UNDER ARREST
So it was arranged for Fred Waring, thousands of miles from home, to
start from Virballen. The lieutenant who had saved him from Suvaroff
lent him what money he could spare, though all told it was less than a
hundred marks, which is twenty dollars.
"Good-bye, and good luck go with you," said Ernst. "If we do not meet
again it will be a real good-bye. If you can send the money back, let it
go to my mother in Danzig. If you cannot, do not let it worry you! If
any people ask you questions, answer them quickly. If any tell you to
stop, stop! Remember that this is war time and every stranger is
suspected. You will be in no danger if you will remember to answer
questions and obey orders."
"Thank you again--and good-bye," said Fred. He had known this German
officer for only a few minutes, but he felt that he was parting from a
good friend, and, indeed, he was. Not many men would have been so
considerate and so kindly, especially at such a time, to a strange boy
from a foreign land, and one, moreover, who had certainly not come with
the best of recommendations. "I--I hope you'll come through all right."
"That's to be seen," said Ernst, with a shrug of the shoulders. "In war
who can tell? We take our chances, we who live by the sword. If a
Russian is to get me, he will do so, and it will not help to be afraid,
or to think of the chances that I may not see the end of what has been
begun to-night! We have been getting ready for years. Now we shall know
before long if we have done enough. The test has come for us of the
fatherland."
And then Fred said a bold thing.
"I can wish you good luck and a safe return, Lieutenant," he said. "But
I can't wish that your country may be victorious because my mother,
after all, was a Russian."
"I wouldn't ask that of you," said Ernst, with a laugh. "Even though it
is Prince Suvaroff's country, too?"
"There are Germans you do not like, I suppose--who are even your
enemies," said Fred. "Yet now you will forget all that, will you not?"
"God helping us, yes!" said Ernst. "You are right. Your heart must be
with your own. But you don't seem like a Russian, or I would not be
helping you."
Then Fred was off, going on his way into the darkness alone. Ernst had
told him which road to follow, telling him that if he stuck to it he
would not be likely to run into any troop movements.
"Don't see too much. That is a good rule for one who is in a country at
war," he had advised. "If you know nothing, you cannot tell the enemy
anything useful, and there will be less reason for our people to make
trouble for you. Your only real danger lies in being taken for a spy.
And if you are careful not to learn things, that will not be a very
great one."
Fred was not at all afraid, as a matter of fact, as he set out. Before
he had stepped across the mark that stood for the border he had been
hugely depressed. He had been friendless and alone. He had been worse
than friendless, indeed, since the only man for many miles about who
knew him was his bitter enemy. Now he had found that he could still
inspire a man like Ernst with belief in his truthfulness and honesty,
and the knowledge did him a lot of good. And then, of course, he had
another excellent reason for not being afraid. He was entirely ignorant
of the particular dangers that were ahead of him. He had no conception
at all of what lay before him, and it does not require bravery not to
fear a danger the very existence of which one is entirely without
knowledge.
The idea of walking all through the summer night, as Ernst had advised
him to do, did not seem bad to him at all. As a scout at home, he had
taken part in many a hike, and if few of them had been at night, he was
still thoroughly accustomed to being out-of-doors, without even the
shelter of a tent or a lean-to. Nor was he afraid of losing his way, for
as long as the stars shone above, as they did brilliantly now, he had a
sure guide.
Fred wasn't tired, for he had enraged Suvaroff, who had seemingly wanted
him to be frightened, by sleeping during the journey to Virballen
whenever he could. It had been comfortable enough on the train; he had
not been treated as a prisoner, but as a guest. And he had, as a matter
of fact, been aroused only an hour before the train had reached the
frontier.
So he had been able to start out boldly and confidently. In the country
through which he was now tramping the nights are cool in summer, but the
days are very hot. So Fred had made up his mind, as soon as he
understood that he had a good deal of walking before him, to do as much
of his traveling as was possible by night, and to sleep during the day.
In East Prussia, as in some parts of Canada, the summer is short and
hot; the winter long and cold.
There was nothing about the silent countryside, as he tramped along an
excellent road, to make him think of war. The fields about him seemed to
be planted less with grain; they were very largely used for pasture, and
he saw a good many horses. He remembered now that this was the great
horse breeding district of Germany. Here there were great estates with
many acres of rolling land on which great numbers of horses were bred.
It was here, he knew, that the German army, needing great numbers of
horses every year, found its mounts.
"They'll need more than ever now," he thought to himself. "If there's
really to be war, I suppose they'll take every horse that's able to work
at all, whether it's a good looking beast or not. Poor horses! They
don't have much chance, I guess."
He thought of the Cossacks he had seen in Russia, wiry, small men, in
the main, mounted on shaggy, strong, little horses, no bigger in reality
than ponies. He had heard of the prowess of the Cossacks, of course.
They had fought well in the past in a good many wars. But somehow it
seemed rather absurd to match them, with their undersized horses,
against magnificent specimens of men and horseflesh such as the German
cavalry. He had passed a squadron of Uhlans, near Virballen, outlined
against the sky. They had been grim and business-like in appearance. But
then the Cossacks were that, too, though in an entirely different way.
"I wish I had someone along!" he thought, at last.
That was when the dawn was beginning to break. Off to the east the sun
was beginning to rise, and in the grey half light before full day there
was something stark and gaunt about the country. Before him smoke was
rising, probably from a village. But that sign of human habitation, that
certain indication that people were near, somehow only made him feel
lonelier than he had been in the starlit darkness of the night. This
would be good enough fun, if only one of his many friends back home were
along--Jack French, or Steve Vedder. It was with them that he had
shared such adventures in the past. And yet not just such adventures,
either. This was more real than anything his adventures as a Boy Scout
had brought him, though he belonged to a patrol that got in a lot of
outdoor work, and that camped out every summer in a practical way.
Being alone took some of the zest out of what had seemed, once
Lieutenant Ernst's loan had saved him from his most pressing worry,
likely to be a bully adventure. Now it seemed rather flat and stale. But
that was partly because having tramped all night, he was really
beginning to be tired. So he went on to the village, and there he found
a little inn, where he got a good breakfast and a bed, in which, as soon
as he had eaten his meal, he was sound asleep.
Few men were about the village when he went in. He had noticed, however,
the curious little throng, early as it was, about a bulletin ominously
headed, "Kriegzustand!" That meant mobilization and war. The men had
answered the call already, all except those who were too old to spring
to arms at once. Some of the older ones, he knew, would be called out,
too, for garrison duty, so that younger men might go to the front.
In his sleep he had many dreams, but the most insistent one was made up
of the tramp of heavy feet and the blowing of bugles and the rattling of
horses' feet. And this wasn't a dream at all, for when he awoke it was
to find a soldier shaking him roughly by the shoulders, and ordering him
to get up. And outside were all the sounds of his dream. The sun was
high for he had been asleep for several hours. So he got up willingly
enough, and hurried his dressing because he remembered what Ernst had
told him. Then he followed the soldier downstairs, and found himself the
prisoner in an impromptu sort of court-martial.
Really, it wasn't as bad as that. Considering that he had no passports
and nothing, in fact, to show who he was, and that no responsible person
could vouch for him, he was very lucky. It was because he was a boy, and
obviously an American boy, that he got off so easily. For after he had
answered a few questions, a major explained the situation to him very
punctiliously.
"You must be detained here for two or three days," said the major. "This
is an important concentration district, and many things will happen that
no foreigner can be allowed to see. We believe absolutely that you are
not unfriendly, and that you have no intention of reporting anything you
might chance to learn to an enemy. But in time of war we may not take
any risks, and you will, therefore, be required to remain in this
village under observation.
"Within the village limits you will be as free as if you were at home,
in your own country. You will not be allowed to pass them, however, and
if you try to do so a sentry will shoot you. As soon as certain
movements are completed, you will be at liberty to pass on, on your way
to Koenigsberg. I will add to Lieutenant Ernst's advice. When you reach
Koenigsberg, after you have reported yourself to the police, wait there
until a train can take you to Berlin. It will mean only a few days of
waiting, for at Koenigsberg there are already many refugees, and the
authorities want to get them to Berlin as soon as the movements of troop
trains allow the railway to be reopened for passenger traffic."
Fred agreed to all this. There was nothing else for him to do, for one
thing, and, for another, he was by no means unwilling to see whatever
there might be to be seen here. He could guess by this time that without
any design he had stumbled on a spot that was reckoned rather important
by the Germans, for the time being at least, and he had heard enough
about the wonderful efficiency of the German army to be anxious to see
that mighty machine in the act of getting ready to move.
He did see a good deal, as a matter of fact, that day and the next. It
was on the famous Saturday night of the first of August that he had left
Virballen. Sunday brought news of a clash with France, far away on the
western border, and of the German invasion of Belgium. Monday brought
word of a definite declaration of war between Germany and France, and
of the growing danger that England, too, might be involved.
And all of Sunday and all of Monday supplies of all sorts poured through
the little village in an unceasing stream. Motor cars and trucks were to
be seen in abundance, and Fred caught his first glimpse, which was not
to be his last, of the wonderful German field kitchens, in the mighty
ovens of which huge loaves of bread were being baked even while the
whole clumsy looking apparatus was on the move. But it only looked
clumsy. Like everything else about the German army, this was a practical
and efficient, well tried device.
Then suddenly, early on Tuesday, he was told that he was free to go, or
would be by nightfall. And that day all signs of the German army, save a
small force of Uhlans, vanished from the village. That evening,
refreshed and ready for the road again, Fred set out. And that same
evening, though he did not know it until the next day, England entered
the war against Germany.