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Page 52
John was able to trace dimly the sleeping figures of Germans in the
dusk, sunk down upon the ground and buried in the sleep or stupor of
exhaustion. As they lay near him so they lay in the same way in hundreds
of thousands along the vast line. Men and horses, strained to their last
nerve and muscle, were too tired to move. It seemed as if more than a
million men lay dead in the fields and woods of Northeastern France.
John, who had been wide awake, suddenly dropped on the ground where the
others were stretched. He collapsed all in a moment, as if every drop of
blood had been drained suddenly from his body. Keyed high throughout the
day, his whole system now gave way before the accumulated impact of
events so tremendous. The silence save for the distant moaning that
succeeded the roar of a million men or more in battle was like a
powerful drug, and he slept like one dead, never moving hand or foot.
He was roused shortly before morning by some one who shook him gently
but persistently, and at last he sat up, looking around in the dim light
for the person who had dragged him back from peace to a battle-mad
world. He saw an unkempt, bearded man in a French uniform, one sleeve
stained with blood, and he recognized Weber, the Alsatian.
"Why, Weber!" he exclaimed, "they've got you, too! This is bad! They
may consider you, an Alsatian, a traitor, and execute you at once!"
Weber smiled in rather melancholy fashion, and said in a low tone:
"It's bad enough to be captured, but I won't be shot Nobody here knows
that I'm an Alsatian, and consequently they will think I'm a Frenchman.
If you call me anything, call me Fernand, which is my first name, but
which they will take for the last."
"All right, Fernand. I'll practice on it now, so I'll make no slip. How
did you happen to be taken?"
"I was in a motor car, a part of a train of about a hundred cars. There
were seven in it besides myself. We were ordered to cross a field and
join a line of advancing infantry. When we were in the middle of the
field a masked German battery of rapid-firers opened on us at short
range. It was an awful experience, like a stroke of lightning, and I
don't think that more than a dozen of us escaped with our lives. I was
wounded in the arm and taken before I could get out of the field. I was
brought here with some other prisoners and I have been sleeping on the
ground just beyond that hillock. I awoke early, and, walking the little
distance our guards allow, I happened to recognize your figure lying
here. I was sorry and yet glad to see you, sorry that you were a
prisoner, and glad to find at least one whom I knew, a friend."
John gave Weber's hand a strong grasp.
"I can say the same about you," he said warmly. "We're both prisoners,
but yesterday was a magnificent day for France and democracy."
"It was, and now it's to be seen what today will be."
"I hope and believe it will be no less magnificent."
"I learned that you were taken just after you alighted from an
aeroplane, and that a man with you escaped in the plane. At least, I
presume it was you, as I heard the Germans talking of such a person and
I knew of your great friendship for Philip Lannes. Lannes, of course was
the one who escaped."
"A good surmise, Fernand. It was no less a man than he."
Weber's eyes sparkled.
"I was sure of it," he said. "A wonderful fellow, that Lannes, perhaps
the most skillful and important bearer of dispatches that France has.
But he will not forget you, Mr. Scott. He knows, of course, where you
were taken, and doubtless from points high in the air he has traced the
course of this German army. He will find time to come for you. He will
surely do so. He has a feeling for you like that of a brother, and his
skill in the air gives him a wonderful advantage. In all the history of
the world there have never before been any scouts like the aeroplanes."
"That's true, and that, I think, is their chief use."
Impulse made John look up. The skies were fast beginning to brighten
with the first light in the east, and large objects would be visible
there. But he saw nothing against the blue save two or three captive
balloons which floated not far above the trees inside the German lines.
He longed for a sight of the _Arrow_. He believed that he would know its
shape even high in the heavens, but they were speckless.
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