IV
A RACE TO LUTHA
Barney's fall was not more than four or five feet. He found himselfupon a slippery floor of masonry over which two or three inches ofwater ran sluggishly. Above him he heard the soldiers pass the openmanhole. It was evident that in the darkness they had missed it.
For a few minutes the fugitive remained motionless, then, hearing nosounds from above he started to grope about his retreat. Upon twosides were blank, circular walls, upon the other two circularopenings about four feet in diameter. It was through these openingsthat the tiny stream of water trickled.
Barney came to the conclusion that he had dropped into a sewer. Toget out the way he had entered appeared impossible. He could notleap upward from the slimy, concave bottom the distance he haddropped. To follow the sewer upward would lead him nowhere nearerescape. There remained no hope but to follow the trickling streamdownward toward the river, into which his judgment told him theentire sewer system of the city must lead.
Stooping, he entered the ill-smelling circular conduit, groping hisway slowly along. As he went the water deepened. It was half way tohis knees when he plunged unexpectedly into another tube running atright angles to the first. The bottom of this tube was lower thanthat of the one which emptied into it, so that Barney now foundhimself in a swiftly running stream of filth that reached above hisknees. Downward he followed this flood--faster now for the fear ofthe deadly gases which might overpower him before he could reach theriver.
The water deepened gradually as he went on. At last he reached apoint where, with his head scraping against the roof of the sewer,his chin was just above the surface of the stream. A few more stepswould be all that he could take in this direction without drowning.Could he retrace his way against the swift current? He did not know.He was weakened from the effects of his wound, from lack of food andfrom the exertions of the past hour. Well, he would go on as far ashe could. The river lay ahead of him somewhere. Behind was only thehostile city.
He took another step. His foot found no support. He surgedbackward in an attempt to regain his footing, but the power of theflood was too much for him. He was swept forward to plunge intowater that surged above his head as he sank. An instant later he hadregained the surface and as his head emerged he opened his eyes.
He looked up into a starlit heaven! He had reached the mouth of thesewer and was in the river. For a moment he lay still, floating uponhis back to rest. Above him he heard the tread of a sentry along theriver front, and the sound of men's voices.
The sweet, fresh air, the star-shot void above, acted as a powerfultonic to his shattered hopes and overwrought nerves. He lay inhalinggreat lungsful of pure, invigorating air. He listened to the voicesof the Austrian soldiery above him. All the buoyancy of his inherentAmericanism returned to him.
"This is no place for a minister's son," he murmured, and turningover struck out for the opposite shore. The river was not wide, andBarney was soon nearing the bank along which he could see occasionalcamp fires. Here, too, were Austrians. He dropped down-stream belowthese, and at last approached the shore where a wood grew close tothe water's edge. The bank here was steep, and the American had somedifficulty in finding a place where he could clamber up theprecipitous wall of rock. But finally he was successful, findinghimself in a little clump of bushes on the river's brim. Here he layresting and listening--always listening. It seemed to Barney thathis ears ached with the constant strain of unflagging duty that hisvery existence demanded of them.
Hearing nothing, he crawled at last from his hiding place with thepurpose of making his way toward the south and to the frontier asrapidly as possible. He could hope only to travel by night, and heguessed that this night must be nearly spent. Stooping, he movedcautiously away from the river. Through the shadows of the wood hemade his way for perhaps a hundred yards when he was suddenlyconfronted by a figure that stepped from behind the bole of a tree.
"Halt! Who goes there?" came the challenge.
Barney's heart stood still. With all his care he had run straightinto the arms of an Austrian sentry. To run would be to be shot. Toadvance would mean capture, and that too would mean death.
For the barest fraction of an instant he hesitated, and then hisquick American wits came to his aid. Feigning intoxication heanswered the challenge in dubious Austrian that he hoped his maudlintongue would excuse.
"Friend," he answered thickly. "Friend with a drink--have one?"And he staggered drunkenly forward, banking all upon the credulityand thirst of the soldier who confronted him with fixed bayonet.
That the sentry was both credulous and thirsty was evidenced by thefact that he let Barney come within reach of his gun. Instantly thedrunken Austrian was transformed into a very sober and active engineof destruction. Seizing the barrel of the piece Barney jerked it toone side and toward him, and at the same instant he leaped for thethroat of the sentry.
So quickly was this accomplished that the Austrian had time only fora single cry, and that was choked in his windpipe by the steelfingers of the American. Together both men fell heavily to theground, Barney retaining his hold upon the other's throat.
Striking and clutching at one another they fought in silence for acouple of minutes, then the soldier's struggles began to weaken. Hesquirmed and gasped for breath. His mouth opened and his tongueprotruded. His eyes started from their sockets. Barney closed hisfingers more tightly upon the bearded throat. He rained heavy blowsupon the upturned face. The beating fists of his adversary wavedwildly now--the blows that reached Barney were pitifully weak.Presently they ceased. The man struggled violently for an instant,twitched spasmodically and lay still.
Barney clung to him for several minutes longer, until there was notthe slightest indication of remaining life. The perpetration of thedeed sickened him; but he knew that his act was warranted, for ithad been either his life or the other's. He dragged the body back tothe bushes in which he had been hiding. There he stripped off theAustrian uniform, put his own clothes upon the corpse and rolled itinto the river.
Dressed as an Austrian private, Barney Custer shouldered the deadsoldier's gun and walked boldly through the wood to the south.Momentarily he expected to run upon other soldiers, but though hekept straight on his way for hours he encountered none. The thinline of sentries along the river had been posted only to double thepreventive measures that had been taken to keep Serbian spies eitherfrom entering or leaving the city.
Toward dawn, at the darkest period of the night, Barney saw lightsahead of him. Apparently he was approaching a village. He went morecautiously now, but all his care did not prevent him from runningfor the second time that night almost into the arms of a sentry.This time, however, Barney saw the soldier before he himself wasdiscovered. It was upon the edge of the town, in an orchard, thatthe sentinel was posted. Barney, approaching through the trees,darting from one to another, was within a few paces of the manbefore he saw him.
The American remained quietly in the shadow of a tree waiting for anopportunity to escape, but before it came he heard the approach of asmall body of troops. They were coming from the village directlytoward the orchard. They passed the sentry and marched within adozen feet of the tree behind which Barney was hiding.
As they came opposite him he slipped around the tree to the oppositeside. The sentry had resumed his pacing, and was now out of sightmomentarily among the trees further on. He could not see theAmerican, but there were others who could. They came in the shape ofa non-commissioned officer and a detachment of the guard to relievethe sentry. Barney almost bumped into them as he rounded the tree.There was no escape--the non-commissioned officer was within twofeet of him when Barney discovered him. "What are you doing here?"shouted the sergeant with an oath. "Your post is there," and hepointed toward the position where Barney had seen the sentry.
At first Barney could scarce believe his ears. In the darkness thesergeant had mistaken him for the sentinel! Could he carry it out?And if so might it not lead him into worse predicamen
t? No, Barneydecided, nothing could be worse. To be caught masquerading in theuniform of an Austrian soldier within the Austrian lines was toplumb the uttermost depth of guilt--nothing that he might do nowcould make his position worse.
He faced the sergeant, snapping his piece to present, hoping thatthis was the proper thing to do. Then he stumbled through a briefexcuse. The officer in command of the troops that had just passedhad demanded the way of him, and he had but stepped a few paces fromhis post to point out the road to his superior.
The sergeant grunted and ordered him to fall in. Another man tookhis place on duty. They were far from the enemy and discipline waslax, so the thing was accomplished which under other circumstanceswould have been well nigh impossible. A moment later Barney foundhimself marching back toward the village, to all intents andpurposes an Austrian private.
Before a low, windowless shed that had been converted into barracksfor the guard, the detail was dismissed. The men broke ranks andsought their blankets within the shed, tired from their lonely vigilupon sentry duty.
Barney loitered until the last. All the others had entered. Hedared not, for he knew that any moment the sentry upon the post fromwhich he had been taken would appear upon the scene, afterdiscovering another of his comrades. He was certain to inquire ofthe sergeant. They would be puzzled, of course, and, being soldiers,they would be suspicious. There would be an investigation, whichwould start in the barracks of the guard. That neighborhood would atonce become a most unhealthy spot for Barney Custer, of Beatrice,Nebraska.
When the last of the soldiers had entered the shed Barney glancedquickly about. No one appeared to notice him. He walked directlypast the doorway to the end of the building. Around this he found ayard, deeply shadowed. He entered it, crossed it, and passed outinto an alley beyond. At the first cross-street his way was blockedby the sight of another sentry--the world seemed composed entirelyof Austrian sentries. Barney wondered if the entire Austrian armywas kept perpetually upon sentry duty; he had scarce been able toturn without bumping into one.
He turned back into the alley and at last found a crooked passagewaybetween buildings that he hoped might lead him to a spot where therewas no sentry, and from which he could find his way out of thevillage toward the south. The passage, after devious windings, ledinto a large, open court, but when Barney attempted to leave thecourt upon the opposite side he found the ubiquitous sentries uponguard there.
Evidently there would be no escape while the Austrians remained inthe town. There was nothing to do, therefore, but hide until thehappy moment of their departure arrived. He returned to thecourtyard, and after a short search discovered a shed in one cornerthat had evidently been used to stable a horse, for there was strawat one end of it and a stall in the other. Barney sat down upon thestraw to wait developments. Tired nature would be denied no longer.His eyes closed, his head drooped upon his breast. In three minutesfrom the time he entered the shed he was stretched full length uponthe straw, fast asleep.
The chugging of a motor awakened him. It was broad daylight. Manysounds came from the courtyard without. It did not take Barney longto gather his scattered wits--in an instant he was wide awake. Heglanced about. He was the only occupant of the shed. Rising, heapproached a small window that looked out upon the court. All waslife and movement. A dozen military cars either stood about or movedin and out of the wide gates at the opposite end of the enclosure.Officers and soldiers moved briskly through a doorway that led intoa large building that flanked the court upon one side. While Barneyslept the headquarters of an Austrian army corps had moved in andtaken possession of the building, the back of which abutted upon thecourt where lay his modest little shed.
Barney took it all in at a single glance, but his eyes hung long andgreedily upon the great, high-powered machines that chugged orpurred about him.
Gad! If he could but be behind the wheel of such a car for an hour!The frontier could not be over fifty miles to the south, of that hewas quite positive; and what would fifty miles be to one of thosemachines?
Barney sighed as a great, gray-painted car whizzed into thecourtyard and pulled up before the doorway. Two officers jumped outand ran up the steps. The driver, a young man in a uniform notunlike that which Barney wore, drew the car around to the end of thecourtyard close beside Barney's shed. Here he left it and enteredthe building into which his passengers had gone. By reaching throughthe window Barney could have touched the fender of the machine. Afew seconds' start in that and it would take more than an Austrianarmy corps to stop him this side of the border. Thus mused Barney,knowing already that the mad scheme that had been born within hisbrain would be put to action before he was many minutes older.
There were many soldiers on guard about the courtyard. The greatestdanger lay in arousing the suspicions of one of these should hechance to see Barney emerge from the shed and enter the car.
"The proper thing," thought Barney, "is to come from the buildinginto which everyone seems to pass, and the only way to be seencoming out of it is to get into it; but how the devil am I to getinto it?"
The longer he thought the more convinced he became that utterrecklessness and boldness would be his only salvation. Briskly hewalked from the shed out into the courtyard beneath the eyes of thesentries, the officers, the soldiers, and the military drivers. Hemoved straight among them toward the doorway of the headquarters asthough bent upon important business--which, indeed, he was. At leastit was quite the most important business to Barney Custer that thatyoung gentleman could recall having ventured upon for some time.
No one paid the slightest attention to him. He had left his gun inthe shed for he noticed that only the men on guard carried them.Without an instant's hesitation he ran briskly up the short flightof steps and entered the headquarters building. Inside was anothersentry who barred his way questioningly. Evidently one must stateone's business to this person before going farther. Barney, withoutany loss of time or composure, stepped up to the guard.
"Has General Kampf passed in this morning?" he asked blithely.Barney had never heard of any "General Kampf," nor had the sentry,since there was no such person in the Austrian army. But he didknow, however, that there were altogether too many generals for anyone soldier to know the names of them all.
"I do not know the general by sight," replied the sentry.
Here was a pretty mess, indeed. Doubtless the sergeant would know agreat deal more than would be good for Barney Custer. The young manlooked toward the door through which he had just entered. His soleobject in coming into the spider's parlor had been to make itpossible for him to come out again in full view of all the guardsand officers and military chauffeurs, that their suspicions mightnot be aroused when he put his contemplated coup to the test.
He glanced toward the door. Machines were whizzing in and out ofthe courtyard. Officers on foot were passing and repassing. Thesentry in the hallway was on the point of calling his sergeant.
"Ah!" cried Barney. "There is the general now," and without waitingto cast even a parting glance at the guard he stepped quicklythrough the doorway and ran down the steps into the courtyard.Looking neither to right nor to left, and with a convincing air ofself-confidence and important business, he walked directly to thebig, gray machine that stood beside the little shed at the end ofthe courtyard.
To crank it and leap to the driver's seat required but a moment.The big car moved smoothly forward. A turn of the steering wheelbrought it around headed toward the wide gates. Barney shifted tosecond speed, stepped on the accelerator and the cut-outsimultaneously, and with a noise like the rattle of a machine gun,shot out of the courtyard.
None who saw his departure could have guessed from the manner of itthat the young man at the wheel of the gray car was stealing themachine or that his life depended upon escape without detection. Itwas the very boldness of his act that crowned it with success.
Once in the street Barney turned toward the south. Cars werepassing up and down in both directions, usually at high spee
d. Theirnumbers protected the fugitive. Momentarily he expected to behalted; but he passed out of the village without mishap and reacheda country road which, except for a lane down its center along whichautomobiles were moving, was blocked with troops marching southward.Through this soldier-walled lane Barney drove for half an hour.
From a great distance, toward the southeast, he could hear the boomof cannon and the bursting of shells. Presently the road forked. Thetroops were moving along the road on the left toward the distantbattle line. Not a man or machine was turning into the right fork,the road toward the south that Barney wished to take.
Could he successfully pass through the marching soldiers at hisright? Among all those officers there surely would be one who wouldquestion the purpose and destination of this private soldier whodrove alone in the direction of the nearby frontier.
The moment had come when he must stake everything on his ability togain the open road beyond the plodding mass of troops. Diminishingthe speed of the car Barney turned it in toward the marching men atthe same time sounding his horn loudly. An infantry captain,marching beside his company, was directly in front of the car. Helooked up at the American. Barney saluted and pointed toward theright-hand fork.
The captain turned and shouted a command to his men. Those who hadnot passed in front of the car halted. Barney shot through thelittle lane they had opened, which immediately closed up behind him.He was through! He was upon the open road! Ahead, as far as he couldsee, there was no sign of any living creature to bar his way, andthe frontier could not be more than twenty-five miles away.