The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields Part 20

CHAPTER XIX.

AN IMPORTANT CLUE.

"There was one thing I meant to mention to you, Merritt," said Rob, as they once more started to zigzag across the field where so many windrows of fallen Germans lay, just as they had dropped when making that daring charge.

It was perhaps a little strange how the boys could come to converse as they did while surrounded by such gruesome sights; but after several hours' familiarity with such scenes these begin to lose some of their harrowing features. And while Rob and his chum were still shocked by frequent sights, they did not feel the same weakness that had, in the beginning, almost overpowered them.

"Then, tell it now," urged Merritt.

"It was about Anthony," continued the other.

"Well, as we know only one Anthony just now," pursued Merritt, "I reckon you must be referring to our late guide, the same who gave us the slip like a coward. What about Anthony, Rob?"

"I guessed right about him," replied the patrol leader. "It was not fear that tempted him to leave us in the lurch, but a craze to get in action.

I think Anthony, while too old a man to be on the active list of the Belgian army, must have been a reservist."

"Yes, he told me so," said Tubby, coming up and catching what was being said by his chums.

"Well," Rob continued, "apparently he knew where to go to get a suit, for there he was as big as life, and he even had the audacity to wave his hand at me, and grin."

"Where was this, Rob?" demanded Merritt, surprised, as well he might be.

"Where but sitting on one of those ammunition caissons that went whirling past us into action. Anthony must have been with the artillery corps. He felt the longing come over him when he thought of the enemies of his country--those raiding Uhlans. So what did he do but take French leave on his horse, and get to where this battery was waiting for orders to proceed to the front."

"Oh! well, if you're dead sure it was Anthony," Merritt observed, as if mollified by the information, "of course we'll have to forgive him. I was only mad because I thought the fellow'd gone and gotten cold feet, after taking our advance pay, too. If he's that kind of a patriot, I've got no quarrel with Anthony."

"And perhaps he even had a share in mowing down some of these Germans who had invaded his country," suggested Tubby. "Anthony seemed to be pretty bitter against the Kaiser and his people for trying to cross Belgium in order to strike France in the back, as he called it. Whee!

I'm tired; but I didn't give up, did I, fellows? You never thought Tubby would be able to come through with what he has, and I know it."

"You deserve a medal, Tubby; and we were just saying what a change there's been in you," Rob told him, causing a wan smile to flit across the wearied face of the fat scout.

"Yes," added Merritt readily, "to see the tender way you handled that German, hardly more than a boy himself, and who may never live to see his people again, anyone would have thought you had it in you to be a surgeon. Tubby, if I were you I'd pay more attention to such things. I honestly believe there's a streak of it in your blood."

"Well," Tubby remarked complacently, "we've had eminent doctors in our family; and my folks always said they hoped I'd take a fancy that way; but when I found how weak I was every time I saw a little blood, I gave up the idea. Now I've had my baptism on the battlefield, so mebbe I _will_ change my mind. Even a soft-hearted fellow might make a good doctor, if he couldn't be a surgeon."

"Listen, there's someone calling to us!" exclaimed Merritt.

"And in German, too," added Rob. "Look all around, and see if you can find him. He must have recovered his senses after we pa.s.sed by before."

"There's something moving under that pile of bodies," remarked Tubby with a shudder; "yes, and now you can see a hand waving to us. Oh!

let's hurry and get the poor fellow out!"

The others were just as willing, and soon they had dragged a man out from the weight that had almost smothered him.

"He's pretty badly hurt, I reckon," remarked Rob, as he immediately stooped down over the Bavarian soldier, "but not fatally, I think. We'll do what we can for him here, and the next time men come along with a stretcher, we'll send him over to the field hospital."

The wounded German soldier had listened to them speaking.

"Are you American boys, then?" he asked, in excellent English.

"Well, now, he must have guessed that when you said you 'reckoned,'

Rob," declared Merritt, "but how comes it you talk English, my friend?"

"Oh! I'm from Hoboken," said the man, smiling in spite of the terrible pain he must have been enduring.

Rob was already busily engaged stanching the bleeding from his wounds, which seemed to be numerous, though not apt to prove fatal, if they had proper attention.

"Do you mean Hoboken, New Jersey?" he asked, in surprise.

"Sure. I have lived there for many years now, and have a large brewing interest. Krauss is my name, Philip Krauss. I went across from Munich, in Bavaria, and was on a visit to my old home when the war came about.

Although I have long been an American citizen I still love my native land, and they soon found a place for me in the ranks. But now if I ever get over this I think I will have had enough of fighting, and expect to return to my wife and children in Hoboken. But what are you doing here on this terrible field? It is not the place for boys."

"We are Boy Scouts," Tubby informed him proudly. "By accident we were where we could watch the battle being fought. Then along came the Red Cross ambulances, and the nurses. They asked us to a.s.sist, and as scouts all learn something about first aid, why we thought we'd help out. I guess you're about our last case, Herr Krauss."

Meanwhile Rob and Merritt busied themselves. The way they went about temporarily relieving his suffering, as well as stopping the loss of blood, quite won the admiration of the Hoboken patriot, even as it had done in the case of numerous other wounded men whom the boys attended previously.

It chanced that once again the boys became immersed in their own affairs, which were beginning to weigh heavily on their minds.

"I was making inquiries of one of the men with the stretchers," Rob told his comrades, "and he a.s.sured me that this little place by the name of Sempst is only a matter of six miles or so from where we are right now."

"Then," said Merritt, brightening up, "if only we stand a chance to get around without being gobbled by the Germans, we might strike in there to-morrow, and see if Steven Meredith is still at his post. The agent sent word to my grandfather that he had accepted a position there in charge of some manufacturing plant owned by a German firm in Brussels. I think myself there may have been some truth in that story about his being in the pay of the German Government, both over in America and here!"

The wounded man was listening eagerly to what they said.

"Excuse me," he now broke in. "But that is not a common name; and I once met a Steven Meredith, who pretended to be an American citizen, but who I knew was an agent of the German Government. It may be the same man. I entertained him, together with the German consul in New York City, at my home in Hoboken. Do you happen to know any peculiarity about his looks or manner that would identify him?"

"The man we are trying to find was tall," said Merritt quickly, "and has a slight cast in his left eye. He talks with something of a tw.a.n.g, as though he might be a Down-East Yankee."

"It must be the same!" declared Philip Krauss, as though convinced.

"That accent, I believe, was cleverly a.s.sumed for a purpose. Promise me that you will not think it your duty to betray him to the enemy, and I will tell you still more of him."

Merritt and Rob exchanged significant looks.

"We have no fight against either Germany or the Allies," Merritt observed, "for Americans are neutral, and there would be no need of our betraying him, even if we had the chance. So we can easily give you that promise. He has something in his possession that belongs to my family; and we have come a long way to get it; that is all we want of Steven Meredith. Now, what can you tell us about him?"

"Only this," replied the wounded Hoboken brewer. "You have perhaps saved my life, and I feel I am under heavy obligations for the favor. It is worth something to my wife and family that I should live to see Hoboken again. The man you are looking for is in the suburbs of Brussels. You spoke of Sempst. He was there two days ago when my troop pa.s.sed through.

That may ease your minds, my brave boys."

"Would you mind telling us how you know this?" asked Rob.

"I saw him, and talked with him," came the convincing response. "He remembered me, though he put his finger on his lips, and looked around him as though he were suspicious. He is, as you said, in charge of a manufacturing plant, or appears to be, though he may have been sent there to spy upon the people, and learn valuable facts for the service.

But I am glad to be able to do even a little in return for your kindness."

As two soldiers wearing the Red Cross on their sleeves came along just then with a stretcher, the boys beckoned to them, and had Philip Krauss carried off to the field hospital. They did not see him again after that. If, however, they should ever reach home again, they determined some day to look the Hoboken man up, and learn of his further adventures.