The Boy Scouts on the Trail

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"What has become of them?" asked Frank. "Aren't there men enough to run
them?"

"Yes, and they are running them," said Henri, dryly. "But not in Paris.
They are on their way to the border, perhaps. Wherever they are, they
are carrying soldiers or supplies. The government has always the right
to take them all. Even at the time of the manoeuvres, some are taken,
though not all. It is the same with the automobiles. In a few days there
will be none left--the army will have them all. Officers need them to
get around quickly. Generals cannot ride now--it is too slow to use a
horse. You have heard of Leon Bollet?"

"No. Who is he?"

"He is a famous automobile driver in races. He has won the Grand Prix.
He will drive a general. He is a soldier, like all Frenchmen, and that
will be his task--to drive some great general wherever he wants to go."

That was how the meaning of mobilization really came home to Frank, who
learned more from the things he missed that he was accustomed to seeing
than from new sights. In the boulevards, for instance, where as a rule
the little tables in front of the cafes would be crowded, all the tables
had vanished. That was a result of what was happening. Everything
brought the fact of war home to him. To him it was even more vivid
perhaps than to Henri, who had been brought up to know that some time
all this would come about, and saw little that he had not been sure,
some time, of seeing.

The crowds delayed them. Sometimes they had to dismount from their
wheels and walk for a space, but in the end they came to their
destination. Madame Martin, Henri's aunt, greeted him with delight.

"We were thinking of you, Henri!" she said. "Your uncle said to me only
to-night, when we heard of the mobilization: 'And what of Henri? He
cannot go home yet.' I knew you would come to us! And you have brought a
friend? That is very well."

"Oh--an American!" she exclaimed, a moment later. "You have done well,
my nephew."

"I'm half French," said Frank. Somehow he was beginning to feel very
proud of that. These last few hours, that had shown him how France
rallied in the face of a terrible and pressing danger had made it
easier for him to understand his mother's love of her own land. He was
still an American above all; that he would always be. But there was
French blood in his veins after all, and blood is something that is and
always must be thicker than water.

So he had to explain himself, and when he spoke of the uncle who was to
come for him Madame Martin looked concerned.

"I am glad that you are here," she said, simply. "It may be hard for him
to get here. But we can look after you until he comes. There is room
enough--and, ma foi, you shall have all that we have!"

CHAPTER IV

THE RECRUITS

August was drawing to its close. And still Henri and Frank were in
Paris. Henri's father and his uncle had gone to the front; Frank's Uncle
Dick, if he had tried to reach Paris or St. Denis, had not succeeded. Or
if he had, he had been unable to get word to Frank. War in all its
terrible reality was in full blast. Troops were passing through Paris
still, going to the front. But they were older men now, the last classes
of the reservists. Every night, too, the city was dark save for the
searchlights that played incessantly from the high buildings and from
the Eiffel Tower. For now there was a new menace. The Germans fought not
on land alone, but in the air. At any time a German might appear,
thousands of feet above the city, prepared to rain down death and
destruction from the clouds.

Paris was quiet and resigned. Wounded men were coming back; hospitals,
from which floated the Red Cross flag, were everywhere. The hotels were
sheltering the wounded; churches, theatres, all sorts of buildings not
commonly so used were in the hands of the doctors and the nurses. There
were few newspapers; there was neither paper on which to print them, nor
men to run the great presses or write what they usually contained. All
were gone; all except the old and the children. Hundreds of thousands of
men were still in Paris, but they were the garrison of the city, the men
who would man the forts if the Germans came.

And now, to get the news, Harry and Frank went to the places where the
bulletins were posted, becoming a part of the silent crowds that waited.
Every day they took their places in the crowds, to learn what they could
and carry the tale back to Madame Martin. She was too busy to stand
among the crowds herself; every day she was doing her part, helping in
the nursing, and helping, too, to relieve the distress among the poor.

One day the two friends turned away. They had seen the last bulletin;
for some hours there would be no more news.

"I'm afraid it's not going well, Harry," said Frank.

"No," said Henri, almost with a sob in his voice. "It looks to me, too,
as if the Germans were winning!"

"But many thought they would win, at first," said Frank. "It's not time
to be discouraged yet, Harry. At first we all believed the Belgians were
doing better than they could do--because they fought so well at Liege.
Now Namur has fallen. And the English--they are falling back."

"Ah, well, that is so," said Henri, brightening a little. "We did not
expect to fight in Belgium, we French. Wait till they try to enter
France! We will stop them--at Lille, at Maubeuge, at Valenciennes!"

"I hope so, Harry," said Frank, soberly. "But do you know what I think?
I believe we ought to go to your home at Amiens. I think you have been
waiting here on my account--because you thought my uncle was coming.
Well, I think he couldn't come. I am better off with you. And perhaps I
can help, too. I think you should go to your mother, if she is alone at
Amiens, because--"

Henri turned on him fiercely.

"Do you mean you think the Germans can get to Amiens?" he cried
furiously. "Never! Never! They will never come so far! They will be
stopped long before they get near it!"

"I think so--and I hope so," said Frank. "But if my mother were there I
should want to be there, too. I've read a great deal about war and
battles lately, Harry, and I know that often an army has to retreat, not
just because it's beaten, but because it's necessary for battles that
are planned later on. The English and the French toward the coast are
retreating now--on the left of the allies. They are moving back toward
Amiens, and the Germans are following them."

Henri continued to argue bitterly against the possibility that Frank
suggested, but his arguments grew weaker. And when he told his aunt
what Frank had said she sighed despairingly.

"I, too, have been thinking that," she said. "These are terrible times
for our poor France. We shall win--everyone believes that. But we shall
suffer greatly first. I have talked with General Broche--you know him,
Henri. He is too old and weak to fight now, but he was active in 1870.
And he says--he says that the government may move soon, away from
Paris!"

"Then they think--!" cried Henri, almost overcome.

"They do not know--no one knows. But if there is to be another siege, it
is better that the government should be where the Germans cannot bottle
it up. I shall stay here, but I shall be safe. There are plenty to do
what I need. Go to Amiens, Henri. Your place is near your mother. If
there seems to be danger, beg her to come here, or even to go to her
friends, the Douays, in Nice. There at least all will be safe."

Henri did not argue with his aunt. It was hard for him to realize the
truth, as it was for Frenchmen older than himself. But he admitted it
to Frank and even to himself, that night. And so the next morning they
started for Amiens. An officer, returning to the front after bringing
despatches to Paris, agreed to see that they reached the northern city
safely. Without him, indeed, they would have found it difficult, if not
impossible, to get aboard a train, for while other railways were open
those that led to the front were entirely in the hands of the military
authorities.

But thanks to the friendly officer, a friend of the Martin family in
Paris, they reached Amiens quickly enough. On the way, more than once
they passed long trains carrying wounded, and, several times, other
trains on which were packed German prisoners. These, under close guard,
looked out sullenly from the windows. The sight delighted Henri.

"That doesn't look much as if we were losing, does it?" he cried
happily.

Amiens itself was a smaller Paris. In times of peace, Amiens is, like
many other French cities, a curious place, owing to the contrast
between its character as a busy, bustling, manufacturing town, and its
other character as a place where there are many renowned examples of
ancient art. But now it was quiet save for the ever present soldier.
Troops were passing through the streets; in the station several hundred
were entraining.

"Do soldiers go from here, too?" asked Frank.

"Yes. Amiens is the headquarters of the second army corps," explained
Harry. "All the reservists of that corps report here, no matter where
they live. When a regiment loses a lot of men, if it is in the second
corps, new men from here go forward to fill their places. There is no
sign of the Prussians, eh?"

"No," said Frank. "I hope there never will be! But, tell me, would they
fight here? Are there fortifications?"

"Not new ones--no," said Harry. He pointed to the old citadel crowning
one of the hills that commanded the town and the crooked, twisting
course of the Somme river. "There is the old citadel. That still
stands. But the ancient battlements have been dismantled. I believe that
in time of war, if the enemy got past the troops in the field, they
could come peacefully into Amiens. It is not a fortress, like Lille or
Maubeuge. Oh, look, there are some of the scouts! I see Monsieur Marron.
He is the directeur of the troop--the scoutmaster. Let us speak to him."

They went over to a tall man in khaki, who was speaking to an officer in
the red and blue uniform of the French army. Henri saluted, and when the
officer went away, the scoutmaster turned to him with a smile.

"Well--so you are here, Martin," he said. "Are you going to join? We
will waive formalities--we need all the scouts we can get."

"Yes, sir, and I have brought a recruit. He is half French--the rest of
him is American. But he wants to join, too. May he?"

"Certainly," said the scoutmaster. "Report to-night or in the morning.
Get your uniforms. Who is your recruit?"

Frank was introduced, and the tall Frenchman shook hands with him.

"You will be welcome," he said. "My boys are at work, you see. They are
serving as messengers. There has been plenty for us to do in these days,
too. Pray God there may not be more--and of a less pleasant sort."

Frank observed the French scouts with interest. They were in khaki
uniforms, with wool stockings, and short trousers that stopped just
above the knee, and the soft campaign hats made famous by the pioneer
scouts in England. Indeed, they looked like the English and American
scouts in many respects.

"One moment," said Marron, checked by a sudden thought. "You speak
French well?" He asked the question of Frank, who smiled.

"Yes, sir," he said, in French. "My mother was French, you see."

"That is very good," said the scoutmaster. "Never fear, I shall be able
to keep you busy as long as I am here. Soon, I hope, they will let me
go to the front, where I should be right now."

"I thought you would have gone, sir," said Henri.

"They wanted me to stay with my boys at the first," said Marron, with a
shrug of his shoulders. "But they can do their work alone now, and there
is no fear that they will not do it well."

Then Frank and Henri went off, on their way to Henri's house.

"So we have come to Amiens after all and we are to join the Boy Scouts,
just as we planned that day when I said there would be no war this
year!"

"Yes--but it's different, isn't it, Henri?"

"Yes, and we can be of some real use now."

"I am glad that we are here, aren't you? When we get our uniforms and go
to work, I shall feel that we are really being used in the war. I--I'm
an American, of course, but I've hated the idea that I was so close to
this war and wasn't having anything to do with it."

"And I--I have been wishing, Frank, that they might have waited until I
was old enough to fight for France!"

CHAPTER V

THE FIRST DUTY

Morning brought awakening to the two friends with the sounding of
reveille from bugles, seemingly just outside their window. Together they
sprang from bed, raced to the window, wide open as it had been all
night, and looked out. Not far away, in a small park, one of those for
which the city of Amiens is famous, they saw an array of white tents
that they had not seen the night before when they had gone to bed.
Already the camp was stirring; even as they watched the soldiers were
all about. And early as it was, they saw a scout ride up on a bicycle,
speak to the sentry who challenged him, and wait. In a moment an officer
came out, the scout saluted, and his salute was returned as stiffly and
gravely as it had been given. Then the scout handed the officer a
letter, saluted again and, receiving permission, turned away and vaulted
on his wheel.

Henri was vastly excited.

"Come on!" he cried eagerly. "Let's get dressed, Frank. I see that we
should be out already."

"Yes. It's time we were getting busy if the others are at work," said
Frank. "Where do you suppose those chaps came from?"

"I don't know--that's exactly what's puzzling me," said Henri, his brow
knitted. "They don't look like reserve troops. I don't know exactly why,
either, but we can soon find out."

They bathed and dressed hurriedly, and went down to find that Marie, the
cook who had been with the Martin family ever since Henri could
remember, was ready to give them their breakfast. In a time when many
families for reasons of economy were allowing their servants to go,
Henri's mother had kept all of hers.

"Now, more than ever," she said, "they need the work and the wages. It
is a time for those who can possibly afford it to engage more servants,
rather than to discharge those they have already in their employ and
service."

Madame Martin, who, like Henri's aunt in Paris, was busy all day long in
helping the wounded, doing voluntary duty in the Red Cross hospital to
which she had been assigned, was not yet up. She had greeted the two
boys on their arrival the previous evening, but had left the house
immediately after dinner, since it was her turn to do some night work.

"She is wearing herself out," complained old Marie. "A fine lady like
her dressing the wounds of piou-pious, indeed!"

Frank laughed. He knew by this time what piou-piou meant. It is the
endearing term of the French for the little red-trousered soldiers who
form the armies of the republic, just as the English call a soldier
Tommy Atkins.

"It is for France," said Henri, gravely. "I shall perhaps be a piou-piou
myself before so very long, Marie."

"You will be an officer, will you not?" exclaimed Marie.

"It may be. I do not know," said Henri. "But the best and the greatest
men in France, those who govern us and write books and plays, and paint
pictures, and make fine statues, are in the ranks to-day. It is a
privilege even for my mother to nurse them."

"All very well--but I won't have her getting all tired out," grumbled
Marie. "Your father told me himself, when he went off, to look after
her. And I'm going to do it."

"Where did the soldiers who are in the park come from?" asked Henri,
changing the subject.

"Who knows? They come, they stay a few hours or a day, then they go, and
others take their places! More soldiers have been in Amiens than I knew
were in the world! We had some English--strange, mad men, who wore
dresses to their knees and had music that sounded like a dozen cats
fighting at night on a back yard fence."

Both the boys laughed at this description of the kilted Highlanders with
their bagpipes, but they exchanged meaning glances. Paris did not know
where the English troops were; barely knew that some had crossed the
channel, and had landed in France. How many had come no one knew except
those who would not tell. All that was announced was that England had
sent help to her ally, and that English troops were again, as on so many
occasions in the past, on French soil. But this time they came as
friends, not as the enemies that Marlborough and Wellington had led.

"Well, we'll soon know, even if she can't tell us," said Henri. And as
soon as they had had their breakfast, they slipped around to the
kitchen. Henri and Frank both laughed, for they surprised half a dozen
blushing, awkward infantrymen, who were receiving hot coffee and
rolls--fare of a different sort from that afforded by the camp kitchens.

"Welcome, welcome!" said Henri. "My father is with his regiment, or he
would speak, so I speak for him. Of what regiment are you, my friends?"

One of them mentioned its number, and Henri exclaimed in his surprise.

"But you are of the Nancy corps--the twentieth!" he cried. "You were
fighting in Lorraine! Were you not among those who captured Mulhouse?"

"Yes." The soldier's face grew dark. "Ah, you are right! Of a truth we
captured Mulhouse! How the Uhlans ran! We beat them there, and we were
chasing them. Ah, the delight of that! There we were, in Alsace! The
lost province! For the first time in forty-four years it saw French
uniforms. For the first time since 1870 it was free from the Germans.
The people sang and cheered as we went into the villages. They brought
us food. The young women spread flowers before us. And then--we came
back. We were not beaten! We had orders to recross the border. And we
were put on trains and brought here. The shame of it!"

"But you came?"

"Soldiers must obey! But even our officers, I can tell you, did not like
it!"

"Sometimes an army must retreat to fight better somewhere else," said
Henri in defense.

"But here? At Amiens? There are no Prussians here!"

"Perhaps they are not so far away. One hears--they were in Brussels a
week ago--they are pouring toward the border--perhaps they have passed
it. It may be that there is a battle to be fought here in France."

"Oh, well, if there is a battle to be fought, that is different again.
That is what we want. In Alsace there were no battles. They ran as soon
as they saw our uniforms--the pigs of Prussians!"

"Good luck to you, then! May you beat a thousand of them!"

"We shall! Never fear! I will bring you a pretzel from Berlin when we
come back in exchange for your good rolls!"

Laughing again, Frank and Henri went out.

"That fellow is like the French soldiers I've read about," said Frank,
much interested.

"Yes. He is the sort who fights well, but does not think. But, Frank, I
begin to think you were right. If they give up the fight in Alsace to
re-enforce the army here, the Germans must be winning."

"Perhaps not. It may be only for the time."

"Yet it looks serious. Listen! Can you hear the sound of guns?"

Henri said that as a jest. But Frank listened--he took him seriously.

"Not yet," he said.

"Nor ever shall--from here!" exclaimed Henri. "I did not mean that! They
will be held on the border."

Yet, even as he spoke, though he did not know it, the Germans, victors
at the great battle of Mons-Charleroi, were driving the left wing of the
allied army remorselessly, steadily back through the fertile fields of
Champagne, where bullets were tearing the laden grapevines to pieces.
The Uhlans were riding along the coast. Forced back by the defeat of the
left, the centre was yielding. It was well that they did not know then
what was in store; that they could not foresee the coming days when the
Germans seemed to be the sure victors.

As they talked, Frank and Henri were making their way to the place where
M. Marron, the scoutmaster, had told them to report. He was there,
listening to reports and giving orders when they arrived. They had
provided themselves the night before with uniforms, and now they were
true scouts in appearance save that they did not wear the badge. They
waited until he was ready to speak to them.

"You know the scout law?" he asked them, briefly.

Together they recited it.

"In war," he said, "rules may be forgotten. There are other tests, but
these I shall not impose. Recite after me the scout oath. It binds you
to be faithful, to be honorable. You are to obey the ten points of the
scout law. And now that war has come, you are to obey all orders from
officers of the army as you would those of your scoutmaster. If I
go--and that may be to-day--you will obey the leader of the third
patrol, to which you are assigned, as you would me. If things so come
about that you can get orders from no one you will still do all you can
for France."

Then he repeated in French the scout oath, and they said it after him.

"Now you are scouts," said Marron. He pinned badges on their sleeves.
"Wear this always. Remember that it typifies your honor."

He raised three fingers in the scout salute; they returned it.

"That is well," he said, then. "Now for your first duty, you will
accompany other scouts, to see how they perform their work. When you
have done that for a little while, you may be trusted with independent
commissions."

All morning, first with other scouts, and then alone, they did errands
of one sort and another. After a brief rest for a hurried noonday meal,
M. Marron gave them new orders.

"Here is a list of houses," he said. "Soon a train will arrive with
refugees from districts where the Germans are. You will take these
refugees around with you, in parties of twenty-five, with two scouts to
a party, until all are cared for. The owners of the houses on your list
have agreed to give these poor people food and shelter until they can
safely return to their homes. Treat them kindly and chivalrously.
Remember that though they may not have fought, they have suffered for
the fatherland! You understand?"

They saluted, and were off.

CHAPTER VI

TO THE FRONT

There was real news to be gleaned from these unfortunates who came into
the station at Amiens soon after the boys took their places there with
some of the other scouts of the troop. Women, children and old men--not
a young man was among them, of course--they poured from the freight cars
that in the main they occupied. And they were willing to talk; more than
willing, indeed. They told of how the Germans had come. First the Uhlans
riding through, stern and silent, willing to leave the inhabitants
alone, as a rule, if they themselves were let alone. Then the infantry,
rolling along in great grey masses. And with them came the spoiling of
the countryside.

"They took everything--food, wine, everything our army had not had,"
said one woman to Frank and Henri, as she walked through the streets
with them. Frank was carrying her baby for her. "They left us with
nothing! And then they burned all the houses in my street because, they
said, there must be clear space for their guns to fire!"

It was a simple matter to distribute these poor refugees. The town of
Amiens had troubles of its own but it forgot them now, and set itself
doggedly to work the relief of the far more acute distress of those from
the countryside to the north and east. Always the stories of those who
had fled before the German hosts were the same.

"The Germans haven't got an army!" cried Henri, bitterly. "It's a war
machine they send against us! They do not fight like men, but like
railroad trains!"

They were learning more in this task of escorting the refugees than all
the bulletins had been able to tell them. No censors could close the
mouths of these poor people, and they were not only willing to
talk--they craved listeners.

"It makes it easier to bear what we have suffered when we know that
others know what the Germans have done," said the woman with the baby.
"We women--we gave our husbands, and those who had sons gave their sons.
Now we have given all to France. Let the men win back enough for us to
live--that is all that we ask."

They did not know the meaning of the military movements they had seen.
Indeed, they had not seen military movements in the strict sense of the
word. All they knew was that soldiers, first in one uniform, then in
another, had passed through their villages, first going north and east,
then south and west. They had heard firing, dim and in the distance at
first, but coming always nearer. Then the tide of battle had rolled by.
That was all they knew.

But to boys who from the beginning of the war had followed every move on
the great chessboard of the struggle, these things meant knowledge for
which the editors of newspapers would have given fortunes. In Paris they
had had a great map, and every day they had shifted the tiny flags that
showed where the troops were. They had flags for each of the allies and
for the Austrians and Germans at first. Later they had become more
particular. They had worked out as well as they could the different
armies, even to the army corps, and had marked their flags accordingly.
And so this exact knowledge of where troops of particular commands had
been, made it possible for them, when there was time for them to go
home, to make changes in the positions of the little flags that dotted
their map.

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