A NEW EXPLOIT
Dick dropped into the background when they encountered the soldiers, and
let Stepan do the talking. Now that the strain was over, he was feeling
very tired and he wanted only to get to a place where he could sleep.
But Stepan would not allow him to escape so easily. He told everyone
within hearing of Dick's feat in going back to look for the wounded
captain. The surgeon, bending over the bandages and making little
adjustments, looked up quickly.
"Whoever applied this tourniquet saved this man's life," he said,
briskly. "He would have bled to death in a very little time. As it is,
he will do very well, if the wound has not been infected, and there was
so much blood that I doubt if there was any great danger of that."
Then the colonel of the regiment appeared, and drew aside Stepan, whom
he evidently knew. When they returned the colonel spoke to Dick very
quietly.
"This is not the time to try to thank you for what you have done
to-night," he said. "I can only tell you that, if I live long enough, I
shall see that your heroism is properly known and fittingly rewarded.
You have helped to bring Stepan Dushan to this side in safety, too, for
he tells me that your cool behavior in the boat under the Austrian fire
had a good deal to do with getting you all ashore. Now I shall send you
to Belgrade, since Stepan Dushan tells me that you have reasons for
wishing to stay with us for a time. You have earned the right to do as
you please."
Captain Obrenovitch was being sent back to Belgrade, and Steve and Dick
volunteered to care for him on the way, since that would make it
unnecessary to detail a hospital corps man to act as orderly. They had
already proved that they could be trusted in any emergency that might
arise. And so in a few minutes the column began the march again, moving
westward. Dick noticed that no bugles or drums were sounded, and that
the order to march was passed along from company to company, the
officers giving the brief commands in low voices.
"It's a secret troop movement, of course," said Steve, when Dick
commented on this. "I can explain a little. The Austrians think, or we
hope they do, that we will concentrate in defense of our capital. We
would like to, but, after all, Belgrade is not the historic capital of
Servia. Our chief city in the olden times was Uskub, which we regained
from the Turks in the first war. We have made a capital of Belgrade
because it is the most convenient city and because it is the centre of
most of our trade."
"And you're going to let them take it?"
"Oh, I didn't say that!" said Steve, with a grin. "Perhaps they will
take it but they won't hold it very long! No, what I mean is that our
armies will defend Belgrade not by standing a siege, but by attacking
the Austrians in other places. Belgrade will have a small garrison, and
its situation makes it very strong, of course. But if the Austrians
were to enter the city to-morrow it could make no real difference to the
plan of our campaign."
They were not very far from the city, which they entered, of course,
from the land side. They drove to the military hospital first, and there
Captain Obrenovitch was turned over to those who could complete the work
Dick had begun. Then when it was certain that he was in good hands, and
they had had a confirmation of the regimental surgeon's optimistic
verdict, they were ready to rest.
"Haven't you got to make a report?" asked Dick, when Steve announced
that they were going to his home to sleep.
"I've made the important report already," said Steve. "The chief
information I had was military, and Colonel Tchernaieff will give the
facts I had gathered to the staff when he reports at Schabatz. The rest
can wait until morning. I don't know what has happened here yet. I
suppose the information department still has quarters here, but most of
the men will be with the army in the field. I may have to go to Schabatz
in the morning--later in the morning, I mean."
That was a good correction to make, because it was morning now, and
streaks of light were beginning to appear beyond the Danube. And Dick,
who had lived through the fullest day of his life, was eager to get to
bed. The Austrian bombardment, which it seemed had not been very bad,
had stopped altogether, and the strong probability that it would be
resumed when the sun rose didn't deter Dick from his desire to sleep.
"We'll be at my house soon," said Steve, who knew how tired Dick was.
"If old Maritza is still there, she will look after us. I don't believe
anyone else will be in the house. My mother and my two young brothers
have probably gone away. My father said they must when the war began."
Dick found that his friend's house was in that new quarter of Belgrade
that he had admired so much when he had made his trip across from
Semlin. And the inside of the house was as pleasant as its outer
aspect. It was not luxurious. Few houses in Servia are, since Servia is
a country where great wealth is practically unknown. But so, for that
matter, is extreme poverty. Most of the Servian people make enough for a
living, and not a great deal more, and so they have remained a simple
people, and have maintained their ability to rise as a nation in arms.
But Dick wasn't thinking of such things. All he needed to know about
that house or any other was that it contained a bed. Yet first before
they went to bed, both he and Steve took a bath.
"Heaven only knows when we'll get another chance," said Steve,
cheerfully. "There are going to be exciting doings, my friend Dick, for
a time. We may have to leave here in a great hurry. You know, the
Austrians _may_ find out how easy it would be for them to come over into
Belgrade! It would be a great stroke for them to say they had captured
our capital in the first week of the war, even if they couldn't keep
it."
"Well, I hope they don't come until we've had a good sleep," said Dick.
And with that he rolled himself into bed and was snoring as soon as his
head touched the pillow.
When he awoke it was broad daylight. But one thing surprised him. The
window was in the west wall of the room in which he had slept, and yet
the sun was pouring into it! It didn't seem possible, yet it was true.
It was late afternoon, almost evening, and he had slept practically all
day! In his surprise he called out sharply to Steve, who had slept in
the same room, but in a separate bed. But Steve was not there. His bed
was crumpled, but he himself had vanished!
Dick went to the window and looked out. Everything seemed to be
peaceful. There were not many people about, but he knew that in this
part of Belgrade few people were to be seen at this time of day in any
case. At first he scarcely noticed a sound that came to his ears
regularly, almost as regularly and monotonously as the ticking of a
watch. Then he realized what it was; the sound of cannon. The
bombardment, then, was still going on. He wondered about its success.
He looked out toward the business quarter of Belgrade. In a good many
places black smoke was rising, shot through with yellow fumes. There was
no wind, fortunately; he guessed that these pillars of smoke were from
fires started by the Austrian shells. Had there been a gale to fan them
they might have done serious damage. He was still looking out when the
door burst open and Stepan Dushan came in.
"Hello! You're awake at last, are you?" he cried. "Well, you had sleep
enough when you once started! You looked so comfortable that I didn't
have the heart to wake you when the time came for me to get up."
"I'm glad you didn't," said Dick, honestly. "I'm feeling fine now, and
if you'll give me some breakfast I'll tackle my weight in wildcats! But
if I'd had five minutes less sleep it wouldn't have been enough! I don't
believe I was ever tired enough to sleep through a bombardment before."
"This isn't much of a bombardment," said Stepan, contemptuously. "I
don't believe there'll be much damage done. Come on out--though I'll see
that you get some breakfast first. I think I'll have something
interesting to tell you before long."
"All right. But why don't you tell me now?" asked Dick.
"Bad luck to talk about things until they're done," said Steve, with a
grin. "Don't you know that in America?"
"All right," said Dick. "But just when are you going to know?"
"Pretty soon--but that's no sign that you'll know it as soon as I do,
you know. How would you like to go back to Semlin?"
"I'm game, if you'll tell me why."
"That's just what I'm afraid I won't be able to do. That is, it would be
a whole lot better if you didn't know."
"Oh, all right! I don't care, anyhow! I've enlisted for the war. By the
way, what's happened to your scout troop? I thought perhaps there'd be
some good work here in Belgrade for it to do."
"There will be, only there isn't any troop any more. About everyone in
it is with the army, except the very little chaps. I think they'd have
let me fight this time if there wasn't other work for me to do. You see
we lost so many men against Turkey and Bulgaria that we haven't really
enough men to fill the ranks. We have regiments that aren't half
filled--or we did have until this started. By this time, though, I think
there aren't many short battalions left. The old men and the boys will
fight, and they say that some of the country regiments have a lot of
women in them."
"Women? Fighting with the men? That's not allowed, is it?"
"How can you stop it?" asked Steve, with a shrug. "You don't know much
about us yet, Dick, my friend. You don't know what it is to have lived
with the Turks for centuries. I have read about your American women on
the plains, in the times when the Indians went on the war-path. Most of
them could handle a rifle, couldn't they? And they were pretty good
shots, too!"
"Yes, but that's different--"
"Not so very different. I don't believe your Indians were ever worse
than the Bashi-Bazouks. They hated us Servians, you see, because we were
infidels and Christians. And so for hundreds of years they harried us,
burned our homes, carried off our women, killed our men. That sort of
thing gets into the blood after a time. For centuries we Serbs have
stood between all Europe and the Turks. They never wiped us out, though
they beat us by sheer weight of numbers. But here, and in Bosnia, that
the Austrians stole, and in the Black Mountains--Montenegro--a few Serbs
have always held out.
"That's why we aren't so civilized as some of the other countries of
Europe. We haven't had the time to be civilized. We have had to fight
just to keep alive. We have had to fight the Turks for life itself, and
when they did not kill, they burned our fields with the standing grain,
summer after summer, so that the harvest was lost. Yet once there was a
great Serb empire that stretched from the Black Sea to the Aegean--"
Stepan's eyes flashed, and there was a look in them that might have been
worn by his great ancestor and namesake, the last of the great medieval
Servian Tsars.
"There is a day that we still mark every year," he went on. "The day of
the battle of Kossovo, when the Turks annihilated us--though that was
more than five hundred years ago. But in the last war we had our
revenge, on the great day of Kumanovo, when, though the Turks
outnumbered us, we drove them before us and crushed them.
"But I spoke of the women, and I am wandering from the point! We do not
want the women to fight, but they come from the villages, where whole
companies are recruited from relatives, since we still have almost a
patriarchal system. The woman wears men's clothes, and she marches with
her husband or her brothers. The officers do not know, and--they fight
well. They have known what it is, some of those women, to see their
homes burned and their mothers slain by Turks. They know that a free
Servia means more than a name!"
"I hadn't thought about it just that way," said Dick. "But I see that
you are right. It is just the same thing as with our pioneers. The women
of those days did fight the Indians, and for just such reasons. I'm
going to get you to tell me more about Servian history some time. You
know, until the Balkan War Servia and Bulgaria weren't much more than
names to us in America or to most of us. We were surprised and mighty
pleased, of course, when you smashed the Turks the way you did."
"Everyone was surprised," said Stepan. His face grew dark. "And there is
another thing we hold against Austria. We were good friends, we little
states of the Balkans. We had fought a great war, and we would have
continued to be good friends had it not been for Austria. But she
stepped in when peace was to be made, and said what we could have and
what we must not touch. She would not give us the window on the sea that
we had paid for with our blood. And she tricked Bulgaria into attacking
us and so starting the second war."
"How was that?"
"She thought Bulgaria was strong enough to beat us, and she promised to
help if Bulgaria were too weak. Everyone thought, you see, that the
Bulgarian troops were the best in the Balkans. They forgot that we
helped them to win Adrianople, and that we and the Greeks won our great
victories unaided. And then, when we crushed Bulgaria within two weeks,
Austria broke her word, and Bulgaria was left helpless. We acted in self
defence, but we were sorry."
"I supposed that Servia hated Bulgaria now, Steve. And Greece, too."
"As to Greece, I cannot say. Her people are not Slavs. But we and the
Bulgarians are blood brothers. We would not have fought except for
Austrian trickery and Austrian lying--that they call diplomacy."
"Will Bulgaria fight again in this war?"
"I do not know. There is a great effort being made to revive the Balkan
League and add Roumania to it. Roumania is stronger than any of us now,
because, though she helped us at the end of the war with Bulgaria, she
did no real fighting at all, and it did not exhaust her to gain what she
did from the wars. If we can win what Austria denied us before, and
Bosnia and Herzegovina, perhaps, as well, we will not grudge Bulgaria
what we had to keep from her in Macedonia after the war with Turkey, and
we will help her, too, to recover Adrianople. You remember that the
Turks took that back from her when we had beaten her down."
"So Bulgaria may be on your side?"
"Yes. And I think it very likely, because she is near us and far from
Austria, which might offer to help her. If she attacked us, too, Greece
would come to our aid. But that depends on many things. If Russia helps
us, that will make a difference. And it is a question of what Italy will
do, also. But this is not getting us anywhere. You are game to come with
me?"
"Yes."
"Then let us start. We are going to get a motor boat on the Danube--not
on the Save--and try to run the gauntlet of the Austrian monitors. I
think it is safe enough, because they believe that they have the river
entirely under their control. I think it will be easier to get into
Semlin than it was to get out last night."
"Well, I'm ready whenever you give the word."