THE RETURN OF COUSIN EMILE
Assured by Voissard that he would return to the village, the four
Brothers kept up an anxious lookout for him. Five days went by, but
Cousin Emile did not materialize. During this time new platoons and
squads were formed from those depleted by trench duty, and the two
detachments, though smaller, were soon in good order again.
The Khaki Boys were required to be on hand for roll call at 6:30 every
morning. Breakfast was followed by daily inspection and parade. After
that they drilled until noon. The rest of the day and evening was
theirs, unless on some special detail, Taps sounding at the usual time.
Though the resting detachments were well behind the lines, they were
not immune from shrapnel directed against passing ammunition and
supply-trains, and even against ambulances, as these last rushed the
wounded to hospital. Then there was always the danger of being bombed
by enemy aeroplanes. Frequently, these Boche planes would appear
sailing high overhead, only to be shelled by Archies, and driven back
by Allied aircraft. It was not a particularly safe district in which to
rest, but it certainly offered plenty of excitement.
For two days after their arrival, the guns kept up a furious racket
night and day. Now and then they gleaned some word of the conflict from
ambulance drivers or men who had come from the trenches on special
errands. The Americans were grittily holding their own, it seemed.
They had gone over the top on the very morning in which the Khaki Boys
had arrived in rest billets. There had been a wholesale slaughter of
Boches. Many machine guns and prisoners had been taken. The Hun's
first-line trench had been blown up.
The Boches had beaten a wild retreat to their second trench, and were
now engaged in trying to hold it. Many Sammies had been killed or
wounded, but the Germans had suffered more in casualties. All this and
other news pertaining to the fight that still raged, the Khaki Boys
heard. They gloried in the way "our fellows are putting it all over
Fritz."
Bob's first move after settling down was to get a pass and go to the
village where Gaston was quartered at his expense. Finding that it
was not more than twenty miles from their billet, and that he could
reach it and return by train, he cordially invited his bunkies to
accompany him. Jimmy and Ignace declined to go on the expedition, but
Roger good-naturedly consented. "You need a friend on such a dangerous
detail," he slyly remarked.
It took the two a whole afternoon and evening to make the trip.
Triumphantly returning with his pet just before Taps, Bob tied Gaston
up outside the barrack, trustingly expecting him there in the morning.
In the night, however, Gaston basely chewed his rope in two and
deserted.
Bob, being of the loyal opinion that Gaston was "no yellow deserter,"
but had been "pinched," he spent his leisure time the following day
going from pillar to post savagely asking, "Who's got my goat?"
Toward night he found the lost one in the backyard of a cottage, calmly
feasting upon a linen tablecloth, which had appealed to his peculiar
appetite.
Bob and the owner of the tablecloth discovered Gaston at about the
same moment. Gaston got a beating and Bob a wigging in French, both
delivered by an irate housewife. It ended by Bob's going down in his
pocket for the price of one linen tablecloth. Gaston, nobly resenting
this outrage, charged upon the scolding woman, and thereby added
to his master's difficulties. Bob finally roped him, and led him
back to billets, sadly pondering as he went on the trials of being
"foster-papa to a blamed old goat."
In the morning Gaston had again taken French leave. This time he
wandered gaily up to the schoolhouse where a platoon of 509th men were
billeted. They received him with open arms, and promptly adopted him
as a mascot. In due season Bob appeared, and just as promptly parted
Gaston from his new friends. Next day they stole him back again.
Bob's first four days in billet were largely spent in getting his goat,
losing it, and getting it again.
On the afternoon of the fifth day he came back to billet from a trip to
the schoolhouse looking completely disgusted.
"Those pesky guys have got Gaston again," he announced, as he went over
to where his three bunkies sat on the floor, backs propped against the
wall, and busily engaged in writing letters. "They can keep him, too.
I'm through being a father to an ungrateful brute that tries to butt
his foster-parent over on sight."
This nettled confession was received with shouts of unsympathetic
laughter.
"Oh, laugh now. It's very funny," jeered Bob. Nevertheless, he laughed,
too, as he dropped down beside Jimmy.
"Did he go for you? I'm surprised," teased Roger. "He's such a gentle,
friendly beast."
"Did he?" Bob snickered. "Those thieves had him tied to a post out in
the school-yard. When he saw his papa, he lowered his head and came on
the run. Good thing he was roped. You should have heard those ginks
yell. They kidded Bobby to a finish. Said Gaston must have taken me for
a Hun, and a lot of stuff like that.
"They've got a mangy old red ribbon tied around his neck with an
identification tag hung on it," continued Bob. "It was a blank tag,
all right, but they've cut on it with a knife, 'Gaston, Platoon 4,
509th Infantry.' The robbers! Can you beat that? I certainly was good
to that beast. Treated him fine, and spent a lot of time and money on
him. That's the way, though. Be kind to your goat and somebody else'll
get it. Bobby's all through being a foster-papa. He's going to spend
his golden hours and copper coins on himself hereafter. I was bitterly
deceived in Gaston."
"Hope it won't wreck your young life," chuckled Jimmy.
"Never I like him, that Gaston. He always the too fraish. I think mebbe
him Boche goat an' no Franche. So is it he is the no good," giggled
Ignace.
"Well, I'm all done with him," declared Bob. "Hope he bowls over a
few of those smarties in Platoon 4. He owes it to me to do it. My,
what a busy little bunch you are. Guess I'd better write a few letters
myself."
"Go to it, then, and don't bother us," retorted Roger. "We want to get
through with our writing before mess. To-night----"
Roger was interrupted by a sudden exclamation from Jimmy. The latter's
glance happening to stray to an open door at the far end of the long,
barn-like room, he leaped to his feet and hurried to it. A uniformed
man stood on its threshold, his dark eyes roving up and down the place,
as though in search of someone.
"_Mon cher_, Blaise!" he exclaimed with outstretched hand as Jimmy
neared him. "It is for you I have been searching."
"We had given you up, sir." Jimmy was radiant with delighted surprise.
"We thought you had been detailed to some special movement against the
Boches."
"Not as yet." Voissard smiled mysteriously. "I have been in Paris since
last we met. But to-morrow night my work begins."
Before he could say more, Jimmy's bunkies had come up, and were
respectfully greeting the Flying Terror of France.
"I have come to invite you to the _petit souper_ at the Inn," Voissard
presently said. "There we shall be able to talk for a little. I have
some things to relate to you of my nephews whom I saw while away. There
is also the old matter of the man whom you described to me. Also there
is another matter to be discussed."
Cousin Emile's invitation was gladly accepted, and a few minutes later
the five men left the barrack for a quaint little inn, to which the
aviator conducted them.
Seated together at a rear table, the four Brothers were not concerned
as to what they ate. They had found one inn to be about the same as
another in regard to "eats." All offered eggs, cheese, brown bread, red
wine, and not much else.
In this instance, however, Voissard held a lengthy consultation with
the innkeeper himself, which sent him hustling for the kitchen.
"Now while thus we wait I will speak of my nephews first," began the
aviator. "Both are now in the Nieuport squad. Each has been out twice,
and has a Boche plane to his credit. They send you many good wishes,
and are in hopes to see you before long somewhere out here."
He went on to tell them further of the doings of the Twinkle Twins,
smilingly answering the countless eager queries put to him by the Khaki
Boys.
While they were still discussing the famous Twinkle Twins, their dinner
appeared in the shape of two immense, beautifully browned omelets, with
other accompanying delicacies, which made them open their eyes. Cousin
Emile, it seemed, knew a thing or two about French inns, which they
did not.
Directly the meal had been served and the waiter had withdrawn,
Voissard reached into a pocket of his sky-blue uniform blouse, and drew
from it a small photograph. Handing it across the table to Jimmy, he
said simply:
"Look well at this."
Jimmy looked. His gray eyes flashed as he exclaimed: "It's the same
old smile! I mean, it's my tiger man! Then your friend, the Prefect of
Police, knew him----"
"Very well," finished Voissard. "But not as Charles Black. This man's
real name is Adolph von Kreitzen. He is an Austrian, and one of the
most villainous creatures of the Central Powers that ever drew breath.
Before the war his crimes were many, yet he always eluded capture.
During the first two years of the war he did much damage to our cause
as a spy.
"Suddenly no more was heard of him. It was thought by my friend the
Prefect that he had either entered the German army or been ordered to
commit suicide by his master, on account of some failure on his part to
carry out a mission intrusted to him. This is often the fate of those
whose work as spies displeases their finicky war-lord. He graciously
rewards their efforts for the Fatherland with disgrace or death.
"Later, however, it was learned that von Kreitzen had been seen in
Belgium. A soldier who had formerly been connected with, the Paris
Police Bureau saw and recognized him. He immediately sent word to the
Prefect. Men were sent to Belgium to trail him, but again he escaped
them.
"That was the last report of him until I went to the Prefect with
what you related to me in Paris. My friend immediately recognized von
Kreitzen from the description you gave me. I would have gone to your
training camp with this photograph had I not received your commander's
kind telegram.
"Strange to say, the next day after our meeting in the café, a report
came to the Prefect that a man resembling von Kreitzen had been
recently seen in Paris. Thus it may well be true that after you saw him
in Belfast, he went from there to England, and thence to Paris. Where
he is now, who knows?" Voissard shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps back
in Germany; perhaps with his kind on the Western front; perhaps dead.
Again he has disappeared."
"I'll tell you a queer thing, sir. I never mentioned it before, even to
my bunkies here."
Jimmy recounted to Voissard the attack made on them by the hidden
gunman on the evening of their return from Paris to the training camp.
"Somehow I always had an idea that this tiger fellow, von Kreitzen,
spotted us in Paris, and trailed us to the village. He saw me and
wanted to get me. It rather tallies with what you say about his having
been seen in Paris."
"When is a clam not a clam? When it's a blazing old tight-mouth
Blazes," was Bob's caustic conundrum, self-answered.
"Well, I had a right to be a tight-mouth if I felt like it," defended
Jimmy. "If I'd said a word about it, then you fellows would have either
told me I was crazy or else you'd have worried about little Jimmy's
health. So I just canned it."
"I wouldn't be surprised if it _was_ that von Kreitzen who went sniping
at us that night," said Roger reflectively. "It's not such a wild
idea. He might have caught sight of you in Paris, Blazes, and followed
you down on the same train. He might have been in another compartment
disguised. I don't remember seeing anyone who got off the train that
night except four or five Sammies. They went into an _estaminet_ across
from the station."
"I saw an old man and a little girl. I remember seeing those doughboys,
too," put in Bob.
"So see I him, the solder and 'nother man. He have the much black
wheeskar an' the hat over the face. He walk ver' quick no look at
nothin'," was Ignace's placid contribution.
"I don't remember noticing anyone in particular," mused Jimmy. "I
guess----"
"I guess Iggy saw the most!" interrupted Bob excitedly. "Iggy saw
_him_, this von Sweitzer, or whatever his name is. That's about the way
he'd fix up to keep shady--false whiskers and his hat over his nose.
If you had not been so keen on keeping still, Blazes, we might have
figured this thing out long ago."
"It wouldn't have done us any good," demurred Jimmy.
"It would have been some satisfaction, anyhow, to have somebody to lay
it to," grumbled Bob.
Thus during the meal the talk continued to center on Jimmy's "tiger
man." It was the element of mystery that appealed so strongly to the
Khaki Boys. It made them forget for the time the grim reality of war.
Long after the meal was finished, they still sat at the table listening
to interesting information which Voissard had gathered concerning
the intricate spy-system which the Central Powers have established
throughout the civilized world.
"I have still the news for you which must interest Blaise most of
all," declared Cousin Emile at last, smiling at Jimmy. "Because of
his pleasure, I am sure all will be pleased. You said to me, _mon
cher_ Blaise, that you would give much to go with me over the lines.
_Voila!_ Your wish has been granted. It has not been easy to gain
the permission. It has been done, however. To-morrow morning your
commanding officer will send for you. I have already talked with him.
To-morrow afternoon you and I will be leaving here on a little journey
of our own for the glory of France and her Allies."