Part 2

"And in a minute I felt smaller than ever because a shell the size of a church came along from our lines, and _bing_! I was all dirt, and cut up with little stones, and when I could look around, there ahead was a big shell crater. I ran over and looked in. There was a bayonet lying there right on the edge, and I grabbed it. I don't know why, except you know how you feel about having a stick or something to hold and I was pretty glad I did afterwards. The man I had followed was lying there in the shell crater, on his back. I could see he was hurt pretty bad. A flare went up, and I saw it was Bogardus. He looked pretty bad. But what got my alleys, General, was that the German was beside him, and he was going through his pockets just like lightning. The German had a broken leg himself, but I didn't know that. Well, I let out a yell that was some yell, and I jumped down, bayonet and all, right on the German's neck. I was so mad I didn't think what I did. And I guess I sort of twisted his neck or something, because he crumpled right up, and I thought I had killed him. So I tried to straighten Bogardus out, and I put the papers that the Germ had back in his pocket, and what to do next I didn't know.

"And all at once I felt something behind me, and it was the other man. He had come to, and was trying to get his revolver out of his pocket. Gee, he looked at me ugly! I said as polite as I could, 'You cut that out!' but he got it loose, and shot at me, and he just _did_ miss me and that was all. And then he tried again, and I had to do something quick, so I just took that bayonet--just took that bayonet--"

"All right," said the General. "All in the day's work, my boy. Go on!"

Porky swallowed hard a couple of times.

"Well, sir, there I was with Bogardus, and your orders to have him report to you; and he was not in any condition to report to _anybody_. So I had to wait until my brother could come and help me."

"How did he know where you were?" demanded the General in astonishment.

"He always knows," said Porky. "We are twins, and we always know when the other is in trouble of any sort. So I knew he would find me, and I just sat tight, and I did get a little worried, but I knew he would come, and he did."

Porky chuckled.

"And when he looked at me over the edge of that crater, I most threw a fit. I was looking for him so hard that it scared me when I saw him. Anyhow, there he was, and it was dark pretty soon, and we brought Bogardus back."

"You carried him?" asked the General.

"Yes, sir. He is pretty thin," said Porky simply.

"What became of the German?" asked the General.

"Back there in the shell crater," said Porky, frowning.

"I wonder if he had any valuable papers on him," mused the General.

"I don't know, sir," said Porky, beginning to fish in his pockets. "I thought of that, so I just went through him and took everything he had." He commenced to lay things out on the table in little piles. The men watched him with interest.

The collection was well worth while. Several official letters, some maps, a number of orders, and some codes. There was also a packet of blank paper that Porky put carefully aside. The General leaned over and picked it up.

"Nothing here," he said, tossing it down.

Porky picked it up.

"I don't know, sir," he said. "We had something like this at home awhile ago. We came near missing out on it, too. If you will excuse me!"

He leaned over and held the first page near the heat of the candle. On the instant the sheet was covered with fine writing.

The General gave a muttered exclamation and leaned back in his chair. "What next?" he demanded.

"That's about all," said Porky. "Bogardus is in hospital by now, I suppose, and I'm sorry it took me so long. I certainly did seem to miss him all around. I'm real sorry, sir. Next time you give me anything to do, I will try to do better."

"That would be impossible," said the General. "Just a moment, my boy, while I make a note or two, and then you can be relieved from all duty for forty-eight hours. You have earned a rest. We will have to go through these papers and plans carefully before we can decide anything for your future reference. Just sit there while I write."

He turned to his desk and, pulling a sheet of paper toward him, commenced covering it with his strong, distinctive handwriting. Porky, in the big chair opposite, watched him for a little, then he rested his head on his hand and commenced to think of all the events of the long, gruelling, wearisome day.

And presently he did not think at all; just listened to the steady scratch, scratch, scratch of the General's pen and the steady tramp, tramp, tramp of the Colonel as he softly paced up and down the length of the somber room. And presently that sound died away. Porky was asleep.

Beany, left to himself in the hall, went cautiously and with noiseless touch over every portion of the oak paneling. He could not find a joint or crack that looked like a secret door or hidden entrance. Then he examined the floor. It too appeared solid. But Beany had one of his hunches. It _looked_ solid but he felt that it _wasn't_ solid. The man he had seen was not a ghost. He was certainly too solid to disappear into thin air. He had come from somewhere, and he had gone somewhere. Benny made up his mind that he would find out if it took all night. He stood thinking. Then he whistled in an offhand manner, and walked loudly down the hall to the turn. Round the turn he went, until well out of sight. Then Beany tried a trick of his boyhood days. He knew from experience that any one watching for any one else always fixes his eyes about where they expect to see the face appear, never lower than that.

So Beany, dropping flat on the floor, worked his way back to the corner, flattened himself out to his flattest, and with face against the tiles waited patiently, his eyes fixed on the distant doorway. The hallway was lighted with a small and feeble kerosene lamp set high on a bracket. It gave a dim light, but Beany could see the door distinctly and the high wainscot on either side.

He stared at it steadily--so steadily and so long that when at last a narrow panel in the woodwork slid noiselessly over and a face looked out into the hall, Beany did not start; he did not feel surprised. All he was conscious of was a sort of triumph. He wanted to sing out for his own benefit, "I told you so."

The face staring from the panel looked straight down the hall, as Beany had known it would. A pair of bright, ferrety eyes stared at the turn, but not once did they drop to the floor where Beany's bright eyes watched every move. Beany had to smile, it was so funny. The unknown person leaned from the panel and watched four feet above Beany's face, while in plain sight on the floor Beany lay motionless and unnoticed.

He watched while the person (he could not tell at first whether it was a man or woman) looked and listened. Then as if assured that the coast was clear, the man, (for it was a man), stepped out of the dark slit in the wall, carefully closed the panel, and once more stood listening at the door. He listened intently, then stooped, and bending in a comfortable position on one knee, looked fixedly through the great old-fashioned keyhole.

Beany watched breathlessly.

For a long time--it seemed days to Beany--the man held his stooping position. Beany wished he too could see what was going on inside that door. He was sure, however, that it was nothing more exciting than Porky's account of his chase after Bogardus; and as Porky was an aggravatingly low talker, he was pretty sure the man at the keyhole would not be able to hear very much. Just the same, Beany knew that here was something serious and threatening. The man listened and looked so intently that Beany seriously thought of trying to creep up behind him, give the alarm, grab him and hang on, trusting to luck that the door would be opened soon enough to prevent the man from killing him. It was a crazy idea and Beany banished it. It was well that he did, for at that moment the panel, which had been left partly opened, slid wide and a second man appeared. He was a tall man, apparently in uniform. What his uniform was, Beany could not see. It was closely covered with a long, closely-buttoned linen coat and a nondescript cap covered his head. He tapped the man at the keyhole sharply, and the fellow straightened to a stiff salute. Beany could not help admiring their utter coolness in the face of discovery. At any moment the door might open; at any moment some one might come down the hall. Of course in that case, reflected our self-appointed sleuth, they would walk over his legs, and stop to make a fuss, during which the two men would pop into the wall again.

Then while Beany watched, there followed a violent, soundless discussion between the two. One and then the other stooped to the keyhole. Then the second man noiselessly stepped back into the hole in the wall and closed the panel after him.

By this time Beany was so excited that he had no conception of time. It seemed a long while before he saw the man at the door turn his head and look at the panel. Then at last Beany saw what he so wanted to see--the secret of its opening. The man's hand sought something in the upper left corner, Beany could not see in the poor light just what it was, but the man pressed hard, swinging considerable weight against it, and the panel slid smoothly back. Another figure appeared. It was a little, stooped woman. She had a worn broom in her hands.

Beany recognized her at once as the deaf and dumb peasant woman who pottered around the offices brushing up and doing what odd jobs they could make her understand about.

At the present moment, however, she was anything but deaf and dumb. She seized the man at the door by the shoulder and shook him violently, whispering a stream of comment in his ear. She waved her broom threateningly, with an eye on the door meanwhile. Beany wondered what she would do if any one _did_ come out.

He felt sure she would manage to carry off the situation.

Whatever she said was badly received by the man. He pulled back and shook his head violently. She stamped her old foot noiselessly. He still rebelled, but she insisted in a continuous rush of whispered words, while Beany felt his mouth sag open and his eyes bulge with amazement. Even in the midst of his surprise he could not help wondering just what personal remarks he and Porky had made about her on a dozen different occasions in the few weeks that they had been there. However, there was _one_ happy thought. He and his brother had spoken in English, a tongue that must as a matter of course have meant nothing to her ignorant old ears.

Beany was not to learn for a long while that the old, stooped, ugly peasant, looking so typically French and so pitifully silent and stupid, had once been a famous German actress, as well as one of the most brilliantly educated women of her time. Once there had been a day when her parlors in Berlin had been filled with the most renowned and high-born men and women in the world. Not only members of the highest circles of Germany, but representatives from every other country. To be asked to the home of Madame Z---- was the dream of every young diplomat, writer, artist and court favorite.

Yet now, perfectly disguised, stooped, bent, and old, clad in rags, she stood clutching in one hand a coarse home-made broom, while with the other she kept a tight grip on the shoulder of the rebellious man beside her.

At last he nodded, and she turned and shoved him before her into the passage in the wall, following close behind and closing the panel.

Beany was alone.

He leaped to his feet and tiptoed down to the door, a cautious eye on the panel. He lifted a hand to knock on the door, then paused, and in his turn applied an eye to the keyhole. It was a huge old keyhole, made in the days when keys were large enough to almost take the places of trench billies. He could see most of the room. The General sat writing at the desk. Across in an armchair Porky leaned on the table, sound asleep. There had been nothing for the spies to see this time, at any rate. Then a wild thought came into Beany's head.

He did not wait to consider it. It was a crazy thought, but to Beany in his excited state it was a sane idea.

He approached the panel, felt carefully in the upper corner, pressed a dozen carvings and then, just as he despaired, felt the heavy wood give under his touch. He pushed the trap open and without a moment's hesitation entered and closed the door behind him.

The passage was pitch dark.

*CHAPTER III*

*MARKING TIME*

Sitting at his great carved table, once part of the fittings of a glorious old library and now a desk littered with official papers and maps, in the room of one of the greatest commanders in the world, the General finished the paper he was filling out with so much care, and lifted his eyes to the boy sitting so silently across the table. Then a smile lighted the General's tired eyes.

"Asleep!" he said. "Brave lad, he is worn out! Can't we manage to get him off to bed without waking him?"

He pointed to a room opening off the one they were in. "There is an extra cot in my room," said the General. "A couple of you take him in there." He beckoned his orderly. '"Get him undressed and cover him well. Let him sleep as long as he may."

So it came about that this was done; and in the General's own room, Porky, like the healthy boy that he was, slept and slept and slept. He did not dream of the past hard hours. He did not think of home, the pleasant house so far away where the dear father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Potter, lived their busy, helpful lives, trying not to let each other know just how they longed for the two splendid boys they had given to their country. But like others who had given their all, each knew just how the other felt, and so tried by countless little unaccustomed acts of tenderness to help each other along. Nor did Porky dream of the other boys, or the famous swimming hole. There were no nightmares of school; no visions of Professor Wilcox bearing a sheaf of examination papers. Porky just slept and slept!

Night passed, breaking into such a wild and storm-tossed morning that it was scarcely light at all. There was a lull in the fighting that day and, except for the sound of distant guns booming at close intervals, the place was silent enough. The office work went on quietly. A couple of typewriters clacked busily. It might almost have been an office on Broadway. The General sat long at his desk, then mounted and rode off, accompanied by his orderlies.

Colonel Bright, after scribbling a note which he addressed to "the Potter boys" and left on the desk, also took his horse and went clattering away toward Paris.

Noon came. Still Porky slept, but at about two o'clock he was awakened by the most faithful of all the alarm clocks that a boy can have. He was hungry, he was frightfully hungry, and his eyes came open with a pop as he rose to his elbow and tried to place himself.

When he recognized his surroundings, he bounded to his feet in a moment, and after some prodigious stretching, hurried into his clothes, which he found nicely dried and on a stool by his cot. There was a table by the cot, and on it a good breakfast; cold, of course, but it was food, and there was plenty of it. What more can a fellow ask?

When he went out into the office expecting to find the group he had left the night before, there were only a couple of Captains, strangers to him, officers who had just been transferred. Porky, found the note from Colonel Bright.

It said simply:

"_Boys_:

"General Pershing has gone away for a conference. I am off on almost the same errand, in another direction. When you wake up, Porky, you are to do as you like for forty-eight hours. It is a leave given you on account of your good work yesterday. I have not seen Beany at all to-day. I enclose a pass that will take you wherever you want to go within the lines. Don't go to the outer trenches. Better take time to write some letters home. We are in for some hot work here. I don't mind telling you that there is a leak somewhere. Keep your eyes and ears open.

"Your friend, "COLONEL BRIGHT."

Porky folded the note and put it deep down in his pocket. Then he turned to look at the two officers. One of them was running the typewriter like a veteran; the other, with a puckered brow, was stabbing the keys with his middle fingers. He was making awful work of it.

Porky watched him for a while, then he went over and saluted.

"I would be glad to write to your dictation, sir," he said. "That is, if it is nothing personal."

"Well, I should say not!" said the officer. "I am Captain Dowd, and this is a letter to a military journal back home. They wrote me some time ago for some dope, and I jotted down something then. It is on scraps of paper, and they couldn't read it as it is now written. I wanted to put it in shape, and then add something of our later experiences. Do you think you can do it, and do you want to take the trouble?"

"Yes, sir," said Porky heartily. "I just woke up, and there is nothing for me to do until my brother blows in. There is no use for me to go after him, because he knows where I am. I can write it for you in no time."

"That's fine!" said the Captain in a relieved tone. "At the rate I can work that old machine, the war will be over about the time I finish; and that's not hurrying the war any too much either. I have a page done. You may go on from where I left off if you will."

Porky sat down and the Captain drew up a chair, and lighted a cigarette while he scanned the soiled, ragged sheets of paper in his hand.

"Here we are," he said. "Fire away!"

"We are now getting the finishing touches to our training, and you can rest assured that it is of the most finished description, and we are ready to get into the big fight at any time. Our regiment, one of the first over, was inspected by General Pershing the other day, and we feel that he was fully satisfied with it. We have been told so at any rate. Our regiment has learned the French open order drills which is by sections instead of squads. We have also had any amount of rifle shooting and certainly know how to shoot. Then, besides, we have had practice in throwing live hand-grenades until our arms ached, but the use of this deadly bomb is of the utmost importance for close fighting as one grenade properly thrown among the enemy is liable to wipe out a hundred men. Besides this, we have been taught to shoot hand-grenades and automatic rifles, and do about everything that is infernal in warfare. Our regiment and many of the others have all been supplied with steel helmets, which have been dubbed 'tin lizzies.' They are not so very comfortable to wear, but they have proved extremely valuable, just the same, and have saved many lives and more bad head wounds.

"We understand that the gas we are to greet the Germans with is a better article than their own. We surely do hope it is. We have had trench work galore, with dugouts and wire entanglements, some of them close on the enemy's front, and others in our own training area. We have marched about ten miles to the trenches, relieving other battalions about three A.M. and holding the trench until about six P.M. next day. At that time we are relieved by another battalion and get back to our billet about ten P.M. and by that time, what with trench work and the tramp of twenty miles, oh how precious we do find sleep!

"When we are within our training area, we do everything exactly as it is done on the firing line, including the guard work, which is divided into two reliefs, and everybody turns out at dawn, which is the usual time the enemy makes his raids, and we must be on the alert.

"We have had long marches, battalion, regimental and divisional maneuvers, and we always march with full pack and a gas mask slung over each shoulder."

The Captain laid down his papers and rolled another cigarette. Porky rested his hands on the desk.

"They have some new kind of mask, haven't they?" he asked.

"Yes; haven't you seen them!" asked the Captain.

"No, sir," said Porky. "I just heard them talking about them."

"They are similar to the old ones, but I believe they last longer," said the Captain. "They have a filter can for the air that is strapped at your belt Then there is the usual tube to your mouth. There is a rubber cap that sets over the front teeth and fits close to the gums, with little rubber dew hickeys to bite on so you won't lose it out. There are automatic rubber lips that close tight if you try to breathe in any outside air, but open for the air from the filter can."

Once more he picked up his papers.

"Our gas masks and our rifles we consider our best friends and never lose them.

"Perhaps some data regarding the numerous details of the military life we have to meet here may be of interest, and I will give you some of it.

"Stringent orders have been given to all organization commanders that they will be held strictly responsible for any dirty or rusty arms and equipment found among their men, and they must also see that their men are clean-shaven and that their billets are clean and orderly.

"A number of men who have disregarded orders have been seriously injured while riding on the top of cars. The French tunnels are very low, and the men have been knocked off. Other men, through carelessness, have fallen out of the cars. The failure to assemble organizations at the time set before the departure of trains has resulted in the leaving of a number of men behind, and the provost guards have had the job of rounding the men up and forwarding them to their command.

"Even in France the destination of the detachment must be kept absolutely secret throughout the journey. No matter how long or how short the journey turns out to be, the preparations are the same. Organizations must entrain with two days' field rations on the person of each man, two days' travel rations for each man in the car with men, and ten days' field rations in the baggage car.

"The field train of the organization entraining, must accompany it, with all its wagons loaded for the field, especially with the cooking utensils, water cans, paulins, three days' field rations for each man, together with two days' field rations for each animal.

"The French town major points out the training area and no other area can be used. Distances to other posts will generally be found on posts on the side of the road, shown in kilometers. A kilometer is five-eighths of a mile.

"All time commences at naught, and ends at twenty-four. Thus, for instance six P.M. would be eighteen."

"That's what gets my goat!" said Porky, stopping to fix the ribbon. "It does make the longest day, even after you get the hang of things, so you know whether you are in to-day, or some time next week."

"It would seem something that way," said the Captain, laughing. He continued to read from his paper.

"All troops proceeding to the front will have issued to them a small quantity of firewood with which to cook one meal on detraining. In the area of concentration a supply train will be forwarded each day to the rail head, from which supplies will be carried to the troops by the wagons of the train. All arrangements for the movements of troops and supplies by rail are made by the railway transport officer at the base port."

"Gee, some busy officer!" commented Porky.

"I'll say so," said the Captain, and went on reading.