CHAPTER VI.
THE FRETFUL ROAR OF BATTLE.
Rod held his breath and listened. Though his nerves were quivering withexcitement he could hold himself in check wonderfully well. Josh wasbreathing heavily, while Hanky Panky lay quite still; somehow Rod halfsuspected that the other might also have been aroused, and was, likehimself, listening with bated breath to find out what had caused thatslight noise close by.
A thrill passed through Rod when something touched him. Then he suddenlyrealised that it was his bed-fellow, Hanky Panky, wishing to bereassured; and accordingly Rod gave him a slight nudge with his elbow.
Something moved again, and, on straining his vision, for the room wasfairly dark, Rod managed to discover what seemed to be the bent-overfigure of a man. He guessed instinctively that it was no common thiefwho had managed to enter their chamber in this Calais inn at the dead ofnight, meaning to steal money, or any other valuable he could get hishands on.
Jules must have managed to follow after them, and was also in the Frenchcity by the sea, which later on the Kaiser became so wild to possess inorder to harass the coast of England twenty miles away that he orderedmad charges on the part of his men, and thousands on thousands wereslaughtered without accomplishing any favorable result.
Rod did not mean to lie quietly there and allow this sneak-thief time torummage around. Of course the precious paper wanted by Jules wassecurely hidden; but for all that it went against his grain to allowsuch liberties.
Managing to get his mouth close to the ear of Hanky Panky he whispered:
"Shout when I do, and jump out of bed!"
The other gave a sign to the effect that he heard and understood;although this consisted only of a nudge with his knee it was sufficientto tell Rod the game was ready for touching off.
When both of them started to yell the effect was weird, and must havegiven poor, unsuspicious Josh the scare of his life; for he rolled outof bed and commenced to thresh wildly about him, perhaps under theimpression that dreams were realities and his clothes actually on fire.
Rod had eyes only for the dusky figure of the unwelcome intruder. Theman made a headlong dive for the open window through which he evidentlymust have entered the room of the inn. It was all of ten feet, perhapstwelve, to the ground, and he went plunging through space like a hugefrog.
They heard him strike heavily, though he managed to gain his feet, andgo limping away, groaning as he vanished in the darkness.
Of course there was more or less excitement about the inn. People couldbe heard calling out as they thrust their heads from the windows. Somemen who had been lying asleep in the wagon-yard near by came hurryingup, asking if it was a fire.
Rod explained to the landlord, who appeared, candle in hand; and as nodamage had been done the excitement soon quieted down. The boys,however, decided to set a trap by means of a cord, that would warn themif any one again attempted to enter their room by that exposed window.
Apparently the failure of his plan discouraged the schemer, for theywere not annoyed any further during the remainder of the night. With thecoming of morning they ate an early breakfast, settled their reckoningwith the French landlord, who insisted on apologizing profusely fortheir being so rudely disturbed, just as if he was to blame, and thenonce more mounted on their reliable motorcycles the trio of boys startedforth.
It was a fine morning in early September. All Nature seemed smiling, andit required quite a stretch of the imagination to realize that not sovery far away from this fair spot two million determined soldiers werefacing one another, bent on slaughter unparalleled. The Battle of theMarne was even then opening, with the fate of fair Paris trembling inthe balance.
One thing they soon noticed, which was that the road they were followingnow seemed to keep even with a railway line, over which trains werepassing at a dizzy speed, all heading in the same direction, towardParis.
Every time one of these was sighted the boys could see that thepassengers were wholly soldiers. Sometimes they wore the blue coats ofthe French, with the beloved red trousers, which have been so dear tothe hearts of the fighting men of the republic from away back to thetime of Napoleon; then again the dull khaki of the British regularspredominated. They occupied first-class carriages, freight vans, cattlecars--anything sufficed so long as it allowed them to get closer towhere a chance for glory awaited them.
All these things kept the boys in a constant condition of expectancy. Asthe morning wore away and they continued to make good headway Josh evenfound himself indulging in the hope that they would reach the scene ofactivity before many hours had elapsed.
Once, when they had halted at a wayside farmhouse to see if anything inthe shape of a lunch could be secured for love or money, he even calledthe attention of his two mates to a faint rumbling far away in thedistance.
"As sure as you live, fellows," Josh went on to say eagerly, "that mustbe made by some of those monster guns the Germans are rolling along withthem, meaning to batter down the forts defending Paris, just like theydid the steel-domed ones up at Liege and Namur in Belgium, as we knowhappened."
Rod was not quite so positive about it. They had covered many miles,because of good roads, and the few obstacles encountered, but he hardlybelieved they could be so close to Paris as that.
"I can see something low down ahead of us that may be clouds," HankyPanky now asserted.
"More'n likely that's the smoke of the battle that's raging overyonder," declared the positive Josh, who always had to be wrestled withbefore he could be convinced that he was wrong.
"No matter which is the correct solution of the puzzle," laughed Rod,not wishing to take sides against either of his chums, "we're meaning togo ahead after we see if we can get some grub at this little farmhouse."
Fortune played them a kind stroke, for the farmer's wife, a volublelittle French woman, who had a husband and three sons in the army, onlearning that they were actually American boys, insisted on theirsettling down while she cooked them a fine dinner.
It turned out that Madame had herself spent several years in America,and even then had relatives living in the French Quarter in New YorkCity. She asked them a multitude of questions, and was especiallyanxious to learn if the great republic across the sea would align itselfwith the Entente Allies, who were now, she insisted, engaged in fightingthe battles of the whole world for freedom from military domination.
Taken altogether, the boys quite enjoyed that hour at noon. They learnedconsiderable about things that interested them, especially the lay ofthe land ahead, and where they might expect to come upon trouble inmeeting some of the troops engaged in the fighting.
Josh was especially tickled when she assured them that the dullthrobbing sound they heard almost constantly was indeed the fretfulmurmur of big guns. Being a French woman, and very sanguine with regardto the valor of her countrymen, the farmer's wife could already inimagination see the beaten Germans fleeing in mad haste before theinvincible soldiers of the republic.
In this humor then they once more started forth, feeling considerablyrefreshed after that fine meal. Indeed, Rod had been unable to make thelittle patriotic woman accept the three francs he offered her; andwatching his chance he had laid the money on the table where she mustlater on find it.
An hour later and the throbbing had grown much more perceptible, showingthat they must be rapidly drawing closer to where the vast armies weremarching and countermarching, with the field batteries in almostconstant action.
They understood that several German armies were approaching Paris at thesame time, one coming from the north, another veering more to the east,but the most dangerous of all, that commanded by the clever Von Kluck,swinging around so as to come down on the devoted French capital fromthe northwest.
More than forty years had passed since another hostile army had laidsiege to Paris and taken the gay city after many months of desperatefighting. Rod wondered whether history was going to be repeated now. Hefelt sure that if once those Germans managed to get th
eir terribleforty-two centimetre guns busy, no fort was capable of standing up undertheir frightful pounding.
So the afternoon began to wear away, and all this while the motorshummed cheerily, as they worked unceasingly, carrying the three boldriders closer and closer to where the greatest battle of the age wasbeing fought to a finish.
There was a sudden whoop from the rear, where Hanky Panky held hisplace. When the others managed to glance around, almost afraid that theywould find him in the ditch alongside the road, with his machine awreck, they discovered Hanky pointing wildly overhead, while at the sametime he shouted:
"Looks like old times, fellows, to see that aeroplane spinning along upthere half a mile high; and say, it's sure a German Taube in thebargain. How about that same, Rob; you ought to know what they looklike?"