Chapter 22

WILL THE GERMANS SIGN?

"It was a pitiful sight," said Tom, continuing the tale of his experience while a captive. "One of the women wanted to write a message of farewell to her husband and children. They gave her paper and pencil, and one of the guards offered his back to rest the paper on while she wrote. At about every sentence, the guard let himself fall down and the woman stumbled over him. It was great fun for the rest of the gang. They laughed as if it were a show. Oh, I tell you, the Huns are great humorists!"

The eyes of the Army Boys flashed.

"The unspeakable beasts!" cried Frank.

"It would be a good thing if a plague came along and snuffed out the whole nation!" angrily exclaimed Bart.

"It might be a good thing for the rest of the world," agreed Tom. "And, by the way, speaking of plague, I don't know but what it's on the way even now. In one or two of the places I've been in there's a mysterious something that's killing off the people like sheep. I've heard the guards talking about it. Nobody seems to know what it is and the doctors themselves are all at sea. Only yesterday one of the guards was taken with it. Big husky fellow he was too, and yet in a couple of hours he was dead. Seems to work as quickly as the cholera and to be just as deadly. I hope it doesn't hit the American Army."

"It has hit it already," replied Frank soberly. "There's quite a lot of our boys in Coblenz who have died of it, and the officers are all up in the air about it. The medical staff is at its wit's end. I tell you, it's getting to be a mighty big problem."

"I wish we were out of the hoodooed country!" exclaimed Bart savagely. "The whole land seems to rest under a curse. When on earth will that treaty be signed so that we can go back to the States?"

"The Germans say that they're not going to sign it if it proves to be as severe as is reported," remarked Tom. "I've heard that said on every side."

"'They say' they're not," sneered Billy. "What does their 'they say' amount to? Nothing at all. They said they'd never stop fighting, and they lay down like dogs. They said we'd never step on the sacred soil of Germany, but there wasn't a peep out of them when we marched over the Rhine. They're the biggest bluffers and the quickest quitters in the world."

"When are we going back to Coblenz?" asked Tom.

"In a hurry to get back are you?" laughed Frank. "Well, I don't blame you, old man. Billy tells me that Alice has been crying her pretty eyes out ever since you disappeared. But I suppose we'll have to hang around here for a few days yet. There's a lot to be done in cleaning out the Spartacides and getting the town in proper condition. The lieut. won't go back till he's finished the job. But you needn't worry, for by this time he's telephoned the whole thing over to Coblenz, and the authorities there know that you're safe and sound. It's a safe bet that Alice has already learned the good news."

Frank's conjecture turned out to be correct, for it was nearly a week before the lieutenant concluded that his work in the town was done. Then the column took up its march in a jubilant mood, for their comrade, who was a prime favorite in the regiment, had been rescued and the work had been done in the deft and finished way that marked the traditions of the American Army.

Tom and Billy slipped away as soon as they could obtain leave after they reached the city, and there was not any doubt in any one's mind as to their destination. Nor on their return to the barracks that night, bubbling over with glee and high spirits, was there any question but that their visit had been a thoroughly satisfactory one. If traces of his captivity were still visible in Tom's rather hollow cheeks and shrunken waistband, they had entirely disappeared from his manner.

His comrades had of course told him of their adventure in connection with the trap door, and he was all agog with interest in their recital of their battle with the rats, scars of whose bites were still visible as evidence if any had been necessary.

"It must have been some fight!" he remarked, with a touch of envy. "Gee! I'd like to have been with you. Too bad, though, that you didn't find out what you went after. Of course you're not going to give it up?"

"You bet your life we're not!" answered Frank emphatically. "Give it up isn't in our dictionary. We're going to search that place again, rats or no rats, only the next time we'll have clubs and be ready for them."

"That's the way to talk!" cried Tom. "That'll give me a chance to get in on the game."

"I don't know that the rats will trouble us next time," put in Billy. "You'll remember that it was only after we got past that place where the light was that we came across them in any numbers. Their stamping ground seemed to be further on."

"That seems likely enough," agreed Bart. "The light being there showed that somebody had been using the passage without hindrance. We simply had the hard luck to get in the quarter where the rats were thickest. At any rate, well take another chance."

That chance was not as soon in coming as they had hoped for, however, for Coblenz was now seething with unrest. The disorders that were prevalent all over Germany were manifesting themselves in the region of the Rhine. Scarcely a day passed without an outrage of some kind being reported. Several American soldiers were found stabbed in the street by unknown assassins. Agitators from Berlin were slipping into the city and trying to stir up insurrection. It was feared that the sharp lesson given on a previous occasion would have to be repeated.

Strikes were called in various industries, and sullen knots of idle men, ripe for mischief, were in evidence everywhere. When they were dispersed by military patrols, it was only to gather in some other place.