The sky had turned dark over Ypres, rain had commenced to fall in streets so remarkably clean that they really did not need this bath from above. It was just the kind of a night, though, for the risky venture undertaken by our Aviator Boys. They were going to see their old friends, and nothing but a broken leg would check their willing steps on the way to the prison house that contained Captain Johnson and Josiah Freeman. Leon knew the best way to get there. The darkest ways were light to him, and he was not afraid that rain would spoil his clothes. To guide these wonderful flying boys was the happiest thing that had happened to him in all his days, and, too, he had a strong dislike for the Germans who had invaded the homeland. His father was even now fighting in the ranks of the Allies at Nieuport, and his mother was wearing her heart out in the fields as the only breadwinner for her little brood.
There were comparatively few of the gray troops then in the town. The main columns were moving north to the Dixmude region, where the horizon was red with burning homes. To guard prisoners, garrison the town and care for the wounded not[37] many soldiers were then needed in Ypres, and non-commissioned officers mostly were in command.
The streets were empty and silent, and lights only occasionally seen. At midnight Billy, Henri and Leon paused in the deep shadow of a tall elm, the branches of which swept the front of the dingy red brick dwelling, two stories in height and heavily hung with vines. Leon knew the place like a book, for he had been serving as an errand boy for the guards quartered there.
He whispered to Henri that the men who had sent the note were in the front room on the second floor.
Behind the brick wall at the side of the house was a garden. Billy and Henri, on Leon’s advice, decided to try the deep-set door in the garden wall as the only way to get in without stirring up the sentry in the front hall. With the first push on the door the rusty hinges creaked loudly.
The front door of the house was thrown open, and a shaft of light pierced the darkness. The boys backed up against the wall, scarcely daring to breathe. The soldier looked up at the clouds, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, muttered something to himself, turned back and slammed the door with a bang. At this the boys gave a backward heave, and were through the door and into the garden.
This interior was blacker than the mouth of an[38] inkwell. Billy cautiously forced the door back in place.
“Got any matches?” Billy had failed to find any in his own pockets.
Henri was better supplied. In the military a?roplane he had not only found matches, but also a box of tapers, and he had taken the precaution of putting them in his pockets when they left the machine.
With a little flame, carefully shaded, the boys discovered a shaky-looking ladder in a grape-arbor at the back of the garden.
By degrees, foot by foot, they edged the ladder alongside of the house, and gently hoisted it to the window of the upper room, which Leon had assured them was the right one.
“Let’s shy some pebbles against the window to let them know we are here,” was the whispered suggestion of Henri.
“Nothing doing.” Billy was going to have a look in first. He was already crawling up the ladder. Henri laid hold of the lower rungs, to keep the rickety frame steady, and Leon stationed himself at the garden door, ready and alert to give warning whistle if anything happened in front.
Billy tapped softly on the window pane. The sash was silently raised, and Billy crept in.
Not a word had been spoken, and no signal from the room above.
[39]
Standing in the dark and the rain in the dismal garden, Henri was of half a mind to follow his comrade without further delay. It was an anxious moment.
A bird-like trill from Leon. With this call Henri left the ladder and tiptoed to the garden door to join the little Belgian and find out what was the matter.
From far up the silent street, coming with measured tread, a regiment was marching. The watchers at the door of the garden now plainly heard gruff commands and the other u............