; he merely waved his hand up the road, but Wash was more than game.

“Mah boss ain’t gittin’ scairt at nuthin’, yo’ white fellah! Ah bet yu can’t scare him. Dis yer same German spy fit wif mah boss up yon furder no’th an’ mah boss jes’ up en’ kilt dis German man’s pardner, kilt him daid! Major Little of the evac. horspittle he done tol’ me ’bout hit. Dey ain’t no po’ white German what kin scare mah boss!”

“Thank you, Wash. But this gentleman won’t believe—”

“Well, you sassy nigger, how then did this spy get away?”

“Come, come, Corporal! This looks silly to me. Let us be going on, or that spy will get away from us.”

“Good luck to you, Mister Policeman,” said Don, and started his car again.

Don and Wash put in the rest of the day overhauling the ambulance. Early in the evening they were again on the road to Château-Thierry and witnessing a sight most depressing.

The French were in retreat—constantly falling back. The retirement was orderly. There was no rout, no apparent hurrying and, from the din of battle ahead, it was plain that every foot of advance that the enemy made was bitterly contested. Yet the Huns were gaining, as they had been for five days and for nearly thirty miles, encompassing an area of six hundred square miles in this drive. Success seemed to be written on their banners in this, the greatest effort of all. Thus they forced a deep wedge into the Allied line, the farthermost point of which had reached the town of Château-Thierry. And in the succeeding days what more would they gain?

Back, and farther back were swept the French, and the Huns were elated. The blue-and-red clad troops who had fought them so savagely were now no match for the vast numbers of chosen shock troops. Was there no means by which the boches could be checked?

“By cracky, Wash, it looks as if these French had pretty nearly enough of it! I don’t believe they have, though. But if they keep on coming this way we’ll have to look sharp, or we’ll run into a lot of Huns.”

“Ah doan, want tuh run into no sich!” declared Wash. “Dey eats sauerkraut an’ dis yere what dey calls limberburg cheese—an’ oxcuse me!”

Beyond LaFerté the boys met platoons, companies, regiments, even battalions, or at least remnants of them, and all along the line more than a mile each side of Château-Thierry the falling back was certain and regular.

Then, suddenly, almost as though dropped from the sky, came the Americans. From long distances in the rear and without stopping to rest from their arduous journey, the Yanks eagerly faced the Huns, and foremost among these cheerful, singing, jesting troops from overseas were the marines, leaving their train of parked lorries not far from LaFerté and coming up on foot.

The German High Command had received intelligence of the French handing the defense of this line nearest Paris over to the Yanks, and the word had come to the invaders: “Go through these untrained Americans like a knife through cheese!” It is said that this was General Ludendorff’s pet phrase.

The Americans took up their positions along the southern bank of the Marne and beyond in the hills. Then night came on. The enemy was too confident of a sweeping victory on the morrow to give serious thought to night attacks. Beyond a few minor skirmishes and some artillery firing, the hours of darkness passed uneventfully.

That night Don and Wash slept in their car, not far from the Château-Thierry road and within a short distance of some American regulars placed in reserve. Seeing the boys’ fire, a few officers came over to talk. They were much interested in Don, and amused at Wash and his lingo. They also were free with certain information and opinions. One first-lieutenant who had most to say remarked:

“Well, we’ve got a job on our hands tomorrow, but we’ll do it! These Frenchies are good fellows and good scrappers, but they have to follow fixed methods of fighting. This is not the American way. I say hang this trench business, pot shots, grenades, flares, sniping and all that!”

“Like to have a little of it kind of Indian fashion, eh?” suggested Don.

“That’s it, my boy! Go right after them—rifle, bayonet and pistol!”

“I hear our commander told the generalissimo that we wanted to fight this in our own way,” offered a young second-lieutenant.

“That’s right. As soon as Foch said we might try, Pershing told him we could stop the Heinies, but we didn’t want to follow the methods commonly in use. We wanted to go at them American fashion. So, those are the orders. And, believe me, we’ll stop them all right!”

“Pretty sure of it?” queried Don.

“Certain, my boy; certain! How do you feel about it, Rastus!”

“Ah feels dis a-way ’bout hit:” answered Wash. “Whichaway a white man wants tuh fight Ah sez let him fight an’ same way wif a niggah. Some goes at it wif fis’ en’ some wif a razzor, but fo’ me lemme butt wif mah haid. Ah kin put mah weight back o’ dis ol’ bean o’ mine en’ make a dant in a grin’ stone wif it!”

“Say, Rastus, go butt a Hun!”

“Show me one, boss; show me one! A ain’t seed one yit what wants tuh fight. Ah on’y heerd tell of ’em.”