CHAPTER XVII
THE MINED BRIDGE
For several days the drive continued. At first it had been quite assuccessful for the Germans as they could have hoped. Their initialsurprise had carried them a long way into French territory, and thishad involved the capture of a considerable number of men and guns.
But they had fallen far short of their ambitious aims. They had notrolled up the Allied armies. They had not reached Paris. They had notcaptured the Channel ports.
The Allied armies had stretched like an elastic band, but had notbroken. They knew now what the enemy's plans were and they wererapidly taking measures to check them.
The Germans had had a great advantage in being under a single command.There was no clash of plans and opinions. If they wanted to transfer apart of their forces from one point to another they could do so.
With the Allies it had been different. There had been a French army, aBritish army, an Italian army, a Belgian army, a Russian army andlatest of all an American army. They had tried to work together inharmony and in the main had done so. But the British naturally wantedabove all to prevent the German armies from reaching the coast wherethey could threaten England. The French were especially anxious toprevent Paris being captured. Either side was reluctant to weaken itsown army by sending reinforcements to the other.
But the German success in the first days of the drive changed all this.The Allies got together and appointed General Foch as the supremecommander of all the Allied forces. He had done brilliant work indriving the Germans back from the Marne in the early days of the war,when they had approached close to Paris.
"Have you heard the news?" asked Frank of his chums the day after theappointment had been made.
"No," said Bart.
"What is it?" asked Billy.
"We've got just one man that's going to boss the job of driving backthe Huns," answered Frank.
Bart gave a whoop of delight and Billy threw his hat in the air.
"Best news I've heard yet," crowed Billy.
"That's as good as a battle lost for the Huns," exclaimed Bart. "Theonly wonder is that it wasn't done before. Who's the man they'vechosen?"
"General Foch," was the answer.
"Better and better," pronounced Bart. "That man's a born fighter. Helicked the Germans at the Marne, and he can do it again."
"What I like about him," commented Billy, "is that he's a hard hitter.He isn't satisfied to stand on the defensive. He likes to hand theother fellow a good one right at the start of the fight."
"That's what," agreed Frank. "He hits out right from the shoulder. Ofcourse he'll have to wait a little while yet until he sizes up hisforces and sees what he has to fight with. But you can bet it won't belong before he has the boches on the run."
In the days that followed, the advantage of the appointment becameclear. The armies worked together as they never had before. The khakiof the British mingled with the cornflower blue of the French.Reserves were sent where they were most needed, no matter what armythey were drawn from. And, fighting side by side, each nation wasfilled with a generous rivalry and sought bravely to outdo the other indeeds of valor.
The old Thirty-seventh had been in the thick of the fighting and hadcovered itself with glory. It had taught the Germans that there wereAmericans in France, and that they were fighters to be dreaded.
The course of the fighting had taken Frank and his comrades in thevicinity of the farmhouse where they had rounded up the Germanlieutenant and his squad. But it was a very different place now fromwhat it had been when they had first seen it. Shells had torn awaypart of the roof, and the attic lay open to the sky. But the farmerand his family still stayed there although in daily peril of theirlives. They lived and slept in the cellar, which was the only placethat afforded them a chance of safety.
One day when only an artillery duel was going on and the infantry wasgetting a rest that it sorely needed, the Army Boys went over to thehouse. The girl saw them coming and recognized them at once. She cameout to meet them with a smile on her face.
"_Les braves Americains!_" she exclaimed. "You have not then beenkilled by those dreadful Germans."
"Don't we look pretty lively for dead men?" asked Frank jokingly.
"And that lieutenant?" she inquired. "Oh, I hope you have hanged him."
"No," said Frank, "but he's a prisoner."
"It is not enough," she said with a shudder of repulsion.
"Have you heard anything of the young soldier that the lieutenant wasgoing to hang?" asked Frank eagerly.
"No," she answered. "But stay," she added, "I have something here thatyou may want to see."
She darted back in the house and quickly returned with a very-muchcrumpled card in her hand.
"It is a _carte postale_," she explained. "We found it in the yardsome days after you had been here. It had been trampled in the mud bythe horses' feet and the writing had been scraped or blotted out.Perhaps it belonged to the young man. It may have fallen from hispocket. I do not know."
Frank took it eagerly from her hand, while his comrades gathered aroundhim.
The card was almost illegible, but it could be seen that it was aUnited States postal. There was not a single word upon it that couldbe made out in its entirety, but up in the corner where the postmarkhad been they could see by straining their eyes the letters C and M.
"That's Camport, I'm willing to bet!" exclaimed Bart excitedly.
"And here's something else," put in Billy pointing to where the addresswould naturally be looked for. "See those letters d-f-o-r----"
"It's dollars to doughnuts that that stands for 'Bradford,'" Frankshouted. "A card from Camport to Tom Bradford. Boys, we didn't guesswrong that day. That was Tom that that brute of a lieutenant was goingto hang!"
They were tingling with excitement and delight. To be sure, they didnot know what had become of their friend. But he had escaped from thishouse. He was perhaps within a few miles of them. He was, at anyrate, not eating his heart out in a distant prison camp.
Then to Frank came the thought of Rabig. Perhaps Tom hadn't escaped.Perhaps Rabig had added murder to the crime of treason of which theywere sure he was guilty.
"Are you sure that you haven't found anything else that would help usin finding our friend?" he asked of the girl, whose face was beaming atthe pleasure she had been able to give to her deliverers.
"No," she answered. "There is nothing else. I am sorry."
"Let's take a look around the house again, fellows," suggested Frank."We may have overlooked something the other day. It's only a chance,but let's take it."
They made a careful circuit of the house, but nothing rewarded thesearch until Frank, with an exclamation, picked up some pieces of ropethat had been lying in the grass not far from the window from which theprisoner had dropped.
"Are these yours?" he asked of the girl who had accompanied them andhad been as ardent in the search as themselves.
She examined them.
"I do not think so," she declared. "I do not remember seeing any ropelike that around the house."
They scrutinized the pieces carefully.
"Look at these frayed edges," said Frank, laying them together. "Yousee that these two pieces were part of one rope."
"I'll tell you what that means," put in Billy. "The girl says that Tomwas bound with ropes. That cut or broken one was the one that was usedto tie his hands. In some way he cut that. He didn't have a knife orthe cut would be cleaner. Perhaps he sawed the rope against a piece ofglass that he might have managed to get near."
"Good guess," commended Bart. "And this long rope was the one that wasused to tie his feet. Tom didn't need to cut that for his hands werefree then and he could untie it."
"Good old scout!" exclaimed Frank in tribute to his absent chum."Trust that stout heart of his to keep up the fight to the last minute.Think of the old boy sawing away at the rope when he didn't know whatminute he'd be taken out and
hanged."
"He's all wool and a yard wide," agreed Bart.
"The real goods," said Billy. "But what were the ropes doing out herein the grass?"
"Oh, I suppose he hated them so that he chucked them as far away as hecould," suggested Bart.
"No," said Frank, measuring the window with his eye. "I'll tell youhow I think it was. Tom knew, of course, that he couldn't get out ofthe house by the downstairs way without being nabbed. He didn't know,of course, that the bunch of Huns weren't in condition to nab anybody.So the window was the only way left to him. He took the ropes to thewindow with the idea of splicing them and climbing down by them. Butthat would have taken time, and when he saw that the window wasn't veryhigh up he made up his mind to drop. The ropes were in his hand and hesimply threw them out of the window as the easiest way of getting ridof them."
"That sounds reasonable," said Billy. "But, oh boy! if poor Tom hadonly known that all he had to do was to walk downstairs and bag thewhole blooming bunch!"
"I wish he had," said Frank mournfully.
"If he had, that lieutenant wouldn't have got off so easily as he did,"declared Bart. "Do you know what would have happened? Of course thefirst thing Tom would have done would have been to untie the farmer andhis son. Can you picture, then, what would have happened to thatlieutenant and probably to his men, too? The United States wouldn'thave been put to any expense for feeding them."
"That rope by the well would probably have been put to work," agreedFrank. "But poor Tom didn't know and there's no use of ourspeculating."
Encouraged by the information they had gained, they looked stillfurther. But nothing more was found, and they at last said good-by tothe girl and made their way back to their quarters with their heartslighter than they had been for days. In a sense they had got in touchwith their missing comrade, had seemed near to him, and their hopeswere high that before long they would have him with them again.
"It's disposed of one thing that was worrying me anyway," remarkedFrank. "We know that Rabig had nothing to do with making away withTom."
"Yes," said Bart, "that's one thing the fellow can't be charged with.But I'm still mighty curious to know what he was hanging around thatfarmhouse for."
"It sure was a mighty strange coincidence that he should be there atthe time the Germans were," declared Billy. "But Rabig is the only onewho knows why and you can bet that he won't tell."
The comparative lull that had occurred in the fighting was onlytemporary, and the next day the drive was resumed in all its fury.
This time the use of gas was greater than it had been at any previoustime in the battle. And the Germans had made still greater strides inthis diabolical contrivance which they were the first to inflict uponan outraged world.
At first the gas had been light and volatile. It caused terriblesuffering to those caught by it, but it did not hover long over anygiven place and a gust of wind was sufficient to drive it away.
But that was not vile enough to satisfy the infernal ingenuity of thefoes of humanity. Now they were using gas that settled on the groundso that nothing but a gale would drive it away, and that lasted forhours and even for days. And then there was mustard gas, thatpenetrated everywhere through the clothing, through the skin, and thatburned and ate up the living tissues like so much vitriol.
But the Allies were on the alert and soon found a way to avert ormodify the worst consequences of the various kinds of gases. And theywere forced to fight fire with fire simply in self-defence. It was aquestion of kill or be killed, and they were left no alternative. Theyasked nothing better than to fight as knightly and honorable nationsalways have fought and always will fight when they are left free tochoose their weapons.
But whatever the methods used by the Germans, whether gas or guns ormen, they were finding increasing difficulty in keeping up the momentumof their drive. Sheer force of numbers had sufficed at first to carrythem forward, but now the Allies with American help coming over the seaat the rate of two hundred thousand men a month--and the finest kind ofmen at that--were gradually getting on even terms.
"I see the Germans had a good day yesterday," remarked Frank, as he andhis comrades were at mess.
"I didn't notice it," said Bart, looking at his friend in surprise."We drove them back and gained ground from them."
"Oh, I don't mean here," exclaimed Frank. "I mean in Paris."
Billy almost choked in surprise and alarm.
"You don't mean to say they've got to Paris?" he sputtered.
"Not by a jugful," laughed Frank. "But they're sending shells into it."
"Then they must be pretty close to it," said Bart in some apprehension.
"The gun they're shooting with is seventy miles away from the city,"replied Frank.
"Quit your kidding," commanded Billy.
"Where do you get that stuff?" asked Bart incredulously.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," said Frank seriously. "Honestly,fellows, they've got a gun that shoots a shell seventy miles or more.The shell weighs two hundred pounds. It rises twenty miles in the air,and it takes three minutes on the trip to Paris."
"Is that straight goods?" asked Billy suspiciously.
"It sure is," Frank assured him. "I was reading about it in a Parispaper I got hold of this morning."
"What was it you were saying about yesterday being a good day for theGermans," asked Bart, when he had digested the facts.
"Oh, one of the shells hit a church where they were having a serviceand killed seventy-five people, mostly women and children," answeredFrank. "Don't you imagine the Germans call that a good day? Can't yousee them grinning and rubbing their hands? It's as good as bombing ahospital or an orphan asylum. The Kaiser felt so good about that hesent a special message of congratulation to the manager of the Kruppworks, where the gun was made. Oh, yes, it was a good day!"
"The swine!" exclaimed Bart furiously, while Billy's fist clinched.
"Let's get busy," cried Frank, springing to his feet. "I can't wait toget at those barbarians. I hope there's lots of bayonet work today. Inever felt in better trim for it."
They fought that day as they had never fought before, for they hadnever felt so strongly that the world would never be a decent place tolive in until their barbarous enemies were humbled to the dust.
The next day the old Thirty-seventh was ordered to take up its positionat a bridgehead that it was of the utmost importance should be stronglyheld. The enemy attacks were converging there, and it was evident thatthey were planning to cross the river in force. The country behind theAmerican troops was flat and difficult to defend, and if the enemyshould make good his crossing the consequences to the Allied causemight prove serious.
The enemy advance had reached the further side of the river, which atthat point was about two hundred yards in width. A fierce artilleryduel was kept up between the hostile forces. A wooden bridge withstone arches afforded the only means of crossing, and this was swept bysuch a fierce shell fire from the Allied guns that it did not seem asthough anything could live on it for a moment.
As an additional precaution the bridge had been secretly mined by theAllied engineers. Electric wires ran to the concealed charges.
A pressure of a button--and the bridge would be reduced to atoms.