More than an hour pa.s.sed ere the three staff officers returned and hastened into the division commander"s office. Fifteen minutes after that d.i.c.k and his friends, with the prisoner, were again summoned.
"It has been simpler than we thought," General Bazain announced wearily. "Berger, when questioned and informed of Noyez"s arrest, confessed that Noyez was the superior spy under whom he worked."
"It is a lie, my general!" exclaimed Noyez, in a choking voice, as he strode forward, only to be seized and thrust back.
"It is the truth!" retorted General Bazain, rising and glaring at the accused man. "Berger not only confessed, but he told where, in your dug-out, Noyez, could be found the secret compartment in which you hid the book containing the key to the code you sometimes employed in sending written reports to the enemy. And here is the code book!"
General Bazain tossed the accusing little notebook on the desk.
At sight of that Noyez fell back three steps, then sank cowering into a chair, covering his eyes with his hands.
"You comprehend that further lying will avail you nothing!" the division commander went on sternly. "Lieutenant De Verne!"
"Here, sir!"
"Noyez, stand up. Lieutenant De Verne, I instruct you to remove from the uniform of Noyez the insignia of his rank and every emblem that stands for France! That done, you will next cut the b.u.t.tons from Noyez"s tunic!"
Standing so weakly that it looked as if he must fall, Noyez submitted to the indignity, silent save for the sobs that choked his voice.
"Call in the guard, and have the wretch removed from my sight!"
General Bazain ordered. "Yet, Noyez, I will say that it seems to me incredible that any Frenchman could have been so ign.o.ble as you have proved yourself to he."
"A Frenchman?" repeated Noyez disdainfully. "No Frenchman am I. Already I am condemned, so I no longer need even pretend that I am French. No! Though I was born in Alsace, my father"s name was Bamberger. Twenty years ago he moved to Paris, to serve the German Kaiser. He fooled even your boasted police into believing him French, and his name Noyez. My father is dead, so I may tell the truth, that he served the Kaiser like a loyal subject. And he made a spy of me. I was called to the French colors, and I went, under a French name, but a loyal German at heart! I became a French sub-lieutenant, but I was still a German, and the Kaiser"s officers paid me, knew where to find me and how to use me. I must die, but there are yet other agents of the Kaiser distributed through your Army. The Fatherland shall still be served from the French trenches. You will kill me? Bah! My work has already killed at least a regiment of Frenchmen. And since Berger has weakened and betrayed me, I will tell you that he, too, is and always has been a German subject. Remember, there are many more of us wearing the hated uniform of France."
"Noyez! Bamberger!" retorted General Bazain, "I can almost find it in my heart to feel grateful to you, for you have told me that you are not French. Since you are a German I can understand anything.
I thank you for a.s.suring me that you are not French."
With a gesture General Bazain ordered the prisoner"s removal. Then, his eyes moist, the division commander turned to beckon d.i.c.k to him.
"Captain, I have to thank you for finding and helping to remove two dangerous enemies from my command. You will find me grateful---always!"
Once more outside Lieutenant De Verne turned to d.i.c.k to ask:
"You intend returning to the trenches?"
"By all means, for I feel as though the night had but begun,"
d.i.c.k cried. "It has gone well so far, and I am ready for whatever the remaining hours can give me."
"I had hoped that, at the most, you would ask me to find you a bunk in a dug-out where you might sleep," confessed De Verne.
"When you have been longer in the trenches, Captain, you will be glad to sleep whenever the chance comes your way."
"But that will not be until I have learned more of the ways of your trench life than I know yet," d.i.c.k rejoined. "At present I would rather sleep during the daylight, for it appears to be at night that the real things happen."
De Verne accompanied him back to the fire trench, where d.i.c.k was glad to find Captain Ribaut with the other three American officers, that party having returned from a trip down the line.
De Verne soon after took his leave, hastening rearward to begin his rest.
Bang! sounded a field-piece back of the German line.
Between the French first-line and second-line trenches the sh.e.l.l exploded. On the heels of the explosion came a furious burst of discharging artillery.
"This must be what you have been expecting, Major," shouted Ribaut over the racket. "A barrage!"
Down the line ran the noise of bombardment, the thing becoming more furious every instant. Then some sh.e.l.ls landed in first-line trenches nearby.
"Take shelter!" shouted Captain Ribaut. "Now! At once!"
French soldiers were scurrying to dug-out shelters. Ribaut led the officer party to a dugout reached by eight descending steps cut in the earth. The apartment in which they found themselves led out some fifteen feet under the barbed wire defenses.
"How long is this likely to last?" demanded Major Wells, eyeing the Frenchman keenly by the light of the one slim candle that burned in the dug-out.
"Perhaps fifteen minutes; maybe until after daylight," Ribaut replied, with a shrug.
"What is the object?"
"Who can say? But a barrage fire is being laid down between our first and second lines. That means that no reinforcements can reach us from the support trenches. And our own trench is being sh.e.l.led furiously, to drive all into shelters. My friends, it is likely that the Germans, enraged by the capture of Colonel Pernim, who must be missed by now, are paying us back with a raid."
"More of your strenuous doings then, d.i.c.k," laughed Greg.
"At least a raid will be highly interesting," d.i.c.k retorted. "So far we haven"t been in one, and we"re here for experience, you know."
"And you really hope that this turns out to be a German raid?"
asked Captain Ribaut.
"Yes; don"t you, Captain?" challenged Major Wells.
"An, but we French have seen so many of these raids, and they are dull, ugly affairs, sometimes with much killing. After you have seen many you will not hunger for more."
It was not long before conversation was drowned out wholly by the racket of exploding sh.e.l.ls in and around the fire trenches.
Occasionally one of these drove a jet of sand down the stairs of the dug-out, but this room was too far underground for the dug-out roof to be driven in on them.
Half an hour later the sh.e.l.l-fire against the front-line trenches abated, though the barrage fire still continued to fall between the first and second lines.
Greg whistled softly, unable to hear a note that he emitted.
Noll Terry occasionally fingered one of the two gas-masks with which he had been provided before entering the trenches. Major Wells"s att.i.tude suggested that he had his ears set to note every difference in sound that came from outside.
A French soldier shouted down the steps in his own tongue:
"Stand by! The Huns are coming!"
At a single bound Captain Ribaut gained the steps and darted up, followed promptly by the American officers.
In the section in which they found themselves four French soldiers, rifles resting over the parapet, stood awaiting the onslaught.
Two more men, equipped with hand bombs, stood awaiting the moment to begin casting.
All the while the curtain of sh.e.l.l-fire, the barrage laid down by the Germans between them and the second-line trenches, continued to fall. It effectually prevented French reinforcements from coming up to the first line.
His automatic pistol ready, d.i.c.k Prescott found elbow-room on the fire step. Cautiously he looked over the parapet.