CHAPTER XIX.

THE BATTLE AT THE BRIDGE.

Once more the fugitives managed to go on for some little distance, with nothing out of the common run happening. Bumpus was thinking that the engine had commenced to act quite decently, but of course he did not dare mention this fact aloud. The recollection of what had followed when Giraffe boasted was still fresh in his memory.

"There's a fork in the road ahead of us, Thad," announced the keen-eyed Giraffe. "Do we take the right or the left branch?"

"I'm a little dubious about that," said the pilot at the wheel.

"Why, what does your chart say?" asked Giraffe.

"As near as I can make out," he was told, "the roads come together again some ways further on, perhaps as much as seven miles or so. The one that leads toward the left seems to be shorter than the other by considerable."

"Then why should you hesitate about starting along that one?" asked Allan.

"Only because it heads so far toward the southwest, you see," explained Thad.

"Oh! I'm on now," exclaimed the tall scout. "You're a bit worried for fear we'll run smack into some of the fighting that seems to have been going on over that way--is that it, Thad?"

"Well, yes, Giraffe, but on the whole I think I'll make the try. If we see things getting thick ahead of us we can turn around and come back again at the worst. And if we do manage to get along without being held up we'll save quite some time."

That was how they came to be moving along that road, and heading in a direction that opened up new hazards.

"We want to keep a good lookout whenever we strike a rise," the pilot warned them. "Tell me if you happen to see anything that looks suspicious, for it may be a hard job to get turned around, you know."

Each one of the others readily promised, though very likely the task would fall principally to Giraffe, as he had the best eyes for this purpose.

They may have covered as much as three miles after passing the fork when they saw a hill ahead of them. Bumpus looked and groaned. He knew what that meant.

"More push coming, fellows!" commented Giraffe. "As for me, I won't be sorry to get out and stretch my legs a bit, because they're feeling cramped."

"Hit it up for all the old tub can carry, Thad," begged Bumpus. "The further she carries us before giving up the ghost the less hard work we'll have to do. Go it, you shirker, do your level best! If you could only drag us all the way up I'd beg your pardon for ever having even thought evil of you. Here we go!"

They started up the rise bravely enough, but speedily the engine began to make signs as of distress.

"Get ready to jump, everybody!" called out Giraffe.

"Yes, that's easy for you to say," complained poor Bumpus, "but think of me, won't you? How can I spring like a frog when she starts to go backward down the hill again? I'll do my best to roll out; only somebody grab hold, and don't let me get started rolling like a barrel after the car!"

"Oh! no danger," Thad told them. "Just as soon as she stops I'll jam on the brake and let her back off the road."

"We're two-thirds of the way to the top anyhow!" cried Giraffe, triumphantly.

He had hardly spoken when the engine gave a last expiring puff, and Thad immediately turned the car into the little ditch alongside the road.

They had done this grand pushing act so often by this time that they had it all reduced to a system. Two took hold on either side, and in this way the car was urged up the balance of the rise. With but a couple of stops, so as to catch their breath, the boys managed to reach the crown of the low hill.

"Worth all it took to get here, just to enjoy that grand view!" gasped Allan.

Giraffe uttered a cry.

"Look down there to where the road crosses a river by a bridge!" he exclaimed.

"Why, there are lots of men in uniforms on the other side of the bridge, Belgian soldiers as sure as anything!" cried Allan.

"They've got cannon, too," added Bumpus, staring with distended eyes, "because you c'n see the glint in the sunlight. What d'ye suppose it all means, Thad?"

As usual he had to appeal to the patrol leader for an opinion. Bumpus had never fully learned that a scout should try to figure out things for himself, and not be forever asking some one else for an explanation. But then it was so much easier doing things by proxy, and Bumpus, as every one knew, hated to exert himself more than was absolutely necessary.

"That bridge must be an important one, I should say," Thad explained, "and the battery has had orders to guard it so that no German cavalrymen can cross."

"And perhaps sooner or later there will be a fierce old fight take place right down there!" Giraffe was saying, half to himself, and with a touch of envy in his voice, as though he felt sorry that he could not be upon that same hill so as to watch the battle below.

"Ought we to keep on and try to get across that bridge, Thad?" asked Allan.

"It's a question whether the Belgians would let us get close enough to tell who we are. They might open on us as soon as we came in sight," Bumpus remarked, from which it might easily be seen what he hoped Thad would do.

"We're not going to have the chance to try and cross the bridge," remarked Giraffe, "and if you want to know the reason why just look along the river road that joins this one down near the bridge."

No sooner had the others done this than loud and excited exclamations told what a shock they had received.

"That's what all the dust meant I noticed rising over those trees," said Bumpus. "Why, there comes a whole army of soldiers, and say, they've got field guns along with them, too, because you can see the horses dragging the same."

"And do you notice the gray uniforms they are wearing?" Giraffe demanded. "That shows who they are--the Kaiser's men, as sure as anything. Now there's going to be the dickens to pay. The river must be deep, and I reckon that same bridge is the only one around this section. The Germans are bent on crossing over, and the Belgians just as set that they shan't do the same. Thad, you won't think of quitting this splendid view-place and losing the one chance we may ever have to see a real up-to-date battle?"

Thad did not answer immediately. He had a boy's curiosity as well as Giraffe, and felt that it would be something to say they had actually witnessed a fierce fight between the rivals for Belgian soil, the defenders and the invaders.

"Yes, we will stay a while," he finally said; "but first let's get the car turned around, and make sure it will work when called on. We may have to leave here in a big hurry, you understand."

These little matters having been duly attended to they were in a position to observe all that was transpiring below. It was just like a grand panorama, or something that had been staged for a moving picture show.

The German battery was advancing on a gallop now, as though the fact had been discovered that the bridge was guarded by the Belgians. Men could be seen using the whip on the steaming horses, already galloping wildly. The rumble of the wheels on the road came distinctly to the ears of the interested boys standing on the rise, and really not more than a mile or so from the scene.

"There, the troops are coming on the double-quick, too!" announced Giraffe. "You can't see the end of them yet, and I should think there must be thousands of soldiers in that bunch. It's going to be a hot old affair, believe me. Mebbe the Germans may carry the bridge, and again they might get more than they bargained for right there."

Evidences of considerable excitement could be seen among the defenders of the river bridge. Men ran this way and that; perhaps ammunition was being placed handy, so that the guns could be quickly served, because time was a factor that would undoubtedly enter into the result. A delay of a few seconds was apt to count heavily for either side when fighting it out at such close quarters.

Of course all of the scouts were keenly interested. While neither Thad nor Allan felt just the same eagerness that Giraffe displayed, at the same time they knew such an opportunity to see a wonderful and terrible spectacle would not be apt to come their way again in a hurry, and so they were satisfied to stay.

As for Bumpus, he was shivering, not with eagerness, but in anticipation of awful sights he expected to witness, once those guns started business. The florid look had left his round face, and it was now almost pallid, with his blue eyes round and expectant.

Amidst clouds of dust and more or less racket the German battery came dashing along. It broke through into a field as though all this had been figured out beforehand in the wonderful systematic way these Teuton fighters did nearly everything they undertook.

There the horses were detached from the guns and caissons and hurried away to a place of security. Already a loud crash announced that the Belgians were beginning hostilities, not meaning to wait until that host of grim gray-clad infantry reached the abutment of the bridge.

The four boys watched and saw a shell burst close to one of the German batteries. It did not seem to do any damage, nor did the gunners show the least sign of any flinching, but went steadily about their work of loading.

Other shots began to roar out until there was a constant crash in the air almost deafening, and white powder smoke rose in billows, through which the watchers on the hilltop could actually discover flashes of flame when another gun was discharged.

The battle for the bridge was now on in earnest. Hurrying figures could be seen in every direction. The Germans were evidently not fully satisfied with their first position for down came the horses again, and being attached to the guns the latter were whisked further up the rise where they could get a better chance to shell the chosen position of the Belgian battery.

It seemed to get more and more exciting every second. None of the boys said a single word; they were too intensely interested in looking; and besides, the riot of noise was now at its height, so that they would have had to shout in order to have made themselves heard, even close at hand.

Doubtless there had already been many casualties on both sides, with all that furious bombardment at close range; but the smoke hid much of this from the eyes of the spectators. Thad was of the opinion the Germans could not have known of the Belgian battery at the bridge; he believed that had they been aware of it in all probability their battery would have taken up its stand on the crown of the hill where the four scouts stood, from which point they could have made it too warm for the Belgians to remain there below.

All at once Thad realized that the infantry columns had been hurrying along the road and scattering through the fields near by. He caught glimpses of their number and was amazed when he saw they must be in the thousands. Other batteries also began to show up back along the road. This was not a sporadic dash on the part of a mere detachment of the German force, but an advance of the main army, bent on getting around the stumbling block at Liége.

And to himself Thad was saying:

"They mean to take that bridge, no matter how many lives it costs them, for it is an important link in their general plans."

Giraffe was calling out something. It chanced that there was a little lull in the roar of guns, and they could hear what he was saying.

It seemed to give the finishing thrill to the situation, as though the grand climax had been reached.

"Look! Oh, see what they're meaning to do, fellows!" was what Giraffe cried at the top of his shrill voice. "The order's been given to charge the bridge, and as sure as you live there they go with a rush!"

And Bumpus hurriedly put his hands before his eyes, though possibly peeping through between his fingers, impelled by some dreadful fascination.