RECAPTURED
Once more the desperate fighting was resumed. Ned, Bob, and Jerry, after a brief rest, were again thrown into the conflict after their rescue from the dense Forest of Argonne. That wood had not yet all been won, but it was in the way of being. The Germans were fighting their last desperate battles, and full well they knew it. Only a miracle could save them now, and there was no miracle for them.
Not that they did not fight, for they did. The resistance to the American and Allied advance was stiff and formidable, but it was overcome, and immense losses inflicted on the Huns as they made counter-attack after counter-attack.
It was one day, after some of the most severe fighting of the war that they had ever seen, that the battalion, in which Ned, Bob, and Jerry then were, crossed a little stream, driving the desperately defending Germans beyond it, and entered a small French village. When the echo of the shots had died away, and it was seen that the Huns 244 were in full retreat, the three chums and their comrades, at the head of a victorious force, marched down the main street of the quaint and ancient little town.
Forth from their hiding places came the French population, weary and scarred from four years of enemy occupation. Here and there the tricolor, so long hidden, waved in the wind. The hated and dastardly Germans had departed, never, please God, to come again!
Forward, into the recaptured town, marched Ned, Bob, Jerry, and their comrades in arms. With tears in their eyes the French people watched the Americans come. It was the day so long prayed for.
Near one of the half-ruined houses, which had been their abode—their prison, in fact, since their capture,—stood Professor Snodgrass and the two young ladies.
“Oh, can you believe it, Gladys!” exclaimed Miss Gibbs. “It doesn’t seem possible, does it, that we are saved?”
“No, but I am beginning to believe that it is not a dream any more. Those American soldiers are real, aren’t they?”
“They are, indeed, young ladies,” said the professor. “At last I shall be able to go back to my collection, and finish, I hope, the moving pictures of insects under the influence of big guns. Oh, I 245 shall also hope to take you to safety with me,” he added, as he thought of his wards. “If only the boys were here!”
“What boys do you mean?” asked Miss Petersen. “You have so often spoken of ‘the boys,’ but you have never mentioned who they were.”
And this was true, for, just as the professor had been on the point of doing so, he and the girls had been captured by the Germans, and, since then, he had not had the heart to speak of his friends.
“Well, I can tell you now,” he said as he and the two nieces of Professor Petersen watched the victorious troops go marching by. “There are three boys—three young men, American soldiers who––”
The professor paused, and looked hard at a certain group of marching Americans. He took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them on again to stare with all his power at three youths who swung along with the sang-froid of veterans.
“Why!” exclaimed Professor Snodgrass. “Why—bless my—bless—why, it’s Ned, Bob, and Jerry themselves!” he fairly shouted. “Oh, there they are! There are the boys themselves!” and he rushed forward, tears of joy for the moment dimming the glasses he had so carefully cleaned a moment ago.
“There are the boys. Jerry! Ned! Bob! 246 Here I am! And here are the girls! Hurrah! Hurrah for the U. S. A.! Hurrah for President Wilson! Hurrah for General Pershing! Down with the Germans! The United States and the Allies forever! Hurrah!”
There was a laugh in the ranks of the marching Americans. Most of them did not catch all that the little, excited, bald-headed man said, but they laughed at his enthusiasm and loved him. But Ned, Bob, and Jerry heard.
“It’s him!” yelled Bob.
“It’s the professor!” cried Ned.
“And the girls are with him!” added Jerry.
The lieutenant of the boys’ company, seeing that something unusual was in the wind said:
“You may fall out. Join us later. We’ll probably stay here a while. This is our objective, and we’ve made it.”
And then the boys fell out and such a reunion as there was!
The stories were told and retold, and Ned, Bob, and Jerry, after having been presented to the young ladies, listened to their accounts of what had happened to them since they were caught in war-torn Europe.
“And do you think we are safe now?” asked Miss Petersen.
“As safe as in a church,” declared Bob. “We’ve come to stay!” 247
And so the Americans had. As General Pershing, in his report of the operations culminating in the last phase of the Meuse-Argonne battles, said:
“The strategical goal which was our highest hope was gained. We had cut the enemy’s main line of communications, and nothing but surrender or an armistice could save his army from complete disaster.”
And the armistice of November 11, 1918, came, bringing an end to the war.
And it also brings to an end this story. Not that the fighting was all over, for there was some after the boys and the professor and his charges were so happily reunited. But the Motor Boys had no further part in it. They remained in the village where they had met the little scientist, as a guard, until the Germans were so far away as to render them harmless.
“And to think you found the girls all by yourself!” exclaimed Ned, as they were talking over the events after the first day of the capture of the French town.
“Well, yes, I did manage to,” said the professor, “though I never expected, when I started out for a butterfly that morning, that I’d end up with meeting the girls I so much wanted to see.”
“But we were glad to see you,” said Miss Gibbs.
“Very,” echoed Gladys.
Ned, Bob, and Jerry were very curious to know 248 what branch of scientific study Miss Petersen and Miss Gibbs were interested in, for they remembered that Nick Schmouder had said that they had left his father’s home to go further into Germany for some sort of scientific work. It developed, however, that Schmouder, ashamed to confess that, in his fright, he had abandoned the two girls, had made up the story to clear himself of the charge of cowardice and neglect.
“Well, I guess it’s all over but the shouting,” said Bob, at last. “And now I guess nobody will say anything if I eat.”
“We’re all with you, Chunky!” cried Ned. “I’m as hungry as—as Bob Baker!”
But of the “shouting,” a little must be told. For when the fighting was over, and it was certain that Germany could never resume, when the armistice had been signed and the victorious movement of the Allies into Germany began, Jerry and his chums were called one day before their assembled comrades, and there, much to their surprise, they were each given honorable mention for their acts while on duty with the lost battalions in Argonne Forest. Jerry, for his work as a runner received the Distinguished Service Cross, and Bob and Ned honorable mention for their part in the desperate fight.
JERRY RECEIVED THE DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS.
Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line. Page 248
“They ought to decorate Professor Snodgrass for going alone into the enemy’s territory and rescuing two young ladies,” said Ned, when the cheering was over.
“All I want to do is to get back to my bugs,” sighed the little scientist, and he soon had his wish. It might be added that his moving pictures of insects, showing their actions when heavy guns were being fired near them, were very successful, and created a sensation in scientific circles, even though the professor’s “wasp-gun” was not adopted.
As soon as it was possible the two young ladies were sent back to the United States with their share of their uncle’s wealth, while Professor Snodgrass made plans to use his share in making a full and complete study of the insects of the Amazon. Also, the boys learned later, Professor Snodgrass used a part of his fortune to further assist his old friend, and thus saved the fortunes of this man and enabled him to pay all his debts, including the money lent by the professor himself.
“And now I wonder what will happen to us!” exclaimed Bob, when these three friends of theirs had departed.
“Oh, I fancy we can find something to do,” said Jerry. “I understand the problems of peace will be as hard to solve as those of war, and we’ll have to do our share.”
“Sure thing!” assented Ned. 250
What was in store for the boys will be related in the next volume of this “Motor Boys—Second Series.” In that we will see how Ned, Bob and Jerry covered themselves with glory by solving a most unusual mystery.
A month or so later the three chums, with other soldiers of the victorious armies, some of them sorely wounded, were sent to a port in France, there to take ship for home.
“And believe me!” exclaimed Bob, with feeling, as he went on board, “France and Europe may be all right, and so are those Salvation Army doughnuts, but give me a piece of mother’s cherry pie!”
“So say we all of us!” chanted Ned and Jerry.
And then, as they stood together on deck, the transport began her homeward trip.