Army Boys on the Firing Line Part 20

"Some fellows have all the luck," remarked Billy, when they had rejoined their regiment two days later, and were telling him all about it. "Now if that coin we flipped had only come down heads instead of tails----"

"Stop your grouching," laughed Frank. "You'll have all the fighting that's good for you by the time we've driven the boches over the Rhine."

CHAPTER XVII

THE MINED BRIDGE

For several days the drive continued. At first it had been quite as successful for the Germans as they could have hoped. Their initial surprise had carried them a long way into French territory, and this had involved the capture of a considerable number of men and guns.

But they had fallen far short of their ambitious aims. They had not rolled up the Allied armies. They had not reached Paris. They had not captured the Channel ports.

The Allied armies had stretched like an elastic band, but had not broken. They knew now what the enemy's plans were and they were rapidly taking measures to check them.

The Germans had had a great advantage in being under a single command.

There was no clash of plans and opinions. If they wanted to transfer a part of their forces from one point to another they could do so.

With the Allies it had been different. There had been a French army, a British army, an Italian army, a Belgian army, a Russian army and latest of all an American army. They had tried to work together in harmony and in the main had done so. But the British naturally wanted above all to prevent the German armies from reaching the coast where they could threaten England. The French were especially anxious to prevent Paris being captured. Either side was reluctant to weaken its own army by sending reinforcements to the other.

But the German success in the first days of the drive changed all this.

The Allies got together and appointed General Foch as the supreme commander of all the Allied forces. He had done brilliant work in driving the Germans back from the Marne in the early days of the war, when they had approached close to Paris.

"Have you heard the news?" asked Frank of his chums the day after the appointment had been made.

"No," said Bart.

"What is it?" asked Billy.

"We've got just one man that's going to boss the job of driving back the Huns," answered Frank.

Bart gave a whoop of delight and Billy threw his hat in the air.

"Best news I've heard yet," crowed Billy.

"That's as good as a battle lost for the Huns," exclaimed Bart. "The only wonder is that it wasn't done before. Who's the man they've chosen?"

"General Foch," was the answer.

"Better and better," p.r.o.nounced Bart. "That man's a born fighter. He licked the Germans at the Marne, and he can do it again."

"What I like about him," commented Billy, "is that he's a hard hitter.

He isn't satisfied to stand on the defensive. He likes to hand the other fellow a good one right at the start of the fight."

"That's what," agreed Frank. "He hits out right from the shoulder. Of course he'll have to wait a little while yet until he sizes up his forces and sees what he has to fight with. But you can bet it won't be long before he has the boches on the run."

In the days that followed, the advantage of the appointment became clear. The armies worked together as they never had before. The khaki of the British mingled with the cornflower blue of the French.

Reserves were sent where they were most needed, no matter what army they were drawn from. And, fighting side by side, each nation was filled with a generous rivalry and sought bravely to outdo the other in deeds of valor.

The old Thirty-seventh had been in the thick of the fighting and had covered itself with glory. It had taught the Germans that there were Americans in France, and that they were fighters to be dreaded.

The course of the fighting had taken Frank and his comrades in the vicinity of the farmhouse where they had rounded up the German lieutenant and his squad. But it was a very different place now from what it had been when they had first seen it. Sh.e.l.ls had torn away part of the roof, and the attic lay open to the sky. But the farmer and his family still stayed there although in daily peril of their lives. They lived and slept in the cellar, which was the only place that afforded them a chance of safety.

One day when only an artillery duel was going on and the infantry was getting a rest that it sorely needed, the Army Boys went over to the house. The girl saw them coming and recognized them at once. She came out to meet them with a smile on her face.

"_Les braves Americains!_" she exclaimed. "You have not then been killed by those dreadful Germans."

"Don't we look pretty lively for dead men?" asked Frank jokingly.

"And that lieutenant?" she inquired. "Oh, I hope you have hanged him."

"No," said Frank, "but he's a prisoner."

"It is not enough," she said with a shudder of repulsion.

"Have you heard anything of the young soldier that the lieutenant was going to hang?" asked Frank eagerly.

"No," she answered. "But stay," she added, "I have something here that you may want to see."

She darted back in the house and quickly returned with a very-much crumpled card in her hand.

"It is a _carte postale_," she explained. "We found it in the yard some days after you had been here. It had been trampled in the mud by the horses' feet and the writing had been sc.r.a.ped or blotted out.

Perhaps it belonged to the young man. It may have fallen from his pocket. I do not know."

Frank took it eagerly from her hand, while his comrades gathered around him.

The card was almost illegible, but it could be seen that it was a United States postal. There was not a single word upon it that could be made out in its entirety, but up in the corner where the postmark had been they could see by straining their eyes the letters C and M.

"That's Camport, I'm willing to bet!" exclaimed Bart excitedly.

"And here's something else," put in Billy pointing to where the address would naturally be looked for. "See those letters d-f-o-r----"

"It's dollars to doughnuts that that stands for 'Bradford,'" Frank shouted. "A card from Camport to Tom Bradford. Boys, we didn't guess wrong that day. That was Tom that that brute of a lieutenant was going to hang!"

They were tingling with excitement and delight. To be sure, they did not know what had become of their friend. But he had escaped from this house. He was perhaps within a few miles of them. He was, at any rate, not eating his heart out in a distant prison camp.

Then to Frank came the thought of Rabig. Perhaps Tom hadn't escaped.

Perhaps Rabig had added murder to the crime of treason of which they were sure he was guilty.

"Are you sure that you haven't found anything else that would help us in finding our friend?" he asked of the girl, whose face was beaming at the pleasure she had been able to give to her deliverers.

"No," she answered. "There is nothing else. I am sorry."

"Let's take a look around the house again, fellows," suggested Frank.

"We may have overlooked something the other day. It's only a chance, but let's take it."

They made a careful circuit of the house, but nothing rewarded the search until Frank, with an exclamation, picked up some pieces of rope that had been lying in the gra.s.s not far from the window from which the prisoner had dropped.