Tom Slade with the Boys Over There Part 20

"You got to get 'em down on theirr knees beforre you make a treaty with 'em," boasted Archer. "You can see yourself they'rre no good when they haven't got any commanderr--or any arrms. When Uncle Sam makes a treaty with that gang, crab-apples, but I hope he gets the boat, too."

"I know what you mean," said Tom soberly. "I have to laugh at the way you talk when you get mad. It reminds me of the country and Temple Camp."

"That's one thing I learned from knockin' around in Europe since this warr starrted," said Archer. "The botches, or whatever you call 'em, are no darrned good when you get 'em alone. The officers may be all right, but the soldierrs are thick. If I couldn't 'a' knocked the bluff out o'

that lord-high critturr, I'd 'a' rubbed his pie face in the mud!"

Tom laughed at his homely expletives and Archer broke out laughing too, at his own expense. But for all that, Tom was destined to recall, and that very soon, what Archer had said about the Huns. And he was shortly to use this knowledge in one of the most hazardous experiences of his life.

They were now, thanks to their treaty, both dry clad in the field-gray uniforms of the German rank and file; and though they felt somewhat strange in these habiliments they enjoyed a feeling of security, especially in view of the populated district they must pa.s.s through.

Of the purposes and fate of their late "enemies" they had no inkling and they did not greatly concern themselves about this pair of fugitives who had crossed their path. They knew, from the gossip in "Slops" prison, that Germany was full of deserters who were continually being rounded up because, as Archer blithely put it, they were "punk scouts and had no resourrce--or whatever you call it." Tom did not altogether relish the implication that a deserter might be a good scout or _vice versa_, but he agreed with Archer that the pair they had encountered would probably not "get away with it."

"If they had a couple o' generrals to map it out forr 'em, maybe they would," said Archer.

"I think I'm above you in rank," said Tom, glancing at an arrow sewn on his sleeve.

"I'm hanged if I know what that means," Archer answered. "Therre's a couple morre of 'em on your collarr. Maybe you'rre a generral, hey? I'm just a plain, everyday botch."

"Boche," said Tom.

"Same thing."

They landed at an embankment where a railroad skirted the sh.o.r.e and it occurred to Tom now that the guiding light which had forsaken him the night before was a railroad signal which had been turned the other way after the pa.s.sage of the train he had heard. At his suggestion, Archer bored a hole in the boat and together they gave it a smart push out into the river.

"Davy Jones forr you, you bloomin' tattle_tile_, as the Tommies would say," Archer observed in reminiscence of his vast and varied acquaintances.h.i.+p. "Come on now, we've got to join our regiment and blow up a few hospitals. How do you like being a botch, anyway?"

"I'd rather be one now than a year from now," said Tom.

"Thou neverr spakst a truerr worrd.

"Oh, Fritzie Hun, he had a gun, And other things that's worrse; He didn't like the foe to strike, So he shot a Red Cross nurrse,"

Archer rattled on.

"Can't you say _nurse_?" said Tom.

"Surre I can--nurrrrse."

Tom laughed.

They tramped up through the main street of a village, for the populated area was too extensive to afford hope of a reasonably short detour. The few people whom they pa.s.sed in the darkness paid no particular heed to them. They might have been a couple of khaki-clad boys in America for all the curiosity they excited.

At the railroad station an army officer glared at them when they saluted and seemed on the point of accosting them, which gave them a momentary scare.

"We'd better be careful," said Tom.

"Gee, I thought we had to salute," Archer answered.

They followed the railroad tracks through an open spa.r.s.ely populated region as far as the small town of Ottersweier. The few persons who were abroad paid no particular attention to them, and as long as no one spoke to them they felt safe, for the street was in almost total darkness.

Once a formidable-looking German policeman scrutinized them, or so they thought, and a group of soldiers who were sitting in the dark entrance of a little beer garden looked at them curiously before saluting. Most of these men were crippled, and indeed as they pa.s.sed along it seemed to the fugitives that nearly every man they pa.s.sed either had his arm in a sling or was using crutches.

"Do you think maybe they had a hunch we werren't Gerrman soldierrs at all?" Archer queried.

"No," said Tom. "I think they just didn't want to salute us till they were sure we were soldiers like themselves. I think a soldier hasn't got a right even to salute an officer here unless the officer takes some notice of him. Maybe the officer's got to glance at him first, or something."

"G-o-od _night_!" said Archer. "Reminds you of America, don't it--_not 'arf_, as the Tommies say. Wouldn't it seem funny not daring to speak to an officerr therre? Many's the chat I've had with French generals and English ones, too. Didn't I give old Marshal What's-his-name an elastic band to put around his paperrs?"

In all probability he had, for he was an aggressive and brazen youngster without much respect for dignity and authority, and Tom was glad when they reached the hills, for he had been apprehensive lest his comrade might essay a familiar pleasantry with some grim official or launch himself into the perilous pastime of swapping souvenirs with a German soldier.

But they were both to remember this business about saluting which, if Tom was right, was eloquent of the German military system, showing how high was the officer and how low the soldier who might not even pay his arrogant superior the tribute of a salute without permission.

This knowledge was to serve Tom in good stead before many days should pa.s.s.

CHAPTER XXV

TOM IN WONDERLAND

All through that night, with their compa.s.s as a guide, they climbed the hills, keeping in a southerly direction, but verging slightly eastward.

In the morning they found themselves on the edge of a high, deeply wooded plateau, which they knew extended with more or less uniformity to the Swiss frontier.

Looking ahead of them, in a southerly direction, they could see dim, solemn aisles of sombre fir trees and the ground was like a brown velvet carpet, yielding gently under their feet. The air was laden with a pungent odor, accentuated by the recent storm, and the damp, resiny fragrance was like a bracing tonic to the fugitives, bidding them welcome to these silent, unfrequented depths.

They were now, indeed, within the precincts of the renowned Schwarzwald, whose wilderness toyland sends forth out of its sequestered hamlets (or did) wooden lions, tigers and rhinoceroses for the whole world, and monkeys on sticks and jumping-jacks and little wooden villages, like the little wooden villages where they are made.

The west slopes of this romantic region were abrupt, almost like the Palisades of the Hudson, running close to the river in some places, and in other places descending several miles back from the sh.o.r.e, so that a panoramic view of southern Alsace was always obtainable from the sharp edge of this forest workshop of Santa Claus. In the east the plateau slopes away and peters out in the lowlands, so that, as one might say, the Black Forest forms a kind of huge natural springboard to afford one a good running jump across the Rhine into Alsace.

Archer's battered and misused geography had not lied about the commissary department of this storied wilderness, for the wild grapes (of which the famous Rhenish wine is made) did indeed grow in "furious what-d'you-call-'ems" or luxurious profusion if you prefer, upon the precipitous western slopes.

All that day they tramped southward, meeting not a soul, and feeling almost as if they were in a church. It seemed altogether grotesque that Germany, grim, fighting, war-crazy Germany, should own such a peaceful region as this.

In the course of the day, they helped the prohibition movement, as Archer said, by eating grapes in such quant.i.ties as seriously to reduce the output of Rhenish wine. "But, oh, Ebeneezerr!" he added. "What wouldn't I give for a good russet apple and a dipper of sweet cider."

"You're always thinking about apples and souvenirs," said Tom.

"You can bet I'm going to get a souveneerr in herre, all right!" Archer announced. "Therre ought to be lots of good ones herre, hey?"

"Maybe they grow in furious what-d'you-call-'ems?" suggested sober Tom.

"If it keeps as level as this, we ought to be able to waltz into the barrbed wirre by tomorrow night. This is the only thing about Gerrmany that's on the level, hey?"

Toward evening they had the lesser of the two surprises which were in store for them in the Black Forest. They were hiking along when suddenly Tom paused and listened intently.

"What is it?" Archer asked.

"A bird," said Tom, "but I never heard a bird make a noise like that before."