With Joffre at Verdun Part 7

The scene as the aged and snappy old gentleman clambered aboard the train that morning suddenly occurred to the station-master, only to be put aside in an instant; for it seemed impossible that he could have been an impostor. The girl, too, looked so natural, so feminine, so absolutely genuine, and yet----

"Wait though, was it a girl?" the station-master asked himself, for it flashed across his stolid brain that the movements of the lady in question had not been, after all, entirely feminine. Now that he thought about the matter he remembered that at the moment when the three were boarding the train the lady had shown a most extraordinary degree of agility. She had clambered like a cat aboard the carriage, and had given a heave to the old gentlemen which disclosed a degree of strength somewhat peculiar in a woman. Yes, he was sure of it now, of course the thing was strange--it was not a woman, he felt sure.

"Hold!" he shouted down the telephone. "I have them!"

"You have them!" came the excited answer. "You have taken the three?

You have got those prisoners?"

"No, no, no! I did not say I had taken them. I have got to the bottom of the mystery. Those three you mention boarded a train here this morning, a train going westward."

It was the turn of the inspector to shout down the telephone, to shout a peremptory order, to inform the station-master that he was coming immediately; and there followed at the station a close questioning of the station-master, followed by frantic telegrams and telephone messages which were sent down the line in pursuit of the train on which Jules and Henri and Stuart were travelling.

"Now we have them securely, thanks to my promptness and energy," said the police inspector, as he adjusted his gla.s.ses and pocketed his notebook--yes, pocketed his notebook, for that familiar object, part and parcel of every constable in Great Britain, is likewise an important part of the equipment of German policemen. It was with a flourish that the man pushed it into the short tail of his tunic, then he hitched his belt a trifle tighter, expanded his manly chest, and set his helmet at just the slightest rakish angle. He was a "dog" indeed, this police Inspector, wonderfully pleased with himself, bursting with self-importance, and as arrogant as they make them.

"You will see," he coughed, turning upon the station-master; "we shall have them, thanks to the telegrams I have sent. And then, my friend, what will they think of us at the central station? Of me, and this brilliant capture?"

"You!" exclaimed the station-master, somewhat taken aback; "of you, Inspector! But wait a moment. It is true that you have sent those telegrams off, and that, thanks to them, the runaways may be captured, but I----"

"May be captured?" thundered the inspector; "as if indeed they were not already in the hands of my subordinates. But proceed."

"I was about to add, to suggest, may I say? that, after all, in carrying out your duties you have been largely a.s.sisted by my promptness in remembering that three such persons as you described had actually boarded a train at this station. Consider for a little while: your description was, after all, not too elaborate--a little vague, absolutely deficient in the case of one of the fugitives. Is it not due in some small measure to my ac.u.men that you are on the track of these people? Come now, Inspector, be fair. If there is honour to be won, apportion it out, and do not forget the a.s.sistance you have received from others."

It was curious that, at that very moment, there should arrive at the station, brought there in the police officer's car, which he had sent to the sugar factory for that purpose, the manager whose office Henri had so lately entered. The poor fellow was shaking with trepidation, with fear of what was to happen; and if his thoughts had been vague before, and not a little muddled, if terror of the law had somewhat disconcerted him, and upset his equilibrium during and after his cross-examination, terror of the future had made him now little more than a babbling idiot--an object, indeed, for the contemptuous glances of the police inspector and for his gibes and sallies.

"So," he said, standing over the portly figure of the little man, as he came from the motor-car and stumbled down the platform, "so, you have obeyed, Herr Winterborgen, you are here to identify the three whose return in captivity we are waiting. That is good, and certainly you will be able to tell us that they are the individuals."

The manager held his hands up, expostulating weakly. There were tears in his eyes, tears of fear, of rage, and of anguish.

"But, identify them," he cried, almost shrieked indeed, "identify the three who purloined garments from my office? But no, it is impossible; for hear me, Inspector, I never saw those individuals; not once, to my knowledge, have I ever set eyes on them."

But if he expected pity or leniency, he might just as well have appealed to the wooden pillar which supported the roof of the platform.

The huge police inspector was adamant, inflexible, unmoved, and surveyed the trembling figure of his victim with cold eyes which glinted cruelly. Very slowly, he slid one broad hand back into the short tail of his tunic, extricated his notebook with a flourish, and, opening it and producing a pencil, called upon the station-master to bear witness to the words uttered.

"Mark the words of this Herr Winterborgen," he said. "'Not to my knowledge,' he states, has he seen these three individuals; and yet, mark this again, he was able to describe their appearance fully, to describe the clothes they wore, their s.e.x, and their possible destination."

By then the eyes of the manager were almost starting out of his head, and he was gaping and gasping with amazement at the story to which he listened. Never before, indeed, had he imagined that anyone--let alone a police inspector, a pillar of the law--could have invented such a story, could have produced such a lying fabrication. The words stunned his ears, and he felt more than ever that he was hopelessly involved in circ.u.mstances which would end in nothing less than his utter downfall.

Nor did the hour which pa.s.sed ere the train came to the station relieve him of his fears or make him any the happier. For even if the fugitives were captured--and it seemed more than likely that they would be brought to the station in the train then approaching--their coming could result in nothing but further embarra.s.sment, for he would be expected to identify them definitely, and if he did that he well knew that difficulties would become greater.

"Ha! At last it is signalled, this train," said the police inspector, "and we shall soon know whether our friends have made this capture."

"Wait, though," the station-master cautioned him, coming from his office at that moment; "this is a special and does not stop, but behind it, only a few minutes intervening, there is another train, the ordinary train, which stopped at the station down the line to which your telegrams were forwarded, and where the fugitives will have been surrounded. Stand back there!"

The three of them--the station-master, the police inspector, and the trembling manager of the sugar factory--stood on the platform and watched the train as it ran through the station at moderate speed; and then, thinking nothing more of it, waited for that other one, the smoke from the engine of which was already visible in the distance. Nor need we describe how the inspector--determined upon a capture, confident, indeed, that his telegrams had produced that result, and already bursting with triumph and rehearsing the terrible things that he would do to his captives--pounced upon the train, ran from carriage to carriage, and eagerly interrogated the officials. Imagine his rage, his mortification, his disappointment, when he was informed that no such people as the three whose description he had sent could be found upon the train going westward.

"Not search the train completely!" shouted an official whom he had questioned, and who, being of sufficient rank himself and of equal importance with the inspector, was not to be easily frightened. "How then? Is a police inspector the only individual capable of searching for spies and discovering them? Is everyone on the line a fool, then, unless he be a policeman? You'll tell us soon that we don't know our own business; as if, indeed, it were possible to miss three such people as you described, or even one of them, particularly when one knows that there were few pa.s.sengers on the train in question."

It was of no use shouting back at the man; it was of no use engaging in a wordy quarrel with him; and of little service to take note of the covert smiles of the station-master and the sidelong winks he directed at the manager of the sugar factory--a manager now wonderfully transformed--the worthy Herr Winterborgen, who was even smiling.

Slowly, little by little, arrogance oozed out of every pore of that perspiring police inspector, and presently he took himself off to his car and drove furiously away, wis.h.i.+ng that he had never had this case to investigate, and that, wherever the escaping prisoners were, someone would shoot them.

Meanwhile, let us glance into one of the carriages of that train--that special which had bustled through the station while the inspector was waiting. In one of the compartments sat an aged man, with a Homberg hat of ridiculously small size pressed down over his temples, upon which wisps of hair shone whitely in the sunlight--a man who looked through big goggles at the scenery as it flashed by, and whose lips were hidden behind a drooping moustache of iron-grey colour. Beside him sat a girl, well-grown--masculine one would have almost said--with laughing features, a girl who had spread herself out in the carriage, and, lying back against the cus.h.i.+ons, had placed her two feet on the opposite seat, a most inelegant, unladylike, yet possibly comfortable position. And beside them sat a big, bony, healthy individual, whose face was shaded by a broad hat, yet not sufficiently shaded to hide the wide grins which crossed it and denoted the utmost merriment. He was rubbing his two big, strong hands together, laughing, chuckling, and gazing every moment out of the window.

"My hat! My uncle! Crikey!" he exclaimed; "but that has really done it! And what luck we have had, too. To think that we should have been in a compartment which drew up near the signal station where that message about us was shouted by the man in charge. I declare again that you're a regular wizard, Henri, for how else could you have arranged for the train to halt just in that position, and where, thanks again to your knowledge of German, it allowed you at once to hear and understand what was shouted. Let's have the words again."

The old and somewhat delicate-looking gentleman seated beside him turned upon the big man an expansive smile, a mischievous smile, and, pus.h.i.+ng his goggles up on his forehead, burst into such a ripple of laughter that his drooping moustache, which seemed so natural, fell from its place, instantly transforming him. It was the jovial, yet cautious, Henri enjoying this amazing adventure to the utmost.

"My boy," he said, as he reached for the moustache and carefully adjusted it, "one moment while I take a glance at myself in the gla.s.s over the seat. That's better, ain't it? Quite straight, and makes me look the part to perfection. But what did that signalman shout, you ask? Well, rather an important message, and these are the words as I remember them: 'You'll stop at the station just beyond', he called to the driver; 'there are police there waiting for you, for there's information that there are three escaping prisoners from Ruhleben amongst the pa.s.sengers, in disguise of course. Understand? Well, pull out and run through the tunnel.'"

It was little to be wondered at that the wits of the fugitives were at once set to work in lightning-like manner. If they were to escape, indeed, and were to avoid the police officials waiting for them at the station so near at hand, they must act instantly, must find some loophole, must alter their plans completely. Already the train was again in motion, for it had only pulled up for a few seconds, and, even while they were debating the matter, were looking at one another enquiringly, and were feeling already as if the case were hopeless, it ran into the tunnel. It was then that Henri gripped his two companions and spoke eagerly to them.

"Quick, to the end of the carriage," he said; "then hop out. It's dark, so that no one can see us. On no account must we be seen on the train when it has pa.s.sed through the tunnel."

It was a fortunate thing for the trio that the train had been unable to get up any great speed since it got into motion again after leaving the signal station. It did little better than crawl into the tunnel, and, seeing that the station at which it was destined to halt, and where the police were waiting the fugitives, was only a short distance beyond, the driver made no effort to hurry. Thus it followed that the drop from the train was a matter of no great difficulty, particularly for such active individuals as Henri, Jules, and Stuart. Crouching between the wall of the tunnel and the pa.s.sing train, they listened to it as it rumbled away in the distance towards a mere dot of light which disclosed the far end of the tunnel. Then that dot was of a sudden blotted out of sight, and the rumbling became louder.

"What's that?" demanded Stuart. "Not gone off the rails, I hope, for that will bring a pack of people into the place, and they'll find us."

"Another train has entered the tunnel, I think," came from Jules.

"Listen, now, and look! You can see sparks coming from the funnel."

"Then, why not?" demanded Henri, in a voice which trembled with excitement. "Why not transfer ourselves to it? What matter if it is going in the opposite direction, so long as it throws our pursuers off the scent. Eh--what's the verdict?"

"That we s.n.a.t.c.h the goods the G.o.ds send us, and pile on to the new train."

That, too, was a matter of extreme simplicity to the three. Only, had the train been lighted, and had there been railway officials on it, they would have been staggered, no doubt, and vastly moved at witnessing the agility of these three unbidden pa.s.sengers who now joined it. Indeed, the extraordinary and unexpected, if not masculine, agility of the lady would have simply and metaphorically floored any German official. But there was none to see, in the first place, because darkness flooded the scene; and, secondly, because no gaping official was on this special. Reaching a carriage and ensconcing themselves in a corner, Henri and his friends were presently whirled from the tunnel and swept on over the ground they had so recently covered, and in due course they ran through the station where the inspector, the station-master, and the unfortunate manager of the sugar factory were standing. Henri gave vent to an exclamation of astonishment, and then to a loud chuckle, while of a sudden he gripped his two friends by the arms and bade them lower their heads.

"It's all as clear as daylight now," he said. "I have been wondering how on earth these Germans discovered our whereabouts and our disguises; but that makes the whole matter perfectly transparent. The manager of the factory spotted the fact that his office had been entered, and that certain garments had been purloined. The police were called in, and then the station-master gave information of our arrival, and of our boarding the train. It's as clear as a pikestaff. Hurrah!

How we've nonplussed them!"

"And if the hue and cry is all up the line, what happens to us?" asked Stuart, with a grim smile, some little time later, when the train had whirled them perhaps a couple of dozen miles onward. "We can't go on like this indefinitely. This train is bound to stop somewhere, and when it stops we are up against the same old difficulty again.

Moreover, knowing our disguises, realizing that we have baffled them in some way, the police will be telegraphing all over the country, and may even guess that we are on this train. Common sense tells a fellow that the whole scheme must be pitched overboard and a new plan entered upon."

It was indeed a serious difficulty, for at any moment the train which carried them on so swiftly, so luxuriously one may say, might stop, and twenty or more gaping officials might investigate it. For all Henri and his chums knew, telegrams were already pa.s.sing over the wires which flashed beside them as they ran through the country--telegrams warning officials, hungry for their capture, to be on the look-out, to be on the qui vive for three individuals--an oldish man in delicate health, his daughter, perhaps, and another, a big fellow, ostensibly an attendant. Yet, whatever plans they may have thought out, whatever intentions they may have had, were suspended for a while, seeing that the train did not halt but ran on for quite a considerable time, indeed until dusk had fallen. Nor was it until darkness had fallen and the evening had pa.s.sed that it finally ran into the outskirts of a large town, where presently the brakes gripped the wheels, setting them skidding over the metals, and soon bringing the carriages to a standstill. Then the train began to back, and presently was brought to rest in a siding.

"Out we go," said Henri. "No one has seen us up to date, and therefore all we can say is that we have still plenty of chances of escaping; we are no worse off than we were certainly, and perhaps we're better off.

At any rate, speaking personally, I've still every intention of clearing out of Germany."

CHAPTER VII

A Friend in Need

"Half a mo'! What's that? Looks like a regular haystack," grunted Stuart, as he dropped from the train and stood in the fairway, one hand held out in front of him, and a ponderous finger pointing into the darkness.

"What's what? Oh, that!--that! Yes, it looks like a haystack,"

admitted Jules, following the direction of his indicating finger.

"On wheels! A hay-load on a truck," suggested Henri, peering into the gloom, and seeing the ghostly outline of twenty or more trucks which stood upon the rails in a siding quite close to them. "A truck of hay, Stuart--hay!"