"THERES MANY A SLIP--"
Once inside the house, Fred found a scene of orderly confusion. That is,
it looked like confusion to him, but he could see that, for all the
bustling and the hurrying that went on, everyone knew just what his part
in the work was. Telephone bells were ringing all the time, and Fred
noticed now that wires entered the house through the dining-room window.
Evidently a field telephone system had been installed and connected this
house with a whole region, of which, in a military way, it seemed to be
the brain. Then Fred heard a voice that he recognized at once, and
started at the sound, until he placed it as that of the captain who had
taken Boris away, and remembered that the captain had not seen him, even
before he was disguised.
Fred's work, he soon found, was simplicity itself. He was to do the
bidding of any officer. He was sent on errands, from one part of the
house to another; often he carried written messages, handed to him by
staff officers, to the room in which three telegraph operators were hard
at work. Generally speaking, he was there to do odd jobs and make
himself generally useful. Luckily, he was taken for granted. Everyone
seemed assured that he was one of the village boys, pressed into service
because he happened to be the first one to come along.
But for the first hour or so it was impossible for him to make any
attempt to discover if Boris was still in the house. He was too busy,
and he dared not spoil his opportunity to learn something really worth
while by seeming to spy about. He was rewarded before long for his
patience, for just as he was beginning to despair, an officer spied him
in a moment when he was not actively engaged upon some errand.
"Here, boy," called the officer, "take this tray!"
Fred took a tray from a soldier who was holding it awkwardly.
"Take it upstairs to the room on the third floor where a sentry is on
guard. He will let you in. When the prisoner there has finished his
meal, return with the tray to the kitchen. Do not let any knife or fork
or spoon stay in the room when you go. So you will make yourself really
useful and release a man who can do things for which you are too young."
It seemed to Fred, as he started upstairs with his tray, that this luck
was almost too good to be true. He scarcely dared to hope for what had
seemed to him the inevitable explanation of his errand. But when the
sentry opened the door of the locked room, and he looked in, he saw
Boris sitting dejectedly on the side of a bed. It was all he could do to
suppress a cry of delight, but he managed it, and he was hugely tickled
as he saw Boris's indifferent glance at him. His disguise must be good,
or Boris would have known him. He put the tray down, and then walked to
the window. He looked down first, and then up. Then with a grin, he
turned to his cousin.
"Not a word," he said, quickly. "Do you know me?"
Boris stared; then a smile broke out all over his face. There was no
need for him to put his answer into words. Fred came very close.
"Speak low, but do not whisper," he said. "Tell me, what have they done
to you?"
"Nothing. Colonel Goldapp has been too busy to see me."
"I don't wonder! Boris, this is no colonel's headquarters. It is more
like that of an army corps. And there is at least one general here. His
name is von Hindenburg."
"Von Hindenburg? He is commander-in-chief in East Prussia! If he is
here, there must be a German concentration in this region! They did not
expect that! Oh, I must get out and get the news back--"
"Yes. The wireless is working. I talked this afternoon to Suwalki."
And in a few words he told Boris the essential facts of what had
happened since the raid upon the great house on the hill on that
morning.
"How often do they come in here?" he asked.
"Only when my meals are brought to me. There will be no one else now
to-night, I think, unless Colonel Goldapp sends for me. They are very
polite. I think I shall be alone most of the time. They have no idea
that I will try to get away, because they think I know they have so many
sentries and patrols about that it would be useless for me to try to do
it."
"Listen, then, Boris. I will go now. I think they will let me go now. I
have been working hard for them about the house. But I will come back
later. Stay near your window, so that I can see a handkerchief if you
hold it. Then I will throw up a stone with a string tied about, and you
can draw up a rope and slip down. If this general is so important we
ought to let them know. I will send the word by wireless and then come
back."
"Good! It is risky for you. They wouldn't spare you if they caught you
trying to help me to get away. But if you can manage it at all, have
clothes like the ones you wear ready for me, in a bundle. Vladimir will
get them for you."
Fred nodded, and was off at once. He was detained a little time when he
went down with the tray, but he pleaded finally with a kindly looking
officer, telling him that he was very tired, and had not expected to
stay away from home so long, and was allowed to go. He went to the
opening of the tunnel, found that the place was unguarded, and decided
from the general appearance of the hollow that it was not visited by
soldiers. Indeed, it was within the outer line of sentries, and, in a
way, safer because of that. Had it been beyond that line, it would have
been much harder to reach.
The operator at Suwalki, when he called him by wireless, complained
bitterly, saying that he had been trying for hours to get an answer.
Boris's father had been heard from and was extremely anxious to get into
touch with his son. But it seemed the news that Fred sent made up for
this. The man at Suwalki was incredulous.
"Our information is that General von Hindenburg is many miles from
where you are," he flashed back. "Are you sure of your facts?"
"Absolutely sure," Fred answered. "Do you want the exact location of the
house used as headquarters? I can describe it for you if you have the
village shown on your map."
"Yes. Give it to me," came the answer.
Before he finished his wireless talk, Fred felt that the Russian
operator did not fully trust him. Nor did he blame him. He knew the
excellence of the German spy system; he had heard a good deal about it
from Boris, and, for that matter, before he had even seen Boris at all.
So he only laughed, though he hoped that this feeling would not prevent
the Russians from using the information he had given. He could not see
just how it was to be useful to them, however. Possibly the fact that
von Hindenburg was here, and not to the south, was the important thing.
By this time it was growing dark, and Fred decided that it would soon be
safe to try to throw the cord up to Boris's window--as safe, at least,
as it would ever be. He got a bundle of clothes from Vladimir, and this
time he determined to travel through the tunnel, since he knew that if
he went by the outside route he would have trouble in getting through
the sentries. Luck was with him again. He was nervous as he opened the
door and came out into the night, but there was no one about. At a
little distance he could hear steady footsteps; evidently a sentry was
walking his beat near by. But Fred's scout training had taught him how
to move quietly and he slipped through the gully and toward the house
without raising an alarm.
Once he was on the right side of the house, he found shelter in a clump
of bushes, where, unseen himself, he could study the situation. His
first thought was of the house. He soon found the window of Boris's
room. Immediately below it were the windows of corresponding rooms, and
one of these was lighted. This made him pause at once. For the rope to
be drawn up, or for Boris to show himself before that lighted window
for even the moment of a swift descent, might well be fatal. That was
one point, but he speedily devised a way of overcoming that.
There was another danger to be considered, and it took him longer to
calculate this. Naturally there was a patrol about the house. Fred
himself had had to avoid the sentry, making his steady round. Now he lay
in the bushes and timed the man's appearances for nearly half an hour.
There were two men, as a matter of fact, and they met on each circling
of the house. Fortunately, their meeting came at the very end of the
garden. So Fred was able to work out a sort of mental chart of their
movements, and to confirm it by timing them. The two sentries met on his
side of the house at the eastern end. The first walked west, the second
north. The one who walked west had his back to Fred and to the window
where Boris waited for a minute. Then he, too, turned north. Then came a
blessed interval of just a minute, in which neither sentry was in sight.
Altogether, there was a period of almost two minutes in which no eye
would be fixed on Boris's window, unless the sentry chanced to turn and
look back.
To make sure, Fred studied both men. And not once did either of them
look back or up. Their attention did not seem to centre on the house at
all. It was as if their instructions were more to prevent a surprise
attack from outside, or the coming of some spy, than to watch those who
were already in the house.
Once he had made up his mind, Fred buried himself deeper in the
shrubbery and risked using his pocket flashlight while he wrote a note
to Boris, telling him what he had learned of the movements of the
sentries. He told Boris, also, not to draw up the rope at once, but to
climb from his window to the flat roof, something easy enough to manage,
and then to move along five paces. There the rope, when it was drawn up,
would be invisible against the grey stone of the house wall, whereas,
against a lighted window, it would show up so plainly that the most
stupid sentry would be sure to see it.
Fred had substituted a tennis ball for the stone he had originally
intended to throw. The ball had many advantages. In case his aim was
bad, the ball would not make a noise if it fell or if it struck against
the wall, while the sound of a stone would have betrayed them had he
failed to put it through the window. Now he tied his note to the ball,
making it firm and secure with the end of a ball of twine. About his
body he had coiled a long, very thin, very strong rope. After Boris had
the end of the cord he would fasten the rope to his end, and so enable
Boris to draw it up. And to guard against losing the end of the cord, he
tied it to his own left wrist.
He waited for the sentries to meet; gave the one who stayed on his side
a start, and then, taking careful aim, threw his ball. At home Fred had
played baseball. More than once a game had depended on the accuracy of
his toss of a hot grounder to the first baseman. In basketball games, he
had stood, with the score tied, to shoot for the basket on a foul, when
the outcome was to be settled by the accuracy of his throw. But never
had he been as nervous as he was now. The ball flew straight and true,
however. He saw it enter the window. And the next moment a tug on his
wrist told him that Boris had it.
He waited breathlessly. Then two short pulls signalled that Boris had
read his note and would follow his instructions. He gave three sharp
tugs, and then settled down to wait, with beating heart, for now the
crucial test was coming. The other sentry was about to appear. If he
noticed the thin string, by any chance, the whole scheme would be
spoiled and Fred, in all probability, would be caught and treated as a
spy.
The man came around the corner of the house, walking slowly, his head
down. As he neared the twine he stopped for just a moment and looked up.
Fred scarcely dared to breathe. He knew what had happened. The twine had
brushed against the sentry's cheek. But then a puff of wind carried it
away, and the man went on, brushing at his cheek, thinking, perhaps, a
moth had touched it.
One sharp tug of the twine. That was the signal to Boris to go ahead.
His eyes strained on the window, Fred saw his cousin's figure appear on
the sill, saw him climbing swiftly up a water pipe, and then saw him
drop to the flat roof, hidden for the moment by a low parapet. Then
there was another period of agonized waiting, for again a sentry was to
pass. Fred used the brief interval of enforced inaction to loosen the
rope and place it on the ground, tied to the loose end of the twine he
took from his wrist, so that it would have a clear passage through the
bushes. Then the coast was clear again, and he signalled to Boris to
draw it up. Up, up went the twine; then the rope started. And at last it
dangled against the side of the house. Fred, knowing it was there, could
scarcely see it himself. He decided that the sentries would never notice
it.
Then came the last pause. And when the sentry had passed the rope, Boris
slipped over the parapet and started his descent. He had to come quickly
for he had less than two minutes to reach the ground and join Fred in
his shelter. Down he came, hand over hand, so fast at the end, when he
just slid, letting the rope slip through his fingers, that he must have
burned the skin from his palms. But he made it, and came running toward
Fred. He was crouched low against the ground. But, just before he
reached the bushes there was a shout from above, a flash, a loud report.
A bullet sang over Fred's head, and the next moment the garden was alive
with rushing, shouting men, ablaze with flashing points of electric
light. They tried to hide in the shrubbery. But in vain. At this last
moment, when Fred's plan had seemed sure of success, disaster had
come--for some German officer, going on the roof, had been just in time
to see the rope and spoil everything with his chance shot!