CHAPTER X The Spy in the Night

AS Tom and his two companions turned from their sad task with one last lingering look at the rough grave wherein lay the body of the brave man who had been their friend and advisor, as well as their superior officer, they became aware for the first time that the advance contingent of Engineers had progressed to that point on the edge of the wood, working frantically in the felling of trees and the repairing of the roads and ground over which the day’s battle had raged, to make passageway for the ambulances to carry away the wounded, for the trucks bearing food and munitions, for the heavy and light artillery, the tanks and all the other vast and inevitable retinue of an army advancing in successful combat with an enemy.

From these men of the Engineer Corps the lads learned that the combined American and French attack upon the west leg of the salient, launched simultaneously with their own assault northward, had been attended with the same success; while vague messages also repeated to them from around on the north of the huge bulge, where the French were pushing southward with an irresistible weight, indicated that swiftly and surely Allied strategy was vindicating itself in a persistent closing of a great pincers-like movement which threatened soon to entirely cut off thousands upon thousands of Germans from their main army, now in retreat. For they were in momentary danger of being trapped in a veritable pocket of annihilation by this quick closing-in process.

The great question now was how rapidly these divisions could follow in the retreat, and whether or not the Americans could, or under present plans intended, to entirely cut off their avenue of escape before they could emerge from that desperate position.

Already in the distance, over the ground which the Engineers had prepared, they could hear their own artillery rumbling forward, seeking placement for the tremendous bombardment that soon would be resumed. For the present, though, there was a comparative quiet and silence that seemed ominous. The boys expected it to be broken at any moment by a tremendous roar of guns, with their accompanying flash of exploding shells. Their nerves were taut in subconscious anticipation of it. Yet nothing happened, and as though they, too, were under orders not to awaken the night, they picked their way cautiously back toward where their own company had halted in the attack, speaking only infrequently, and then in hushed whispers.

It was Ollie, walking between Tom and George Harper, who suddenly laid a detaining hand upon the arm of both. They looked at him questioningly in the almost unbroken gloom of the night, but they could see dimly that he was peering forward, and trained by this time to the constant vigil of warfare, they followed his gaze without a spoken word.

Both saw what Ollie had been the first to discover. A hundred yards ahead of them, against the sky line, they could make out the silhouette of a man, stooping over a form that lay prone upon the ground. As he moved about, his actions were cat-like in their quickness. Once in awhile he hesitated to peer about him, but with the background of the heavy wood behind them the lads remained unseen, while able to observe every action in the strange, even weird performance being enacted before them.

The man was not a stretcher-bearer, neither was he a surgeon, else he would not have been alone. It was several minutes, while their vision was being focussed to the scene, before it dawned upon the lads what was taking place. It was Tom who breathed the words in a scarcely audible tone.

“A spy,” he whispered.

It seemed impossible that the man out ahead could have heard, but he stopped suddenly in his hurried work, crouched further forward over the dim form on the ground, and peered all about him after the manner of some wild beast of the jungle, sensing the approach of danger. For several moments he remained in that position, while the three lads stood motionless, scarcely daring to breathe.

At the end of that time, apparently assured that he was still undiscovered, he raised himself slightly and went to his work again.

There was no doubt as to his object now. He was frantically tearing at the clothing of the man beneath him. It all became as clear as daylight now to the three boys from Brighton. There could be no further doubt about it. The man was a German scout spy who somehow had remained in, or gotten back to, the territory taken by the Americans, and he was now fulfilling his mission by searching the dead in quest for secret orders, maps, plans and photographs, which would arm his superiors with valuable information as to the method and direction of the campaign which had been launched with such success.

“We can’t advance directly without being seen,” whispered Harper, drawing the others close to him so that they might hold a hasty consultation. “And we daren’t shoot from here, because there’s the barest chance that he may be one of our own men, although it is a hundred to one against it.”

“You’re right,” Tom agreed. “There is but one thing to do, and that is for two of us to circle in on him from either side, while the other pushes slowly forward, giving us time to get near him without being discovered ourselves.”

“Sh-h!” Ollie warned; and then, in a tone scarcely to be heard, “Look! Apparently he’s found what he was after.”

It was true. Even as Ollie had spoken, and the others had turned swiftly to look back again to where the treacherous enemy was in quest of information which might greatly hinder and harass the American advance, the man cautiously raised himself and began moving forward, away from where the lads stood.

He had gone only a few feet, however, while the boys were debating as to what was the best course for them to pursue, when he again stopped, and they could just make out that he was bending over another still shadow on the ground. It was becoming ghastly. Was he in reality a spy? Or was he, after all, one of those most despicable of all human beings, a ghoul, prowling about in the night, robbing the helpless, plundering the dead?

There was but one way to find out; there was but one course open to them. They must follow out Tom’s plan, without further delay, and if possible come upon the man before he scented danger or knew of their presence, capturing him in the very act of his search.

A hasty council was held. They could go back and get assistance from some of the Engineers, but this possibility held no weight with them. They would trap and take the man themselves. And with this decided upon, it then was agreed that Tom should circle forward on the right of the stranger, while George Harper carried out a like flanking movement on the left, leaving Ollie to creep almost directly forward after he had given them sufficient time to begin closing in. All three were to arrive as a human net about the man as nearly as possible at the same time.

As Tom and Harper crept away and out of sight, Ollie remained standing where they had left him, his gaze glued to one spot, never for an instant taking his eyes from the swiftly-working man of mystery, except in those rare snatches when, to retain a clear vision, he had to look away and blink several times in quick succession when he found the constant stare dimming his sight and blurring his perspective.

Scarcely time enough had elapsed, however, for Tom and George to get well under way on their perilous mission, when the stranger turned suddenly from his work, gazed long and steadily in the direction from which Ollie knew Tom Walton would be approaching, his whole attention concentrated upon something out there which Ollie could not see.

Instinctively Ollie raised his revolver, training it upon him, ready to fire at the first indication that Tom himself was in danger of being shot or ambushed. But if the man was armed, he evidently had no taste for thus attracting general attention to himself, except in the direst emergency. From his actions it seemed equally certain that he either had seen or heard Tom approaching, or by that sixth sense of intuition, sensed his danger without knowing exactly what it was or where it lay.

Even as Ollie stood there, silently alert, covering the fellow with his gun, the latter dropped suddenly flat upon the ground and like a writhing serpent began to glide quickly forward and into the gloom ahead. As he did so his form was no longer shadowed against the sky line—in fact could be discerned only occasionally and with difficulty as he sped along with almost incredible agility.

Ollie ran forward swiftly but silently for a distance of several yards, and then dropped to the ground also, replacing his revolver in its holster so that he might the better hurry along on hands and knees in quest of the fleeing enemy.

Once or twice he stopped for the double purpose of raising himself to make sure he was keeping in the trail of the man ahead, and to listen for indications of the approach of Tom or Harper. But while, thus far, he was keeping to the right path and making good progress, there was no sign of the presence, or even proximity, of his two pals.

Already he was approaching the spot where they first had discovered the fellow at work, and where Tom and Harper should now be closing in. But Ollie realized what handicaps they had to overcome, and also how easy it would be for either to mistake the distance to be covered before they swung inward toward their objective. Either or both might now be considerably off their given course, and without present knowledge of their exact whereabouts. Meanwhile the man they sought was steadily pushing forward and away from them, into the blackness of the night.

Much as he would have liked to wait for his two friends, Ollie decided that if the enemy was to be kept in sight and finally captured, he must continue to go forward alone. And with the thought he proceeded.

He had gone scarcely more than another thirty feet when something happened that for the instant seemed to make his heart stand still and the blood to freeze in his veins. Momentarily he had lost sight of his quarry. In that instant while he groped about him, undecided as to his exact position and the direction he should pursue, the cold steel of a revolver barrel was thrust against his right temple, and Ollie for the first time was aware of the presence of another man, not more than two feet away from him.

It may have been that only a fraction of seconds elapsed, but to Ollie, rigid and helpless in the darkness, unable to see his opponent or make a single move, it seemed like an eternity of time, in which sudden death was inevitable, before a low voice close to his ear commanded, “Put up your hands!”

Ollie could have shouted with joy and relief. He could have embraced the speaker in a great hug. Instead, he very wisely followed a policy of “safety first.” He put his hands straight into the air, as directed, and as high as he could reach, so that there might be no mistake as to his intentions. Then he whispered sharply, “Tom, it’s Ollie; for the love of Mike take that gun away from my head. I don’t like the feel of it at all. You might get a sudden twitching of that trigger finger.”

“Well I’ll be hanged,” ejaculated Tom Walton, in a hushed and rather abashed tone. “It’s good I didn’t shoot first and speak afterward. I thought you were that Hun. Where is he?”

“Not so loudly,” warned Ollie. “I don’t know where he is now, but I only lost sight of him a few seconds before you poked that gun to my head. He had started for home. He ought to be out there straight ahead somewhere. Wonder where George is?”

There was no time to loiter, however, if they were going to capture the man they were after, and after waiting for several seconds without hearing or seeing any sign of their friend approaching, they began cautiously and silently to push forward again.

Stretched out almost flat upon the ground, pulling themselves forward by handgrips upon the turf, only occasionally raising their heads to take a hurried but unsuccessful survey of the vicinity to locate the enemy, they finally came upon the first of the bodies over which he had been working.

They had made no mistake. The most cursory glance showed that the dead man was a captain in the United States army, and that every pocket of his uniform had been rifled. Not only that, but the shirt beneath had been torn loose and the chest was bared, showing that the most thorough search had been made for anything of value that might have been concealed there.

The lads paused for a moment in an effort to identify the officer, but it was out of the question even to attempt to read his identification tag, and a shell fragment had so mutilated his head and face that in the darkness it was impossible for them even to guess who he was. With a suppressed sigh and a muttered threat against the man who thus had defiled the dead, they pressed onward, but without any definite idea as to the exact direction they should pursue, or how far they ought to go.

The second body was that of a first lieutenant, and here, also, the search had been complete. The boys had no doubt that each had had upon their persons explicit instructions of the whole advance, at least so far as it was purposed that their units should participate in it, but not the slightest trace of a paper, map or photograph could be found on either of them. Capture of the spy, therefore, was imperative.

But where was the enemy who had committed these thefts? A few moments before he had been plainly visible to Ollie. The latter had crouched down again to continue his own advance, and when he again looked, the man had disappeared completely. True it was a dark night; but the open space was broad, and he had been clearly silhouetted against the skyline. It was inconceivable that he could have covered a sufficient distance in the meantime to take him out of sight of the lads. They decided, therefore, to continue on.

Their disadvantage and handicap was now doubled, however, for while they had lost all track of the enemy, there was no assurance that by this time he had not discovered them. For all they knew he might be watching their every movement. It increased their caution, and when, on the still night, they heard the peculiar low whistle that probably no one else would have noticed, or taken for a human sound—the code signal of the three—Tom responded ever so lightly, and they sat down to wait until Harper should come up.

When finally he did, they held another whispered council. They agreed that while for the time being the search seemed hopeless, it ought not to be abandoned; and they suddenly realized, too, that with an enemy concealed somewhere in the darkness, it was highly dangerous for them to attempt to proceed directly back to their own company.

In the denser darkness of a clump of bushes they halted to consider what course they should pursue. Each turned his mind to a solution of the problem. For several moments no word was spoken, and the faint rumble of distant guns worked upon their dulled senses like a soothing lullaby.

Poor, tired, overworked and overwrought youths! They had forgotten to take the inexorable laws of nature into their calculations. Even as they attempted to think, they drowsed. Heavy-lidded eyes closed, and they slept.

Now, if ever, were they completely at the mercy of a conscienceless enemy, who might creep upon them and kill before they could make an outcry or a move in their own defense.

Fate was stalking in the night.