TOM'S STORY
"You needn't be afraid," said Tom; "we didn't leave any tracks; we came
across the fields--all the way from the crossroads down there. We
crawled along the fence. There ain't any tracks. I looked out for that."
Pausing in suspense, yet encouraged by their expectant silence, he spoke
to some one behind him in the bushes and there emerged a young fellow
quite as ragged as himself.
"It's all right," said Tom confidently, and apparently in great relief.
"It's them."
"You must come inside ze house," whispered Florette fearfully. "It is
not safe to talk here."
"There isn't any one following us," said Tom's companion reassuringly.
"If we can just get some old clothes and some grub we'll be all right."
"Zere is much danger," said the girl, unconvinced. "We are always
watched. But you are friends to Armand. We must help you."
She led the way into the house and into a simply furnished room lighted
by a single lamp and as she cautiously shut the heavy wooden blinds and
lowered the light, the two fugitives looked eagerly at the first signs
of home life which they had seen in many a long day.
It was in vain that the two Americans declined the wine which old Pierre
insisted upon their drinking.
"You will drink zhust a leetle--yess?" said the girl prettily. "It is
make in our own veenyard."
So the boys sipped a little of the wine and found it grateful to their
weary bodies and overwrought nerves.
"Now you can tell us--of Armand," she said eagerly.
Often during Tom's simple story she stole to the window and, opening the
blind slightly, looked fearfully along the dark, quiet road. The very
atmosphere of the room seemed charged with nervous apprehension and
every sound of the breeze without startled the tense nerves of the
little party.
Old Pierre and his wife, though quite unable to understand, listened
keenly to every word uttered by the strangers, interrupting their
daughter continually to make her translate this or that sentence.
"There ain't so much need to worry," said Tom, with a kind of dogged
self-confidence that relieved Florette not a little. "I wouldn't of
headed for here if I hadn't known I could do it without leaving any
trace, 'cause I wouldn't want to get you into trouble."
Florette looked intently at the square, dull face before her with its
big mouth and its suggestion of a frown. His shock of hair, always
rebellious, was now in utter disorder. He was barefoot and his clothes
were in that condition which only the neglect and squalor of a German
prison camp can produce. But in his gaunt face there shone a look of
determination and a something which seemed to encourage the girl to
believe in him.
"Are zey all like you--ze Americans?" she asked.
"Some of 'em are taller than me," he answered literally, "but I got a
good chest expansion. This feller's name is Archer. He belongs on a farm
in New York."
She glanced at Archer and saw a round, red, merry face, still wearing
that happy-go-lucky look which there is no mistaking. His skin was
camouflaged by a generous coat of tan and those two strategic hills, his
cheeks, had not been reduced by the assaults of hunger. There was,
moreover, a look of mischief in his eyes, bespeaking a jaunty
acceptance of whatever peril and adventure might befall and when he
spoke he rolled his R's and screwed up his mouth accordingly.
"Maybe you've heard of the Catskills," said Tom. "That's where _he_
lives."
"My dad's got a big apple orrcharrd therre," added Archer.
Florette Leteur had not heard of the Catskills, but she had heard a good
deal about the Americans lately and she looked from one to the other of
this hapless pair, who seemed almost to have dropped from the clouds.
"You have been not wise to escape," she said sympathetically. "Ze
Prussians, zey are sure to catch you.--Tell me more of my bruzzer."
"The Prussians ain't so smarrt," said Archer. "They're good at some
things, but when it comes to tracking and trailing and all that, they're
no good. You neverr hearrd of any famous Gerrman scouts. They're clumsy.
They couldn't stalk a mud turrtle."
"You are not afraid of zem?"
"Surre, we ain't. Didn't we just put one overr on 'em?"
"We looped our trail," explained Tom to the puzzled girl. "If they're
after us at all they probably went north on a blind trail. We monkeyed
the trees all the way through this woods near here."
"He means we didn't touch the ground," explained Archer.
"We made seven footprints getting across the road to the fence and then
we washed 'em away by chucking sticks. And, anyway, we crossed the road
backwards so they'd think we were going the other way. There ain't much
danger--not tonight, anyway."
Again the girl looked from one to the other and then explained to her
father as best she could.
"You are wonderful," she said simply. "We shall win ze war now."
"I was working as a mess boy on a transport," said Tom; "we brought over
about five thousand soldiers. That's how I got acquainted with
Frenchy--I mean Armand----"
"Yes!" she cried, and at the mention of Armand old Pierre could scarcely
keep his seat.
"He came with some soldiers from Illinois. That's out west. He was
good-natured and all the soldiers jollied him. But he always said he
didn't mind that because they were all going to fight together to get
Alsace back. Jollying means making fun of somebody--kind of," Tom
added.
"Oh, zat iss what he say?" Florette cried. "Zat iss my
brother--Armand--yess!"
She explained to her parents and then advanced upon Tom, who retreated
to his second line of defence behind a chair to save himself from the
awful peril of a grateful caress.
"He told me all about how your father fought in the Franco-Prussian
War," Tom went on, "and he gave me this button and he said it was made
from a cannon they used and----"
"Ah, yess, I know!" Florette exclaimed delightedly.
"He said if I should ever happen to be in Alsace all I'd have to do
would be to show it to any French people and they'd help me. He said it
was a kind of--a kind of a vow all the French people had--that the
Germans didn't know anything about. And 'specially families that had men
in the Franco-Prussian War. He told me how he escaped, too, and got to
America, and about how he hit the German soldier that came to arrest you
for singing the _Marseillaise_."
The girl's face colored with anger, and yet with pride.
"Mostly what we came here for," Tom added in his expressionless way,
"was to get some food and get rested before we start again. We're going
through Switzerland to join the Americans--and if you'll wait a little
while you can sing the _Marseillaise_ all you want."
Something in his look and manner as he sat there, uncouth and forlorn,
sent a thrill through her.
"Zey are all like you?" she repeated. "Ze Americans?"
"Your brother and I got to be pretty good friends," said Tom simply; "he
talked just like you. When we got to a French port--I ain't allowed to
tell you the name of it--but when we got there he went away on the train
with all the other soldiers, and he waved his hand to me and said he was
going to win Alsace back. I liked him and I liked the way he talked. He
got excited, like----"
"Ah, yess--my bruzzer!"
"So now he's with General Pershing. It seemed funny not to see him after
that. I thought about him a lot. When he talked it made me feel more
patriotic and proud, like."
"Yess, yess," she urged, the tears standing in her eyes.
"Sometimes you sort of get to like a feller and you don't know why. He
would always get so excited, sort of, when he talked about France or
Uncle Sam that he'd throw his cigarette away. He wasted a lot of 'em.
He said everybody's got two countries, his own and France."
"Ah, yess," she exclaimed.
"Even if I didn't care anything about the war," Tom went on in his dull
way, "I'd want to see France get Alsace back just on account of him."
Florette sat gazing at him, her eyes brimming.
"And you come to Zhermany, how?"
"After we started back the ship I worked on got torpedoed and I was
picked up by a submarine. I never saw the inside of one before. So
that's how I got to Germany. They took me there and put me in the prison
camp at Slopsgotten--that ain't the way to say it, but----"
"You've got to sneeze it," interrupted Archer.
"Yes, I know," she urged eagerly, "and zen----"
"And then when I found out that it was just across the border from
Alsace I happened to think about having that button, and I thought if I
could escape maybe the French people would help me if I showed it to 'em
like Frenchy said."
"Oh, yess, _zey will_! But we must be careful," said Florette.
"It was funny how I met Archer there," said Tom. "We used to know each
other in New York. He had even more adventures than I did getting
there."
"And you escaped?"
"Yop."
"We put one over on 'em," said Archer. "It was his idea (indicating
Tom). They let us have some chemical stuff to fix the pump engine with
and we melted the barbed wire with it and made a place to crawl out
through. I got a piece of the barbed wirre for a sooveneerr. Maybe you'd
like to have it," Archer added, fumbling in his pockets.
Florette, smiling and crying all at once, still sat looking wonderingly
from one to the other of this adventurous, ragged pair.
"Those Germans ain't so smart," said Archer.
The girl only shook her head and explained to her parents. Then she
turned to Tom.
"My father wants to know if zey are all like you in America. Yess?"
"_He_ used to be a Boy Scout," said Archer. "Did you everr hearr of
them?"
But Florette only shook her head again and stared. Ever since the war
began she had lived under the shadow of the big prison camp. Many of her
friends and townspeople, Alsatians loyal still to France, were held
there among the growing horde of foreigners. Never had she heard of any
one escaping. If two American boys could melt the wires and walk out,
what would happen next?
And one of them had blithely announced that these mighty invincible
Prussians "couldn't even trail a mud turtle." She wondered what they
meant by "looping our trail."