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.
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