CHAPTER XX

RUNNING THE GANTLET OF SHELLS

“Hello! there, want to get aboard, Giraffe!” called out Bumpus, assuming all the airs of a millionaire owner of a palatial car upon meeting a less fortunate friend on the highway.

Already Giraffe had jumped from the seat of the ambulance. His face told of the wonder that filled his soul upon thus discovering his three comrades occupying a commodious high-priced car, and speeding along as though apparently bound for Paris.

The ambulance started up again, and passed them by in a cloud of dust. Giraffe lost no time in getting aboard.

“We’re in a desperate hurry, you see, Giraffe,” Bumpus assured him, even going to the extent of reaching forward and trying to help drag the elongated chum into the rear seat of the car, which he had been occupying alone up to then, Allan being in front alongside the driver.

Thad hardly waited until Giraffe had tumbled aboard than he was off again. The new addition to their ranks gasped for breath.

“Well, I should say you _were_ in a big hurry to get somewhere,” he remarked, rubbing his forehead where it had come against the back of the seat with a bump when the car started so suddenly. “Are the Germans coming so fast as that, tell me?”

He looked backwards rather anxiously, as though half expecting to see some band of Uhlans charging along in the rear.

Bumpus being closer than either of the others took upon himself the task of putting the newcomer in possession of the main facts. There was no time to elaborate, and make a stirring story of their late adventures, nor was Bumpus especially gifted in that way. He did manage to explain how they had reached the field hospital and were making themselves useful in lots of ways when the injured dispatch bearer was brought in.

When Giraffe began to understand what a strange mission his chums had undertaken he showed the most intense interest. Perhaps up to then he had thought he held the palm for undertaking a remarkable exploit, when he drove that Red Cross ambulance, with its load of wounded soldiers, all the way to Paris, safely delivered them at one of the hospitals, and then turned over his charge to another pilot.

“But this beats all the other things hollow, for a fact!” he declared after Bumpus had managed to give him the “gist” of recent events. “To think that you American scouts are right now carrying dispatches for the French army, and that the delivery of the same may mean a heap to the clinching of victory for Joffre! Say, there’s nothing neutral about that, let me tell you, Bumpus. Running a Red Cross ambulance, yes, and even helping ’em at a field hospital may be all right; but in tackling this you’re making us allies of the French. They could shoot you for doing it, if the Germans caught you.”

“Well,” replied the other, confidently, “they won’t catch us, all the same, I’m telling you, Giraffe. And Thad seemed to think it was all right. We’re not supposed to know what the message is we’re carrying. It may be a call for reinforcements over on the left; or that the army there has to fall back. No matter, Thad agreed to deliver it at Headquarters, and he will, barring accidents!”

Still Giraffe shook his head as if he did not wholly like the idea. As his ancestors had come from Germany many years before, and Giraffe was known to have more or less of a tender feeling for the cause of the Kaiser deep down in his heart, his feelings could be understood. This matter of strict neutrality is at best a most difficult thing to arrange, for in almost every case thinking people are drawn one way or the other.

“I don’t suppose now, Giraffe,” ventured Bumpus, a minute afterwards, with a vein of entreaty in his voice and manner, “that you happened to see anything of a lady in Paris who looked like my mother?”

Giraffe laughed scornfully.

“Why, Bumpus,” he hastened to say in a patronizing way, “you must know that Paris is something more than an overgrown village. Next to our own New York, and then London, it’s called one of the biggest cities in the world. Of course, right now the people have flocked out of the same burg, thinking Von Kluck meant to break through and gobble up the same; but still there were plenty of folks on the avenues, I noticed, tens of thousands, in fact. No, Bumpus, I’m sorry to say I didn’t chance to run across your mother.”

“Oh! well, I hope and expect she’s all right,” sighed the stout chum. “But there’s Allan pointing ahead. I wonder now if he’s discovered that side road we expect to strike along here, so as to get to where General Joffre is holding the fort?”

“So, that’s the game, is it?” exclaimed Giraffe. “Well, there _is_ a road just where you see that clump of trees. I noticed it as we came along, because a scout is bound to use his eyes to the best advantage when he travels, either afoot or on the seat of an army Red Cross ambulance. Yes, and it leads toward the east in the bargain, Bumpus.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because once we get off this much traveled line we’ll be able to make better time,” the other observed.

Presently they made the turn. It immediately offered them a chance to speed faster, and this pleased Thad. He seemed to have taken a strange fancy for playing the part of the wounded dispatch bearer. Perhaps deep down in his mind he knew he really had no business to give that promise to the surgeon at the field hospital; but the conditions by which he was surrounded at the time must have made a deep impression on him; and once having given his word Thad could not back out. Right or wrong he was now grimly determined on carrying his mission to a successful termination.

Another point of importance soon made itself manifest; they not only had ceased to head in the direction of Paris, but seemed gradually swinging around, and following an oblique course back toward the battle line.

Still Thad had figured all that out before, and for one he was not in the least surprised. It might mean they would see still more of the furious fighting along the Marne before they quit this region for good.

There were a few vehicles on the road, they soon discovered. These must be going to another part of the front, taking supplies. Some master mind back there in Paris, with accurate road maps to consult, was directing all these movements of laden vans and wagons. Every want of the army in the way of ammunition, food and other supplies had to be figured on with mathematical precision. Thad was utterly stunned whenever he tried to imagine how all this could be done; and yet as a scout he already knew the great value of system.

Louder grew the deep muttering away off there on their left, and ahead as well, for more than one section of Joffre’s army of the defence was in action on this morning, the third of the terrible battles. Bumpus had fallen strangely silent. He simply sat there, gripping the side of his seat, and listening, with his heart beating very fast, as the dreadful tattoo rose and fell like the waves of the sea. Much as he might want to find himself face to face with the commanding general of the French armies, of whom he had heard so much, Bumpus dreaded seeing those painful sights again. He was of the opinion, and rightly too, that this disputed ground between the lines was no proper place for himself and chums, who would show considerably more wisdom if they made direct for Paris, and even beyond.

“My stars! but it’s getting pretty noisy around here again, let me tell you,” Giraffe called out, having to elevate his voice considerably in order to make himself heard.

“We’ve covered a good many miles since leaving that other road, you see,” explained Thad, speaking over his shoulder, “and then, again, along here the fighting line must lie further south than where we left it. I can hear shells bursting; with the roar of the big guns they muffle the sound of the motor working, so that sometimes I almost fear it has gone back on me.”

“Not while we’re making all this speed,” Allan put in, sagaciously, as he glanced at the trees, and the low stone buildings that seemed to fairly flit past in swift succession.

“But what’s all that mean ahead there, Thad?” suddenly asked Giraffe, he of the eagle eye; “looks to me like there might be quite a squad of motors heading in our direction; and say, it also strikes me that the man with the horses is whipping ’em like fun in the bargain. Talk to me about a panic, that has all the earmarks of one! What under the sun could have happened?”

“We must try and find out,” snapped Thad. “I’ll see if one of them won’t give us information.”

“But for goodness’ sake, Thad,” said Bumpus, “don’t try to swing across, so as to block the road; because they’re coming licketty-split, and might run right over us, you know.”

Thad was wise enough to foresee such a contingency. He kept on his own side, but at the same time slowed up, waving his hand in a way that could have only one meaning, and that a desire for information.

The first van went booming past, with the man calling something which none of them could begin to understand, what with all the noise. A second met with no better success. Thad now rested his hopes on the man who had the wagon and the team.

He was using his whip vigorously, so that his steaming horses kept on a mad gallop. Upon seeing Thad making motions, however, the man managed to check his team somewhat, his desire to be accommodating overcoming the mad impulse that called for speed.

Thad shouted something at him, and again his comrades caught that magic name of Joffre. It must have reached its mark, for the driver in return bawled as he went by them, and even turned to point excitedly in his rear.

Then he too drifted along down the road. There were no other vehicles in sight; the four chums had the thoroughfare to themselves, to all appearances.

“What did he say, Thad?” demanded Giraffe, immediately.

“I only caught a part of it,” replied the other, soberly; “but I think he was trying to tell us that the road a mile or more ahead was impassable for any vehicle, being under the fire of the Germans. I reckon those drivers know of another way around, a heap longer, of course, but safer.”

“And will we too turn back then, Thad?” asked Bumpus.

“What do you say, Allan; for I know already how Giraffe would answer if I asked him?” the leader demanded.

“It would mean considerable risk, if those men didn’t dare try it,” commenced Allan, as though weighing every word first before uttering it; “but time is worth something to us right now. Besides, when we strike that sector that is under fire the German batteries may have changed their range entirely, swinging around again. We might go on further, and see if we dare take the chances.”

“Just what I was wanting to say myself,” added Thad, as he again started the car. “We’ll move up and take a look. If it seems too dangerous we can give it up, and turn around again.”

Their excitement grew by leaps and bounds as they kept moving along the road in the direction of the scene of danger.

“There, did you see that tree go down with a smash?” suddenly bawled Giraffe; “why, a shot must have cut it off like a knife near the base. And see how the dirt flies up on that knoll, will you? It was a big shell bursting in the ground that sent it sky-rocketing. Thad, what do you think; shall we risk it?”

The boy at the wheel knew that whatever he said those devoted chums would stand back of him to the end. That made it all the harder for him to decide; had he only himself to think of he could settle the matter very quickly, one way or the other. Bumpus did not count; and those other two seemed willing, almost eager, to have him answer in the affirmative. Thad took a careful survey of the ground, and as far along the road as he could see.

“We might chance it,” he finally decided; “for it strikes me that if we can only get to where the road seems to make another bend half a mile a long, we ought to be out of range of the shells. They’re covering this road for some reason or other. Allan, is it go, or turn back?”

“Keep her moving, Thad!” cried the one appealed to. “Let her out to the limit, if you think the road’s safe. The more speed the better our chances of escaping being hit by any of that flying stuff. Everybody hold on, and keep as low down as you can!”

Thad sent the car on with a jump. All the reserve power of the motor was thrown on; and some of those well-built French cars do possess engines that are capable of developing an extraordinary capacity for business, when in the right hands.

It was a most intense period of time for Bumpus, yes, and the other scouts as well. Even that never-to-be-forgotten ride on the gun caissons of the flying French battery when under fire would have to take a back seat when this flight was mentioned; and the boys at the time had thought that the very acme of thrill-producing excitement.

Soon they were in the midst of the zone where the far-away guns of the German batteries were dropping their monster shells with almost mathematical certainty, thanks to their wonderful rangefinders, and the accurate maps they must possess covering the various roads around Paris.

When a frightful crash came, apparently close by over on their right, Bumpus held his breath in awe, not knowing what the result might be. But luckily the force of the explosion must have been thrown in another direction, for none of them received so much as a scratch.

Then another monster dropped in their rear, and a gaping cavity appeared in the road just where they had passed. Apparently they had come too far to retreat now, and there seemed nothing for them to do but keep rushing on, hoping for the best.