Jack, too, had seen from the manner of the British officer that the kodak picture looked familiar to him. “Would you say there was a resemblance between this face and that of the birdman who drove his aeroplane through the Rhine country?” he asked.
The soldier nodded his head again.
“It answers to the description given me,” he told them. “My informant was very particular to mention the heavy head of black hair, the strong look on the face, and the arched eyebrows. My word! but I really believe you are on the right track, young fellow. If this Frank Bradford, who threw the old city of Cologne into a panic, turns out to be your brother I heartily congratulate you.”
[68]
Further talk followed. Amos hoped to be able to pick up more or less information concerning the present whereabouts of the one he fully believed must be his brother.
In this endeavor, however, he was doomed to disappointment, for the officer could give him no further clue. Whether Frank Bradford still drove his wonderful machine in the service of the Allies, or had been brought low during some later air raid by the gunfire of the Germans he could not say.
So Jack took it upon himself to change the subject. He was not as well posted with regard to the roads of this battle-scarred section of Belgium as he would like to be.
The colonel, once he had been thawed out by the sight of that inspiring signature at the bottom of the letter Amos carried, proved very affable. It has always been the way with these icy Britishers—get behind the reserve they throw up as they would breastworks, gain their confidence, and there is nothing they will refuse in the way of accommodation.
[69]
So Jack was permitted to look at a map of the country which the soldier had in his possession. He even made notes from it which might serve to assist them on their way to Ypres, that hotbed of fighting, a salient the Germans seemed bent on recapturing.
So the two boys finally thanked the colonel, who heartily wished them all possible success in their undertaking.
“At the same time,” he told them at parting, “deep down in my heart I am hoping you may fail to induce your brother to throw up his job as one of King George’s boldest fliers. We shall need all the outside help we can get from our cousins across the sea, before this bloody business is over with, for these Germans are born fighters, every man-jack of them.”
When the two boys had proceeded some distance along the muddy road, on reaching a slight rise they stopped for a minute to look back.
Evidently the order to move had been passed along the line just after they parted from their new-found friends, for, like a great serpent, the[70] column of khaki-clad territorials was passing along the road, a battery of field guns in the van and another bringing up the rear.
It was an inspiring spectacle. No wonder the two American boys felt their hearts beat with aroused sentiments. At the same time Jack shook his head sadly as he went on to say:
“How many of them will never go back again to the homes they have left over in old England? War may seem glorious to those who look on, but it is terrible. Already we’ve seen some of the destruction that follows in its track, and I reckon that before we cross the Atlantic again we’ll have our fill of its horrors.”
Truer words were never spoken. When Jack Maxfield said this he meant it only in a general way. He could not have possibly foreseen what a wide stretch of territory their search for Frank Turner would cover, and what amazing scenes they were fated to gaze upon before the end came.
Once more the chums trudged forward.
Amos was feeling quite “chipper” as he called it, and there was certainly good cause for this[71] high hope. They had accidentally run across what seemed to be a strong clue, and the uncertainty of the past was being relieved. Jack, on his part, was figuring out what he might get through the hands of the censor in his next letter home. It was Jack’s avowed intention to become a newspaper man when he entered the business world, and already he had shown great aptitude along the line. The descriptions he sent over to a paper which he had arranged to represent while abroad were graphic and thrilling. His pen pictures of conditions as he saw them gave an accurate view of the situation. Although the stern military censor might blue pencil all names, he could not destroy the vivid word painting as set down by Jack.
Besides this, Jack had contrived a clever little dodge whereby he hoped to snap off some stirring pictures. His camera was the smallest ever designed, but it had an expensive lens, and that meant more than half the battle.
Jack had it concealed, and so arranged matters that he could press the bulb and snap off a minute[72] picture without any one being the wiser; and after being developed this could be enlarged to any size required.
No doubt, eventually, that clever little contrivance would get him into what Amos called a “peck of trouble.” It would doubtless be confiscated, but Jack hoped he might be able to secure a series of views well worth working for, ere that catastrophe came about.
As they walked on, the boys were continually coming upon fresh works of recent strenuous warfare. The army of invasion had held stubbornly to this region, and an unexpected drive on the part of the reinforced British had carried the Germans back some five miles or so to where they had prepared a second line of wonderful trenches.
Here a stone wall had been used as a breastworks, as was proven by the devastation caused by bursting shells. Great holes yawned in the ground where monsters from the German siege guns had buried themselves and exploded. And the boys looked in awe at the piled-up earth, in[73] places marked with small, rudely fashioned wooden crosses, which told where late combatants lay side by side, their battle fever forever stilled.
Hardened soldiers might have gazed upon such things unmoved, but these boys were all unaccustomed to war’s devastation, and many times their hearts beat in sympathy with the people they saw in the desolated cottages by the way.
The afternoon was now wearing away and it was only natural for the two chums to begin to wonder where they were fated to pass the night.
Jack had roughed it many times in the past, when on the cattle range. He knew what a lone camp under the stars meant, and could stand exposure about as well as the next one.
All the same Jack was ready to confess that if given a choice he much preferred a roof over his head. The air felt raw and there was even a chance that a cold rain might set in before morning, which would be pretty disagreeable all around.
“I think we’re coming to a village,” he told[74] Amos, who had begun to lag a little as though leg weary; “or rather what is left of one, for when the Germans were thrown back they used every house as a barricade, and before they could be ejected there would often be hardly one stone left on another, or a wall standing.”
“Yes, you’re right about that, Jack, because I can see houses ahead of us. I only hope we find some sort of shelter, and a bite to eat, that’s all. Jack, don’t you think we’ve made good progress since sun-up?”
“We’ve done splendidly, for a fact,” the other readily admitted, “and there’s good reason you should feel hopeful. On my part I’ve seen and heard a lot of things today that will make up the liveliest letter I’ve been able to send across to the Times. On a dozen different accounts I’m glad I came over with you, Amos; and chief of all is the fact that I can be of assistance.”
“Why, I never could have gotten on without you, Jack. You’ve cheered me up when I felt blue; you’ve shown me how to ride rough-shod over difficulties; and if ever I do manage to[75] find my brother Frank, nine-tenths of the credit will lie at your door. You’re the best chum a fellow could ever have, and that comes straight from my heart.”
“Well, here we are at the village,” said Jack, to change the conversation, though he would not have been human if he had not been touched by these warm-hearted sentiments on the part of his cousin.
“And I guess,” remarked Amos, “they must have pressed the Germans so closely through here that they had no chance to stop in any numbers, because you can see the houses are not badly shattered by shells.”
They found a scene of desolation around them, however, after they entered the village. Once it had undoubtedly been a pretty hamlet, but this was before the rush of hostile armies across Belgium’s borders.
Fugitives from less favored localities had sought safety among those who still had roofs over their heads. Curious eyes followed the boys as they passed along. Doubtless their coming[76] and their well-fed appearance aroused the wonder and envy of these hapless people who all through the storms of the winter season had fought against starvation and freezing.
Soldiers, rumbling artillery trains, galloping horses, and all the brave trappings of new levies going to the front to become food for the cannon they were accustomed to see day after day. Then would come the ambulances and motor vans laden with the groaning victims who were being taken to field hospitals in the rear of the fighting line. But when two sturdy lads, one of them wearing a little American flag in his buttonhole, walked into their village, the natives became interested at once.
It was known throughout the length and breadth of Belgium that charitable America had fed their suffering millions all through the winter. On this account any one who claimed to be a citizen of the generous republic beyond the sea was welcome in their midst.
So Jack and Amos found smiles upon some of[77] the wan faces around them as well as wonder and curiosity.
“If we can only run across some one who speaks English I’d call it lucky,” Amos was saying as they reached the center of the village.
“Here comes the man we want to see, then,” Jack told him. “The rest are pushing him along as if they knew he could talk with us. My French isn’t all it should be, and I have to depend on signs half the time so as to make myself understood. But it’s going to be all right now.”
Jack proved to be a good prophet, for the old man with the white beard addressed them in very fair English. He told them he had worked in an American arms factory for several years, and considered that he knew Yankee customs very well indeed.
“If you wish to spend the night with us,” he continued, “we will do the best we can to entertain you. In these sad times most of us are content to find a roof over our heads, and have something to satisfy our hunger. I will take you to my own poor house, though it is already[78] crowded with relatives from other parts of our distracted country. Such accommodations as we have you are quite welcome to.”
Of course the boys thanked him, and hastened to say they would be satisfied to sleep in a shed, if there was no other place vacant. He asked them to accompany him, and with quite a procession tagging at their heels they started off.
It turned out that their host was really an important man in the village. Jack guessed he must be the mayor or burgomaster, since every one seemed to defer to his judgment.
One of the first things they noticed as they drew near the cottage for which they were headed, was a small boy parading up and down bearing a Belgian flag proudly over his shoulder. He seemed a very determined-looking youngster, and Amos openly commented on his manifest patriotism, at which the old man shrugged his shoulders, and then remarked:
“Of such material are the Belgian people composed. Like the Dutch they have never been conquered. They dared even to defy the Kaiser[79] and his millions of fighting men. Belgium will rise again, and be a greater nation than ever.”
“And the boy?” said Jack, deeply interested.
“He is a wonderful child, whose brave father, Jean Larue, my cousin, fell fighting in defense of Antwerp. Little Jacques dreams of the day when he may strike a blow in memory of the father he loved. His mind is full of plans for trapping the hated Germans, if ever they come this way again, which Heaven forbid.”
The boy stopped in his military walk to solemnly return the salute Jack gave him. His face was unusually grave and they could see that the horrors of war by which little Jacques had been surrounded had done much to make him older than his years.
Everybody tried to be kind to the American boys, though it was little they could do after that late pinching winter. But they were given a small room with a bed in it, which apartment Jack imagined had been hastily evacuated by some of the kind old burgomaster’s relatives, now thrown upon his bounty.
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“What better could we ask than this?” Amos wanted to know, as he washed his face and hands in a convenient tin basin.
“I’m not saying a word,” Jack told him. “Fact is I reckon we’re in clover, when you think of those poor ground hogs we saw yesterday wallowing in the mud of the trenches, and half frozen at that.”
It was not long before they knew cooking was going on, and, being a pretty hungry pair of boys, they exchanged pleased glances as they sniffed the appetizing odors.
The meal was limited, so far as variety went, but there seemed an abundance for all. Only the old burgomaster sat down with them, though there were a dozen women and children to be served later on under the hospitable roof.
Upon making inquiry Jack learned that there was not a single able-bodied man left in the village.
“All them are fighting alongside our beloved King Albert,” exclaimed the old man, proudly,[81] “or else have already laid down their lives in defense of their country.”
All these things made a deep impression on the two American boys. They wondered how much of the same kind of patriotism would be found over in their country should an occasion ever arise when hostile armies occupied the cities and towns of the republic.
After sitting in their little room for an hour, where, by the dim light of a taper, Jack wrote an account of stirring things he had seen that day, Amos finally begged him to “close up shop” and go outside a while to take the air before turning in.
To this Jack offered no objection, for he was feeling very much that way himself.
The village seemed almost deserted at this hour, for the night was cloudy as well as raw, and every one had sought shelter. Even the dogs answered each other with mournful howls, as though they, too, partook of the general gloom that had fallen upon poor Belgium since that day early in August when the Teuton horde broke[82] across her neutral territory and began the most terrible war in all history.
The boys walked out of the quiet village and along the road for a little distance. It was about this time that Amos drew the attention of his chum to something that appeared to have caught his eye and puzzled him. As usual, Amos depended on Jack to solve the mystery.