“I don’t know where we are going, but we’re on the way,” sang Billy, whose spirits now ranged to a high pitch. “This beats anything we’ve rung up yet in our target practice over here,” he gloated. “Isn’t he a jolly old roadster?” Billy had checked the horse to a slow canter, after a run of two miles. [53]
“Let’s have a bit of a rest.” Henri’s sore shoulder was troubling him. He still had his knapsack with some jumbled food in it. Billy had lost his food supply when he made his leap on the horse.
While the animal was cropping the short grass along the trail the riders took their ease by lounging on the turf and feeding on their crumbled lunch.
“This is a thirsty picnic,” asserted Billy. “My throat is as dry as powder. Let’s see if there isn’t a spring ’round here.”
Hooking the bridle reins over his arm, Billy led the way on a search for water. At the bottom of a wooded hill the boys found themselves in a marsh, and though bitter and brackish the water was a grateful relief to their parched tongues. The horse acted as though he had not had a drink for a week.
A little further on, in a meadow, the boys made a singular discovery. They were amazed to see an important looking personage in a gorgeous uniform, covered with decorations, wandering about the meadow like a strayed sheep.
“What the dickens is that?” exclaimed Henri.
“Give it up.” Billy couldn’t even make a guess. “He shows gay but harmless. I think I’ll look him over.”
On approaching the richly attired wanderer the boys with wonder noticed that he carried a gold-tipped[54] baton and from a shiny knapsack on his shoulders rolls of music protruded.
The strange being kept proclaiming that he was going to direct the German military music on a triumphal parade through the streets of Paris. Henri could understand that much of the disconnected talk, and also that the speaker was the head musician of the German army in Belgium. He had been cut off from his command and become possessed by a fit of melancholy from which the boys found it impossible to rouse him. They divided with him what remained of the contents of Henri’s knapsack, but could not induce him to proceed with them.
“It’s a pity that a man like that should lose his reason. But this dreadful war strikes in most any kind of way, and if it isn’t one way it’s another.”
Henri was still thinking of the horrible happening when the Belgian battery was literally blown to pieces under his very eyes.
“There’s a peaceful sleeper here, anyhow,” said Billy, pausing, as they trudged along, leading the horse toward the trail. He pointed to a little mound above which had been set a rude wooden cross. It was the grave of a French soldier, for on the cross had been placed his cap, showing the name of his regiment. On the mound, too, had been scattered a few wild flowers.
[55]
“Somebody who had a heart for the cause or the fighter must have passed this way,” observed Henri. “The burial of a soldier near the battle lines hasn’t much ceremony, I am told, and surely doesn’t include flowers.”
The boys slept that night in the open, with the saddle for a pillow. They were awakened just before dawn by the restless antics of Bon Ami (“Good Friend”)—for so Henri had named the horse. The animal snorted and ............