Chapter 17

THE MINED BRIDGE

For several days the drive continued. At first it had been quite as successful for the Germans as they could have hoped. Their initial surprise had carried them a long way into French territory, and this had involved the capture of a considerable number of men and guns.

But they had fallen far short of their ambitious aims. They had not rolled up the Allied armies. They had not reached Paris. They had not captured the Channel ports.

The Allied armies had stretched like an elastic band, but had not broken. They knew now what the enemy's plans were and they were rapidly taking measures to check them.

The Germans had had a great advantage in being under a single command. There was no clash of plans and opinions. If they wanted to transfer a part of their forces from one point to another they could do so.

With the Allies it had been different. There had been a French army, a British army, an Italian army, a Belgian army, a Russian army and latest of all an American army. They had tried to work together in harmony and in the main had done so. But the British naturally wanted above all to prevent the German armies from reaching the coast where they could threaten England. The French were especially anxious to prevent Paris being captured. Either side was reluctant to weaken its own army by sending reinforcements to the other.

But the German success in the first days of the drive changed all this. The Allies got together and appointed General Foch as the supreme commander of all the Allied forces. He had done brilliant work in driving the Germans back from the Marne in the early days of the war, when they had approached close to Paris.

"Have you heard the news?" asked Frank of his chums the day after the appointment had been made.

"No," said Bart.

"What is it?" asked Billy.

"We've got just one man that's going to boss the job of driving back the Huns," answered Frank.

Bart gave a whoop of delight and Billy threw his hat in the air.

"Best news I've heard yet," crowed Billy.

"That's as good as a battle lost for the Huns," exclaimed Bart. "The only wonder is that it wasn't done before. Who's the man they've chosen?"

"General Foch," was the answer.

"Better and better," pronounced Bart. "That man's a born fighter. He licked the Germans at the Marne, and he can do it again."

"What I like about him," commented Billy, "is that he's a hard hitter. He isn't satisfied to stand on the defensive. He likes to hand the other fellow a good one right at the start of the fight."

"That's what," agreed Frank. "He hits out right from the shoulder. Of course he'll have to wait a little while yet until he sizes up his forces and sees what he has to fight with. But you can bet it won't be long before he has the boches on the run."

In the days that followed, the advantage of the appointment became clear. The armies worked together as they never had before. The khaki of the British mingled with the cornflower blue of the French. Reserves were sent where they were most needed, no matter what army they were drawn from. And, fighting side by side, each nation was filled with a generous rivalry and sought bravely to outdo the other in deeds of valor.

The old Thirty-seventh had been in the thick of the fighting and had covered itself with glory. It had taught the Germans that there were Americans in France, and that they were fighters to be dreaded.

The course of the fighting had taken Frank and his comrades in the vicinity of the farmhouse where they had rounded up the German lieutenant and his squad. But it was a very different place now from what it had been when they had first seen it. Shells had torn away part of the roof, and the attic lay open to the sky. But the farmer and his family still stayed there although in daily peril of their lives. They lived and slept in the cellar, which was the only place that afforded them a chance of safety.

One day when only an artillery duel was going on and the infantry was getting a rest that it sorely needed, the Army Boys went over to the house. The girl saw them coming and recognized them at once. She came out to meet them with a smile on her face.

"_Les braves Americains!_" she exclaimed. "You have not then been killed by those dreadful Germans."

"Don't we look pretty lively for dead men?" asked Frank jokingly.

"And that lieutenant?" she inquired. "Oh, I hope you have hanged him."

"No," said Frank, "but he's a prisoner."

"It is not enough," she said with a shudder of repulsion.

"Have you heard anything of the young soldier that the lieutenant was going to hang?" asked Frank eagerly.

"No," she answered. "But stay," she added, "I have something here that you may want to see."

She darted back in the house and quickly returned with a very-much crumpled card in her hand.

"It is a _carte postale_," she explained. "We found it in the yard some days after you had been here. It had been trampled in the mud by the horses' feet and the writing had been scraped or blotted out. Perhaps it belonged to the young man. It may have fallen from his pocket. I do not know."

Frank took it eagerly from her hand, while his comrades gathered around him.

The card was almost illegible, but it could be seen that it was a United States postal. There was not a single word upon it that could be made out in its entirety, but up in the corner where the postmark had been they could see by straining their eyes the letters C and M.

"That's Camport, I'm willing to bet!" exclaimed Bart excitedly.

"And here's something else," put in Billy pointing to where the address would naturally be looked for. "See those letters d-f-o-r----"

"It's dollars to doughnuts that that stands for 'Bradford,'" Frank shouted. "A card from Camport to Tom Bradford. Boys, we didn't guess wrong that day. That was Tom that that brute of a lieutenant was going to hang!"

They were tingling with excitement and delight. To be sure, they did not know what had become of their friend. But he had escaped from this house. He was perhaps within a few miles of them. He was, at any rate, not eating his heart out in a distant prison camp.

Then to Frank came the thought of Rabig. Perhaps Tom hadn't escaped. Perhaps Rabig had added murder to the crime of treason of which they were sure he was guilty.

"Are you sure that you haven't found anything else that would help us in finding our friend?" he asked of the girl, whose face was beaming at the pleasure she had been able to give to her deliverers.

"No," she answered. "There is nothing else. I am sorry."

"Let's take a look around the house again, fellows," suggested Frank. "We may have overlooked something the other day. It's only a chance, but let's take it."

They made a careful circuit of the house, but nothing rewarded the search until Frank, with an exclamation, picked up some pieces of rope that had been lying in the grass not far from the window from which the prisoner had dropped.

"Are these yours?" he asked of the girl who had accompanied them and had been as ardent in the search as themselves.

She examined them.

"I do not think so," she declared. "I do not remember seeing any rope like that around the house."

They scrutinized the pieces carefully.

"Look at these frayed edges," said Frank, laying them together. "You see that these two pieces were part of one rope."

"I'll tell you what that means," put in Billy. "The girl says that Tom was bound with ropes. That cut or broken one was the one that was used to tie his hands. In some way he cut that. He didn't have a knife or the cut would be cleaner. Perhaps he sawed the rope against a piece of glass that he might have managed to get near."

"Good guess," commended Bart. "And this long rope was the one that was used to tie his feet. Tom didn't need to cut that for his hands were free then and he could untie it."

"Good old scout!" exclaimed Frank in tribute to his absent chum. "Trust that stout heart of his to keep up the fight to the last minute. Think of the old boy sawing away at the rope when he didn't know what minute he'd be taken out and hanged."

"He's all wool and a yard wide," agreed Bart.

"The real goods," said Billy. "But what were the ropes doing out here in the grass?"

"Oh, I suppose he hated them so that he chucked them as far away as he could," suggested Bart.

"No," said Frank, measuring the window with his eye. "I'll tell you how I think it was. Tom knew, of course, that he couldn't get out of the house by the downstairs way without being nabbed. He didn't know, of course, that the bunch of Huns weren't in condition to nab anybody. So the window was the only way left to him. He took the ropes to the window with the idea of splicing them and climbing down by them. But that would have taken time, and when he saw that the window wasn't very high up he made up his mind to drop. The ropes were in his hand and he simply threw them out of the window as the easiest way of getting rid of them."

"That sounds reasonable," said Billy. "But, oh boy! if poor Tom had only known that all he had to do was to walk downstairs and bag the whole blooming bunch!"

"I wish he had," said Frank mournfully.

"If he had, that lieutenant wouldn't have got off so easily as he did," declared Bart. "Do you know what would have happened? Of course the first thing Tom would have done would have been to untie the farmer and his son. Can you picture, then, what would have happened to that lieutenant and probably to his men, too? The United States wouldn't have been put to any expense for feeding them."

"That rope by the well would probably have been put to work," agreed Frank. "But poor Tom didn't know and there's no use of our speculating."

Encouraged by the information they had gained, they looked still further. But nothing more was found, and they at last said good-by to the girl and made their way back to their quarters with their hearts lighter than they had been for days. In a sense they had got in touch with their missing comrade, had seemed near to him, and their hopes were high that before long they would have him with them again.

"It's disposed of one thing that was worrying me anyway," remarked Frank. "We know that Rabig had nothing to do with making away with Tom."

"Yes," said Bart, "that's one thing the fellow can't be charged with. But I'm still mighty curious to know what he was hanging around that farmhouse for."

"It sure was a mighty strange coincidence that he should be there at the time the Germans were," declared Billy. "But Rabig is the only one who knows why and you can bet that he won't tell."

The comparative lull that had occurred in the fighting was only temporary, and the next day the drive was resumed in all its fury.

This time the use of gas was greater than it had been at any previous time in the battle. And the Germans had made still greater strides in this diabolical contrivance which they were the first to inflict upon an outraged world.

At first the gas had been light and volatile. It caused terrible suffering to those caught by it, but it did not hover long over any given place and a gust of wind was sufficient to drive it away.

But that was not vile enough to satisfy the infernal ingenuity of the foes of humanity. Now they were using gas that settled on the ground so that nothing but a gale would drive it away, and that lasted for hours and even for days. And then there was mustard gas, that penetrated everywhere through the clothing, through the skin, and that burned and ate up the living tissues like so much vitriol.

But the Allies were on the alert and soon found a way to avert or modify the worst consequences of the various kinds of gases. And they were forced to fight fire with fire simply in self-defence. It was a question of kill or be killed, and they were left no alternative. They asked nothing better than to fight as knightly and honorable nations always have fought and always will fight when they are left free to choose their weapons.

But whatever the methods used by the Germans, whether gas or guns or men, they were finding increasing difficulty in keeping up the momentum of their drive. Sheer force of numbers had sufficed at first to carry them forward, but now the Allies with American help coming over the sea at the rate of two hundred thousand men a month--and the finest kind of men at that--were gradually getting on even terms.

"I see the Germans had a good day yesterday," remarked Frank, as he and his comrades were at mess.

"I didn't notice it," said Bart, looking at his friend in surprise. "We drove them back and gained ground from them."

"Oh, I don't mean here," exclaimed Frank. "I mean in Paris."

Billy almost choked in surprise and alarm.

"You don't mean to say they've got to Paris?" he sputtered.

"Not by a jugful," laughed Frank. "But they're sending shells into it."

"Then they must be pretty close to it," said Bart in some apprehension.

"The gun they're shooting with is seventy miles away from the city," replied Frank.

"Quit your kidding," commanded Billy.

"Where do you get that stuff?" asked Bart incredulously.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," said Frank seriously. "Honestly, fellows, they've got a gun that shoots a shell seventy miles or more. The shell weighs two hundred pounds. It rises twenty miles in the air, and it takes three minutes on the trip to Paris."

"Is that straight goods?" asked Billy suspiciously.

"It sure is," Frank assured him. "I was reading about it in a Paris paper I got hold of this morning."

"What was it you were saying about yesterday being a good day for the Germans," asked Bart, when he had digested the facts.

"Oh, one of the shells hit a church where they were having a service and killed seventy-five people, mostly women and children," answered Frank. "Don't you imagine the Germans call that a good day? Can't you see them grinning and rubbing their hands? It's as good as bombing a hospital or an orphan asylum. The Kaiser felt so good about that he sent a special message of congratulation to the manager of the Krupp works, where the gun was made. Oh, yes, it was a good day!"

"The swine!" exclaimed Bart furiously, while Billy's fist clinched.

"Let's get busy," cried Frank, springing to his feet. "I can't wait to get at those barbarians. I hope there's lots of bayonet work today. I never felt in better trim for it."

They fought that day as they had never fought before, for they had never felt so strongly that the world would never be a decent place to live in until their barbarous enemies were humbled to the dust.

The next day the old Thirty-seventh was ordered to take up its position at a bridgehead that it was of the utmost importance should be strongly held. The enemy attacks were converging there, and it was evident that they were planning to cross the river in force. The country behind the American troops was flat and difficult to defend, and if the enemy should make good his crossing the consequences to the Allied cause might prove serious.

The enemy advance had reached the further side of the river, which at that point was about two hundred yards in width. A fierce artillery duel was kept up between the hostile forces. A wooden bridge with stone arches afforded the only means of crossing, and this was swept by such a fierce shell fire from the Allied guns that it did not seem as though anything could live on it for a moment.

As an additional precaution the bridge had been secretly mined by the Allied engineers. Electric wires ran to the concealed charges.

A pressure of a button--and the bridge would be reduced to atoms.