CHAPTER III DOWN THE SLOPE
Upon hearing this unpleasant news poor Bumpus looked broken-hearted. Heseemed to see a host of obstacles confronting him. Paris must have beensomething like a thousand miles away just then, according to hisenlarged view.
“Just like the luck,” he sighed desolately; “things were moving alongtoo fine to last. I had a sneaking idea in my mind something was boundto blow up before long. What under the sun _will_ we do, Thad?”
“Not give up our plan of getting to Paris, for one thing,” replied theleader firmly, with that determined look on his face the others knew sowell.
“Hurrah!” exclaimed Giraffe; “that’s the stuff I like to hear! _Nildesperandum_ it is, Bumpus, and we’ll carry it out on that line if ittakes all the balance of the summer. Grant said that, but any fellowwith a backbone can feel it.”
“First of all,” continued the practical Thad, “I’m meaning to skirmisharound some more and find out what can be done. You see, all thepassengers have been pulled out of the carriages. Listen to them babble,will you? They are mostly French, and as excitable as wildfire.Everybody wants to get away from the border here in a hurry. Their dearold France lies just over yonder, and they’re bound to travel if it hasto be on foot.”
“Oh, my stars!” ejaculated Bumpus, and then he stopped short,remembering that much as he disliked walking any great distance, heshould be the last one of the quartette to complain now, for it was hiserrand that beckoned them on to Paris.
They immediately bestirred themselves. Each fellow was to mingle withthe bustling passengers and pick up any and all information possible.Since they knew so little of the language it was hardly likely thatAllan, Bumpus or Giraffe would meet with much success; but at least theywould be doing their best.
As usual, they depended a great deal on Thad. He had a happy faculty fordoing things; moreover, in this case, he was better fitted for catchingsnatches of conversation on the part of the voluble French people thanany one of his comrades.
About ten minutes later Thad made signals to his chums, on catchingtheir eyes, bidding them join him. This they did only too gladly, for upto that moment none of the trio had learned anything worth mentioning.
“It’s going to be all right, I guess,” Thad told them first of all.
“Then you’ve heard of a train we can take, eh?” queried Bumpus eagerly,while a thankful glow began to appear in his eyes.
“Yes,” replied the other; “it seems there’s another road tapping thisplace that leads to Calais, which, you know, is on the Channel, and theterminus of a boat line coming from Dover over in England.”
“Sure thing,” remarked Giraffe; “and we figured that since England hasbutted into this war game she must be sending her little army across theChannel, or the Straits of Dover that way, to help her ally France holdthe Kaiser in check.”
“Well, they have a great need of every kind of car at Calais, it seems,passenger and freight, to carry men and munitions from there into theinterior. So there has been made up a long train of empties that isgoing to start across country right away, aiming for Calais. And therailway people here have made arrangements to carry all those who wantto head that way, if they promise not to kick at the pooraccommodations.”
“Well, any port in a storm,” said Giraffe; “we’ll shut our eyes and goin a cattle van if necessary and not say a single word.”
“Only too glad of the chance,” added Bumpus gratefully; “because once weget to Calais we’ll be out of the line of the invading German army; andit ought to be a whole lot easier for us to make Paris from that pointthan away up here on the border of Belgium.”
“Yes, it would seem so,” Thad added, with a wrinkle across his forehead;as if even at that time he might be having a faint vision of theterrible difficulties they were destined to meet later on while tryingto accomplish their object.
“Lead us to it, Thad,” implored the impatient Giraffe.
Already they could see that some of the excited passengers had commencedto move away. The word was being passed along the line that if theychose to head for the city on the Channel there was an opportunityoffered, and few, if any, declined the opening, for they were fairlywild to get deeper into their native country.
When the four American scouts, a little later on, found themselves atanother station and gazing upon a long string of traffic vehicles theycould not keep from exchanging smiles.
It certainly looked as though already the sudden and violent demandsmade upon all the railways of Northern France for transportation onaccount of the mobilization of the troops, with their batteries, andhorses, had caused a tremendous drain on their limited resources. Theydid not have these things “down pat” to the minutest detail, as inGermany, where every man, young and old, knew exactly what was expectedof him when a certain order went forth, and the whole nation moved likea gigantic machine, in unison.
The cars were of a polyglot type. There were a few “carriages” as theycall the passenger cars across the sea, some first-class, othersdescending the scale rapidly until they reached the lowest depth ofunpainted transportation vehicles, no doubt taken hurriedly from therepair shops. So long as they were apparently sound, and would not breakdown under a strain, they had been drafted into service.
Besides these there were numerous freight vans, much shorter than eventhe ordinary open flat cars seen on all American railways. Box cars arenot in great use abroad, the goods being covered with heavy tarpaulinsinstead.
Already most of the carriages had been reserved for the women andchildren. Little did the four boys care about this. The day was prettyhot, and the sun beamed down from a clear sky, but they were well usedto this sort of thing, and had no thought of venturing the firstcomplaint.
“Pick out as solid a van as you can find, Thad,” remarked Bumpus, asthey started to walk along this string of antequated traffic carriers.
“Yes, please do,” Giraffe chuckled, “for the sake of Bumpus here, whoneeds to have things good and strong when he travels. No ordinary coachwill do for a fellow of his heft. How about that third van, Thad; itlooks as if it might be a fair article?”
Apparently the patrol leader thought the same himself, for he proceededto climb aboard, after tossing his bag and other “duffle” ahead of him.The others copied his example without delay. Men were boarding the trainall along the line, picking out their locations as the whim moved them.There was more or less laughter, and no doubt they joked with oneanother in their native tongue; for never before had the majority everdeigned to travel upon cattle and goods vans.
Men in uniform bustled around to hasten things. From this Thad judgedthat there had a hurry call come for the means of transportation over atCalais, where possibly British troops and munitions and batteries werelanding daily, and must be taken to the front in haste, for the Germaninvasion threatened Paris by now.
“Here we go,” sang out Giraffe, presently; “that must have been thesignal from the man in the motor ahead, to start the string moving. Yes,we’re off at last, and over the border in France.”
Bumpus had managed to settle himself upon his bag, and was lookingfairly comfortable, though that anxious expression did not leave hisround face entirely.
The long and singularly mixed train pulled out of the border town.People waved after it, for there was such a tingle of excitement in theair these days all over the land that few could settle down to doing anyordinary business. The younger men had rushed off to mobilizationcentres, and were even now fighting valiantly on the front line, in theendeavor to delay the forward push of the Teuton host, until thedefences of Paris could be strengthened. And while the hearts of fathersand mothers went out to the boys in the French army in blue, at thisearly stage of the great war they did not doubt but that the invaderswould be soon driven back to their Northern country.
While at the border town Giraffe had particularly noticed a man whom hevowed paid unusual attention to them. A number o
f times the boy haddeclared the other hung around as though trying to listen to what theymight be saying. And really Allan himself confessed that the mysteriousfellow did have some of the ear-marks of a spy, or secret agent.
Giraffe had made up his mind about that. He vowed the other was a Germanspy who foolishly believed they must be English boys, and was watchingthem for some strange purpose. In support of this rather wild statement,Giraffe had even stated that it was already well known how the Germanshad planted a host of secret agents all over Belgium and NorthernFrance. Many of these people had lived there for a long term of years,and were in daily touch with their neighbors, picking up all manner ofvaluable information, which was regularly and systematically forwardedto Headquarters at Berlin, to be entered in ponderous volumes in thearchives of the Secret Service, and to be used in event of war.
Every now and then Giraffe would refer to this unknown party. He seemedunable to get the other out of his mind; but then that was Giraffe’susual way; for once he formed an opinion he always displayedextraordinary obstinacy in sticking to it.
“I only hope that skulker got left at the post, and didn’t make up hismind to go to Calais to find out what was happening there,” he wassaying, after taking a good look over their fellow passengers on thevan, and failing to discover any sign of the unwelcome one.
Thad and Allan watched the shifting scenery, and commented on itssimilarity to the Belgian canal country through which they had passedbelow Antwerp, only that now they met with occasional low hills, andthere were times when the motor seemed to be put to its best “licks,” asAllan called it, in order to carry the long train over a rise.
Bumpus still sat there, balancing on his luggage, and possibly trying tocount the miles as they were left behind. Whenever he raised his eyes tolook steadily toward the southeast there appeared a wistful expressionin their depths that did credit to the boy’s faithful heart; because hemust be thinking just then of the mother he loved, and how she would beeagerly awaiting his arrival in the French capital.
“We’re coming to another climb, it looks like, Thad,” remarked Allanabout this time, as he pointed ahead, and to one side.
The road made something of a bend in order to strike the hill at itslowest point, and consequently they could see what lay before them. Justas Allan had said, the train was soon slowly and laboriously ascendingthe grade. Giraffe became interested, and soon expressed the opinionthat the little motor would have all it could do to drag that heavytrain over the crown of the rise.
“Still,” he added thoughtfully, “they seem to have enormous power forsuch baby engines compared with our big machines, and I guess we’ll makethe riffle in decent shape. I’d hate to get stuck here on the slope, andhave to wait for help to come along so as to push or pull us to thetop.”
He had hardly said this when the boys felt a sudden slackening of themotion.
“Oh! look there, will you?” almost shouted Giraffe, jumping to his feet.“Something’s busted, and the train is going on without these four lastvans. There, we’ve commenced to start back down the slope again; andsay, it’s too late to jump off! Everybody hold fast, and set your teethfor the worst!”