THE SOLDIER'S PAPERS
All that day they stayed in their leafy refuge. They could look down
across the marshy meadows they had crossed to the trellised vineyard of
the Leteurs, looking orderly and symmetrical in the distance like a
two-storied field, and beyond that the massive gables of the gray,
forsaken house.
They could see the whole neighboring country in panorama. Other houses
were discernible at infrequent intervals along the road which wound
southward through the lowland between the hills where the boys were and
the Vosges Mountains (the "Blue Alsatian Mountains") to the west.
Through the long, daylight hours Tom studied the country carefully. Now,
as never before (for he knew how much depended on it), he watched for
every scrap of knowledge which might afford any inference or deduction
to help them in their flight.
"You can see how it is," he told Archer, as they watched the little
compass needle, waiting for it to settle. "This is a ridge and it runs
north and south. I kind of think it's the west side of the valley of a
river, like Daggett's Hills are to Perch River up your way."
"I'd like to be therre now," said Archer.
"I'd rather be in France," Tom answered.
"Of course it'll fizzle out in places and we'll come to villages, but
there's enough woods ahead of us for us to go twenty miles tonight.
That's the way it seems to me, anyway."
Once Tom ventured out on hands and knees into the woods in quest of
water, and returned with the good news that he had had a refreshing
drink from a brook to which he directed Archer.
"Do you know what this is?" he said, emptying an armful of weeds on the
ground. "It's chicory. If I dared to build a fire I could make you a
good imitation of coffee with that. But we can eat the roots, anyway.
Now I remember it used to be in the geography in school about so much
chicory growing in the Alps----"
"Oh, Ebeneezerr!" shouted Archer, much to Tom's alarm. "I'm glad you
said that 'cause it reminds me about the mussels."
"The _what_?"
"'The mountain streams abound with the pearrl-bearing mussels which are
a staple article of diet with the Alpine natives,'" quoted Archer in
declamatory style. "I had to write that two hundred and fifty times f'rr
whittlin' a hole in the desk----"
"I s'pose you were after a souvenir," said Tom dryly.
"Firrst I wrote it once 'n' then I put two hundred and forty-nine ditto
marrks. _Ebenezerr!_ Wasn't the teacherr mad! I had to write it two
hundred and fifty times f'rr vandalism and two hundred and fifty morre
f'rr insolence."
"Served you right," said Tom.
"Oh, I guess you weren't such an angel in school either!" said Archer.
"I'll never forget about those pearrl-bearing mussels as long as I
live--you can bet!"
Tom separated the chicory roots from the stalks and Archer went to wash
them in the stream. In a little while he returned with a triumphant
smile all over his round, freckled face and half a dozen mussels in his
cupped hands.
"_Now_ what have you got to say, huh? It's good I whittled that desk and
was insolent--you can bet!"
Tom's practical mind did not quite appreciate this line of reasoning,
but he was glad enough to see the mussels, the very look of which was
cool and refreshing.
"I always said I had no use for geographies except to put mustaches and
things on the North Pole explorers and high hats on Columbus and Henry
Hudson, but, believe _me_, I'm glad I remembered about those
pearrl-bearing mussels--hey, Slady? I hope the Alpine natives don't take
it into their heads to come up herre afterr any of 'em just now. I just
rooted around in the mud and got 'em. Look at my hand, will you?"
They made a sumptuous repast of wet, crisp chicory roots and
"pearrl-bearing mussels" as Archer insisted upon calling them, although
they found no pearls. The meal was refreshing and not half bad. There
was a pleasant air of stealth and cosiness about the whole thing, lying
there in their leafy refuge in the edge of the woods with the Alsatian
country stretched below them. Perhaps it was the mussels out of the
geography (to quote Archer's own phrase) as well as the sense of
security which came as the uneventful hours passed, but as the twilight
gathered they enjoyed a feeling of safety, and their hope ran high. They
had found, as the scout usually finds, that Nature was their friend,
never withholding her bounty from him who seeks and uses his
resourcefulness and brains.
All through the long afternoon they could distinguish heavy army wagons
with dark spots on their canvas sides (the flaring, arrogant German
crest which allied soldiers had grown to despise) moving northward along
the distant road. They looked almost like toy wagons. Sometimes, when
the breeze favored, they could hear the rattle of wheels and
occasionally a human voice was faintly audible. And all the while from
those towering heights beyond came the spent, muffled booming.
"I'd like to know just what's going on over there," Tom said as he gazed
at the blue heights. "Maybe those wagons down there on the road have
something to do with it. If there's a big battle going on they may be
bringing back wounded and prisoners.--Some of our own fellers might be
in 'em."
They tried to determine about where, along that far-flung line, the
sounds arose, but they could only guess at it.
"All I know is what I hearrd 'em say in the prison camp," said Archer;
"that our fellers are just the otherr side of the mountains."
"That would be Nancy," said Tom thoughtfully.
"That Loquet feller that got capturred in a raid," Archer said, "told me
the Americans were all around therre, just the otherr side of the
mountains--in a lot of differrent villages: When they get through
training they send 'em ahead to the trenches. Some of 'em have been in
raids already, he said."
"You have to run like everything in a raid," said Tom. "I'd like to be
in one, wouldn't you?"
"Depends on which way I was running.--Let's have a look at these paperrs
before it gets too darrk, hey?" he added, hauling from his pocket the
papers which he had taken from the dead Boche. "I neverr thought about
'em till just now?"
"I thought about it," said Tom, who indeed seldom forgot anything, "but
I didn't say anything about it 'cause it kind of makes me think about
what happened--I mean how they took her away," he added, in his dull
way.
For a minute they sat silently gazing down at the vineyard which was now
touched with the first crimson rays of sunset.
"You can just see the chimney," Tom said; "see, just left of that big
tree.--I hope I don't see Frenchy any more now 'cause I wouldn't like to
have to tell him----"
"We don't know what happened," said Archer. "Maybe therre werren't any
otherr soldierrs; she may have escaped--and her motherr, too."
"It's more likely there _were_ others, though," said Tom. "I keep
thinking all the time how scared she was and it kind of----"
"Let's look at the papers," said Archer.
The German soldier must have been a typical Boche, for he carried with
him the customary baggage of written and statistical matter with which
these warriors sally forth to battle.
"He must o' been a walking correspondence school," said Archer,
unfolding the contents of the parchment envelope. "Herre's a list--all
in German. Herre's some poetry--or I s'pose it's poetry, 'cause it's
printed all in and out."
"Maybe it's a hymn of hate," said Tom.
"Herre's a map, and herre's a letter. All in Gerrman--even the map.
Anyway, I can't understand it."
"Looks like a scout astronomy chart," said Tom. "It's all dots like the
big dipper."
"Do you s'pose it means they're going to conquer the sky and all the
starrs and everything?" Archer asked. "Here's a letter, it's dated about
two weeks ago--I can make out the numbers all right."
The letter was in German, of course, and Archer, who during his long
incarceration in the prison camp had picked up a few scraps of the
language, fell to trying to decipher it. The only reward he had for his
pains was a familiar word which he was able to distinguish here and
there and which greatly increased their desire to know the full purport
of the letter.
"Herre's President Wilson's name.--See!" said Archer excitedly. "And
herre's _America_----"
"Yes, and there it is again," said Tom. "That must be _Yankees_, see?
Something or other Yankees. It's about a mile long."
"Jim-min-nitty!" said Archer, staring at the word (presumably a
disparaging adjective) which preceded the word _Yankees_. "It's got
one--two--three--wait a minute--it's got thirty-seven letters to it.
_Go-o-od night_!"
"And that must be Arracourt," said Tom. "I heard about that place--it
ain't so far from Nancy. Gee, I wish we could read that letter!"
"I'd like to know what kind of a Yankee a b-l-o-e----"
But Archer gave it up in despair.