THE MINED BRIDGE
For several days the drive continued. At first it had been quite as
successful for the Germans as they could have hoped. Their initial
surprise had carried them a long way into French territory, and this
had involved the capture of a considerable number of men and guns.
But they had fallen far short of their ambitious aims. They had not
rolled up the Allied armies. They had not reached Paris. They had not
captured the Channel ports.
The Allied armies had stretched like an elastic band, but had not
broken. They knew now what the enemy's plans were and they were
rapidly taking measures to check them.
The Germans had had a great advantage in being under a single command.
There was no clash of plans and opinions. If they wanted to transfer a
part of their forces from one point to another they could do so.
With the Allies it had been different. There had been a French army, a
British army, an Italian army, a Belgian army, a Russian army and
latest of all an American army. They had tried to work together in
harmony and in the main had done so. But the British naturally wanted
above all to prevent the German armies from reaching the coast where
they could threaten England. The French were especially anxious to
prevent Paris being captured. Either side was reluctant to weaken its
own army by sending reinforcements to the other.
But the German success in the first days of the drive changed all this.
The Allies got together and appointed General Foch as the supreme
commander of all the Allied forces. He had done brilliant work in
driving the Germans back from the Marne in the early days of the war,
when they had approached close to Paris.
"Have you heard the news?" asked Frank of his chums the day after the
appointment had been made.
"No," said Bart.
"What is it?" asked Billy.
"We've got just one man that's going to boss the job of driving back
the Huns," answered Frank.
Bart gave a whoop of delight and Billy threw his hat in the air.
"Best news I've heard yet," crowed Billy.
"That's as good as a battle lost for the Huns," exclaimed Bart. "The
only wonder is that it wasn't done before. Who's the man they've
chosen?"
"General Foch," was the answer.
"Better and better," pronounced Bart. "That man's a born fighter. He
licked the Germans at the Marne, and he can do it again."
"What I like about him," commented Billy, "is that he's a hard hitter.
He isn't satisfied to stand on the defensive. He likes to hand the
other fellow a good one right at the start of the fight."
"That's what," agreed Frank. "He hits out right from the shoulder. Of
course he'll have to wait a little while yet until he sizes up his
forces and sees what he has to fight with. But you can bet it won't be
long before he has the boches on the run."
In the days that followed, the advantage of the appointment became
clear. The armies worked together as they never had before. The khaki
of the British mingled with the cornflower blue of the French.
Reserves were sent where they were most needed, no matter what army
they were drawn from. And, fighting side by side, each nation was
filled with a generous rivalry and sought bravely to outdo the other in
deeds of valor.
The old Thirty-seventh had been in the thick of the fighting and had
covered itself with glory. It had taught the Germans that there were
Americans in France, and that they were fighters to be dreaded.
The course of the fighting had taken Frank and his comrades in the
vicinity of the farmhouse where they had rounded up the German
lieutenant and his squad. But it was a very different place now from
what it had been when they had first seen it. Shells had torn away
part of the roof, and the attic lay open to the sky. But the farmer
and his family still stayed there although in daily peril of their
lives. They lived and slept in the cellar, which was the only place
that afforded them a chance of safety.
One day when only an artillery duel was going on and the infantry was
getting a rest that it sorely needed, the Army Boys went over to the
house. The girl saw them coming and recognized them at once. She came
out to meet them with a smile on her face.
"_Les braves Americains!_" she exclaimed. "You have not then been
killed by those dreadful Germans."
"Don't we look pretty lively for dead men?" asked Frank jokingly.
"And that lieutenant?" she inquired. "Oh, I hope you have hanged him."
"No," said Frank, "but he's a prisoner."
"It is not enough," she said with a shudder of repulsion.
"Have you heard anything of the young soldier that the lieutenant was
going to hang?" asked Frank eagerly.
"No," she answered. "But stay," she added, "I have something here that
you may want to see."
She darted back in the house and quickly returned with a very-much
crumpled card in her hand.
"It is a _carte postale_," she explained. "We found it in the yard
some days after you had been here. It had been trampled in the mud by
the horses' feet and the writing had been scraped or blotted out.
Perhaps it belonged to the young man. It may have fallen from his
pocket. I do not know."
Frank took it eagerly from her hand, while his comrades gathered around
him.
The card was almost illegible, but it could be seen that it was a
United States postal. There was not a single word upon it that could
be made out in its entirety, but up in the corner where the postmark
had been they could see by straining their eyes the letters C and M.
"That's Camport, I'm willing to bet!" exclaimed Bart excitedly.
"And here's something else," put in Billy pointing to where the address
would naturally be looked for. "See those letters d-f-o-r----"
"It's dollars to doughnuts that that stands for 'Bradford,'" Frank
shouted. "A card from Camport to Tom Bradford. Boys, we didn't guess
wrong that day. That was Tom that that brute of a lieutenant was going
to hang!"
They were tingling with excitement and delight. To be sure, they did
not know what had become of their friend. But he had escaped from this
house. He was perhaps within a few miles of them. He was, at any
rate, not eating his heart out in a distant prison camp.
Then to Frank came the thought of Rabig. Perhaps Tom hadn't escaped.
Perhaps Rabig had added murder to the crime of treason of which they
were sure he was guilty.
"Are you sure that you haven't found anything else that would help us
in finding our friend?" he asked of the girl, whose face was beaming at
the pleasure she had been able to give to her deliverers.
"No," she answered. "There is nothing else. I am sorry."
"Let's take a look around the house again, fellows," suggested Frank.
"We may have overlooked something the other day. It's only a chance,
but let's take it."
They made a careful circuit of the house, but nothing rewarded the
search until Frank, with an exclamation, picked up some pieces of rope
that had been lying in the grass not far from the window from which the
prisoner had dropped.
"Are these yours?" he asked of the girl who had accompanied them and
had been as ardent in the search as themselves.
She examined them.
"I do not think so," she declared. "I do not remember seeing any rope
like that around the house."
They scrutinized the pieces carefully.
"Look at these frayed edges," said Frank, laying them together. "You
see that these two pieces were part of one rope."
"I'll tell you what that means," put in Billy. "The girl says that Tom
was bound with ropes. That cut or broken one was the one that was used
to tie his hands. In some way he cut that. He didn't have a knife or
the cut would be cleaner. Perhaps he sawed the rope against a piece of
glass that he might have managed to get near."
"Good guess," commended Bart. "And this long rope was the one that was
used to tie his feet. Tom didn't need to cut that for his hands were
free then and he could untie it."
"Good old scout!" exclaimed Frank in tribute to his absent chum.
"Trust that stout heart of his to keep up the fight to the last minute.
Think of the old boy sawing away at the rope when he didn't know what
minute he'd be taken out and hanged."
"He's all wool and a yard wide," agreed Bart.
"The real goods," said Billy. "But what were the ropes doing out here
in the grass?"
"Oh, I suppose he hated them so that he chucked them as far away as he
could," suggested Bart.
"No," said Frank, measuring the window with his eye. "I'll tell you
how I think it was. Tom knew, of course, that he couldn't get out of
the house by the downstairs way without being nabbed. He didn't know,
of course, that the bunch of Huns weren't in condition to nab anybody.
So the window was the only way left to him. He took the ropes to the
window with the idea of splicing them and climbing down by them. But
that would have taken time, and when he saw that the window wasn't very
high up he made up his mind to drop. The ropes were in his hand and he
simply threw them out of the window as the easiest way of getting rid
of them."
"That sounds reasonable," said Billy. "But, oh boy! if poor Tom had
only known that all he had to do was to walk downstairs and bag the
whole blooming bunch!"
"I wish he had," said Frank mournfully.
"If he had, that lieutenant wouldn't have got off so easily as he did,"
declared Bart. "Do you know what would have happened? Of course the
first thing Tom would have done would have been to untie the farmer and
his son. Can you picture, then, what would have happened to that
lieutenant and probably to his men, too? The United States wouldn't
have been put to any expense for feeding them."
"That rope by the well would probably have been put to work," agreed
Frank. "But poor Tom didn't know and there's no use of our
speculating."
Encouraged by the information they had gained, they looked still
further. But nothing more was found, and they at last said good-by to
the girl and made their way back to their quarters with their hearts
lighter than they had been for days. In a sense they had got in touch
with their missing comrade, had seemed near to him, and their hopes
were high that before long they would have him with them again.
"It's disposed of one thing that was worrying me anyway," remarked
Frank. "We know that Rabig had nothing to do with making away with
Tom."
"Yes," said Bart, "that's one thing the fellow can't be charged with.
But I'm still mighty curious to know what he was hanging around that
farmhouse for."
"It sure was a mighty strange coincidence that he should be there at
the time the Germans were," declared Billy. "But Rabig is the only one
who knows why and you can bet that he won't tell."
The comparative lull that had occurred in the fighting was only
temporary, and the next day the drive was resumed in all its fury.
This time the use of gas was greater than it had been at any previous
time in the battle. And the Germans had made still greater strides in
this diabolical contrivance which they were the first to inflict upon
an outraged world.
At first the gas had been light and volatile. It caused terrible
suffering to those caught by it, but it did not hover long over any
given place and a gust of wind was sufficient to drive it away.
But that was not vile enough to satisfy the infernal ingenuity of the
foes of humanity. Now they were using gas that settled on the ground
so that nothing but a gale would drive it away, and that lasted for
hours and even for days. And then there was mustard gas, that
penetrated everywhere through the clothing, through the skin, and that
burned and ate up the living tissues like so much vitriol.
But the Allies were on the alert and soon found a way to avert or
modify the worst consequences of the various kinds of gases. And they
were forced to fight fire with fire simply in self-defence. It was a
question of kill or be killed, and they were left no alternative. They
asked nothing better than to fight as knightly and honorable nations
always have fought and always will fight when they are left free to
choose their weapons.
But whatever the methods used by the Germans, whether gas or guns or
men, they were finding increasing difficulty in keeping up the momentum
of their drive. Sheer force of numbers had sufficed at first to carry
them forward, but now the Allies with American help coming over the sea
at the rate of two hundred thousand men a month--and the finest kind of
men at that--were gradually getting on even terms.
"I see the Germans had a good day yesterday," remarked Frank, as he and
his comrades were at mess.
"I didn't notice it," said Bart, looking at his friend in surprise.
"We drove them back and gained ground from them."
"Oh, I don't mean here," exclaimed Frank. "I mean in Paris."
Billy almost choked in surprise and alarm.
"You don't mean to say they've got to Paris?" he sputtered.
"Not by a jugful," laughed Frank. "But they're sending shells into it."
"Then they must be pretty close to it," said Bart in some apprehension.
"The gun they're shooting with is seventy miles away from the city,"
replied Frank.
"Quit your kidding," commanded Billy.
"Where do you get that stuff?" asked Bart incredulously.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," said Frank seriously. "Honestly,
fellows, they've got a gun that shoots a shell seventy miles or more.
The shell weighs two hundred pounds. It rises twenty miles in the air,
and it takes three minutes on the trip to Paris."
"Is that straight goods?" asked Billy suspiciously.
"It sure is," Frank assured him. "I was reading about it in a Paris
paper I got hold of this morning."
"What was it you were saying about yesterday being a good day for the
Germans," asked Bart, when he had digested the facts.
"Oh, one of the shells hit a church where they were having a service
and killed seventy-five people, mostly women and children," answered
Frank. "Don't you imagine the Germans call that a good day? Can't you
see them grinning and rubbing their hands? It's as good as bombing a
hospital or an orphan asylum. The Kaiser felt so good about that he
sent a special message of congratulation to the manager of the Krupp
works, where the gun was made. Oh, yes, it was a good day!"
"The swine!" exclaimed Bart furiously, while Billy's fist clinched.
"Let's get busy," cried Frank, springing to his feet. "I can't wait to
get at those barbarians. I hope there's lots of bayonet work today. I
never felt in better trim for it."
They fought that day as they had never fought before, for they had
never felt so strongly that the world would never be a decent place to
live in until their barbarous enemies were humbled to the dust.
The next day the old Thirty-seventh was ordered to take up its position
at a bridgehead that it was of the utmost importance should be strongly
held. The enemy attacks were converging there, and it was evident that
they were planning to cross the river in force. The country behind the
American troops was flat and difficult to defend, and if the enemy
should make good his crossing the consequences to the Allied cause
might prove serious.
The enemy advance had reached the further side of the river, which at
that point was about two hundred yards in width. A fierce artillery
duel was kept up between the hostile forces. A wooden bridge with
stone arches afforded the only means of crossing, and this was swept by
such a fierce shell fire from the Allied guns that it did not seem as
though anything could live on it for a moment.
As an additional precaution the bridge had been secretly mined by the
Allied engineers. Electric wires ran to the concealed charges.
A pressure of a button--and the bridge would be reduced to atoms.