"I'm not bowing to you, though God knows you deserve it," he said. "I'm bowing instead to the British nation which is here incarnate in your khaki clad persons."
"Touched a bit 'ere, Bill," said one of the men, putting his finger to his forehead.
"A bit off says I too, 'Arry. We used to get 'em sometimes on our 'bus in the Strand. Speak 'em gentle, and they'll stop carrying on."
Carstairs exuded joy and he extended a welcoming hand.
"I take it that you were the driver and conductor of a 'bus in the Strand."
"Right you are sir," they replied together, and then one added:
"If you'll go down to the foot of the hill you'll see the good old 'bus itself with all the signs still on it. But I'll 'ave to ask you first, sir, who you are and what do you want?"
John had never thought before that the cockney accent would be so grateful to his ear, but his pleasure at seeing the men was scarcely less than that of Carstairs. They did not come from his own land, but they came from the land of his ancestors, and that was next best.
Carstairs and Wharton quickly showed their dispatches. Bill promptly took them to a sergeant, and in a half hour they stood beside the general's tent in the center of ten thousand men, the vanguard of the British army. Dispatches have never been read more eagerly and when Wharton, in addition, told the story of the château roof and the wireless the general felt a great thrill of excitement.
"I'm bound to believe all that you say," he said looking into the three honest young faces. "Darrell, see that they have refreshment at once, because we move in an hour."
Darrell, a young aide procured them food and horses. Soon the whole detachment was marching toward the main force, and the three true to the promise of their Cockney friends saw London 'buses, still covered with their hideous signs lumbering along as transports. At noon they joined the chief British army, and the next day they were in touch with the French.
The preceding night the three received places in wagons and slept heavily. By morning their strength was fully restored and pending the arrival of the Strangers, with whom they intended to remain they served as aides.
Several days passed, but not in idleness. Incessant skirmishing went on in front, and the Uhlans were nearly always in sight. John felt the presence of vast numbers. He surmised that the British army did not number more than a hundred thousand men, but multitudes of French were on their right and still greater multitudes of Germans were in front. It was a wonderful favor of fortune or skill that the British had not been cut off and as the German hosts, fierce and determined, poured forward, there was no certainty that it would not yet happen.
John soon became at home among the English, Scotch and Irish. He found many of his own countrymen in their ranks and he continually heard his own language in more or less varied form.
The thrilling nature of the tremendous spectacle soon made him forget to some extent the awfulness of war. Riding with his comrades at night along the front he saw again the flashing of the German searchlights, and now and then came the mighty boom of the great guns.
Belgian refugees told them that the advance of the Germans was like the rolling in of the sea. Their gray hosts poured forward on every road. They would be going through a village, for hours and hours, for a day, a night and then the next day, an endless gray tide, every man perfectly equipped, every man in his place, hot food always ready for them at the appointed time, cavalry in vast masses, and cannon past counting.
The knowledge lay upon John like a weight, tremendous and appalling, and yet he would not have been elsewhere. He was glad to be on the battle front when the fate of half a billion people was being decided.
Many of the spectacular features afforded by earlier battles disappeared, but others took their place. In the clear air they sometimes saw the flashes of the giant cannon, miles away, and flying machines and captive balloons sprinkled the air. An army could no longer hide itself. Forests and hollows were of no avail. The scouts of the blue, looking down saw every move, and they brought word that the menace was growing heavier every hour.
"We'll fight on the morrow," said John as he stood with Carstairs and Wharton before a camp fire. "I feel that the Germans will surely attack in the morning."
CHAPTER XIV
THE GERMAN HOST
John was turning away from the camp fire with his friends, when he saw something drop out of the dark, and disappear in a little valley near them.
"Another of those aeroplanes," said Carstairs. "I can't get wholly used to the way they zigzag and spiral about at night like huge birds of prey. They always give me a chill, even when I know they're our own."
John had secured one good look at the machine as it swooped toward the earth, and he asked his friends to walk with him toward the improvised hangar, where it would surely be lying.
They saw a man of slender but very strong build step from the aeroplane, and throw back his visor, showing a tanned face, a somewhat aquiline nose, and eyes penetrating and powerful like those of some bird that soaring far up sees its prey on the earth below. It was an unusual, distinctive face, and the red firelight accentuated every salient characteristic.
"Lannes!" said John joyfully. "I thought it was the Arrow when I saw you descending!"
John stood in the shadow, and the young Frenchman took a step forward to see better. Then he too uttered an exclamation of gladness.
"It's Monsieur Jean the Scott, my comrade of the great battles in the air!" he said. "It was my hope rather than my expectation to find you here."
He grasped the extended hand and shook it with great warmth. Then John introduced him to his friends. Lannes and Carstairs surveyed each other a moment.
"Frenchman and Englishman have been on the same battle fields for a thousand years," said Carstairs.
"Usually the only ones there, and fighting each other," said Lannes.
"Whichever side won, the victory was never easy."
"You are a brave people. We French are the best witnesses of it."
"We are always slow to start. We are usually the last to reach the battle field."
"Also, usually the last to leave it."
"It seems fitting to me that the enemies of a thousand years should have exhausted all their enmity and should now be united against a common foe."
"Without you we could not win."
Lannes' wonderful eyes were sparkling. There is something deep and moving in the friendships of youth. Moreover it made a powerful appeal to his strongly-developed dramatic side. Foes of a thousand years were bound to acknowledge the merits of each other. Carstairs, less demonstrative, felt the same appeal. Then they too shook hands with strength and enthusiasm.
"I approve of this love-feast," said Wharton, "but don't fall to kissing each other. Man kissing man is a continental custom I can't stand."
"Don't be alarmed," said Lannes laughing. "It's passing out in France, and I certainly would not do it. I've lived a while in your country. Now will you wait here, my friends? I have a report to make, but I will return in a half hour."
When Lannes returned he handed a letter to John: "Your uncle and the worthy Mr. Anson have managed to reach Paris through Switzerland," he said. "I found them, and, on the chance that I might reach you, the distinguished Senator, your uncle, gave me the letter that I now give to you."
Making his excuses to the others John read it hastily. His uncle wrote in a resigned tone. He and Mr. Anson would remain in Paris a short time, and then if the German forces came near, as he feared they might, they would cross to London. He hoped that his nephew would leave the army and join them there, but if contrary to all good advice, he insisted on remaining he trusted that he would fight bravely and show the superiority of Americans to the decadent Europeans.
"Good old Uncle Jim," said John to himself, as he put the letter back in his pocket. "Maybe it's a faith like his that will really make us the greatest nation in the world."
He did not see any great difference at that moment between the sublime faith of Senator Pomeroy in the United States and the equally sublime faith of Carstairs in the British Empire. The only difference was in their way of expressing it. But he felt a great affection for his uncle, and he knew very well that the chances were against his ever seeing him again. A slight mist came before his eyes.
"I thank you for bringing the letter, Lannes," he said. "My uncle and Mr. Anson will remain a while in Paris, and then they will probably go to London."
He would not tell Lannes the Senator's reason for leaving Paris.
"From what place have you come after leaving Paris, if it's no army secret?" he asked.
Lannes with a dramatic gesture swept his hand over his head.
"From there. From the heavenly vault," he replied. "I have been everywhere. Over forests and many cities, over the German lines and over our own lines. I have seen the Germans coming not in thousands but in millions. I thought once that the army of our allies would be cut off, but it has joined with our own in time."
"Is it true that we fight tomorrow?"
"As surely as the rising of the sun."
"In that case it would be better for us all to go to sleep," said Carstairs phlegmatically. "We'll need our full strength in the morning."
But John was not able to close his eyes for a long time. His rather loose position as an aide enabled him to go about much with Darrell, the young officer to whom he had been introduced first, and he saw that the British army awaited the battle with eagerness, not unmixed with curiosity. In John's opinion they held the enemy far too lightly, and he did not hesitate to say so. Darrell was not offended.
"It's our national characteristic," he said, "and I suppose it can't be changed. This overweening confidence sometimes brings us defeats that we might have avoided, and again it brings us victories that we might not have won otherwise. Tommy Atkins is always convinced that he can beat two soldiers of any other nation, unless it's you Yankees. Of course he can't, but the belief helps him a lot."
"Remember how you fared in the Boer war." Darrell laughed.
"Tommy Atkins doesn't read history, and those who remember it have long since convinced themselves that the Boer successes were due to strange tricks or are merely legendary."
John was not at all sure that Darrell was not a better born and better educated Tommy Atkins himself. He, and all the other young officers whom he met, seemed to be absolutely sure of victory on the morrow, no matter how numerous the German host might be.
After a while he lay down in the grass, wrapped in a blanket, near his comrades and slept. But the August night was not quiet, and it was an uneasy sleep. He awoke far before dawn and stood up. He heard distant shots now and then from the pickets, and the powerful searchlights often played on the far horizon, casting a white, uncanny glare. Darker spots appeared in the dusky sky. The aeroplanes were already hovering above, watching for the first movement of the enemy.
He walked to the place, where the Arrow was lying, and saw Lannes standing beside it, fully clothed for flight.
"I'm carrying dispatches to our own army on the right," said Lannes, "and I don't think you will see me again for several days. You fight today, you know."
"And we shall win?"
Lannes was silent.
"All the English are confident of victory," continued John.
"Confidence is a sublime thing," said Lannes, "but in a great war it goes best with numbers and preparation."
John felt the gravity of his tone, but he asked no more questions, seeing that the young Frenchman was reluctant to answer them, and that he was also ready for his flight.
"You're in all senses a bird of passage, Philip," he said, "but I know that whatever happens tomorrow or rather today we're going to see each other again. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Lannes, extending his gloved hand. "We're comrades, John, and I hope sometimes to turn your little fraternity of three into a brotherhood of four. Tell the Englishman, Carstairs, that France and England together can't fail."
"He'll think it mostly England."
"If we only win, let him think it."
Lannes stepped into the machine, it was shoved forward, then it rose gracefully into the air and flew off in the usual spirals and zigzags toward the east, where it was soon lost in the darkness. John gazed toward the point, where he last saw it. It seemed almost a dream, that flight of his with Lannes, and the fight with the Taubes, and the Zeppelin. He was on the ground now, and the coming battle would be fought on the solid earth, as man had been fighting from time immemorial. He was about to return to his blanket when a glad voice called to him and a figure emerged from the dark.
"Mr. Scott," came a pleasant voice. "And you were not drowned after all! I thought that I alone escaped!"
It was Weber, paler than usual, but without a wound. John's surprise was lost in gladness. He liked this man, whose manners were so agreeable, and he had mourned his death.
"Mr. Weber," he said, shaking hands with him, "it's I who should say: 'and you are not dead?' We thought you were drowned under the automobile. Mr. Wharton, Mr. Carstairs and myself escaped uninjured although we had a hard time afterward with the Germans. How did you manage it?"
"I was under the automobile, and I did come near being drowned, but not quite. I'm a good swimmer, but I was caught by a strap. As soon as I could disengage myself I swam rapidly down stream under water, came up in the shadow, and crawled among some bushes on the bank. I saw the Germans ride into the river, search the opposite shore, and after a while go away. Then I emerged from the bushes, walked more hours than I can count, and you see me here. I've brought information which I think of value, and I'm on my way now to give it to high officers."
John shook hands with him again. Weber's manner, at once frank and cheerful, invited confidence.
"Providence seems to watch over all four of us," he said. "It's quite certain that none of us will ever meet his death by drowning."
"Nor by hanging either I hope," said Weber.
"Now I must hurry. If I'm not sent away immediately on another mission it's likely I'll see you tomorrow."
He disappeared almost at once. He seemed to John to have some mysterious power of melting into the air, or of re-embodying himself. It was terrifying for the moment, but John shook himself and laughed. "Lightness of foot and silence are the two great assets in his trade," he said to himself.
He wrapped himself in his blanket and again sought sleep which came readily enough despite the distant shots and the flashing white lights. But he was awakened at the first upshoot of dawn, and the whole army was soon on its feet, its front spreading a long distance across the green country. They had hot coffee and good hot food, and then turned to their duty, John at the same time telling them of the return of Weber, over which both Wharton and Carstairs rejoiced.
"It's a good omen," said Carstairs. "We'll take it that way and let it point to our success today."
"We need it," muttered Wharton, who was looking through glasses, "and a lot more just as good. If I don't make any mistake the German nation is advancing against us in a solid mass."
Carstairs had observed the same fact.
"They seem to be quite numerous," he said.
"Now's your chance," said John, "to prove not only that one Englishman is as good as any other two Europeans, but as good as four."
"Looks like it," said Carstairs coolly. "I'm bound to admit that we can get all the fighting we want. But our men are ready and willing. Listen to the bagpipes of those Highlanders."
"Sounds more like a dirge," said Wharton.
"A dirge for the other fellows."
"Do they keep their legs bare so they can run fast?"
"Yes, after the enemy."
John smiled.
"You're true blue, Carstairs, old fellow," he said. "What do you see, Wharton?"
"Germans, Germans, and then more Germans. Germans on the right, Germans on the left, and Germans in the center, always Germans. They're advancing by kingdoms, grand dukedoms, dukedoms and principalities. The whole circle of the horizon is gray with them."
The three were mounted and ready for orders. Aloft swung the aeroplanes and over the hostile front hovered those of the Germans also. John had little to do, but; as he rode slowly back and forth with the others, he heard the light talk and the jesting among these troops who spoke English. Although he knew that they underrated the danger he was proud of them, and he remembered that his transplanted blood and theirs were the same.
His eyes turned back to the gray sea, coming forward like the tide across the open fields. It's edge was yet far away, but the sunlight was so bright and the columns so deep that he saw them plainly. As in the battle with the French they made upon him the impression of irresistible strength. He saw too that their tremendous line would overlap the British on both left and right, and he was assailed by a sudden and deadly fear that they stood in the presence of the invincible. But his strong will took command of his imaginative mind, and his face seemed calm as he sat on his horse with the others and watched the advancing foe.
Rifles were already crackling in the valleys between, where the pickets were seeking the lives of one another, and now came the deep, rumbling thunder of the giant cannon as they threw their shells from a range of eight or ten miles. When a shell burst there was a crash like that of a volcano in eruption, great cavities were torn in the earth, and men fell in dozens. Vast clouds of smoke from the monster guns began to drift against the horizon, but nearer where the smaller guns were at work only light white clouds appeared.
The advancing German army was a semicircle of fire. From every point the field batteries opened, making a steady crash so frightful and violent that it seemed to rend the earth. But above their roar the eruption of the colossal cannon in the rear could be heard now, and shells of immense weight struck and burst in the English lines. Along the whole British front the cannon were replying, and the roar reached incredible proportions. Noxious fumes too filled the air. Gases seemed to be released and the air was heavy and poisonous in the lungs. War had taken on a new aspect, one more sinister and menacing than the old.
The shock from the great guns became so terrific that John tore little pieces from the lining of his coat and stuffed them in his ears, in fear lest he should be made deaf forever. He did it surreptitiously, until he saw others doing the same, and then he put in more. Many of the troops were lying down now. Others were kneeling, but everywhere the officers stood up or sat their horses, reckless of death. The rifle firing had ceased, because the pickets and skirmishers of both were driven in, and the masses on the two sides were not yet near enough to each other for that weapon.
But the cannon, hundreds and hundreds of them were pouring forth two storms of death. The British position was raked through and through by the fire of a thousand guns. Shrapnel seemed to rain from the clouds scattering death and wounds everywhere. The air was filled with its ferocious whine like that of a hurricane.
John, having no messages to carry, continued to watch the German advance. He had no doubt that thousands had already fallen before the hostile fire, but he could see no break in that living gray line. It came steadily on, solid, tremendous and, again he felt that it was impossible to stay it.
"The field telephone brings news that the French on our right miles away are engaged also!" shouted Wharton.
"That doesn't concern us!" John shouted back. "Look what's coming, a million Germans at least!"
The shrapnel whined terribly over his head and his horse fell, but he sprang clear.
"My horse is killed!" he cried.
"So's mine," said Carstairs, as he picked himself from the grass.
Wharton's was hurt by the same deadly shower and he dismounted to examine his wound, but the horse maddened by pain and fright broke loose and ran toward the German lines. Before he had gone far a shell swept him away in fragments.
John thought they were safer on foot, but his fear began to leave as the madness of battle seized him. He had the curious but not uncommon feeling in a soldier that the whole hostile army was firing at him alone. His heart swelled with indignation, and his hair bristled with anger. Snatching up the rifle of a fallen man he stood, ready to use it, when the gray line came within fair range.
Carstairs and Wharton shouted something to him, but he could not hear the words. He merely saw their lips moving. The crash had become so tremendous that voices were inaudible. John was now quite certain that if he had not put the lint in his ears he would have become deaf forever. But both Wharton and Carstairs seized him and dragged him down. Wharton, through his glasses, had noticed that new German batteries were coming into action, and their fire would converge upon the place, where they stood.
As they lay almost flat behind a little ridge the shrapnel began to shriek over their heads with increased violence. Many men behind them were killed and a stream of wounded dragged themselves toward the rear. The giant shells also fell among them, spreading death over wide areas. The hideous smell of fumes and gases spread. The air seemed poisoned.
The rifles now opened fire, and the air was filled with singing steel. The little bullets flew in millions, cutting down men, bushes, grass, everything. John and his comrades using the ridge for shelter fired their own weapons as fast as they could pull the trigger. He did not know how Carstairs and Wharton had obtained their rifles, but plenty were lying about for the taking.
As the German lines drew nearer John saw the men falling in hundreds. Their ranks were swept by shell, shrapnel and the unceasing storm of bullets, but the gray hosts, a quarter of a million strong, passing over the dying and the dead, always swept on, their generals eager to cut off and destroy the English army where it stood. As they marched vast bodies of troops thundered out "The Watch on the Rhine," or "A Mighty Fortress is our God." Now and then a strain of the song came to John's ears on the roar of the battle.
The gray sea was coming nearer, ever nearer. Losses, however large, were nothing to the Germans. Their generals led them on straight into the face of the British fire, and John gasped as if all that tremendous weight were about to be hurled upon his own chest.
The British fire doubled, tripled. The German line wavered, steadied itself and came on again. Then John saw a flash extending along their own front, and he and his comrades sprang to their feet. He saw an officer give an order and then with a tremendous shout the men, their line bristling with steel, rushed forward.
John heard the shrapnel and bullets shrieking and whistling among them, but he was untouched. Whether there was any bayonet on the end of his rifle he did not know, but he was running forward with the others, and then he was in the center of a vast red whirlwind, in which the faces of men shone and steel glittered. Cannon and rifles crashed, and there was a great shouting, but the Germans at last reeled and gave back before the bayonet.
A tremendous roar of cheers came from the British line, and for a little space there was a comparative lull in the thunder of the battle. John heard a Highland brigade singing some wild song, and near him the Irish were pouring forth a fierce, wailing note. Wharton and Carstairs were still by his side, unharmed.
"The bayonet after all is the weapon for close quarters! It takes a good man to stand the cold steel!" shouted Carstairs.
"So it does!" John shouted back, "but they've stopped for only a few moments! They're gathering anew!"
"And we're here waiting for them! But I wish there were more of us!"
John echoed the wish. He saw the German army advancing again or at least enough of it to know that it could overpower the defense. The Germans were as brave as anybody and under their iron discipline they would come without ceasing. He borrowed Wharton's glasses, and also saw the vast overlapping lines to right and left. A great fear was born in his heart that the German effort would succeed, that the British army would be surrounded and destroyed. But he handed the glasses back to Wharton without a word.
The battle swelled anew. The German generals reformed their lines and the hosts poured forward again, reckless of losses. The defense met them with a terrible fire and charged again and again with the bayonet.
For hours the battle raged and thundered over the hills and valleys, and the British line still held, but it was cut up, bleeding at every pore, and to right and left the horns of the long German crescent were slowly creeping around either flank. John from his place on a hill saw well and he knew that their position was growing extremely dangerous. It seemed to him that the German threat would certainly be carried out, unless help came from the French.
Late in the day he was on horseback again, carrying a message from a general to any French commander whom he could reach, urging immediate help. He had left Wharton and Carstairs on the battle line, and the horse was that of a slain colonel.
Gaining the rear, where the weight of the fire would not reach him John galloped toward the right, passing through a small wood, and then emerging upon a field, in which wheat had stood.
As his blood cooled a little he slowed his speed for a moment or two, and took a look at the battle which was spread over a vast area. He was appalled by the spectacle of all those belching cannon, and of men falling like grass before the mower. A continuous flash and roar came from a front of miles, and he saw well that the German host could not be stopped.
He galloped toward the right, but it seemed to him that distance did not cause any decrease in the crash and roar. Either his imagination supplied it, or the battle was increasing in violence. He rode on, and then a new sound greeted him. It was the thunder of another battle, or rather a link in the chain of battles. He was approaching the position of a French army which had been assailed with a fury equal to that from which the British suffered.
John was merely one of many messengers and the French commander smiled grimly when he read his dispatch.
"Look!" he said, pointing a long arm.
John saw another vast gray host, rolling forward, crushing and invincible. At some points the French had already lost ground, and they were fighting a desperate, but losing battle. No help could come from them, and he believed that the French armies farther east were in the same mortal danger.
John received his return dispatch. He knew without the telling what was in it. The French would certainly urge the British to fall back. If they did not do so they would be lost, the French line in its turn would be crumpled up, and France was conquered.
It was given to John, a youth, as he rode back in the red light of the late sun, to know that a crisis of the world was at hand. He was imaginative. He had read much and now he saw. It struck upon him like a flash of lightning. Along that vast front in face of the French armies and the British there must be a million troops, armed and trained as no other troops ever were, and driven forward by a military autocracy which unceasingly had taught the doctrine, that might is right. The kings, the princes, the dukes and the generals who believed it was their right to rule the world were out there, and it was their hour. By morning they might be masters of Europe.
He had all the clear vision of a young prophet. He saw the sword and cannon triumphant, and he saw the menace to his own land. He shuddered and turned cold, but in a minute warmth returned to his body and he galloped back with the message. Others had returned with messages like his own, and, giving up his horse, he rejoined his comrades.
Carstairs and Wharton were gloomy. The ground that had been the front line of the British was now under the German foot. The German weight, irresistible in appearance, had proved so in fact, and far to left and right those terrible horns were pushing farther and farther around the flanks, John now saw the German army as a gigantic devil fish enveloping its prey.
"What did you find, John?" shouted Carstairs.
"I found a French army pressed as hard as our own, and I heard that farther to the east other French armies were being driven with equal fury."
"Looks as if we might have to retreat."
"It will soon be a question, whether or not we can retreat. The Germans are now on both our flanks."
Carstairs' face blanched a little, but he refused to show discouragement.
"They're telling us to retire now," he said, "but we'll come again. England will never give up. John, your own transplanted British blood ought to tell you that."
"It does tell me so, but when I was riding across the hills I saw better than you can see here. If we don't get away now we never shall, and England and France cannot regain what they will have lost."
But the British army was withdrawing. Those terrible horns had not quite closed in. They were beaten back with shell, bullets and bayonets, and slowly and sullenly, giving blow for blow the British army retreated into France.
John and his comrades were with a small force on the extreme left, almost detached from the main body, serving partly as a line of defense and partly as a strong picket. They stopped at times to rest a little and eat food that was served to them, but the Germans never ceased to press them. Their searchlights flashed all through the night and their shell and shrapnel searched the woods and fields.