CHAPTER XV.
CHASING A JACK-O'-LANTERN
"I wish you could tell me we were nearly at that old village, Rob. Seems to me we've been trudging along for hours, and I own up to feeling just a little bit tired."
Tubby had a beseeching way about him that was hard to resist; and so Rob really felt sorry that he could give him no joyful news.
"I would like to be able to tell in the worst way, Tubby," he told him, "but you see we're making this turn only on hearsay. None of us knows a single thing about it. There must be some sort of a place ahead of us, because several times I've heard dogs barking, and I even thought I could hear people calling."
"It's all right, Tubby," chimed in Merritt, "because there's a light, yes, – two, three of the same kind. We'll soon be there, and I hope we'll find some sort of a bunk, even if we have to drop in the hay."
"That's what I say," the fat scout declared energetically, bracing up, now that it seemed the haven might be in sight. "I could sleep standing up, I believe, if only you braced me on the sides."
"I believe you," remarked Merritt; and Tubby hardly knew whether he ought to demand an explanation of that insinuation or not; he finally concluded to change the subject.
They soon found they had arrived at another of those frequent little Belgian hamlets where, in the past, thrift had held sway, but which were rapidly becoming demoralized under the pressure of the war fever. Most of the men were serving the colors, of course, those remaining being the very aged or crippled, the women, and always the flocks of children.
"Seems to me they're carrying on kind of queer here, as if something might be going on," Merritt hazarded while they were approaching the border of the place.
"Gingersnaps and popguns!" exclaimed Tubby, "I hope there isn't a bunch of those terrible Uhlans in town, smashing things, and threatening to burn every house unless the wine and the ransom money are brought out!"
"Let's go slow till we can make sure about that," suggested Rob.
Their recent unpleasant experience was so fresh in their minds that they did not care to have it duplicated. The next time they might not be so fortunate about escaping from a burning inn, or avoiding capture at the hands of raiding Uhlans.
"I don't seem to glimpse any cavalrymen around, do you, Rob?" Merritt questioned, as they hovered on the outskirts of the place, ready to melt away in the darkness should any peril arise.
"No, and it's safe for us to push on," the patrol leader announced.
"But there are a raft of people around," ventured the cautious Tubby, who had been closely observing each and every soul, as though he suspected that crafty Uhlans might be hidden under peasants' garb, or in the clothes of the stout Belgian dames.
"Well, a lot of them are fugitives, the same as those we've been seeing on the roads all day long," Rob explained. "Some of them have been burned out of house and home; but in the main they're people who have believed all these awful fairy stories about the terrible Germans, and think that if they stay they'll be eaten up."
"This place must have escaped a visit from the Germans so far," Merritt suggested, "and they are coming to believe it's a lucky town, which would account for so many stopping here in their rush to get away."
"That's bad!" muttered Tubby.
"Why is it?" demanded Merritt.
"All the spare beds will be taken, you see," explained the other dejectedly, "and those who come late, like we are doing, must sit up all night, or else sleep in the dog kennel or the pigsty or the barn. Well, I said before and I mean it, if I can have some hay under me to keep my bones from the floor, I won't complain, or make a single kick. I'm easily satisfied, you all know."
"That must be the village inn, over yonder, Rob," Merritt remarked, pointing as he spoke. "Judging from the crowd in front we've got a poor show to get beds for to-night."
"Everybody stares at us as if they thought we might be some kind of wild animal," Tubby complained.
"Well, I can see that they've had some sort of circus here lately because the showbills are still posted on the fences," Merritt observed with a chuckle, "and can you blame them for thinking that the side shows have bust up, with the freaks hiking all through the country, unable to ride on the railroads, which are all taken over by the Government to haul cannon, horses and soldiers? I'll pass for the Living Skeleton, while you could stand for the Fat Boy, Tubby!"
Tubby was so used to having his friends joke at him on account of his chubby build that as a rule he let such reminders pass by without showing any ill feeling. In this instance he hardly noticed what Merritt was saying, because so many other events were happening around them.
Being satisfied at last that they were in no apparent danger from concealed Uhlans, Tubby felt his spirits rise once more.
At the inn Rob entered into a brief conversation with the proprietor. As this worthy knew very little French, and Rob next to nothing of Flemish, the "confab," as Tubby called it, had to be conducted mostly through a series of shrugs and gestures.
"What luck, Rob?" asked Tubby, when the other chum turned to them again.
"He's cram full of sleepers to-night, and couldn't give us even a cot," explained Rob. "When I said we'd put up with the hay, he gave me to understand we could pick out any place found unoccupied."
"Gee whiz! 'unoccupied,' you said, didn't you, Rob?" cried Tubby hastily. "Now, does that mean the place is apt to be swarming with these peasant women and children, and shall we have to listen to babies bawling all night long, not to speak of roosters crowing, dogs barking, horses neighing, pigs grunting and cows mooing?"
"'Beggars should never be choosers,' they say," Merritt warned him.
"And, after all, let's hope it won't be quite so bad as all that," said Rob.
They sought the stable. It was in the rear of the inn, and a rather decent looking structure in the bargain.
"Why, this isn't half bad," admitted Tubby, as they entered and found that the kind proprietor of the house had hung up a lighted lantern, by means of which it was possible for the boys to see the stack of hay.
"It smells like a sweet new crop," Rob remarked, glad to find something to commend when surrounded by such dismal prospects.
"And so far as I can see we're the only barn guests," Tubby announced jubilantly as he started to burrow in the hay.
He had hardly made much progress before he came backing out in a hurry.
"There's a great big dog sleeping in there!" he declared excitedly.
"What makes you think so?" asked Rob, who could hardly believe it possible.
"I tell you he tried to bite me," urged Tubby, holding up one finger of his right hand, and on which a tiny speck of blood was visible.
"Shucks! you only stuck it on a thorn, that's all!" protested the unbelieving Merritt, "and I'll prove it by crawling in the same hole."
"Look out, now!" warned Tubby, anxious, and yet with some eagerness, for he hoped to have his words proved in a fashion even Merritt could not doubt.
Immediately there was more or less excitement in the hay; and then came the unmistakable scolding of a setting hen. Merritt backed out, laughing.
"There's your ferocious bulldog!" he told Tubby; "but we'll leave old Biddy to her eggs, and try another place. Plenty of room in this hotel without chucking the other guests out of their nests."
After a while they made themselves comfortable. Tubby, before turning in, had prowled around a little. He told the others that as a true scout he was only taking an inventory of his surroundings, so that if there should happen to come a sudden midnight alarm he at least would know what to do in order to lead the way out of the barn by a rear exit.
"Smart boy, Tubby," Merritt told him, when he heard him say this; and it always pleased the fat scout to receive a word of praise, possibly because the occasions when he deserved any were few and far between.
They lay in the sweet hay, and talked in low tones. No one else seemed to be pushed so hard for a place to sleep as to come to the barn, for which all of the chums professed to be very grateful.
In the course of the conversation, which had more or less bearing on their strange mission abroad, the subject of the precious paper came to the front. Perhaps it was Merritt himself who mentioned it, because the matter was frequently in his thoughts, and he seemed to be growing more and more anxious, the nearer they drew to the place where he anticipated finding Steven Meredith.
"You've never really told us who this man is, Merritt, and how he comes to be wandering around the world with a paper belonging to your grandfather hidden away under the lining of the case containing his field-glasses," Rob remarked while Tubby, who had just been yawning, sat up and seemed to be wide awake again.
"That's a fact, Merritt," he chimed in. "If you don't object, why, we'd like to be told."
"The fact of the matter is," replied Merritt, "I don't know a great deal more than you do, come to think of it. Grandfather Crawford comes from old Scotch stock, so he's a canny sort of an old gentleman. No use of my telling you about the way he treated my father when he was a young man and married against the wishes of his parents, because that you already know. It's about the paper, also of Steven Meredith you're curious to hear?"
"Yes, go along, please," begged Tubby.
"The paper is a little scrap, he told me, on which are marked certain directions as how to find a certain rich gold mine out in our Southwest country. Grandfather has one-half his paper, and the other half is lodged in the cover of that field-glass case – if the man is still carrying it with him."
"That gets more and more queer, I must say," grumbled Tubby, looking as though he could not untangle the knot that was presented to him.
"Yes, if anybody had told it to me," admitted Merritt, "I'd have made up my mind right away he was trying to pull the wool over my eyes with a silly yarn. And yet there was Grandfather Crawford just as sober as you ever saw anyone, and vouching for every word of it as true."
"Well, how on earth did the half of the map or the directions happen to get in that field-glass case, without Steven Meredith, who carries the same, knowing a thing about it?" asked Rob.
"This deposit was discovered by an old miner who never worked it, but had samples of wonderfully rich ore, which he showed my grandfather at the time he was rescued by my relative from being tortured by a couple of halfbreeds who wanted to get the miner's secret. He gave grandfather the half of the map, and directions he had on his person, and told him where he would find the other half."
"Now it's beginning to look understandable," Tubby admitted. "The old miner did that so if anybody got hold of him they wouldn't be able to locate the secret mine – wasn't that it, Merritt?"
"Just what he had in mind," the other told him, "and of course the injuries received in the fight carried the miner off eventually, leaving my grandfather as his sole heir, if he could only lay hands on the other half of that valuable little paper, for neither portion alone made any sense.
"Gee! this is getting real interesting – if true!" ventured Tubby.
"Oh! it's a straight yarn, never fear," retorted Merritt without any trace of ill feeling, however, for no one ever could quarrel with Tubby. "And just about here is where this man Steven Meredith, as he calls himself, breaks into the story. The old miner had told my grandfather that for security he kept the other half of the chart, and the directions how to find the treasure, hidden in the lining of the case holding a pair of field-glasses that he had carried for years, as they were of a special make and considered extra fine."
"And when your esteemed relative came to make a hunt for the said glasses," remarked Tubby, anxious to show that he was following the narrative closely, "why of course he found that Steve had got away with them – is that the stuff, Merritt?"
"Great head, Tubby," chuckled the other, as if amused at this unexpected smartness on the part of the stout boy. "You've said it, after a fashion; for that was what really happened. The glasses were supposed, along with other things owned by the old miner, to be in the charge of an old and invalid sister in a small town. To that place my grandfather went, armed with a paper which would give him possession of the traps of the dead man, including the case with the glasses. And that was where he came up against a staggering disappointment.
"It seemed that this sister of the miner was a little queer in her head. When a visitor chanced to examine the glasses, and offered her a pretty fine sum for them, she, not knowing how her brother valued them because of their association with his prospecting life, thought it a good chance to dispose of some useless property.
"And so the wonderful half of the chart was gone. My grandfather took enough interest in the matter to learn that a man by the name of Steven Meredith possessed the glasses. He even started a search for him, thinking that he might be able to buy the glasses back, so as to satisfy his mind about the worth of the chart.
"Later on he learned that some valuable ore had been struck in the region where the secret mine of the dead prospector was said to be located. This kept making him take more and more interest in the finding of Steven and the lost paper. He became absorbed in the hunt, and in the end had three men on the track.
"They traced Meredith across the ocean. All sorts of strange rumors came back as to what he really was. Once it was even said that he was secretly in the pay of the German Government. Anyway, he went to Berlin, and was known to meet with certain men high up in the Secret Service there.
"Just a little while ago my grandfather received positive word from one of his agents that Steven Meredith was stationed in a Belgian town, though what his business there could be was a mystery. This little town was an obscure one near Brussels, where he could keep in the background. Its name is Sempst; and that's where we are headed now."
"But just explain one queer thing, won't you, please, Merritt?" asked Tubby.
"I know what you're going to say," replied the other. "Of course you're wondering why my relative didn't wire his agent about the glasses, and offer him a good sum to get them, with the case. Well, the fact is he didn't have as much faith in his agents as all that."
"You mean that if the man knew he valued the article so much he would begin to smell a rat, and perhaps examine the lining of the case himself, after he had managed to steal or buy the glasses?" suggested Rob.
"That's what he had in mind," Merritt continued. "So he hardly knew what to do, or whom to trust, until I asked him to send me, and let me have you along. They didn't like the idea of us boys starting over here when things were so upset; but grandfather believes Boy Scouts can do almost anything. So it came about. And in a nutshell that's the strange story."
"Gee! you'd think it a page from the Arabian Nights," Tubby declared. "But queer things can happen to-day just as much as ever. I only hope that if we do manage to rake in that old field-glass case, and the paper is still nestling underneath the lining, it doesn't turn out to be a pipe dream – something that old miner just hatched up to make himself feel he was as rich as a Vanderbilt."
"We'll have to chance that," said Rob. "Our part of the business will be done when we carry the case back to Merritt's grandfather. It's up to him for the rest. But don't you think we'd better try and get to sleep, for it's growing late?"
They determined that this was a wise suggestion, and shortly afterward not only Tubby and Merritt, but Rob as well had lost all realization of trouble and stress in sound slumber.
The night passed, and with the coming of dawn the boys were astir. Nothing had apparently happened during the night to disturb them.
In the morning hens were beginning to cackle, and cows to low, as the boys awoke and crawled from the hay. A few minutes later, at a nearby pump, they washed the last bit of drowsiness from their eyes; after which they began to think, from the pleasant odors in the air, that it was nearly time for breakfast.
"I dreamed about that grand paper hunt you told us about, Merritt," Tubby announced, as with his chums he sauntered over to the inn to see what chance there was for getting something to eat. "And talk to me about your will-o'-the-wisps, or what they call jack-o'-lanterns, such as flit around graveyards or damp places nights, that certainly did beat the record. Lots of times I was just stretching out my hand to grab it when I'd hear a laugh, and Steve, he'd snatch the old field-glass case away. I woke up still on the trail, and as set as ever to win out."
"Let's hope that will prove to be the case with us," ventured Rob cheerily.
They found that they were to be given breakfast; and as all of the boys had a ferocious appetite they soon did justice to the meal set before them.
It was while they were finishing that they suddenly became aware of the fact that something along the line of a battle had broken out not a great ways off. The first intimation they had of this was the deep-throated sound of a heavy gun. It made them jump; and the entire village seemed to become aroused at once, as people began to run this way and that, chattering like magpies, some of their faces turning white with apprehension of what was to come.
They had heard of the fate of Louvain, and dreaded the hour when the German army should come sweeping with irresistible force across that section of the country.
Quick on the heels of that opening gun came other sounds – the long roll of rifle firing in volleys, and the faint cheers of charging men. The boys even fancied they could hear amidst all the confusion the loud singing that was said to mark the advance of the German legions as they went into battle chanting the "Watch on the Rhine." Rob could well believe it, for he knew singing was to the Teuton mind what the bagpipes meant to Scotch Highlanders, or cheers to American boys in khaki.
It was evident that the gallant little Belgian army, determined to resist to the uttermost the passage of the Germans across their territory in the direction of Antwerp and Ghent, had again given battle to overwhelming numbers.
Of course the boys had rushed out of the inn and immediately sought the best position from which they could see something of what was going on. Many of the villagers were clustered there, gazing with deepest concern at the section where the smoke of battle was beginning to spread like a pall over the country.
"Oh! what is that up there, and heading this way?" Tubby suddenly exclaimed.
No sooner had Rob turned his gaze aloft than he was able to give the desired information.
"That is one of the famous German Zeppelins, hovering over the battlefield," he told Tubby.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BATTLE FOR THE TRENCHES
By this time everyone was gazing in mixed wonder and awe at the strange dirigible balloon, speeding in great circles far up toward the clouds.
Rob and his comrades had read more or less about these monster airships which the German Count had invented, and which were expected to play a prominent part in this world war. They had even hoped that before they left Belgium they might be given an opportunity to see one of the fleet monsters, which were said to be able to carry dozens of men, as well as tons of explosives, incredible distances.
In Antwerp there had been considerable talk concerning the possibility of these Zeppelins making a concerted attack on the city, and forcing its surrender. All manner of fearful stories were going the rounds, and many timid people had even left the city on the Scheldt for the more hospitable shores of England, just on account of the threatening peril from the clouds.
"So, that's a real Zeppelin, is it?" Tubby remarked, as they stood there with their eyes riveted on the flittering monster of the air.
"No question about it," Merritt told him, "because the poor Belgians don't own such an expensive airship, though they have some aëroplanes, I was told."
"But what do you reckon they're doing up there?" asked Tubby, still seeking to increase his limited stock of knowledge.
"Why," Rob replied, "don't you see there's a battle going on below, and from that height men with glasses can see every little thing that's happening. They are able to tell how the Belgian forces are intrenched; and by means of signals let their gunners know where to drop shells so as to do the most harm."
"Whee! what won't they do next in modern, up-to-date fighting?" exclaimed Tubby.
"There have been lots of remarkable surprises sprung in this war already," Merritt observed thoughtfully, "but I'm thinking the worst is yet to come. There never was such a war before in the history of the world, and it's to be hoped this one ends in a peace that will last forever."
"Yes," added Rob, greatly impressed by what he was seeing, "war's going to cost so much after this that the nations will have to fix up some other way to settle their differences. About that Zeppelin, Tubby; don't you see how they might be able to drop a few bombs on the enemy's trenches; or where the Belgians have fixed barbed-wire entanglements to stop the rush of the charging German troops? Just to think that here we are really watching a battle that isn't like one of the sham rights they have every summer at home. It's hard to believe, boys!"
They were all agreed as to this, and every little while one of them might be detected actually rubbing his eyes, as though suspecting he were asleep and all this were but a feverish dream.
The cannonading grew more and more furious as the morning advanced. Huge billows of smoke covered sections of the country, some of it not more than a mile away from the village where Rob and his chums had stopped.
"And just to think," said Tubby, with a touch of sorrow in his voice. "While all this sounds like a Fourth of July celebration to us, safe as we are, it spells lots of terrible wounds for the poor fellows who are in the fight. Why, with all those big shells bursting, and the shrapnel too, that you spoke about, Rob, right now I reckon there are just hundreds of them wanting to be attended to."
"That's true enough, Tubby, the more the pity," replied Rob.
"What's this coming up behind us?" called out Merritt, as loud cheers, together with the rattle of wheels and the pounding of many horses' hoofs, were heard on the road they had used on the previous night.
"Oh! they're going to bombard the village; and now we'll get it!" gasped Tubby.
"It looks like a battery coming from the direction of Antwerp, and hurrying to get in action!" Rob ventured to say, as he discovered that those who were seated on the horses and on the gun caissons wore the Belgian uniforms.
"Just what it is, Rob," added Merritt excitedly. "They hear the sound of the guns ahead, and are crazy to get there. Look at them whip the horses, would you! And how the animals run! They smell the smoke of burnt powder, and it's fairly set them all wild!"
It was indeed a stirring sight to see that battery come tearing along straight through the little village, and heading directly toward the place where the flashing and roaring of battle seemed fiercest.
The men were all keyed up to a pitch of excitement that made them forget they were about to face danger and death. They shouted as they swept past, and the poor villagers, filled with a momentary enthusiasm, sent back answering cries.
Such enthusiasm is always contagious. Why, even peace-loving Tubby seemed to be infected with some of it. His eyes glowed, and his breath came in short puffs, as he watched the guns and caissons go whirling along until men, horses and all had vanished down the road in a cloud of dust.
"Some of those brave fellows will never come back again, I'm afraid," said Tubby sadly.
"It begins to look as if the artillery arm was going to be everything in this war," Rob remarked, as though the sight of those bursting shells impressed him.
"But what do you suppose all that bombardment means?" Merritt asked.
"I can only give a guess," the patrol leader replied. "From all I've read I get the idea that before the Germans order a charge of their infantry they pour in a heavy bombardment from every big gun they can get in line. That makes it so hot in the trenches that the enemy has to keep under cover. Then the infantry manages to get a good start before they are fired on."
"Nothing new about that, I guess," replied Merritt. "It was done in the battle of Gettysburg, where Lee used more than a hundred cannon to bombard, before starting to carry Little Round-top and Cemetery Hill by assault. I was just reading about it a few weeks ago in a magazine article at home. But if those are their tactics, Rob, we ought to be seeing some movement of troops pretty soon."
"Yes," the patrol leader admitted, "the gun fire is slackening right now; and if we had glasses I expect we could see the infantry starting forward. Those up in the Zeppelin can watch every move that takes place."
"All the same I'd rather take my chances down here," Tubby announced.
"What's that moving away over there, Rob?" demanded Merritt. "Seems like a gray looking snake creeping out from the shelter of the woods. I declare if I don't believe it is a mass of men charging straight at the Belgian trenches!"
"The Germans all wear a sort of grayish green uniform, you know," Tubby declared, "which is so like the dirt that lots of times you can't tell the soldiers from the earth half a mile away."
"Look sharp, fellows," said Rob, "because that is where they're going to shoot their bolt. What we see is a battalion of infantry charging. Now watch how they begin to gather momentum. Yes, and when the gun fire lets up we'll hear the voices of thousands of men singing as they rush forward, ready to die for the Fatherland."
They stood there with trembling limbs, and continued to watch what was developing right before their eyes. It seemed as though that gray mass would never cease coming into view. The whole open space was covered with lines upon lines of soldiers all pushing in one direction, and that where the intrenchments of the Belgians must lie.
"Oh! look! look! they're opening on them with quick-fire guns, and all sorts of things!" Tubby exclaimed, in absolute horror. "Why, I can see lanes cut in the lines of the Germans; but they always close up, and keep right on! Isn't it terrible?"
"It is sublime!" said Rob; and that tribute to the unflinching bravery of the German advance was about the limit of a boy's vocabulary.
"But the plucky little Belgians won't yield an inch of ground, you see!" cried Merritt. "They keep pouring in that terrible fire, and mowing the Germans down, just like they were cutting wheat on a Minnesota farm."
"How will it all end, I wonder?" said Rob, fascinated, more than he would have believed possible, by the panorama that was being unfolded before his eyes.
"If the ammunition of the Belgian batteries and Maxims holds out," ventured Merritt, "there won't be any German army left in this part of the country. Their best troops are said to be down in France now, fighting the Allies; but if these are only second or third class reserves, I wonder what the really top-notch ones can do in a battle."
"They're weakening, let me tell you!" Rob startled the others by saying. "Watch and you'll see that they don't advance as fast as before. Perhaps the general in charge has found that the trenches can't be taken by a direct charge. They're going to fall back, and let the artillery start in again! The first part of the terrible battle is over, for there the Germans begin to scatter, and run, to get out of range of the Maxims!"
"And the plucky Belgians have won again!" Merritt declared as though almost tempted to join in the cries of satisfaction that were beginning to rise from those of the villagers who were clustered close by, intensely interested spectators of the thrilling spectacle just enacted.
"And there's that old Zeppelin still swinging around up in the sky," remarked Tubby. "For all the information they were able to signal down, the Germans couldn't take the Belgian trenches. When they got the wire entanglements they were blocked."
"But unless I miss my guess," exclaimed Merritt, "the Zeppelin will have to get on the run pretty quick or it'll find there's a little war brewing in the sky, because I can see a couple of aëroplanes rising from back of the Belgian lines!"