Army Boys on German Soil: Our Doughboys Quelling the Mobs Part 24

"If Tom had only had time, he'd have cleaned out the whole bunch,"

laughed Bart. "As it is, he's given them a wholesome respect for American muscle."

"And American speed too, I imagine," grinned Billy. "The way Tom was making for the woods was a caution. A jack rabbit had nothing on him."

They could joke about the matter now, but it had been far from a joke at that moment not far removed, when life and death had been trembling in the balance.

"Tell us how we came to lose you, Tom," said Frank, as he threw down the spade and they made their way to their temporary quarters. "One minute we saw you and the next we didn't."

"You vanished like a ghost," put in Bart "When we were fighting in that house I saw you knock down one of the rioters with the b.u.t.t of your gun. I was busy myself then with a husky roughneck, but I tumbled him over and looked around for you and couldn't see you."

"We thought at first," said Billy, "that you might have fallen between the houses when you were chasing the Huns over the roof.

We made a careful search afterward, but couldn't find hide nor hair of you. You weren't in any of the hospitals, either. You seemed to have melted into thin air."

"I'm blest if I know myself how it happened," said Tom. "The last I remember was that a couple tackled me at once. I lunged my bayonet at one of them, and then I must have gone down and out, although I don't even remember being hit. I suppose, though, that the other fellow caught me a clip with a gun b.u.t.t, for when I next knew anything I had a lump on the back of my head as big as an egg.

"I found myself in an attic that was as black as Egypt," he went on. "I couldn't tell whether it was day or night, for there didn't seem to be any window. My hands were tied behind me, and I was aching from head to foot. After a while a bunch of Huns came in, took me downstairs, and pitched me into a covered wagon. Then they drove off into the country. Where they took me I don't know, but after a long ride I was taken out of the wagon and slammed down in a room of what seemed to be a deserted cabin. I only knew it was somewhere in the woods, for through the windows I could see trees all around.

"After a while two or three men who seemed to be the leaders came in. One of them, who could speak English, tried to put me through the third degree. They wanted me to tell them all that I knew about the army forces in Coblenz and the surrounding districts, how many there were, where they were located, what the plans were, and all that kind of dope. Of course I didn't know anything, and then they took it out of me in kicks. I got lots of them, and I guess I'm black and blue all over. They're a plucky lot when a man's hands are tied."

There was a murmur of rage and sympathy from his comrades and their fists clenched.

"Some of them wanted to put an end to me right then and there,"

Tom continued, "but others objected until they could get me a little further into Germany. They felt that the American forces were a little too near for comfort. Great Scott, how they hate the Americans! They fairly frothed at the mouth when they spoke of them. They blame us for their defeat. I've heard them say many a time that if it hadn't been for us they'd have been in Paris long ago and maybe in London."

"I guess they were pretty near right at that," remarked Frank.

"They surely were," agreed Billy. "Your Uncle Samuel came along just in the nick of time."

"But go ahead, Tom," urged Bart. "What did they do with you after that?"

"Just about the same, only more so," replied Tom, with a grin. "I was taken from one town to another until they finally settled down here. They seemed to find it a promising place to carry out their program of loot and murder. There was some pretty sharp street fighting here for a few days, and then the Spartacides got the upper hand and commenced killing some of their hostages. What you saw this morning has been going on for some time, only this was the biggest batch they have had yet. Going to make a grand wind-up as it were. They haven't spared the women, either. One of them was killed yesterday."

"The hounds!" gritted Frank between his teeth.

CHAPTER XXII

WILL THE GERMANS SIGN?

"It was a pitiful sight," said Tom, continuing the tale of his experience while a captive. "One of the women wanted to write a message of farewell to her husband and children. They gave her paper and pencil, and one of the guards offered his back to rest the paper on while she wrote. At about every sentence, the guard let himself fall down and the woman stumbled over him. It was great fun for the rest of the gang. They laughed as if it were a show. Oh, I tell you, the Huns are great humorists!"

The eyes of the Army Boys flashed.

"The unspeakable beasts!" cried Frank.

"It would be a good thing if a plague came along and snuffed out the whole nation!" angrily exclaimed Bart.

"It might be a good thing for the rest of the world," agreed Tom.

"And, by the way, speaking of plague, I don't know but what it's on the way even now. In one or two of the places I've been in there's a mysterious something that's killing off the people like sheep. I've heard the guards talking about it. n.o.body seems to know what it is and the doctors themselves are all at sea. Only yesterday one of the guards was taken with it. Big husky fellow he was too, and yet in a couple of hours he was dead. Seems to work as quickly as the cholera and to be just as deadly. I hope it doesn't hit the American Army."

"It has. .h.i.t it already," replied Frank soberly. "There's quite a lot of our boys in Coblenz who have died of it, and the officers are all up in the air about it. The medical staff is at its wit's end. I tell you, it's getting to be a mighty big problem."

"I wish we were out of the hoodooed country!" exclaimed Bart savagely. "The whole land seems to rest under a curse. When on earth will that treaty be signed so that we can go back to the States?"

"The Germans say that they're not going to sign it if it proves to be as severe as is reported," remarked Tom. "I've heard that said on every side."

"'They say' they're not," sneered Billy. "What does their 'they say' amount to? Nothing at all. They said they'd never stop fighting, and they lay down like dogs. They said we'd never step on the sacred soil of Germany, but there wasn't a peep out of them when we marched over the Rhine. They're the biggest bluffers and the quickest quitters in the world."

"When are we going back to Coblenz?" asked Tom.

"In a hurry to get back are you?" laughed Frank. "Well, I don't blame you, old man. Billy tells me that Alice has been crying her pretty eyes out ever since you disappeared. But I suppose we'll have to hang around here for a few days yet. There's a lot to be done in cleaning out the Spartacides and getting the town in proper condition. The lieut. won't go back till he's finished the job. But you needn't worry, for by this time he's telephoned the whole thing over to Coblenz, and the authorities there know that you're safe and sound. It's a safe bet that Alice has already learned the good news."

Frank's conjecture turned out to be correct, for it was nearly a week before the lieutenant concluded that his work in the town was done. Then the column took up its march in a jubilant mood, for their comrade, who was a prime favorite in the regiment, had been rescued and the work had been done in the deft and finished way that marked the traditions of the American Army.

Tom and Billy slipped away as soon as they could obtain leave after they reached the city, and there was not any doubt in any one's mind as to their destination. Nor on their return to the barracks that night, bubbling over with glee and high spirits, was there any question but that their visit had been a thoroughly satisfactory one. If traces of his captivity were still visible in Tom's rather hollow cheeks and shrunken waistband, they had entirely disappeared from his manner.

His comrades had of course told him of their adventure in connection with the trap door, and he was all agog with interest in their recital of their battle with the rats, scars of whose bites were still visible as evidence if any had been necessary.

"It must have been some fight!" he remarked, with a touch of envy.

"Gee! I'd like to have been with you. Too bad, though, that you didn't find out what you went after. Of course you're not going to give it up?"

"You bet your life we're not!" answered Frank emphatically. "Give it up isn't in our dictionary. We're going to search that place again, rats or no rats, only the next time we'll have clubs and be ready for them."

"That's the way to talk!" cried Tom. "That'll give me a chance to get in on the game."

"I don't know that the rats will trouble us next time," put in Billy. "You'll remember that it was only after we got past that place where the light was that we came across them in any numbers.

Their stamping ground seemed to be further on."

"That seems likely enough," agreed Bart. "The light being there showed that somebody had been using the pa.s.sage without hindrance.

We simply had the hard luck to get in the quarter where the rats were thickest. At any rate, well take another chance."

That chance was not as soon in coming as they had hoped for, however, for Coblenz was now seething with unrest. The disorders that were prevalent all over Germany were manifesting themselves in the region of the Rhine. Scarcely a day pa.s.sed without an outrage of some kind being reported. Several American soldiers were found stabbed in the street by unknown a.s.sa.s.sins. Agitators from Berlin were slipping into the city and trying to stir up insurrection. It was feared that the sharp lesson given on a previous occasion would have to be repeated.

Strikes were called in various industries, and sullen knots of idle men, ripe for mischief, were in evidence everywhere. When they were dispersed by military patrols, it was only to gather in some other place.

CHAPTER XXIII

ON THE VERGE OF DISCOVERY

In view of the menacing situation and the black looks and muttered curses that were thrown at the Americans who were policing the city, military regulations were tightened. Leaves of absence were either forbidden or greatly curtailed, and the Army Boys found themselves confined to their barracks when not actually on service. So the projected trip to the alley had to be deferred.