CHAPTER XIX
RECOGNITION!
Even the enemy, the hated Germans, found that the Boy Scouts wereuseful. There was constant danger of an outbreak, and the Germans had nodesire to destroy Amiens. Had they been attacked from the houses, theywould have lost heavily; in house-to-house fighting civilians, battlingat close range, can inflict great damage on the best of regular troops.Such an outbreak would have meant the killing and the wounding ofhundreds of German soldiers. The punishment would have been terrible,indeed, but that would not have brought a single Prussian back tolife--a single Bavarian, rather, since these were Bavarian troops.
The Boy Scouts served as intermediaries between the Germans and theFrench civil authorities. They carried messages, and, at the order ofthe mayor, they submitted themselves to the orders of the German staffwhen it was necessary to explain a new decree to the citizens. They hadmany other things to do, also. It was largely the scouts who saw to thegathering of the supplies requisitioned by the Germans. The enemy hadbeen inexorable in this respect; they set a definite time limit for thefilling of every requisition they made, and it was well understood thatdrastic measures would be taken were they not satisfied.
Each day a new group of hostages was taken into the Hotel de Ville, nowoccupied as headquarters by the German staff, rather than the buildingsformerly used by the Second Corps d'Armee of France. These hostages, itwas explained, would be shot at once if orders were not obeyed or ifGermans were attacked. There were many irksome rules. Every citizen wasrequired to salute a German officer whenever he saw him. Lights must beout at a certain hour each night, and after that hour any citizen foundin the streets without a permit was liable to arrest and executionwithout trial. They were under martial rule.
But always the sound of heavy firing in the southeast continued.
"I really believe the great battle is being fought at last, Henri!" saidFrank. "We have heard that firing now for three days. It comes from thedirection of the Marne. There is another thing. Since yesterday no trooptrains have gone south through Amiens."
"But empty trains go through!" cried Henri. "And they come back, loadedwith German wounded! You are right, Francois! We have begun to drive thePrussians back to the Rhine!"
News they had none. All Amiens was cut off from the world. Whatever theGerman invaders knew they kept strictly to themselves. It was only bysuch inferences as they could draw from the sound of firing in thedirection of Paris and by the passage of trains through the city thatthey were able to form any opinion at all.
"I feel sure that there's a real battle going on," said Frank. "Thefiring is too heavy and too continuous for a rear guard action. But asto who is winning, we can't tell. Sometimes the firing seems to be alittle nearer again, but that might be because of the wind. And as forthe trains that are going through, that doesn't really mean anything.They might have decided to send troops to the front by another railway.They control the line through Rheims, too."
But the morning after they had decided that there was no real way totell what was happening, something definite did come up. Nearly all thetroops in Amiens moved south. Only a few hundred remained, enough togarrison the town and control the railway, since there seemed no dangerof an allied raid. But the fact that the other troops were being sent upto the front indicated that the fighting was assuming a character farmore desperate than the Germans had expected.
"They must be fighting on the line of the river Marne," said Frank. "Yousee, during that long retreat, there was time to entrench there. Andopen field entrenchments seem to be better than fortified places. Lookat how quickly Namur fell, when everyone thought it would hold theGermans back for days."
"The country there is difficult, too," said Henri. "My father said oncethat it was there that the garrison of Paris should have fought first in1870, instead of waiting inside the forts for the Prussians to come."
"I think that everything favors us now, for the first time," said Frank."The Germans have been winning--they have made a wonderful dash throughBelgium and France. They must have got very close to Paris. I believethe roar of guns is as easy to hear in Paris as here. And then,suddenly, when they think they are to have it all their own way, theirenemy turns and faces them, and holds them. That much we may be sure of.The battle has been raging now for four days at least, perhaps for five.And the firing has certainly not gone further away. Even if we are notgaining, it is a gain if the Germans cannot advance."
They were glad now that they were busy. A few refugees from the southwere coming, driven back by the Germans. Perhaps they would rather havetried to reach Paris, but the battle stopped that. And always there wereerrands to be run, and messages to be carried. It went against the grainto obey the orders of German officers, and to be obliged to salute theseofficers whenever they were encountered, but it was necessary. And thescouts of Amiens, when they knew what their duty was, did it, no matterhow unpleasant it might be.
Now the troops who formed the garrison of Amiens changed almost daily.Older men were now in the tents, and some young boys.
"The last classes of their reserves must have been called out," saidFrank. "These are not first line troops that are up, but the ones whoare supposed to guard lines of communication and to garrison interiorfortresses."
There were times when more officers than men seemed to be in the town.Amiens seemed to be used as a point where shipments of supplies and ofammunition for troops at the front were concentrated and diverted to thevarious divisions at the front. This involved the presence of a greatnumber of officers of the commissariat department, who seemed to worknight and day.
Men fight best on a full stomach, and the Germans understood thisthoroughly, and saw to it that their soldiers did not have to go intobattle hungry. Amiens also formed the headquarters of one branch of theGerman flying corps. Here aviators in great numbers were presentconstantly. Damaged monoplanes and biplanes were brought back forrepairs. And it was this fact that brought a startling experience to thetwo scouts. For one day, as they rode on their bicycles on an errandthrough the square before the Hotel de Ville, they were arrested by asudden fierce shout. An officer ran out toward them, his face distortedwith anger. And Frank, with a sinking heart, recognized him as the manwho had fired at Henri on the night they had burned the Zeppelins.
"Arrest that boy!" he cried, pointing to Henri. "He is a spy! He is aFrench, spy, I say!"
For a moment Frank hesitated. Then he rode away, leaving Henri to hisfate. He looked back, to see two Germans holding his chum.