We shall not play into the hands of the Germans by fighting on their chosen ground. We shall wait until we are ready. This is not 1870 when armies were thrown away rather than retreat to ground where the chances of victory were even, at the worst. Remember that, if you think the retreat is shameful. If, in 1870, the army of Chalons had retreated upon Paris, instead of marching to the trap at Sedan, French history might well be different."
"Then Amiens is to be evacuated, my colonel?"
"It is the order. When you have done your errand, return here or do whatever the British staff may require of you. It will not be for long that Amiens shall be deserted. We shall return. But whether I shall be here then, I do not know. Farewell! Obey the orders I have given you, and you will deserve well of France."
They saluted then and went to make their preparations for the start.
"Harry," said Frank, "if the Germans are coming to Amiens, your mother must go. She should be where she will be safe."
"You are right, Frank. We will try to persuade her to go. But will she leave her task with the wounded?"
"She can take it up elsewhere."
But though they had expected to have difficulty in persuading her, they found that Madame Martin was already making plans to go.
"The wounded are to be taken to Tours in great numbers," she told them.
"They will need nurses there, and I shall go. Henri, will you and Francois come with me?"
"We cannot," said Henri. "There is work for us to do. You would want me to do my share?"
"Of course I do!" she said, her eyes filling with tears. "And so speaks every mother in France to-day! Stay, then, and serve your land in whatever way you can, for France needs even the boys now. Remember, Henri, that somewhere your mother is serving too, and she expects her son to do his whole duty. More, she _knows_ he will do it." And her face glowed with pride in her son as she clasped his hand in her own.
"I will remember," said Henri.
Then they went to their room, laid away their newly acquired uniforms of Boy Scouts, and, keeping not even their new badges of which they had been so proud, especially Henri, dressed in their ordinary clothes.
"Let"s start on bicycles, anyhow," proposed Frank. "We may not be able to stick to them, but we can save a lot of time on our way to Le Cateau.
That"s where we shall go first, isn"t it?"
"Yes. We had better start for there. You"re right about the bicycles, too. Even if we lose them, that does not matter so much," said Harry.
"And, Harry, we"ve got to pretend to be pretty stupid, if we are caught.
You mustn"t act as if you knew too much. Don"t let the Germans see how you really feel about them. Pretend to be terribly frightened, even if you"re not," instructed Frank.
"All right. I see what you mean. Come on, then. Let"s be off!"
Already, as they rode through the streets of Amiens, the signs of what was to come were multiplying. Troops were marching out of the town, but they were going south, away from the battle line, it seemed. And the townspeople were not slow in taking the hint. They were gathering such things as they could carry with them, and all those with anything of real value, and with a place to take it, were preparing to get away before the coming of the Germans. The refugees from Belgium had told them lurid tales of the German treatment of captured places; they had no mind to share the fate of their unhappy neighbors in the plucky little country to the north. And so the exodus was beginning.
Henri was very much depressed.
"And this is war!" he said, sadly. "So far, except for the wounded, we have seen only the suffering of women and children. Where is the glory of war of which history tells? I want to see some fighting! I want to know that we are really resisting the invaders of the fatherland."
"You"ll know it soon enough," said Frank, with a smile. "You are too impatient, Harry. And you must remember this. While all this is going on, Russia is advancing too. The Austrians have been well beaten all along their front already. Soon it will be the turn of the Germans to meet Russia. They cannot long devote all their energy to France and the British."
"That is so, Frank. But the Russians won"t fight here."
"Perhaps not. But it will be the same. For every army corps that Russia sends into Prussia means that Germany can spare so many troops less for the war on this side. Harry, do you know what I think? I think Germany is beaten already!"
"How can you say that, Frank? We know now that they have pushed us back everywhere--that they are all over Belgium, and are marching on Paris, just as they did the last time--"
"No, not just as they did the last time, Harry. For then they marched on Paris with the field armies of France beaten--one of them captured, the other locked up in Metz. Now the armies of France are still in the field. And I say that Germany is beaten because her one chance in this war was to destroy France as she did in 1870--quickly. If she had done that, she might have been able to turn back, away from France, and meet Russia with her full strength."
"Oh, I see what you mean. But I"ll feel better when we turn and fight, instead of running away from them."
"So will I and everyone else, Harry. But the great thing for our side now is to win delay. Every day is as important as a battle. Russia moves slowly, but when she is fully in the field she will have as great an army ready as France and Germany together."
"Well, I hope you are right. Ah, now we are out of the town. We can go a little faster. En avant!"
In the fields women and young boys were working hard, getting in the harvest that the men had abandoned. Never had a countryside looked more peaceful, except that at every bridge they pa.s.sed now was a sentry, usually a man of the reserve, held back from the front for this sort of duty, while the younger men were at the front to do the actual fighting.
For a long time they were not challenged. The sentries looked at them idly, but decided that they were not at all likely to be Prussian spies, and let them pa.s.s. But when they came to the railroad line leading from Amiens to Arras, which they had to cross, it was different. Their crossing was at a culvert, where the road pa.s.sed under the tracks. Here there was not one sentry, but a post, under the command of a one-legged veteran.
To him they were forced to make explanations, which he received gravely, studying Frank with particular attention.
"So you carry despatches," he said. "You have a word, a countersign, perhaps?"
"Mezieres," said Henri, promptly.
"Very well. Pa.s.s, then, but keep an eye open. There were Uhlans here before daybreak."
"Here?"
"They are beginning to show now. We hear they were in Arras yesterday.
Some stayed with us. They sought to blow up the culvert here."
Then they went on. And just after they had pa.s.sed the post, they saw what the crippled veteran had meant when he had said that some of the Uhlans had stayed. They lay beside the road, in their greenish gray uniforms. They were the first German soldiers either of the boys had seen. And, in the field, two old peasants were digging a grave.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HANDS OF A CLOCK
The sight was a sobering one. There had been only half a dozen of the Uhlans, and they knew from what they had heard and read that thousands, scores of thousands probably, had already died in the war. But they hadn"t seen the others, and these men had lain by the roadside within a few feet of them. For a time neither of the two scouts had much to say.
"There"s some real war for you, Henri," Frank said, finally.
"Don"t!" said the French scout with a shudder. "It must be, but it is terrible. And only a few hours ago, I suppose, they were riding along as well as you and I!"
Then for a mile or more they rode along in silence. They made good time for the roads were level. There were no interruptions to their progress now. In the fields, as before, they could see the women and a few old men about the work of the harvest, but in spite of that, there was an air of desolation. Everything seemed to have stopped. And there was a curious something that made itself felt. For a long time, though each of them felt this, they made no comment on it. Finally Frank called a halt.
"Listen, Harry," he said. "There"s something curious. It"s a noise, and yet it isn"t, exactly. It sounds a little like thunder or like the surf when you are quite a little way inland--"
They stopped together, listening.
"I know!" said Henri, suddenly. "It"s the guns we hear. The wind is changing and that is why it is coming to us now. There is a battle. In olden days we could see its smoke but now they fight without making smoke. And the noise, too, seems to come from the direction in which we are going."