THE BOOMING OF BIG GUNS
“Another storm coming, worse luck!” grumbled George.
“Going to spoil all our fine plans in the bargain,” added Josh; “for if
it turns out to be anything as bad as that other whooper, excuse me from
wanting to be out on the river in the middle of the night.”
“Listen again!” said Jack, with a meaning in his manner.
“There she goes, and I must say it’s kind of queer thunder, after all,”
Buster advanced; “each growl is separate and distinct, and not like
anything I ever heard before.”
“Sure enough,” continued Josh; and then, as though a sudden light had
dawned upon him, he turned to Jack to add: “Say, you don’t imagine now,
do you, that can be the booming of big guns we are listening to?”
Jack nodded his head in the affirmative.
“It must be,” he said positively.
“Sounds just like blasts,” continued Josh, “up in the quarry near our
town, when they let the same off by electricity at noon, when the men
are all out of the workings. Boom! boom! boom! boom! Let me tell you
they must be making things hum over there now, with all that firing
going on.”
“What do you suppose they’re doing, Jack?” asked George.
“For one thing sending shells into Belgrade,” came the reply.
“Look, the Serbian boy has caught on as well as the rest of us,” said
Josh, “and it frets him a whole lot, too, you can see by his face. Now
he’s talking with the little sister, and pointing, as if he might be
explaining what that sound means.”
“Well, can you blame him for feeling that way?” burst out Buster; “when
you must remember that their mother is somewhere in Belgrade, and with
those shells bursting in the city they may get home only to find that
they have been left orphans. I guess war is all that General Sherman
said it was.”
“Oh, shucks! We haven’t seen hardly anything of its horrors yet. Wait
till you read what is happening in Belgium about this time, and then
it’ll be time to talk,” George told him.
“But why didn’t we hear the cannonading before?” asked Buster; “it
seemed to hit us all of a sudden.”
“Because there was a shift of the wind,” explained Jack. “You know it
was on our right before, and since then has changed, so that now it
seems to be coming straight from the south.”
As they kept on down the river the sounds, reaching their ears every
once in so often, increased gradually in volume.
Every time the suggestive sound came to their ears it could be seen that
the two young Serbians would start and listen eagerly. Undoubtedly their
thoughts must be centered on the home they had left in Belgrade, and
they were wondering if the latest shell could have dropped anywhere near
that dearly loved spot.
“Honest, now,” said Josh presently, “after that last shot I could hear a
second fainter crash, which I take it may have been the shell exploding
in or over the city.”
“It may have been a Serbian gun, after all,” George asserted, “and if
so, then the shoe was on the other foot, and the shell burst in the
fortifications on the Austrian side of the Danube, perhaps scattering
guns and soldiers around as if they were so many logs.”
“That’s what our friend here is hoping deep down in his heart, you can
be sure,” Jack mentioned, with a glance toward the boy passenger.
“Look away down yonder and tell me if that isn’t one of those monitors
like my cousin Captain Stanislaus commands,” said George just then.
Josh tested his eagle eye and admitted that, while the surface of the
river was misty, which fact made seeing difficult, he believed the other
was right, and that the object they were looking at did resemble a
“cheese-box on a raft” in marine architecture.
“Then we can’t be so very far above Belgrade,” Jack concluded.
“You mean the monitor may have been doing some of that shelling, do
you?” questioned Buster.
“I don’t know about that, for none of us have seen any sign of firing
aboard the boat; but she’s evidently anchored there to take part in
protecting the Austrian troops that will soon be attempting to cross to
hostile territory. So we must expect to haul in somewhere along here and
wait for night to settle down.”
“It would be too risky to try and pass the monitor, I reckon you mean?”
George asked.
“You remember how we were brought up with a round turn the other time,”
he was reminded; “and if we refused to obey the summons to come
alongside a second shot would sink us like a stone.”
“Whee! if one of those big shells ever struck this chip of a boat there
wouldn’t be enough of her left for firewood,” asserted Josh. “So I say
just as you do, Jack; we mustn’t be too brash and take chances. We can’t
expect to fight the whole Austrian navy on the Danube. The word for us
is diplomacy, remember that. We’ve got to play the Napoleon style of
strategy if we hope to win out in this game.”
Jack allowed the boat to continue on her course for some little time
longer. He did not mean to take unnecessary chances, but at the same
time the further they were down the river before night set in the
better, since it would shorten the time they expected to be in the
danger zone.
He kept a wary eye on the anchored monitor, for all of them could by
this time plainly see that it was one of those strange looking vessels,
believed by Austria to be just suited to the waters of the Danube for
offense and defense.
When not employed in this fashion Jack was watching the near-by shore
for a favorable landing spot. They could proceed to make a fire and act
as though fully intending to spend the night there. If by accident they
had visitors from the monitor early in the evening they could arrange it
so that nothing suspicious would be seen.
The firing had now ceased for the time being, as though enough had been
accomplished on either side for the day.
It was not long before they found themselves up against the bank. Jack
had picked out a good landing place, for there were trees in plenty,
under which they could make themselves comfortable.
“Do you think they have noticed us across there on board the monitor?”
Buster asked, as they stepped ashore.
“It would be strange if they hadn’t,” Josh told him. “Of course, they
can see all that goes on up and down the river, and we were in plain
sight. Jack, did you expect they might have a pair of field glasses
leveled on us, and was that why you had the brother and sister keep
inside the cabin lately?”
“Well,” replied the skipper, “I saw something flash over there while the
sun was shining through that rift in the clouds, and I got the idea they
might be using their binoculars. You see, if they should send over to
interview us, and the two Serbians were absent from the camp, as we mean
they shall be, what could we say if asked about them? That was why I
wanted them to keep out of sight, while the four of us remained in full
view.”
Josh did not say anything further, but the look of admiration he gave
Jack told what his thoughts were. In his mind the other could not be
equalled when it came to covering the whole ground and laying out
extensive plans, for Jack seemed to be able to grasp everything.
“We must keep a watch out on the river and try to be on our guard,”
continued the leader. “If they send a boat over here to investigate, we
ought to know about it before the men have a chance to land and spy on
our camp.”
The boat was tied up, and Buster had already taken ashore all he needed
for the evening meal; while Josh was making a fire in the midst of some
stones he had collected in a sort of cairn.
The day had ended in a dismal fashion for one starting out so bravely
with blue skies and plenty of warm sunshine. Out over the water the haze
was thickening, so that when George gave place to Josh later on it was
next door to impossible to tell where the Austrian monitor was anchored.
“I’ve lined it up with this stone here and that tree out on the little
point,” George explained; “the boat lies almost directly with the two,
so if you happen to see any light over there you’ll know what it means,
Josh,” he told the other, as he gave up his post.
“As long as you could see the monitor, were there any signs of a boat
leaving?” he asked; but George shook his head and told him he had seen
nothing suspicious.