Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Dust cover art]
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: "OF WHAT OFFENCE AM I ACCUSED, SIR?" _Page_ 202.
_Frontispiece_]
The
Dispatch-Riders
The Adventures of Two British
Motor-cyclists in the Great War
BY
PERCY F. WESTERMAN
Author of "Rivals of the Reef" "The Sea-girt Fortress" &c. &c.
_Illustrated by F. Gillett_
BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
LONDON AND GLASGOW
1915
By Percy F. Westerman
The Red Pirate.
The Call of the Sea.
Standish of the Air Police.
Sleuths of the Air.
The Black Hawk.
Andy All-Alone.
The Westow Talisman.
The White Arab.
The Buccaneers of Boya.
Rounding up the Raider.
Captain Fosdyke's Gold.
In Defiance of the Ban.
The Senior Cadet.
The Amir's Ruby.
The Secret of the Plateau.
Leslie Dexter, Cadet.
All Hands to the Boats.
A Mystery of the Broads.
Rivals of the Reef.
A Shanghai Adventure.
The Junior Cadet.
Captain Starlight.
The Sea-Girt Fortress.
On the Wings of the Wind.
Captain Blundell's Treasure.
The Third Officer.
Unconquered Wings.
The Riddle of the Air.
Chums of the "Golden Vanity".
Clipped Wings.
Rocks Ahead!
King for a Month.
The Disappearing Dhow.
The Luck of the "Golden Dawn".
The Salving of the "Fusi Yama".
Winning his Wings.
A Lively Bit of the Front.
The Good Ship "Golden Effort".
East in the "Golden Gain".
The Quest of the "Golden Hope".
Sea Scouts Abroad.
Sea Scouts Up-Channel.
The Wireless Officer.
A Lad of Grit.
The Submarine Hunters.
Sea Scouts All.
The Thick of the Fray at Zeebrugge.
A Sub and a Submarine.
Under the White Ensign.
With Beatty off Jutland.
The Dispatch Riders.
_Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son, Ltd., Glasgow_
Contents
CHAP.
I. THE COMING STORM
II. A BREAK-DOWN
III. MAJOR RESIMONT
IV. ENLISTED
V. A BAPTISM OF FIRE
VI. A VAIN ASSAULT
VII. DISABLING A TAUBE
VIII. IN BRITISH UNIFORMS
IX. A MIDNIGHT RETIREMENT
X. THE UHLAN PATROL
XI. THE RAID ON TONGRES
XII. THE MAIL ESCORT
XIII. SEPARATED
XIV. A FRIEND IN NEED
XV. CAPTURED
XVI. ENTOMBED
XVII. THE WAY OUT
XVIII. THROUGH THE ENEMY'S LINES
XIX. ARRESTED AS SPIES
XX. STRANDED IN BRUSSELS
XXI. DENOUNCED
XXII. THE SACK OF LOUVAIN
XXIII. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
XXIV. ACROSS THE FRONTIER
XXV. THELMA EVEREST
XXVI. SELF-ACCUSED
XXVII. WITH THE NAVAL BRIGADE AT ANTWERP
XXVIII. WHEN THE CITY FELL
XXIX. ON THE NORTH SEA
XXX. THE VICTORIOUS WHITE ENSIGN
Illustrations
"OF WHAT OFFENCE AM I ACCUSED, SIR?" . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
KENNETH HAD A MOMENTARY GLIMPSE OF THE UHLAN'S PANIC-STRICKEN FACE ...
THEN CRASH!
KENNETH SUCCEEDED IN THROWING THE SPY TO THE FLOOR
THE DISPATCH-RIDERS
CHAPTER I
The Coming Storm
"Let's make for Liege," exclaimed Kenneth Everest.
"What's that?" asked his chum, Rollo Harrington. "Liege? What on
earth possesses you to suggest Liege? A crowded manufacturing town,
with narrow streets and horrible _pave_. I thought we decided to fight
shy of heavy traffic?"
The two speakers were seated at an open window of the Hotel Dore, in
the picturesque town of Dinant. In front of them flowed the Meuse; its
placid water rippled with craft of varying sizes. Huge barges, towed
by snorting tugs, were laboriously passing along the busy international
waterway that serves an empire, a kingdom, and a republic. On the
remote bank, and to the right of a bridge, were the quaint red-tiled
houses of the town, above which rose the fantastic, pinnacled tower of
the thirteenth-century church of Notre Dame, in turn overshadowed by
the frowning limestone crag on which stands the citadel.
Kenneth was a well-set-up English youth of seventeen. He was tall for
his age, and withal broad-shouldered and well-knit. His features were
dark, his skin burnt a deep tan by reason of more than a nodding
acquaintance with an open-air life. In character and action he was
impulsive. He had the happy knack of making up his mind on the spur of
the moment, and yet at the same time forming a fairly sound judgment.
He was quick, too, with his fingers, having been gifted with a keen,
mechanical turn of mind.
Rollo Barrington, who was his companion's junior by the space of three
days, was rather the reverse of his versatile friend. He was shorter
in height by a good four inches; he was slightly built, although he
possessed an unlooked-for reserve of physical strength and endurance.
He was fresh-complexioned, with blue eyes and wavy chestnut hair.
If Kenneth acted upon impulse, Rollo went by rule of thumb. He was
cool and calculating when occasion served; but when in the company of
his chum he was generally content to allow his will to be dominated by
the impetuous Everest.
Both lads were at St. Cyprian's--a public school of note in the Home
Counties. The vacation started about the middle of July, and it was
the custom for the senior members to put in a fortnight's camp with the
Officers' Training Corps during the latter part of that month.
At the time this story opens--the first day of August, 1914--the two
chums were on a motor-cycling tour through Northern France and Belgium.
The parents of neither had offered any objection when their respective
sons announced their intention of wandering through the high-roads and
by-roads of that part of the Continent.
Kenneth had sprung the suggestion upon his father like the proverbial
bombshell; and Mr. Everest, who was largely responsible for his son's
impetuosity, merely acquiesced by observing: "You lucky young dog! I
didn't have the chance when I was your age. Well, I hope you'll have a
good time."
On his part Rollo had broached the subject with his customary
deliberation, and Colonel Barrington had not only given his consent,
but had gone to the extreme toil of producing maps and a Baedeker, and
had mapped out a route--to which neither of the lads had adhered. The
Colonel also realized that there was a considerable amount of
self-education to be derived from the tour. There was nothing like
travel, he declared, to expand the mind; following up this statement by
the practical action of "forking out", thereby relieving his son of any
fear of pecuniary embarrassment.
Both lads rode identically similar motor-cycles--tourist models, of 3-1/2
horse-power, fitted with three-speed hubs. But again the difference in
character manifested itself in the care of their respective steeds.
Rollo had been a motor-cyclist ever since he was fourteen--as soon as
he was qualified in point of age to obtain a driver's licence. The
close attention he bestowed upon his motor-bike never varied; he kept
it as clean as he did in the first few days after taking over his new
purchase. He had thoroughly mastered its peculiarities, and studied
both the theory and practice of its mechanism.
Kenneth Everest had first bestrode the saddle of a motor-cycle a week
before their Continental tour began. No doubt his experience as a
"push-cyclist" helped him considerably; he quickly mastered the use of
the various controls, without troubling to find out "how it worked".
With his companion's knowledge at his back he felt quite at ease,
since, in the event of any mechanical break-down, Rollo would point out
the fault, and Kenneth's ready fingers would either do or undo the rest.
But so far, with the exception of a few tyre troubles, both
motor-cyclists had done remarkably well. Landing at Havre, they had
pushed on, following the route taken by the English army that had won
Agincourt. This, by the by, was Rollo's suggestion. From the site of
the historic battle-field they had sped eastward, through Arras, St.
Quentin, and Mezieres. Here, finding themselves in the valley of the
Meuse, they had turned northward, and passing through the French
frontier fortress of Givet, entered Belgium, spending the first night
on Belgian soil in picturesque Dinant.
Hitherto they had overcome the initial difficulty that confronts
British road users in France--the fact that all traffic keeps, or is
supposed to keep, to the right. They had endured the horrible and
seemingly never-ending cobbles or _pave_. The language presented
little difficulty, for Kenneth, prior to having joined St. Cyprian's,
had been educated in Paris; and although his Parisian accent differed
somewhat from the patois of the Ardennes, he had very little trouble in
making himself understood. Rollo, too, was a fairly proficient French
linguist, since, in view of his future military career, he had applied
himself with his usual diligence to the study of the language.
"I say, what's this wheeze about Liege?" persisted Harrington.
"There's something in the wind, old chap."
"It's not exactly Liege I want to see," replied Kenneth, "although it's
a fine, interesting old place, with a history. Fact is, my sister
Thelma is at a boarding-school at Vise--that's only a few miles farther
on--and we might just as well look her up."
"By Jove! I ought to have remembered. I knew she was somewhere in
Belgium. Let me see, she's your youngest sister?"
"Twelve months my junior," replied Kenneth, "and a jolly good pal she
is, too. It's rather rough luck on her. The pater's just off on that
Mediterranean trip, so she hasn't been able to go home for the
holidays. We'll just cheer her up a bit."
Rollo gave a final glance at the map before folding it and placing it
in his pocket. In response to a summons, the garcon produced the bill
and gratefully accepted the modest tip that Everest bestowed upon him
with becoming public schoolboy dignity.
This done, the two lads took their travelling cases and made their way
to the hotel garage, where their motor-cycles had been placed under
lock and key, out of the reach of sundry inquisitive and mischievous
Belgian gamins.
"Hello! What's the excitement?" asked Kenneth, pointing to a crowd of
gesticulating townsfolk gathered round a notice that had just been
pasted to a wall.
"Ask me another," rejoined his companion. "A circus or something of
the sort about to turn up, I suppose. If you're curious I'll hang on
here while you go and find out."
Kenneth was off like a shot. Half-way across the bridge that here
spans the Meuse he nearly collided with the proprietor of the Hotel
Dore. The man's face was red with excitement.
"Quel dommage!" he exclaimed, in reply to the lad's unspoken question.
"The Government has ordered the army to mobilize. What
inconsideration! Jules, Michel, Georges, and Etienne--all will have to
go. I shall be left without a single garcon. And the busy season
approaches also."
"Why is the army to be mobilized, then?"
"Ciel! I know not. We Belgians do not require soldiers. We are men
of peace. Has not our neutrality been guaranteed by our neighbours?
And, notwithstanding, the Government must have men to vie with the
French _piou-piou_, give them rifles, and put them in uniforms at the
expense of the community. It is inconceivable!"
The proprietor, unable to contain his feelings, rushed back to the
hotel, while Kenneth, still wishing to satisfy his curiosity by ocular
demonstration, made his way to the edge of the semicircular crowd of
excited townsfolk.
The proclamation, dated the 31st day of July, was an order for partial
mobilization, calling up the First Division of the Reserves. No reason
was given, and the lack of it, rather than the fact that the order had
to be obeyed, was the subject of general comment. From the nature of
the conversation the lad gathered that military service was not
regarded by the Belgians in anything approaching a tolerant spirit.
"Nothing much; only a mobilization," announced Everest in reply to his
companion's enquiry. "Let's make a move. We may see something of the
Belgian troops. It would be rather interesting to see how they take to
playing at soldiering."
"Why playing?" asked Rollo as he proceeded to secure his valise to the
carrier.
"What else would you expect from Belgians?" rejoined Kenneth. "Even
old Gallipot--or whatever the hotel proprietor's name is--was grumbling
about the uselessness of the business, and most of those johnnies over
there are of the same opinion. No, Rollo, take my word for it, the
Belgians are not a fighting race. Let me see--didn't they skedaddle at
Waterloo and almost let our fellows down?"
"They may have done," remarked Rollo. "But that's nearly a century
old. Ready?"
With half-closed throttles, and tyres sufficiently soft to absorb most
of the shocks, the young tourists bumped over the _pave_, swung round,
and soon settled down to a modest fifteen miles an hour along the Namur
road.
For the best part of the journey the Meuse, with its limestone crags
and dense foliage, was within a few yards on their right, while trees
on either side of the road afforded a pleasant shade from the fierce
rays of the sun. The dust, too, rose in dense clouds whenever, as
frequently happened, a motor-car tore past, or a flock of frightened
sheep scampered madly all across the road. At Namur their wishes
regarding the Belgian troops were gratified. The narrow street swarmed
with soldiers and civil guards. There were men with head-dresses
resembling the busbies of the British guardsmen, leading teams of dogs
harnessed to light quick-firing "Berthier" guns; infantry who, in spite
of the broiling heat, wore heavy greatcoats; cavalry whose mounts were
powerful enough to evoke the admiration of the critical Kenneth.
"I wonder what all this fuss is about," he exclaimed.
Before Rollo could furnish any remark a little Belgian officer accosted
them.
"You gentlemen are English, without doubt?"
"We are."
"It then is well," continued the officer, speaking in English with
considerable fluency. "You have not heard, eh? The news--the grave
news?"
"No, monsieur."
"Germany has declared war upon the Russians."