CHAPTER XIII
A DANGEROUS ERRAND
For a moment Greene was speechless with despair. Fate had tricked him,it seemed, after he had done his best--and a better best than most mencould even have attempted. Then he grinned.
"We'll have to hoof it," he said. "A good twelve miles, too! If we werechampions at cross-country work it would take us the best part of twohours. And it's so long since I've used my legs that I don't know howlong I'll be."
"There's one chance," said Frank. "I remember that I saw a little inn onthe road the Germans took this afternoon. We're not so very far fromthat now. These little inns along the roads in France all have petrolfor motorists who run short. If I went there I might get some."
Greene shook his head doubtfully.
"The government's taken all the essence it could find," he said, "Idon't believe they'd have any. And, besides, there's a good chance thatthe Germans have men there."
"Still it's a chance," said Frank. "Won't you let me try? If I can't getit we shan't lose much time. And if I do, look at the difference itwould make."
"That's true enough," said Greene. "All right, try it. I'll mend up thehole, when I find it, and if you do get some essence, we can be off atonce. Good luck!"
Frank was on his way already, slipping away in the direction whence theyhad come. Luckily enough, he got his bearings by the windmill from whichhe had observed the wood into which the Germans had gone. To make hisway to the road along which he and Henri had first seen the Germanspassing was an easy matter. But he was afraid of roads by this time, andthe more so because he knew that the Germans, having been aroused by theattack from the sky, would be doubly on the alert. So he stuck to theside of the road, religiously taking advantage of every bit of cover hecould find to escape the foe.
"They knew they'd given themselves away just as soon as they fired atus," he reasoned, thinking half aloud as he trudged along, which was ahabit of his. "And I don't believe they know they hit us at all. They doknow that they didn't bring us down at once. Anyhow, there's no reasonfor them to be secret any more, and if they stay in that wood, they'llthrow out pickets now, because they'll think that as soon as we wentback and made our report troops would be sent to rout them out. It's upto me to be mighty careful."
That was good sound reasoning, too. From all he had learned since thewar began, he knew that the Germans were by no means foes to bedespised. They had been pretty generally victorious, but that was notall. They had shown a capacity for being always ready, for thinking ofeverything that might come up to block their plans. And he was sure,therefore, that the German commander would not argue that the aeroplanehad got clean away just because the probabilities indicated that ithad. He was almost certain to beat the country within a reasonable areafor it, in the hope of finding it crippled and thus unable to carry thenews it had come to get.
"I bet the Germans wouldn't have sent just one aeroplane," he reflected."They'd have sent two, so that if anything happened to one, the othercould have brought back the news."
But though he was thinking hard, he didn't linger as he went. Soon hecame to the transverse road along which the Germans had gone, and turnedin the direction they had taken. It was beginning to rain a little now,and it was very dark. He still stuck to the fields, though he was closeto the road, and he found nothing to bar his way to the inn. When he gotthere, moreover, he found the place dark and deserted. Not a soul was insight, but there were evidences that spoke as eloquently as men or womencould have done. In the tap room furniture was smashed and broken andshattered glass was about the floor. Plainly the Germans had stopped asthey went by.
"Of course!" he said, to himself. "If there were people here they tookthem along with them. They wouldn't be likely to leave any Frenchpeople, whose first idea would be to tell what they had seen! It'scertainly lucky that they didn't see us. We'd be with them now, Iguess."
It was spooky work exploring the abandoned inn in the damp, dark nightand with the knowledge that German soldiers were probably no greatdistance away. It was less than a quarter of a mile to the edge of thewood that had assumed such an important aspect, and he expected at anymoment to hear the footsteps of intruders. None the less he went abouthis task quietly and coolly.
"If they had any essence, they'd hide it," he said to himself. "They'dknow that both armies would need it for automobiles and aeroplanes, andthey'd try to keep any they had left. So it won't be in any of the usualplaces."
For that reason he did not even leave the main building to make a searchin the stable that was used as a garage. Instead, he went into thecellar. Here it was still plainer that the Germans had passed through.His feet stepped into puddles of sticky dampness, and, using hisflashlight, he saw that it was wine. The heads of casks had been knockedin; broken bottles, too, strewed the floor.
This, however, had not been wanton destruction, he was sure. It had anobject, and that object had been to prevent the soldiers from gettinganything to drink. Troops on an errand requiring such extraordinarysecrecy as had been maintained in this case could not be allowed todrink any liquor. That would have spoiled in all likelihood theremarkable discipline of which Captain Greene had spoken.
But, once more, it was not his business to think of what he saw, or tospeculate about it, but to find the petrol if any was to be found. Andhe stumbled upon the hidden store quite suddenly, and quite literally,too. In one corner of the cellar was what looked like a pile of kindlingwood. Harry kicked it indifferently in passing, and was almost thrownwhen his feet encountered a resistance more solid than he had any reasonto expect. He looked down, and there, under the kindling, were twoten-gallon cans of petrol!
"I knew it must be there!" he cried to himself. He was down on his kneesin a moment, shaking the cans to make sure that they were full. One hadnever been broached; the other was nearly half full. And this second canwas the one he took. That would be more than enough to get the monoplaneback to headquarters, and there was no reason for burdening himself withtoo great a load. He picked up the can, and at the same moment his heartleaped up into his throat, for overhead there came the sound of heavyfootsteps. For a moment he stood as if paralyzed, listening.
The footsteps continued; guttural voices sounded,--the voices ofGermans. It was impossible to distinguish what they were saying; and itmade no difference, in any case. The only point that mattered was thatthey were there; that they blocked the only means Frank had of gettingaway with the precious petrol he had so luckily found.
He was safe enough personally. Even if they were led to come down intothe cellar the chances were all in favor of his being able to concealhimself. What he feared was that some use was to be made of the place,and that the men whose voices he heard would stay there, thus preventinghim from getting out of the building and so getting the petrol toGreene. It was more than possible, he thought, that the Germancommander, knowing that the presence of his troops in the woods had beendiscovered, would decide to use this place for headquarters.
And what he could hear confirmed this idea. There was a continualtramping overhead. Men came and went. That seemed to indicate that theoccupation was to be permanent. He racked his brains for some means ofescape. Windows there were none in the cellar. He found no trace of atrap door, such as there would have been in almost any American cellar.And then the saving thought came to him like a flash. He debated for amoment, then decided that the risk was worth taking. First he took hiscan of gasoline to the steps. Then he poured a little into a brokenbottle, and poured this, in turn, on the wood under which he had foundthe cans. He dragged the full can of petrol to the other side of thecellar. And then, very deliberately, he set a match to the gasolinesoaked wood and retreated to the steps.
The fire he had started blazed up at once, owing to the petrol. And atonce a thick, acrid smoke filled the place. He was well up on thestairs, and thus safe from being choked. But he was in danger should theGermans come down, though even so, since the steps were wide, there wasa chance for him. But he did not expe
ct them to come down. He thoughtthe smoke would drive them out, since as nearly as he could judge hisfire was directly under the room in which the most of the commotionupstairs was taking place.
It was not long before he heard coughing upstairs, the first sign thatthe smoke was doing its work. By that time a brisk fire was burning. Ithad run up the posts to the beams that formed the chief support of theroom above, and to his delight Frank saw that these burned far morefiercely and quickly than he had hoped. Plainly the wood was old anddry.
Above, as the fire spread, louder cries succeeded the coughing. And thencame the crucial test by which his daring experiment had to stand orfall. Some one opened the door at the head of the stairs. Now, if ever,he was to be discovered! But as the door was opened the smoke was drawnup, and the German who had come to it jumped back.
"The whole place is burning! Get out!" he cried, in German. "There maybe explosive spirits still down there!"
He slammed the door shut, and Frank heard running footsteps above. Hewaited until there were no more, and then, almost overcome by the smoke,slipped through the door. No one was left in the hallway into which hecame. The place was full of smoke. He did not venture to the front doorby which he had entered, but, still dragging his can of petrol, went tothe back. Going through the kitchen, he found another door, as he hadbeen sure he would and in a moment he was drinking in the cool, freshair. The rain that was beating down on him now was welcome.
Just as he reached the open there was a sharp explosion behind him, andhe looked back, to see the windows on the ground floor glowing. That wasthe other can of petrol, as he could guess readily enough. At once heducked, and, running low, got well to one side of the house. Then, justas a great burst of flame lighted up the whole scene, he dropped to theground, and lay peering toward the road in front of the inn.
A dozen officers and as many men, all in the German uniform, with thespiked helmets that made them so unmistakable, were in the road, staringat the burning house. And it was not until Frank saw how angry one ofthe officers was that he realized what a useful idea his had reallybeen. Now detection of the Germans was certain. Investigation was almostcertain to be made of a fire in a building so far out of the range ofthe German artillery as this. And so, even if neither he nor CaptainGreene got back in time, the torch he had lighted, meaning only tosecure his own escape, was likely to prove a death blow to the Germanhopes of secrecy.
Frank could not hear what the Germans were saying, but he had nointention of getting closer in an attempt to do so. Instead, havingsatisfied himself that there were no pickets behind the burning inn, hebegan crawling cautiously to the rear. It was a difficult task,especially so because of the petrol, which was no light burden. But hemanaged to get well out of the lighted zone and then he decided that itwould be safe to straighten up and walk along.
As he went along the burning building served him well. It gave him afixed landmark from which he could lay his course to the spot where hehad left the monoplane and Captain Greene. By looking back from time totime he could correct his course, when he was crossing fields. And sowithout the guidance of roads, and partly to make better time and partlyto avoid stray German pickets, he chose to stay away almost entirelyfrom the roads and go across country.
From the fields in which they had descended to the inn the distance, asnearly as he had been able to guess it, was about a mile. He shortenedthis somewhat on the return trip. And he was within a quarter of a mileof the meeting place when he became suddenly conscious of something thatwas not just right. At first he was tempted to stop, but he overcame thetemptation. The thing that had warned him of a possible danger was atrifling noise, yet one that was out of the ordinary. What the noise washe could scarcely have told. Perhaps the breaking of a twig, perhaps theslipping of a foot along a suddenly encountered patch of mud. At anyrate he was sure that he had been followed.
He slowed down and now he could hear, or thought he could, the heavybreathing of at least two men. He was not certain of this; he waswilling to admit to himself that he might be fancying it.
"If they're after me, why don't they take me?" he wondered to himself.But the explanation came to him almost as soon as he had asked himselfthe question. Whoever was following him could reason from the sight ofthe can of petrol he was carrying that he was going to some definiteplace where that petrol was wanted. And it would require no greatstretch of the imagination for his trailers to decide that he must becarrying fuel to the aeroplane that had worked such havoc with theGerman plans.
"They think I'll lead them to the 'plane," he thought. Half a dozenplans for misleading them came to him. But none seemed practicable.Frank was intensely dogged in his determination to accomplish anythinghe had set out to do. The idea of giving up now, even to mislead hispursuers and so save Captain Greene from capture, was repugnant to him.He wanted to foil the men behind him--unless, as was possible, he onlyimagined that they were behind him--and still do what he had set out todo, which was in this instance to refill that empty petrol tank on themonoplane.
It was the purely accidental movement of putting his hand into hispocket to dry it off that gave him the idea. It met the pocketflashlight Captain Greene had given him, and at once he remembered a usefor it of which the aviator had told him. To follow the plan did notmean that it would succeed, but it represented a chance, anyhow. And sowhen he came to the fence which he remembered climbing on his way fromthe monoplane, he stopped on the top rail, having pushed his can ofpetrol through first. In the field now immediately in front of him, butfar away still, on the other side of the field, lay the monoplane. Hecould not see it in the driving rain but he knew that it was there.
There too would be Greene, waiting for him, and in all probability atthis moment straining his eyes watching for his return. On thatdepended his chance of success in the plan that had come to him. Onthat, and on Greene's presence of mind and quick-wittedness.
So, still astride of the top rail, he began signalling with his pocketflashlight. He spelled out his message in Morse code, using a longpressure of the releasing switch for the dash and a short one for thedot. Word by word he spelled out his message, telling that he suspectedthat at least two Germans were trailing him. And at the end he signalleda request that if he had understood, Greene should wait a half minuteand then imitate an owl's cry. He chose an owl because he had heard oneor two earlier in the night. And he added that if he got the signal hewould keep on heading for the monoplane. He suggested nothing to Greene;the rest was decidedly up to the aviator. Frank had done his share.
If there were Germans actually within sight of him, they did not attemptto interfere with him while he was flashing his message. But he hadreckoned confidently that they would not. He was sure that he had notbetrayed the fact that he knew he was being followed, and they wouldnaturally suppose that this stop for signalling was part of apre-arranged plan. He now dropped to the ground, picked up his can andtook two or three quick steps. Then he stopped abruptly and was surethat he heard a footstep behind him. He grinned to himself, and justthen the hoot of an owl sounded. Then he went on.
"I'll make it easier for them," he said. "Perhaps they wouldn't like tofollow me right across the field!"
So he skirted the fence and the hedge at the side, and went around threesides of the field to reach the monoplane. And, as soon as it was insight, all his suspicions were verified, for from behind there came asharp exclamation in German, and he was told to stop, just as a heavyhand gripped his shoulder.
"Ja, we were right!" exclaimed one man in German. "There is theiraeroplane! Now for the other--"
He never finished the sentence. Instead, he threw up his hands andpitched forward, just as a revolver cracked sharply in the silent night.With an oath the man who held Frank threw him aside, at the same momentshooting in the direction of the flash of Greene's pistol. But theEnglishman's revolver spoke at the same moment, and he too fell. Frank'sruse had saved the day!