E-text prepared by Brian Sogard, Irma Spehar, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
World's War Series Volume 2
FACING THE GERMAN FOE
by
COLONEL JAMES FISKE
Illustrated by E. A. Furman
The Saalfield Publishing Company
Chicago Akron, Ohio New York
Copyright, 1915
by
The Saalfield Publishing Co.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I Serious News 11
II Quick Work 27
III Picked for Service 45
IV The House of the Heliograph 65
V On the Trail 81
VI The Mystery of Bray Park 99
VII A Close Shave 117
VIII A Friend in Need 127
IX An Unexpected Blow 143
X A Good Witness 153
XI The First Blow 163
XII The Silent Wire 173
XIII A Treacherous Deed 185
XIV The Trap 195
XV A Daring Ruse 205
XVI The Cipher 213
XVII A Capture from the Skies 223
XVIII Vindication 233
Facing the German Foe
CHAPTER I
SERIOUS NEWS
"As long as I can't be at home," said Harry Fleming, "I'd rather be here
than anywhere in the world I can think of!"
"Rather!" said his companion, Dick Mercer. "I say, Harry, it must be funny
to be an American!"
Harry laughed heartily.
"I'd be angry, Dick," he said, finally, "if that wasn't so English--and so
funny! Still, I suppose that's one reason you Britishers are as big an
empire as you are. You think it's sort of funny and a bit of a misfortune,
don't you, to be anything but English?"
"Oh, I say, I didn't quite mean that," said Dick, flushing a little. "And
of course you Americans aren't just like foreigners. You speak the same
language we do--though you do say some funny things now and then, old chap.
You know, I was ever so surprised when you came to Mr. Grenfel and he let
you in our troop right away!"
"Didn't you even know we had Boy Scouts in America?" asked Harry. "My
word--as you English would say. That is the limit! Why, it's spread all
over the country with us. But of course we all know that it started
here--that Baden-Powell thought of the idea!"
"Rather!" said Dick, enthusiastically. "Good old Bathing-Towel! That's what
they used to call him at school, you know, before he ever went into the
army at all. And it stuck to him, they say, right through. Even after
Mafeking he was called that. Now, of course, he's a lieutenant general, and
all sorts of a swell. He and Kitchener and French are so big they don't get
called nicknames much more."
"Well, I'll tell you what I think," said Harry, soberly. "I think he did a
bigger thing for England when he started the Boy Scout movement than when
he defended Mafeking against the Boers!"
"Why, how can you make that out?" asked Dick, puzzled. "The defence of
Mafeking had a whole lot to do with our winning that war!"
"That's all right, too," said Harry. "But you know you may be in a bigger
war yet than that Boer War ever thought of being."
"How can a war think, you chump?" asked the literal-minded Dick.
Again Harry roared at him.
"That's just one of 'our funny American ways of saying things,' Dick," he
explained. "I didn't mean that, of course. But what I do mean is that
everyone over here in Europe seems to think that there will be a big war
sometime--a bigger war than the world's ever seen yet."
"Oh, yes!" Dick nodded his understanding, and grew more serious. "My
pater--he's a V. C., you know--says that, too. He says we'll have to fight
Germany, sooner or later. And he seems to think the sooner the better, too,
before they get too big and strong for us to have an easy time with them."
"They're too big now for any nation to have an easy time with them," said
Harry. "But you see what I mean now, don't you, Dick? We Boy Scouts aren't
soldiers in any way. But we do learn to do the things a soldier has to do,
don't we?"
"Yes, that's true," said Dick. "But we aren't supposed to think of that."
"Of course not, and it's right, too," agreed Harry. "But we learn to be
obedient. We learn discipline. And we get to understand camp life, and the
open air, and all the things a soldier has to know about, sooner or later.
Suppose you were organizing a regiment. Which would you rather have--a
thousand men who were brave and willing, but had never camped out, or a
thousand who had been Boy Scouts and knew about half the things soldiers
have to learn? Which thousand men would be ready to go to the front first?"
"I never thought of that!" said Dick, mightily impressed. "But you're
right, Harry. The Boy Scouts wouldn't go to war themselves, but the fellows
who were grown up and in business and had been Boy Scouts would be a lot
readier than the others, wouldn't they? I suppose that's why so many of our
chaps join the Territorials when they are through school and start in
business?"
"Of course it is! You've got the idea I'm driving at, Dick. And you can
depend on it that General Baden-Powell had that in his mind's eye all the
time, too. He doesn't want us to be military and aggressive, but he does
want the Empire to have a lot of fellows on call who are hard and fit, so
that they can defend themselves and the country. You see, in America, and
here in England, too, we're not like the countries on the Continent. We
don't make soldiers of every man in the country."
"No--and, by Jove, they do that, don't they, Harry? I've got a cousin who's
French. And he expects to serve his term in the army. He's in the class of
1918. You see, he knows already when he will have to go, and just where he
will report--almost the regiment he'll join. But he's hoping they'll let
him be in the cavalry, instead of the infantry or the artillery."
"There you are! Here and in America, we don't have to have such tremendous
armies, because we haven't got countries that we may have to fight across
the street--you know what I mean. England has to have a tremendous navy,
but that makes it unnecessary for her to have such a big army."
"I see you've got the idea exactly, Fleming," said a new voice, breaking
into the conversation. The two scouts looked up to see the smiling face of
their scoutmaster, John Grenfel. He was a big, bronzed Englishman, sturdy
and typical of the fine class to which he belonged--public school and
university man, first-class cricketer and a football international who had
helped to win many a hard fought game for England from Wales or Scotland or
Ireland. The scouts were returning from a picnic on Wimbledon Common, in
the suburbs of London, and Grenfel was following his usual custom of
dropping into step now with one group, now with another. He favored the
idea of splitting up into groups of two or three on the homeward way,
because it was his idea that one of the great functions of the Scout
movement was to foster enduring friendships among the boys. He liked to
know, without listening or trying to overhear, what the boys talked about;
often he would give a directing word or two, that, without his purpose
becoming apparent, shaped the ideas of the boys.
"Yes," he repeated. "You understand what we're trying to do in this
country, Fleming. We don't want to fight--we pray to God that we shall
never have to. But, if we are attacked, or if the necessity arises, we'll
be ready, as we have been ready before. We want peace--we want it so much
and so earnestly that we'll fight for it if we must."
Neither of the boys laughed at what sounded like a paradox. His voice was
too earnest.
"Do you think England is likely to have to go to war soon--within a year or
so, sir?" asked Harry.
"I pray not," said Grenfel. "But we don't know, Fleming. For the last few
years--ever since the trouble in the Balkans finally flamed up--Europe has
been on the brink of a volcano. We don't know what the next day may bring
forth. I've been afraid--" He stopped, suddenly, and seemed to consider.
"There is danger now," he said, gravely. "Since the Archduke Franz
Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, Austria has been in an ugly mood.
She has tried to blame Servia. I don't think Russia will let her crush
Servia--not a second time. And if Russia and Austria fight, there is no
telling how it may spread."
"You'd want us to win, wouldn't you, Harry, if we fought?" asked Dick, when
Mr. Grenfel had passed on to speak to some of the others.
"Yes, I think I would--I _know_ I would, Dick," said Harry, gravely. "But I
wouldn't want to see a war, just the same. It's a terrible thing."
"Oh, it wouldn't last long," said Dick, confidently. "We'd lick them in no
time at all. Don't you think so?"
"I don't know--I hope so. But you can't ever be sure."
"I wonder if they'd let us fight?"
"No, I don't think they would, Dick. There'd be plenty for the Boy Scouts
to do though, I believe."
"Would you stay over here if there was a war, Harry? Or would you go home?"
"I think we'd have to stay over here, Dick. You see, my father is here on
business, not just for pleasure. His company sent him over here, and it was
understood he'd stay several years. I don't think the war could make any
difference."
"That's why you're here, then, is it? I used to wonder why you went to
school over here instead of in America."
"Yes. My father and mother didn't want me to be so far from them. So they
brought me along. I was awfully sorry at first, but now it doesn't seem so
bad."
"I should think not!" said Dick, indignantly. "I should think anyone would
be mighty glad of a chance to come to school over here instead of in
America! Why, you don't even play cricket over there, I've been told!"
"No, but we play baseball," said Harry, his eyes shining. "I really think I
miss that more than anything else here in England. Cricket's all right--if
you can't play baseball. It's a good enough game."
"You can play," admitted Dick, rather grudgingly. "When you bowl, you've
got some queer way of making the ball seem to bend--"
"I put a curve on it, that's all!" said Harry, with a laugh. "If you'd ever
played baseball, you'd understand that easily enough. See? You hold the
ball like this--so that your fingers give it a spin as it leaves your
hand."
And he demonstrated for his English friend's benefit the way the ball is
held to produce an out-curve.
"Your bowlers here don't seem to do that--though they do make the ball
break after it hits the ground. But the way I manage it, you see, is to
throw a ball that doesn't hit the ground in front of the bat at all, but
curves in. If you don't hit at it, it will hit the stumps and bowl you out;
if you do hit, you're likely to send it straight up in the air, so that
some fielder can catch it."
"I see," said Dick. "Well, I suppose it's all right, but it doesn't seem
quite fair."
Harry laughed, but didn't try to explain the point further. He liked Dick
immensely; Dick was the first friend he had made in England, and the best,
so far. It was Dick who had tried to get him to join the Boy Scouts, and
who had been immensely surprised to find that Harry was already a scout.
Harry, indeed, had done two years of scouting in America; he had been one
of the first members of a troop in his home town, and had won a number of
merit badges. He was a first-class scout, and, had he stayed with his
troop, would certainly have become a patrol leader. So he had had no
trouble in getting admission to the patrol to which Dick belonged.
It had been hard for Harry, when his father's business called him to
England, to give up all the friendships and associations of his boyhood. It
had been hard to leave school; to tear up, by the roots, all the things
that bound him to his home. But as a scout he had learned to be loyal and
obedient. His parents had talked things over with him very frankly. They
had understood just how hard it would be for him to go with them. But his
father had made him see how necessary it was.
"I want you to be near your mother and myself just now, especially, Harry,"
he had said. "I want you to grow up where I can see you. And, moreover, it
won't hurt you a bit to know something about other countries. You'll have a
new idea of America when you have seen other lands, and I believe you'll be
a better American for it. You'll learn that other countries have their
virtues, and that we can learn some things from them. But I believe you'll
learn, too, to love America better than ever. When we go home you'll be
broader and better for your experience."
And Harry was finding out that his father had been right. At first he had
to put up with a good deal. He found that the English boys he met in school
felt themselves a little superior. They didn't look down on him, exactly,
but they were, perhaps, the least bit sorry for him because he was not an
Englishman, always a real misfortune in their sight.
He had resented that at first. But his Boy Scout training stood him in good
stead. He kept his temper, and it was not long before he began to make
friends. He excelled at games; even the English games, that were new and
strange to him, presented few difficulties to him. As he had explained to
Dick, cricket was easy for any boy who could play baseball fairly well. And
it was the same way with football. After the far more strenuous American
game, he shone at the milder English football, the Rugby game, which is the
direct ancestor of the sport in America.
All these things helped to make Harry popular. He was now nearly sixteen,
tall and strong for his age, thanks to the outdoor life he had always
lived. An only son, he and his father had always been good friends. Without
being in any way a molly-coddle, still he had been kept safe from a good
many of the temptations that beset some boys by this constant association
with his father. It was no wonder, therefore, that John Grenfel, as soon as
he had talked with Harry and learned of the credentials he bore from his
home troop, had welcomed him enthusiastically as a recruit to his own
troop.
It had been necessary to modify certain rules. Harry, of course, could not
subscribe to quite the same scout oath that bound his English fellows. But
he had taken his scout oath as a tenderfoot at home, and Grenfel had no
doubts about him. He was the sort of boy the organization wanted, whether
in England or America, and that was enough for Grenfel.
Though the boys, as they walked toward their homes, did not quite realize
it, they were living in days that were big with fate. Far away, in the
chancelleries of Europe, and, not so far away, in the big government
buildings in the West End of London, the statesmen were even then making
their last effort to avert war. No one in England perhaps, really believed
that war was coming. There had been war scares before. But the peace of
Europe had been preserved for forty years or more, through one crisis after
another. And so it was a stunning surprise, even to Grenfel, when, as they
came into Putney High street, just before they reached Putney Bridge, they
met a swarm of newsboys excitedly shrieking extras.
"Germany threatens Russia!" they yelled. "War sure!"
Mr. Grenfel bought a paper, and the scouts gathered about him while he read
the news that was contained on the front page, still damp from the press.
"I'm afraid it's true," he said, soberly. "The German Emperor has
threatened to go to war with Russia, unless the Czar stops mobilizing his
troops at once. We shall know to-night. But I think it means war! God send
that England may still keep out of it!"
For that night a meeting at Mr. Grenfel's home in West Kensington had long
been planned. He lived not far from the street in which both Harry and Dick
lived. And, as the party broke up, on the other side of Putney Bridge,
Dick, voicing the general feeling, asked a question.
"Are we to come to-night, sir?" he said. "With this news--?"
"Yes--yes, indeed," said the scoutmaster. "If war is to come, there is all
the more reason for us to be together. England may need all of us yet."
Dick had asked the question because, like all the others, he felt something
that was in the air. He was sobered by the news, although, like the rest,
he did not yet fully understand it. But they all felt that there had been a
change. As they looked about at the familiar sight about them they wondered
if, a year from then, everything would still be the same. War? What did it
mean to them, to England?
"I wonder if my father will go to war!" Dick broke out suddenly, as he and
Harry walked along.
"I hadn't thought of that!" said Harry, startled. "Oh, Dick, I'm sorry!
Still, I suppose he'll go, if his country needs him!"