CHAPTER XXII.
AN HOUR TOO SOON.
WITH incoming of the troops convoying the supply train, Captain Nevarejoined his company, and Billy and Henri were promptly adopted bythe aviation corps, most of whom spoke both French and English, andall very much inclined to express their admiration of the aeroplaneknowledge displayed by the youngsters.
The boys were right on the job, so to speak, when it came toreassembling the parts of new aircraft received by wagon shipment, andso grew in the confidence of the aviation lieutenants that they werequite often permitted to make flying tests of the various machines withonly themselves in charge.
If the young airmen enjoyed this concession without watching on thepart of the lieutenants, there was no such inattention on the part ofa couple of frequenters of a city tavern not far removed from theaviation camp.
Work was evidently slack with this pair of citizens, for hardly a daypassed that they did not spend several hours at a tavern table locatednear a bow-window, which afforded an excellent view of the paradeground and aviation quarters.
One of these constant spectators was remarkable for his size and thevivid hue of his hair, the other for the reason that he paid absolutelyno heed to the other patrons of the place, though all appeared to be ofhis kind, both in manner and attire.
On a particular afternoon, the strangely silent one was deeply engagedwith a stump of a pencil in the labor, no doubt, of casting up hisaccounts on a piece of dirty brown paper, in which had been wrapped hislunch of black bread and sausage.
The puckered lines over his nose indicated thought labor, but thefurtively keen glance he occasionally gave to outside movementcontradicted the impression that he was of slow order of mind.
The chief actors in the mentioned "outside movement" at the time weretwo trimly set up lads in new suits of service green, one pulling andthe other pushing an armored biplane into its hangar.
"This machine," said the puller, "ran like an ice-wagon to-day butmaybe use will smooth her out."
"It's all in the motors," confidently asserted the pusher, "and I'llhave the kinks out of them in a day or two."
The man at the table across the way had completed his task, shoved thepaper and pencil into his pocket, and was placidly puffing a huge cigar.
His red-topped companion stamped into the room, returning from someexcursion in the city, but the smoker did not pass a word of greeting,though the other idlers filled in with noisy welcome.
It was not until the room had been vacated by all but themselves thatthe curiously assorted pair put their heads together.
"Ricker showed you where the ammunition was stored?"
The red-topped nodded.
"You arranged for the plans with Westrich?"
Again the nod of assent, but this time with softly spoken supplement:
"All good, but there is no chance of us getting to the river now. It'slined with a wall of steel, and even a rat could not pass, day ornight, without a triple stamp of authority on its back. And let me tellyou, if we light the match for that explosion without an outlet, allthe information we will carry will be to the next world."
"If we cannot get through the wall of steel you mention there might bea way of going over it."
The speaker gave a meaning glance out of the window at the aviationcamp. A biplane was just rising for test flight, and it was manned bytwo experts easily identified by the conspiring couple in the tavern.
"Oh, ho, I see," mused the brick-top, "you expect to use those boys inthe matter of pulling us out."
"Why not? Have they ever failed us in extremity? Is the peril greaterthan when they dived into the canyon that our lease on life might belengthened; did they fail to respond to my summons to do this very workof rescue, delayed through no fault on their part?"
This subject had served to draw the clam out of his shell, and he foundrelief in relaxing temporarily his studied pose of stolid indifference.
"How are we going to get at them?" asked the willing listener to therapid-fire praise of the young heroes.
The crafty secret agent (it was Roque, of course) had not beenwool-gathering during the silent hour of his sitting at the table.
He had devised several ways of apprising the boys that he needed theirservices and acquainting them with a working plan that would enablethem all to sail out of Warsaw in safety.
Something was going to happen when he willed it that would make theoutward passage a memorable one, and success or complete failure of theproject was in the close balance of a few more hours.
In real truth, however, Roque did not so greatly weigh his personalwelfare as against the service he could render by doing damage to thefoe from without as well as from within.
Ready for his call were papers of supreme import, and to lose which atthe hands of a searching party would be a calamity the secret agentdreaded even to anticipate.
By the air route he had determined to leave, if by any hook or crookSchneider and himself could get hold of an aeroplane.
Billy and Henri had been aloft for several hours, enjoying a bird's-eyeview of the really magnificent city, for the possession of whichcarnage held sway for hundreds of miles.
"Some town this," Billy remarked as he stepped from the machine,completing the sightseeing tour; "after the war I'd like to start abranch factory here."
"Oh, go 'way," laughed Henri, "it would take a derrick to haul you outof Boston or Bangor, once you set foot again in those burgs."
"You forget, old top," suggested Billy, "that we have already on tap acomeback aeroplane trip across the Atlantic. I'm no quitter."
From a coal-laden wagon the contents was being shot into a chuterunning into the cellar of one of the big houses taken over forofficers' occupancy.
One of the grimy heavers, at sight of the boys, came forward to meetthem, wiping his hands on the leather apron he wore, removed his furcap, and took therefrom a scrap of smutty brown paper and tendered itto Billy.
"Guess he wants you to sign a receipt," said Henri, looking over hischum's shoulder.
Billy's glance at the paper set him staring at the man who presented it.
The latter never raised his eyes--he was using them sidewise upon agroup of soldiers standing in front of the mess hall.
The boys saw in the scrawl these words: "Orders for No. 3's, TwoTowers, St. Michael road, eight sharp, Thursday evening."
Without a word, Billy returned the paper to the heaver. The officer ofthe day was approaching. He signed the delivery receipt, but the paperhad queerly changed color in the handling.
As the lads slowly walked toward aviation headquarters their minds wereall in a whirl. Prisoners they were and prisoners they had been, yet inboth instances it had been but the semblance of captivity. While theywere held, the rein had been a loose one.
Just back of them the ties of long association, immediately in frontof them a trust imposed, a generous parole, when they had gone to thelimit in giving the best of themselves, in the one capacity they couldserve, to the former rule.
Thursday evening at eight, and this was Tuesday evening at six. Longenough, indeed, for the boys to torment themselves with the reflectionthat if they did not appear at the appointed hour Roque and Schneiderwould curse their perfidy, and if they did betray the confidence of theaviation chief in this camp he would pay the penalty.
"It will be no trick at all to take the biplanes for an evening spin;we have done it before without question."
"That's the trouble, Henri", lamented Billy, "it's too easy. If wehad to steal the machines, risk our lives before the guns of thesentries, and all that sort of thing, it wouldn't seem such a trial ofconscience. But they take us on trust, and without question."
"Yet, here's Roque and Schneider in the lurch, and looking to us foraid. With them we have met about all that is coming to a fellow in thiswar zone, except death, and pretty near that; we have eaten and sleptand starved together."
"There you are again, Henri, and it's 'twixt the devil and the de
epblue sea!' any way you put it."
Thursday morning, and as clear as a bell. The Boy Aviators lookedred-eyed on the smile of nature. Their cots had squeaked protest allthrough the night against the tossing of the uneasy nappers.
At noon they had about made up their minds to keep the appointment atTwo Towers, and seeking to strengthen this resolution they avoided inevery way they could meetings with the aviation chief.
Along about three in the afternoon the wavering youngsters had arrangeda compromise, this to be positive. They would deliver the No. 3's totheir former owner for choice, and so enable their old friends to getsafely away. As for themselves, they proposed to return to camp and"take their medicine"--their dose and the portion that the aviationchief would otherwise be likely to get.
But fate shuffled it another way.
The workday was in the closing minutes. The remaining city thousandswho were not in military service were swelling the stream of homegoersin the busy streets.
The driver of a coal wagon, which had drawn up before an imposingstructure devoted to the storage of army supplies, and supposed tocontain an immense supply of ammunition, suddenly conceived the notionthat he was doing overtime duty. At least such was his manner when oneof the Big Ben clocks overhead ding-donged the hour of six. Perhaps,too, the movement of gathering up reins and whip had its measure ofprompting in the appearance of the driver's mate from some undergroundspace in the big building.
At any rate, the old nags dragging the heavy vehicle were given thefull benefit, and without warning, of a long and knotted whip-lash,and covered several city blocks at a lively gait before they realizedthat they were traveling out of their class.
The heaver who had emerged from the building in response to the clocksummons showed tremor of the hands when he lifted them to draw the capeof his greatcoat closer about his throat.
"It's set for eight," he hoarsely whispered; "I turned the key when Iheard the strokes outside."
Strangely enough, the wagon kept a course directly to a residencesection at once fashionable and quiet, and hardly the possible locationof a coal yard or the home, either, of a humble employee thereof.
One of the men in the wagon, the fellow with the hoarse whisper, leftthe vehicle in a square marked by a tall column with a statue ontop, while the driver continued the urging of his horses up the everascending street.
Gaining the level above, the horses were given their own heads, whichmeant a snail's pace. Close at hand were two towers of considerableheight.
While the horses plodded on the highroad stretching to the west,pressure on their bits was lacking. The wagon was empty.
Two figures appeared on the terrace back of the twin towers, theseterraces rising in tiers from the bank of the fast-flowing river below.
"You left Ricker in the square?" This question put by the man whoevidently had just returned from a mission that did not include a ridein a coal wagon.
"He left me, rather," replied the late driver, with a touch of grimhumor.
The first speaker held a watch in his hand, consulting it frequently,holding it closer and closer to his eyes as the light faded before theadvance of night's shadows.
"Seven o'clock," he announced. "Another hour."
This was the last notation of time by the watch holder.
There was an explosion that, notwithstanding the distance, seemed toshake the everlasting hills to their very foundations.
The men on the terrace stared aghast, each at the other.
"The die is cast," cried the one with the commanding voice, "and anhour too soon!"