An American Encampment
A small crescent of the moon illuminated the country-side, thrusting
pale beams through the mist which rose from the ground, sodden after
days of rain, lighting up the roofs of houses, the white walls of
barns, camouflaged tents and huts, and gleaming now and again from the
wings of an aeroplane soaring over the line. A man in that aeroplane,
masked and clad in leather garments, bent forward, tapped his pilot on
the shoulder, and spoke to him through the telephone which connected
their head-pieces.
"A little lower, Fritz; now to the right. Wait! I think I see the
church tower which was to be our mark. No, not that one; farther on.
Listen!--there are guns! I saw the flashes down below, so that we are
still in the area of operations."
The pilot grunted. He was a huge, broad-shouldered beast-like
individual. He turned his head impatiently and growled something into
the telephone, though what it was Heinrich Hilker, seated behind him,
did not understand. How could he? How could he realize that these
gruff words shouted at him contained all the venomous contempt of
which the pilot was capable, and yet a contempt which he dared not show
too openly.
"This--this Hilker--a spy--yes!" the pilot was saying to himself. "Not
that I blame him for that, for it's a dangerous game to play, and calls
for courage. But is the fellow honest with anyone at all?--with us,
for instance? I doubt it. Yet, what is one to think? For his record
for America is splendid, and now he goes to join the Americans again.
Bah! it's a dangerous game to play; that is, dangerous for us should he
elect to tell the Americans all he knows about us."
So Heinrich Hilker, intriguer, ruffian, rascal that he was, had
succeeded in arousing the suspicions of one at least of his
compatriots, while certainly he had aroused in the minds of Bill and
Larry and his chums something far beyond suspicion. Not that Heinrich
Hilker himself cared what others thought. To him the work that he was
engaged on was the height of enjoyment. America, for some unexplained
reason, seemed to have aroused all his enmity. Well, Americans were
down below there. He would soon be amongst them. A friend--yes, a
friend for the moment. And what would his coming portend? Disaster!
He rubbed his gloved hands together and chuckled into the telephone.
"Wait until I get there," he told himself. "Wait till I learn all
about them! Wait until my signals bring shells smashing into their
batteries! Then they'll know. Then they'll learn what it means to hunt
Heinrich Hilker from their country."
"Stop!" he shouted. "That's the church tower! Now steer her to the
right, then drop! The ground is clear behind, and you can make a
landing."
The broad back in front wriggled and writhed, the strong shoulders
heaved upwards. If Heinrich Hilker had been a man of discernment, and
less engaged with his own affairs and his own importance, he would have
appreciated the fact that that heave, that wriggle, denoted something
not altogether pleasant. Indeed it denoted the anger of the pilot, his
hatred for his passenger, his indignation with this man who ventured to
give him--an experienced pilot--instructions. He growled a reply into
the telephone, and, sighting the spot to which Heinrich had referred,
sent his machine down in a spinning nose-dive.
"I'll scare the life out of him," he thought. "Let him believe he's
about to be dashed to pieces--there!" and he threw his hands up from
the "joy-stick".
But Heinrich never even blinked his eyelids. His thoughts were upon the
task he had before him, and his eyes were riveted upon the ground. All
thought of his own personal safety had left him for the moment, while
that heaving of the shoulders in front of him, like the reply the pilot
had growled at him, escaped his attention.
"Down!" he shouted. "Faster!"
"Faster! The man's crazy," thought the pilot, pulling his machine out
of its spinning nose-dive with some little difficulty. "What if we find
a crowd of the enemy there! But the landing-place looks broad enough.
Get ready to move out! I shall drop here like a stone, give you half a
minute to dismount, and be off again instantly."
Heinrich's answer was to begin to unbuckle the belt which strapped him
securely to his seat, and to make sure that no part of his clothing
was entangled in the framework. He bent easily over the side of the
fuselage, which was now lying horizontally, and then half rose to his
feet as the machine, already within a thousand feet of the ground, shot
down at a steep angle. Presently the pilot flattened it, dropped it
again, bumped his wheels, and, having already switched off his engine,
finally brought the aeroplane to a standstill.
"Au revoir!" shouted Heinrich, for by then the pilot--a skilful
fellow--had got his engine going again.
"To the devil with you!" muttered the latter. He waved an arm, turned
one glance upon the figure now standing a few feet from his machine,
opened his throttle, and went bounding off and so into the air and away
from the spot where he had landed.
As for Heinrich, he watched the departure for two minutes, and then,
turning, walked towards the church-tower which had been his landmark.
It was perhaps a minute later when a man accosted him.
"Say!" someone cried; "halt! Who goes there? Advance and give the
countersign!"
"Hundred and forty-first Regiment!" came the prompt answer. "Name--John
Miller--American Expeditionary Force, same as yourself, sonny. Say, did
you see that aeroplane just now?" he asked, approaching the sentry.
"Yep. Must 'a been one of ours. Thought it landed on the flats yonder,
but wasn't certain, and couldn't get a view from just here."
"Good-night, sonny!"
The two men stood opposite one another for just a brief moment, and
then Heinrich passed on towards the American encampment which this
sentry guarded.
"John Miller--eh? Oh! Just John Miller! Now I'd have sworn----" the
sentry told himself as he paced to and fro--a lithe, tall, sinewy
young fellow, a magnificent example of American manhood. "Gee, now!
Where have I met that chap before?--and not liked him either. John
Miller--why, bless us! Now, where?"
He swung his rifle to his shoulder and marched to and fro far more
rapidly than the regulations warranted. His beat took him as far as
the church tower in one direction, and back to the post to which
barbed wire was attached, and which marked the limit of the encampment
occupied by his own particular comrades. Something was agitating this
fine young fellow--some fleeting memory the essence of which just
escaped him. In his mind's eye he could picture the figure--the
somewhat sloping shoulders, the rather bullet head, and the particular
cast of countenance of this John Miller, who had just answered his
challenge, had given him the correct counter-sign without faltering.
That he was not American born he felt quite sure; that he was of alien
extraction he was ready to venture upon a wager; but that did not say
that John Miller was not an altogether reputable person. For there are
thousands of alien-born Americans who are now in the American ranks
fighting against the nation which threatens the liberties of all the
free peoples of the world. The man's eye absorbed the thoughts of the
sentry.
"Same sort of gleaming optic," he said. "Now where? This gets me! I----"
He suddenly halted and grounded his rifle, the butt-end striking the
hard earth with a clang. One hand grabbed the muzzle just below the
bayonet, while the other went to his waist, where the thumb stuck
within his belt. Then a low deep-drawn whistle escaped from between the
pursed-up lips of the sentry. He shouldered his weapon, and, turning
abruptly, walked with even more decided step toward the guard-tent.
"Sergeant of the Guard!" he called.
Presently a man, taller than himself, with tin hat tilted somewhat over
his eyes, turned out of the tent and approached him.
"Aye?" he asked, in brusque yet kindly tones; "what now, Dan? Somethin'
special?"
Dan! Could Larry and Jim have caught but a glimpse of this fine young
fellow, what shouts of joy they would have given. How they would have
rushed towards him and gripped his hands. For this Dan was none other
than their chum away in Salt Lake City at the copper-mine--the same Dan
whom Heinrich Hilker had shot down in that famous encounter. And here
was a coincidence! Dan, recovered of a desperate wound--thanks to his
magnificent physique and wonderful health--had volunteered, and had
followed his chums across the water. Here he was--tin-hatted, arrayed
in khaki, drilled, and thoroughly well informed in matters pertaining
to modern warfare--on sentry duty, and for a moment face to face with
the man who had done his best to kill him. More than that, that man was
a spy--none other than Heinrich Hilker--and Dan, with the swiftness for
which he was notorious, had recognized him.
True, the fleeting glance he had obtained of this ruffian as he peered
at his face under the thin beams cast by the moon-crescent had given
him hardly even an inkling, but it had set some odd corner of his brain
at work, had stirred, as it were, some cell in his cerebral matter,
which, since the affair in the mine, had until that moment been lying
dormant. Dan had caught a glimpse of Heinrich Hilker in a similar
way when the light had been thrown full upon him in the heart of the
copper-mine, just before Dan himself had been put out of action by the
bullet he had fired, and now this second fleeting glance recalled
that old memory, and that memory had developed to the point where he
recognized that he, Dan, had information of the utmost importance.
"Well, Dan," repeated the Sergeant of the Guard. "Report, eh?"
"Serious, Sergeant. I'd like to go before the officer right now. Will
you take me?"
"Jim, there," the Sergeant called, "I want a relief at once. Turn out,
Jim!" And straightway he relieved his sentry. "Now, Dan, boy, we'll
go right off. Say, Lootenant, this here's Private Dan Holman, same as
you know, and he's asked to come along with a report that he considers
important."
The officer, who had been hastily summoned--a stoutly-built, thick-set
fellow--took a long look at Dan, and answered him in business-like
fashion.
"Report, eh? Sentry duty--what? Come over here! Now," he said.
"Confidential, Lootenant," Dan told him. "No offence to the Sergeant,
but my report's a matter of no end of importance, not only to you
and to me, sir, but to all us Americans. It's a report that a
Commander-in-Chief should have right now--the sooner the better."
Those who knew Dan knew him to be a strong and steady and promising
young soldier, not the sort of fellow upon whom the moonbeams could
have played a trick, or a man given to imagining something out of the
ordinary. The officer merely took another glance at him, ordered the
Sergeant back to the guard-tent, and, turning upon his heel, led the
way to Divisional Head-quarters. There it was that Dan told his story.
"And you recognized this man as a German--a German agent who shot the
barman at a saloon near Salt Lake City, and afterwards nearly put you
out of action for good? You're sure?"
"Certain, sir!" Dan told him promptly. "I've only had, as you might
say, a peep at the fellow once, way over by Salt Lake City, and the
second time just now, but I'm as sure as sure! You've a spy landed
right here and right now--a spy dressed in American uniform, who speaks
English same as you and me--a spy who'd do his utmost to damage the
American army."
That the information might well prove of the utmost importance was
clear to the Divisional Commander, just as it was to the Intelligence
side of his Staff. There followed a discussion, and presently sharp
orders were issued.
"We'll muster every man at dawn," the Commander ordered--"every man,
whether he's serving with his battalion, or as a cook, or what-not;
fatigue parties, men in camp, men in billets--every single man of this
division--and we'll call the roll-call from end to end of the camp. If
that John Miller's here, we'll get him. 141st Regiment, eh?" he said.
"Now how did the fellow get his information? He must have had news from
this quarter, for see how he got into the camp! This private will be
attached to the Intelligence for the time being. We shall have to hunt
for this man, for he's likely to prove, while at large, a real danger."
He was likely to prove, in addition, a spy so cunning as to be not so
easily captured as the Commander imagined. Did they think, indeed,
that Heinrich Hilker, a man who had spied in many countries and under
varying conditions, would be so easily trapped? Why, even then, as the
order was issued for an early morning muster of the whole division,
Heinrich heard the news. At the moment he stood at the entrance to a
tent, for all the world as though he had just turned out to see whether
daylight were coming. He stretched his arms and yawned, and, seeing a
sergeant about to pass, hailed him.
"What time o' day?" he asked.
"4.30."
"Be daylight in another hour," he suggested, smothering another yawn.
"Yep, an hour or a little more. There's a muster a half an hour after
that--six o'clock sharp--every man-Jack of the division."
"A muster! A blame nuisance! What for?"
"Dunno! It's a blame nuisance, as you say--some! But guess they've got
a reason!"
Heinrich guessed also. He stood outside the tent stretching his arms
until the man was out of sight, and then, looking about him for a few
moments, he sped off into the darkness and presently disappeared from
sight. Yet, when the muster was held in the misty early hours of the
morning, Heinrich, though absent, though not to be found among the
American ranks, was yet within sight of the parade. In a little corner
of a church tower, hidden beneath the tiles of the broken roof, lying
full length on a truss of straw, placed there for him by a peasant who
was his accomplice, he watched the whole scene and chuckled.
"My brave Alphonse!" he said, as the parade he witnessed was presently
dismissed. "You see that! These American swine, eh? And you chuckle!
Ha! where are you, Alphonse? You are a sly, slippery, cunning fellow."
But a few minutes before, the figure of a man had actually been beside
Heinrich, staring out between the cracks in this tower, and pointing
and gibing, and then, as the German turned, the man was no longer
there. Now, however, as he called, there was just the merest trace
of a sound on the rungs of the ladder which led to this loft in the
tower of the church, and half a minute later a long, hooked-nosed
visage was thrust over the edge of the floorway, up through the square
opening--a leering, bleary, pock-marked face, crowned by a head of
hair which was thin at the temples and decidedly so on the crown--the
face of an inebriate, followed by the figure of a man who had once
upon a time been powerful. Now, creeping and cunning and noiseless in
his movements, it was clear from his attenuated frame, from his big
bones and joints, his sunken flanks, his thin calves, and his claw-like
hands, that the man was no longer what he had been. And what was his
nationality? French? Bah! The man spoke like a peasant of those parts,
and yet trace his history back.
Alphonse, as he was generally known, had dropped upon this part of
the country as if literally from the skies. He had simply arrived
there late one evening, when only a young man, and, having put up at
a local cabaret for some few days, he presently blossomed forth as
the owner of the local forge. Pierre, the man who had controlled the
forge for many and many a year, had died, conveniently it seemed,
and here was Alphonse installed in his stead--Alphonse, who charged
such ridiculously low prices, who did his work so well, who was such
a "hail fellow" with all the French farmers and their men--Alphonse,
who seemed to have so much money jingling in his pockets, who was so
curious about other people's affairs, who travelled now and again to
the neighbouring cities, who, it was whispered, had more than once been
met by strangers--yet, Alphonse, the shoesmith, who did good work and
charged the most reasonable prices.
Years went by, and Alphonse grew older. Perhaps it was the lonely life;
perhaps it was some secret grief which preyed upon him. In any case,
Alphonse's visits to neighbouring cabarets became more frequent and
lasted longer; and here was the result. A fine figure of a man at one
time, he was now attenuated, horrid to look upon, while his face was
that of a leering, cunning, crafty, and unscrupulous drunkard. Let us
whisper more--in his cups, Alphonse spoke German with perfection.
"See!" he said hoarsely, pushing forward a gnarled finger and pointing
out through the cracks between the tiles from which Heinrich the spy
was peering. "They thought to take you so easily, these Americans!
But it is you--no, it is I--who have outwitted them--outwitted them,
you hear? and the wretch broke into a dry, echoing chuckle which
reverberated from the tiles around him, and from the walls of the old
tower, till Heinrich was startled.
"Peace, you fool!" he growled, turning upon him. Whereat the big, bony
fingers of the other man assumed the shape of claws, his brow knitted,
and for a moment he scowled at his companion; then he pointed again.
"Outwitted--yes!" he whispered hoarsely, as though fearful that the
Americans down below, all unconscious of their presence, might overhear
them. "And what a prize! How we shall still further upset their
plans! In a little while--in a week or two perhaps--in less for all
we know--the signal will come to us; we shall know that our comrades
yonder are about to strike once more, and it may be for the last time,
for the Fatherland. Then----"
The wretch broke again into that dry, creaking, rusty cackle which
grated upon Heinrich's nerves so much.
"Then! What?" he asked abruptly, angrily.
"Then! I'll tell you," the man responded. "We--you and I--will see
to it that it is here that our comrades break through. That it is
we who discover ourselves to the great German general and claim our
reward. Reward! Money, money, money in plenty; far more than the German
Government has sent me in these past years that I have lived in this
vile country amongst these vile peasants, and have done the bidding of
the Fatherland--money with which to live. Ah, that will be worth while!"
Heinrich positively shivered. The man's face acted like a douche of
cold water upon him, and then those huge, bony fingers positively gave
him the creeps.
"Worth while!" he said rapidly. "Money for what? More visits to the
cabaret? Well, we will see; but we must work, and work hard, together."
"Ah! Yes, work hard, as I have worked for years, and you too, no doubt,
my comrade, work for the Kaiser and the Fatherland."
Down below American battalions were dismissing--those fine Americans
who had come four thousand miles across the Atlantic to meet the
barbarians of the twentieth century--were strolling off to their
bivouacs, their cook-houses, their rest-huts, and so on. Not one,
perhaps, suspected that so near at hand lay the spy for whom their
general was searching; not one, as he cast an eye upward and caught a
glimpse of that picturesque yet half-shattered tower, realized that
there lay the man whom they were seeking; and he, this Heinrich and the
odious creature by his side, boded no good to these gallant men who had
come to stand beside the British and their allies.