The Guns of Europe/Chapter VII

THE brilliant sunlight faded into gray, but the European twilight lingers, and it was long before night came. John and Lannes stood beside the Arrow, and for a while neither spoke. They were listening to the thunder of the great guns and they were trying to imagine how the battle was swaying over the distant and darkening fields. The last of the air scouts had disappeared in the dusk.

"The sound doesn't seem to move," said Lannes, "and our men must be holding their own for the present. Still, it's hard to tell about the location of sound."

"How far away do you think it is ?"

"Many miles. We only hear the giant cannon. Beneath it there must be a terrible crash of guns and rifles. I've heard, John, that the Germans have sev- enteen-inch howitzers, firing shells weighing more than two thousand pounds, and France furnishes the finest roads in the world for them to move on."

He spoke with bitterness, but in an instant or two he changed his tone and said:

"At any rate we haven't made a god out of war, and that's why we haven't seventeen-inch cannon. Perhaps by not setting up such a god we've gained something else—republican fire and spirit that nothing can overcome."

The twilight now deepened and the darkness increased fast in the wood, but the deep thunder on the western horizon did not cease. John thought he saw flashes of fire from the giant cannon, but he was not sure. It might be sheaves of rays shot off by the sunken sun, or, again, it might be his imagination, always vivid, but stimulated to the last degree by the amazing scenes through which he was passing.

After a while, although the throb of the great guns still came complete darkness enveloped the grove. It seemed now to John that the sound had moved farther westward, but Lannes had just shown such keen emotion that he would not say the Germans were pushing their way farther into France. However, Lannes himself noticed it. Presently he said:

"The battle goes against us, but you may be sure of one thing, Monsieur Jean the Scott, we were heavily outnumbered and the German artillery must have been in caliber as four to our one."

"I've no doubt it's so," said John with abundant sympathy.

"The fire seems to be dying. Probably the night is ,too dark for the combat to go on. What do you think we ought to do, John ?"

"You're the airman, Phil. I'm only a raw beginner."

"But a beginner who has learned fast. I think the sound of that battle in France has weakened my nerve for the moment, and I want your advice. I ask for it again."

"Then suppose we stay where we are. This isn't a bad little forest, as forests go in Europe, and in the night, at least, it's pretty dark. The enemy is all around us, and in the air over our heads. Suppose we sleep here beside the Arrow."

"That's a good sound Yankee head of yours, John. Just as you think, it would be dangerous for us to run either on land or in the air, and so we'll stay here and take the chances. I secured two blankets at the village, and each will have one. .You go to sleep, John, and I'll take the first watch."

"No, I'll take the first. You need rest more than I do. You've been sailing the Arrow, and, besides, your nerves have been tried harder by the echo of that battle. Just for a little while I mean to boss. 'Boss,' I'll explain to you, means in our American idiom a commander, a Napoleon. Now, stop talking, wrap yourself in your blanket and go to sleep."

"I obey. But keep your automatic handy."

He fell asleep almost instantly, and John, lying near with his own blanket about him, kept watch over him and the Arrow. He did not feel sleepy at all. His nerves had been keyed to too high a pitch for rest to come yet. His situation and the scenes through which he had passed were so extraordinary that certain faculties seemed to have become blunted. Although surrounded by many dangers all sensation of fear was gone.

The blanket was sufficient protection even against the cool European night, and he had found a soft and comfortable place on the turf. The wood was silent, save for the rustle of a stray breeze among the leaves. Far in the night he heard twice the faint boom of the giant cannon deep down on the western horizon. For all he knew the sounds may have come from a point twenty miles away.

He walked a little distance from the Arrow, and listened intently. But after the two shots the west was silent. The earth settled back into gloom and darkness. He returned to the Arrow and found that Lannes was still sleeping heavily, his face pale from exertion and from the painful emotions that he had felt.

John was sorry for him, sorry from the bottom of his heart. Love of country was almost universal, and it must be almost death to a man, whose native land, having been trodden deep once, was about to be trodden again by the same foe.

He went once more to the little stream and took another drink. He sat by its banks a few minutes, and listened to its faint trickle, a pleasant soothing sound, like the almost unheard sigh of the wind. Then he returned to his usual place near the Arrow.

Dead stillness reigned in the grove. There was no wind and the leaves ceased to rustle. Not another note came from the battle of the nations beyond the western horizon. The Arrow and its master both lay at peace on the turf. The stillness, the heavy quiet oppressed John. He had been in the woods at night many times at home, but there one heard the croaking of frogs at the water's edge, the buzzing of insects, and now and then the cry of night birds, but here in this degenerate forest nothing stirred, and the air was absolutely pulseless.

Time began to lengthen. He looked at his watch, but it was not yet midnight, and Lannes was still motionless and sleeping. He had resolved, as most of the strain had fallen upon his comrade, to let him sleep far beyond his allotted half, and he walked about again, but soundlessly, in order to keep his faculties awake and keen.

The night had been dark. Many clouds were floating between him and the moon. He looked up at them, and it seemed incredible now that beyond them human beings could float above the thunder and lightning, and look up at the peaceful moon and stars. Yet he had been there, not in any wild dash of a few minutes, but in a great flight which swept over nights and days.

His early thoughts were true. A long era had ended, and now one, charged with wonders and mar- vals, had begun. This mighty war was the signal of the change, and it would not be confined to the physical world. The mind and soul would undergo like changes. People would never look at things in the same way. There had been such mental revolutions in the long past, and it was not against nature for another to come now.

John was thoughtful, perhaps beyond his years, but he had been subjected to tremendous emotions. The unparalleled convulsion of the old world was enough to make even the foolish think. Event and surmise passed and repassed through his mind, while he walked up and down in the wood. Hours crept slowly by, the clouds drifted away, and the moon came out in a gush of silver. The stars, great and small, danced in a sky that was always blue, beyond the veil.

He came back for the third time to the brook. He was thirsty that night, but before he knelt down to drink he paused and every muscle suddenly became rigid. He was like one of those early borderers in his own land who had heard a sinister sound in the thicket. It was little, a slight ring of steel, but every nerve in John was alive on the instant.

Still obeying the instincts of ancestors, he knelt down among the trees. His vivid fancy might be at work once more! And then it might not! The ringing of steel on steel came again, then a second time and nearer. He slid noiselessly forward, and lay with his ear to the earth. Now he heard other sounds, and among them one clear note, the steady tread of hoofs.

Calvary were approaching the grove, but which? German or French? John knew that he ought to go and awake Lannes at once, but old inherited instincts, suddenly leaping into power, held him. By some marvelous mental process he reverted to a period generations ago. His curiosity was great, and his confidence in his powers absolute.

He dragged himself twenty or thirty yards along the edge of the brook toward the tread of hoofs, and soon he heard them with great distinctness. Mingled with the sound was the jingling of bits and the occasional impact of a steel lance-head upon another. John believed now that they were Germans and he began to creep away from the brook, toward which the troop was coming directly. It was not possible to estimate well from sound, but he thought they numbered at least five hundred.

He was back thirty yards from the brook, lying flat in the grass, when the heads of horses and men emerged from the shadows. The helmets showed him at once that they were the Uhlans, and without the helmets the face of the leader alone was sufficient to tell him that the Prussian horsemen had ridden into the wood.

The one who rode first with his helmet thrown back a little was Rudolf von Boehlen, the man with whom John had talked at Dresden, and who had made such an impression upon him. He had known the scholarly Prussian, the industrial Prussian, and the simple good-natured Prussian of the soil, but here was the Prussian to whom the first god was Mars, with the Kaiser as his prophet. It was he, and such as he, who ruled the industrious and kindly German people, teaching them that might was right, and that they always possessed both.

John saw through the eyes of both fact and fancy. Von Boehlen was a figure of power. Mind and body were now at the work for which they had been trained, and to which the nature of their owner turned them.

Despite his size and weight he sat his horse with lightness and grace, and his cold blue eyes searched the forest for victims rather than foes. John saw in him the product of ceaseless and ruthless training, helped by nature.

But von Boehlen, keen as his eyes were, did not see the figure of the watcher prone in the grass. He let his horse drink at the brook, and others rode up by his side, until there was a long line of horses with their heads bent down to the stream. It occurred to John then that their only purpose in entering the wood was to water their animals. He saw von Boehlen take a map from his pocket, and study it while the horse drank. He was not surprised at the act. He had no doubt that the brook, tiny though it might be, was marked on the map. He had heard that the Germans foresaw everything, attended to the last detail, and now he was seeing a proof of it. How was it possible to beat them!

He did not consider the danger great, as he listened to the long lapping and gurgling sound, made by so many horses drinking. It was likely that the whole troop would ride away in a few minutes, and only a possible chance would take them in the direction where the Arrow and Lannes lay. But the trees grew thickly in the circle about them, and that chance was infinitely small.

The Uhlans, under the lead of von Boehlen, turned presently, and rode back through the edge of the wood into a field, but they went no farther. John, following a safe distance, saw them unsaddle on the grass and make their camp. Then he hurried back to Lan- nes and awoke him gently.

"What! what is it?" exclaimed Lannes. "The Germans in Paris! The capital fallen, you say!"

"No! No! Not so loud! Come out of your dreams! Paris is all right, but there are Uhlans just beyond the edge of the wood, and some scouts of theirs may come tramping here."

Lannes was thoroughly awake in another instant.

"You did not wake me when my time came, John," he said.

"I didn't because you needed the rest more than I did."

"Where did you say the Uhlans were?"

"In a field at the eastern edge of the wood. They are Prussians led by an officer, von Boehlen, whom I saw at Dresden before the war began. They rode into the wood to water their horses, but now they've gone back to make a camp."

"You've certainly watched well, John, and now I suppose we must run again. They follow us in the air and they follow us on the ground. This is a bad trap, John. Suppose you go to von Boehlen, tell him who you are, how you were kidnapped in a way, and throw yourself on his mercy. You'll be safe. The Germans want the friendship of the 'Americans."

"And desert you at such a time? Philip Lannes, you're not worthy to bear the name of the great Marshal!"

Lannes laughed in an embarrassed manner.

"It was merely an offer," he said. "I didn't expect you to accept it."

"You knew I wouldn't. Come, think quick, and tell us what we're going to do!"

"You fit fast into your new role of what you call boss, Monsieur Jean the Scott!"

"And I mean to be boss for the next five minutes. Then you will have decided how we're going to escape and you'll resume your place."

"As I said we won't abandon the Arrow, so our passage will be through the air. John, I mean that we shall run the gantlet. We'll pass their air fleet and reach our own."

He spoke in low tones, but they contained the ring1 of daring. John responded. With the ending of the era, the changing of the world, he had changed, too. Shy and sensitive the spirit of adventure flamed up in him. Those flights in the air had touched him with the magic of achievements, impossible, but which yet had been done.

"Suppose we launch the Arrow at once," he said. "I'm ready to try anything with you."

"I knew that, too. One thing in our favor is the number of clouds hanging low in the west, where their air fleet is. It's likely that most of the planes and dirigibles have gone to the ground, but they'll keep enough above to watch. The clouds may enable us to slip by."

"If I had my way I'd wrap myself in the thickest and blackest of the clouds and float westward with it."

"We'll have to go slowly to keep down the drumming of the motor. Now a big push and a long push. So! There! Now we're rising!"

The Arrow, the strength and delicacy of which justified all of Lannes' pride, rose like a feather, and floated gracefully above the trees, where it hung poised for a few minutes. Then, as they were not able to see anything, Lannes took it a few hundred yards higher. There they caught the gleam of steel beyond the wood, and looked down on the camp of Uhlans.

With the aid of the glasses they saw most of the men asleep on the ground, but twenty on horseback kept watch about the field.

"One look is enough," said Lannes. "I hope I'll never see 'em again."

"Maybe not, but there are millions of Germans."

"That's the worst of it. Millions of 'em and all armed and ready. John, I've chosen our road. We'll go north by west, and I think we'd better rise high. During the night the German machines are likely to hang low, and we may be able to pass over 'em without detection. What do you think of those clouds?"

"They're not drifting much. They may hide us as a fog hides a ship at sea."

The Arrow began to soar. The Uhlans and the grove soon faded away, and they rode among the clouds. John's watch showed that it was about three o'clock in the morning. He no longer felt the chill of the air in those upper regions. Excitement and suspense made his blood leap, warm, through his veins.

Lannes, after his long sleep, was stronger and keener than ever. His hand on the steering rudder knew no uncertainty, and always he peered through the clouds for a sign of the foe, who, he knew well, was to be dreaded so much. John, glasses at eye, sought the same enemy.

But they heard and saw nothing, save the sights and sounds of the elements. A cold, wet wind flew across their faces, and the planet below once more turned in space, invisible to eye.

"One could almost think," said John, "that we don't turn with it, that we hang here in the void, while it whirls about, independent of us."

"I wish that were so," said Lannes with a laugh. "Then we could stay where we are, while it turned around enough beneath us to take the Germans far away. But don't you hear a faint buzzing there to the west, John?"

"Yes, I was just about to speak of it, and I know the sound, too. It's one of the big Zeppelins."

"Then it's likely to be much below. I judge from the presence of the trees that, we must be somewhere near the German outposts."

"I wish that we dared to descend enough to see."

"But we don't dare, Monsieur Jean the Scott. We'd drop into a nest of hornets."

"Better slow down then. Their scouting planes must be somewhere near."

"Good advice again. Oh, you're learning fast. And meanwhile you're committing yourself more and more deeply to our cause."

"I've already committed myself deeply enough. I've told you that your prediction about my joining a British force is true."

"But you'll have to stay with us French until the British come. John, is it my imagination or do I hear that buzzing below us again"

"You really hear it, and I do, too. It's a big Zeppelin beyond a doubt, and therefore we must not be far from a German base. You know they have to build huge sheds in which to keep the Zeppelins."

"No doubt they have such a station near enough on their side of the border. But, John, I'm going to have a look at that air-elephant. In all this thick darkness they'd never know what we are. Are you ready for it?"

"Ready and anxious."

The Arrow dropped down toward the buzzing sound, which rapidly grew louder. John had heard that a silencer had been invented for Zeppelins, but either it was a mistake or they apprehended a hostile presence so little that they did not care to use it.

He was rapidly becoming inured to extreme danger, but his heart throbbed nevertheless, and he felt the chill of the high damp air. At the suggestion of Lannes, who called him the eyes of the ship, he retained the glasses, and, with them, sought continually to pierce the heavy masses of cloud. He could not yet see anything, but the heavy buzzing noise, much like the rattling of a train, increased steadily. The Zeppelin could not be very far beneath them now.

John felt a sudden rush of wind near him and a dark object swung by. Lannes swiftly changed their own course, and darted almost at a right angle in the darkness.

"A Taube ?" whispered John.

"Yes, one of the armored kind. Two men were in it, and most likely they carried rifles. They're on watch despite the night. Maybe they fear some of our own planes, which must be not many miles in front. Oh, France, is not sleeping, John! Don't think that! We are not prepared as the Germans were, but we've the tools, and we know how to use them."

He corrected the course of the Arrow and again dropped down slowly toward the Zeppelin. John's eyes, used to the darkness, caught a glimpse of Lan- nes's face, and he was surprised. He had never before seen one express such terrible resolution. Some dim idea of his purpose entered the American's mind, but he did not yet realize it fully.

But his sense of the weird, of acting in elements, hitherto unknown to man, grew. The Arrow, smooth, sleek and dangerous as death, was feeling its way in the darkness among a swarm of enemies. Its very safety lay in the fact that it was one among many, and, wrapped in the dark, the others could not tell its real character, fifty feet away.

John could truthfully say to himself afterwards that he did not feel fear at that time. He was so absorbed, so much overwhelmed by the excitement, the novelty and the cloud of darkness hiding all these actors in the heavens that no room was left in him for fear.

Lower and lower they dropped. The Zeppelin, evidently not far above the earth, was moving slowly. John was reminded irresistibly of an enormous whale lounging in the depths of the ocean, which here was made up of heavy clouds. In another minute by the aid of the powerful glasses he made out two captive balloons, and a little farther westward three aeroplanes flying about like sentinels pacing their beats. He also saw beneath them lights which he knew to be the fires of a great camp, but he could not see the men and the cannon.

"The German camp is beneath us," he said.

"I thought you'd find it there," returned Lannes bitterly. "It's where our own camp ought to be, but our men were defeated in that battle which we heard, and here the Germans are."

John did not see him this time, but the look of pitiless resolve in the eyes of the young Frenchman deepened. That the Germans should come upon the soil of France and drive the French before them overwhelmed him with an agony that left no room for mercy.

"There goes another of the Taubes," he whispered, as a shadow flitted to the right. "They're cruising about in lively fashion. If anybody hails us don't answer. I'll turn away in the darkness, pretending that we haven't heard."

The hail came almost as he spoke, but the "Arrow veered to one side again at an angle, and then, after a few minutes, came back to a point, where it hovered directly over the Zeppelin and not far away. John saw beneath them now the huge shape, ploughing along slowly through the heavy bank of air. It loomed, in the darkness, a form, monstrous and incredible.

"Are we just over the thing, John?" asked Lannes.

"Exactly. Look down and you can see."

"I see."

Then his arm flashed out, and he hurled something downward with all the concentrated force of hate. There came a stunning crash mingled with rending and tearing sounds and frightened cries, and then the monstrous shape was gone. The place where it had hung in the heavens was empty and silent.

John's heart missed a dozen beats. His jaw fell and he stared at Lannes.

"Yes, I intended it from the first," said Lannes, "and I haven't a single compunction. I got that bomb, and three others in the Swiss village when I left you at the inn. I did not tell you of them because—well, because, I thought it better to keep the secret to myself. It's war. The men in that Zeppelin came to destroy our towns and to kill our men."

"I'm not accusing you. I suppose, as you say, it's war. But hadn't we better get away from here as fast as we can ?"

"We're doing it now. While we were talking I was steering the Arrow westward. Hark, do you hear those shots!"

"I hear them. It can't be that they're firing at random in the air, as they would be more likely to hit one another than a slim and single little shape like the Arrow."

"They're signaling. Of course they're organized, and they're probably trying to draw all the planes to one spot, after which they'll spread out and seek us. But they won't find us. Ah, my sleek Arrow! my lovely little Arrow, so fast and true! You've done your duty tonight and more! We've run the gantlet, John! We're through their air fleet, and we've left a trail of fire! They won't forget this night!"

John sat silent, while Lannes exulted. Meanwhile the Arrow, piercing the low clouds, rushed westward, unpursued.