ALTERED PLANS
Fred's horse did for him what he could scarcely have done for himself in
time. It reared and threw him, then bolted. Tired already, the sudden
appearance of the monstrous ray of light and the roar of the approaching
motor was too much for that horse. Fred was not hurt by the fall. Having
had no stirrups from which to disengage his feet, he was able to let
himself go. And he had no sooner landed than he was up. For just a
moment, he knew he must be plainly visible in the glare of the
searchlight. But he dashed for the side of the road and made his way
through a hedge and into the field on the other side. There he began to
run as fast and as hard as he could.
He had two chances, he thought. One, that he had not been seen at all;
the other, that whoever was in the car might think he had passed on the
flying horse. If he had been seen, however, he could not hope to escape
by running. He was too tired, for one thing, after the strenuous
experience of the previous night, and for another, he was almost certain
to be seen, for after he had traversed a space that was covered with
shrubs and young trees, he would be in the open. And a bullet could
travel faster than he could.
And so, after making his dash, he stopped running and threw himself
down, facing the road, to watch and to listen. At first he thought he
was safe, for the car roared by. But in a moment his ear caught a
different note in the sound of the motor, and then the engine stopped.
It started again in a moment, but now the headlight was coming toward
him again! The car had been turned around. It was back, undoubtedly, to
look for him. Still he decided not to run, but to stay where he was,
though every instinct prompted him to take the chance of flight. That,
however, was pure panic, and he fought against the impulse.
The car came along slowly. He was not more than a hundred feet from the
road, and the headlight showed him the progress of the car. Its
blinding light, however, made it impossible for him to see the car
itself or its occupants. It gave them the advantage. Finally the car
stopped, and he groaned. It had stopped exactly opposite his
hiding-place! He had hoped that they would not be able to tell just
where he had left the road, but in a moment the explanation came to him.
He had trampled down the hedge in getting through, of course, and had
left a trail that a child might have followed.
Then the headlight was switched off, and for a moment he lost the car
altogether. His ears, rather than his eyes, told him that someone was
coming. He heard the breaking down of the hedge, and then footsteps
moving slowly, but coming closer. And in a moment he saw a little
stabbing ray of light that wandered back and forth. Whoever was stalking
him was evidently not afraid of him.
Suddenly he remembered his pistol, the one he had taken from Schmidt's
holster. He gripped it convulsively. After all, he was not as helpless
as he had believed. He waited. Should he risk all now, with a shot--a
shot that might warn this stalker off and give him another chance to
escape, even though there were others in the car? He drew out the
pistol, and cocked it. Then, at the faint sound, a voice called to him
out of the darkness.
"Do not fire! It is I--Ivan! Ivan Ivanovitch!"
For a moment Fred thought he was going to collapse, so great was the
relief and the slackening of tension. He did laugh out, but caught
himself at once.
"Ivan!" he said. "I thought it was a German officer! It is I, Ivan--Fred
Waring!"
"I knew it," said Ivan, coming up close. "I saw you for just a second as
your horse reared. It was just a flash of your face, but if I have ever
seen a face once, I never forget it. And you have the look of a Suvaroff
about you, even though you are different. I would have known you for one
of the breed had I met you anywhere in the world, had no one told me
who you were. And so I turned to find you and follow you."
"But what are you doing here? I thought you were to rejoin our own
army?"
"I was pressed into service as a chauffeur. This car was needed near the
front, and there was no one to drive it. I deceived them wholly, with my
uniform, and my motorcycle. And so they forced this car upon me! My plan
was to use it, instead of my cycle, to get past their lines."
"But you are riding straight to Gumbinnen--and they are near there in
force!"
"No, they have retreated from there. They know that we are too strong
for them, and they do not care to fight."
"Yes, and do you know why? Because they have been bringing troops up
secretly to Insterberg, and are planning to fight a great battle there
on their own grounds! You were wrong, Ivan, in the information you
sent."
Wasting no words, he quickly told of what he had learned that evening.
And Ivan smote his hands together for he was deeply troubled.
"And I thought I knew all their plans!" he said, savagely. "If the staff
had acted upon my information, we should have marched into a trap!"
"Now I must get to the wireless," said Fred. "That was what I meant to
do when you frightened my horse there in the road."
"Come, I will drive you back. It will not take long, and your work is
more important than mine now. It is safe, too. You can be hidden in the
car in case we encounter any Germans. But that is not likely. They are
not as thick in this district as they were forty-eight hours ago."
They made their way together to the car, and Fred laughed.
"I don't think I was ever so scared as when you turned and came back. It
was worse, in a way, than when they were going to shoot me in the
parsonage garden. I'd been so sure I was safe--and then to hear that
bugle call on your car!"
"It is not right for you to run such risks," said Ivan. "I wish you were
behind our lines! You are not even a Russian, and yet you have been
near to death for us."
"Don't you worry about me!" said Fred. "I don't suppose that I would
have started this, but when I was pushed into it as I was, I feel like
doing all I can. If the Germans had caught me when Boris hid me in the
tunnel, they would have treated me like an enemy, so I thought I might
as well give them a good excuse, since they were going to do it anyhow."
"Here we are," said Ivan. "Even if you were frightened, this may turn
out well. You will save some time, and I can take you to the very
opening of the tunnel."
"Well, it's only fair for this car to do me a good turn after the fright
it gave me," said Fred.
Ivan drove swiftly when they started again. On that deserted road,
through a country that had been blasted by the approach of war, though
as yet there had been no actual fighting, there was no reason for
cautious driving. And five minutes brought them to the parsonage, and so
to a point as close to the opening of the tunnel as the car could go.
As the motor stopped Ivan swore in surprise.
"Look!" he said.
To the west there were a dozen darting searchlights winking back and
forth across the sombre sky. And below the searchlights were hundreds of
tiny points of fire.
"They're advancing!" he cried. "And listen!"
From the east there came a dull sound that rose presently to a steady,
loud roar.
"Everything has changed!" cried Ivan, his face white. "We are pushing
the attack--we must have occupied Gumbinnen! The Germans are being
driven back--and they are bringing up their supports! They must mean to
fight here to protect the railway! This place will be the centre of a
battle before morning! I shall give up my plan. The only thing that
counts now is to get word to the staff of what is going on back here!
Come!"
"What about the car?"
"If it is still here after we have sent word, good! If it is not, we
must do without it."
Ivan began running toward the mouth of the tunnel. But Fred, before he
followed, switched off the lights and ran the car off the side of the
road, so that it was under the wall of the parsonage garden and
sheltered, to a certain extent, by the heavy foliage of a large tree,
whose branches overhung the wall.
"I'd like to think that that car was where we could get at it," he said
to himself. "I have an idea that this place is going to be mighty
unpleasant before long."
Then he followed Ivan. The Russian had already entered the tunnel. Fred,
when he followed him, heard him running up the long passage that led up
to the house. Before he could reach the opening, however, he heard other
steps coming toward him, and a moment later Boris was heaping reproaches
on him.
"I thought they had caught you!" he cried. "I saw them chasing someone,
and it looked like you. In fact, I was sure it was you at first sight."
"It was," said Fred, grimly. "I'll tell you about that later, Boris!
You'd better get everyone out of this place. We can't stay here any
longer. Unless I'm greatly mistaken, this will be used as a target for
artillery by morning. It will if Ivan is right."
"He rushed by me just now. He would say nothing except that you were
behind."
"He's at the wireless. Come on! We'll see if he has found out anything
more."
For ten minutes after they reached the turret, they could get nothing
out of Ivan, who was sending hard, with only an occasional pause to
listen to what the other operator sent to him. Then he sat back with a
sigh of relief.
"We were in time!" he said. "These troops back here are the ones that
were supposed to be massing behind Liok, to resist the feint we were
making there. They are too clever, those Germans! They have their
airships to tell them the truth, and their railways to move men swiftly
from one side to another. But they have not enough men! We shall beat
them yet. Our attack will stop. See--look here!"
He moved to a table, and with pens and pencils made a rough diagram of
the position.
"They gave up Gumbinnen without a fight, and formed in a half circle
behind. They had so few men there that it was an invitation to us to try
to outflank them. Our right could sweep out and draw in behind their
left--so. And then their supporting troops could outflank our right, in
turn, and it would be caught between two fires! They have fewer troops
than we in East Prussia to-day, but ours are separated, while they
risked all to bring all theirs together at this one point and left the
south unguarded from Mlawa to Liok! Oh, it was daring--Napoleon might
have planned that!"
"I see," said Fred. "Then when they had won here, they could have used
their railway to move troops southward?"
"Exactly so! A hundred and fifty thousand men all together can beat a
hundred thousand, if all else is equal. But one army of a hundred
thousand can beat two of seventy-five thousand apiece, meeting them at
different times. So our attack will stop. We shall leave a covering
force here at Gumbinnen--or perhaps all our troops here will stay, but
on the defensive, while others are rushed up from Grodno to outflank
them, not on their right, as they hoped, but on their extreme left!"
He was silent for a moment.
"I need one man here," he said. "One man, to keep the engine running for
the dynamo. Everyone else must leave this house. You, Boris Petrovitch,
most of all--you and your cousin. I am responsible to your father for
your safety for it is through my fault that the plans were badly made."
"But why must you stay, Ivan?" asked Boris.
"I must stay until I am ordered away," said Ivan. "But it will not be
safe here after daylight--perhaps there will be trouble even before
that. Yes, I think it will be very soon now."
"Well, I think I shall stay," said Fred.
"No," said Ivan. "Listen! If you go now, quickly, you can get away in
the car. Here is the road you must follow." He took a map and pointed.
"See--swing west first, and then south--far south. So you will be safe
from the Germans, for they have abandoned that section except for the
railway from Insterberg to Liok. That is guarded, but thinly. In the car
are two long coats such as the German officers wear, and two helmets.
They are under the rear seat. Put those on, and you will pass most of
their sentries, if you should encounter them."
"If he says we must go, we must do it," said Boris, quickly. "I should
like to stay, too, Fred, but he is right. We can do no good here, and if
you are caught it will be very bad. It would not matter with me, for
they would only treat me as a prisoner."
Fred was still unwilling. He had not Boris's Russian readiness to accept
whatever came, but there was something about Ivan that convinced him
that argument would be useless.
"Go now," said Ivan, "and God go with you! I will see to it that
Vladimir and the others follow."
And so Fred went through the tunnel again, this time with Boris. He
wondered if he would ever see this place again.