CHAPTER XVII An American Encampment
A small crescent of the moon illuminated the country-side, thrusting pale beams through the mist which rose from the ground, sodden after days of rain, lighting up the roofs of houses, the white walls of barns, camouflaged tents and huts, and gleaming now and again from the wings of an aeroplane soaring over the line. A man in that aeroplane, masked and clad in leather garments, bent forward, tapped his pilot on the shoulder, and spoke to him through the telephone which connected their head-pieces.
"A little lower, Fritz; now to the right. Wait! I think I see the church tower which was to be our mark. No, not that one; farther on. Listen!—there are guns! I saw the flashes down below, so that we are still in the area of operations."
The pilot grunted. He was a huge, broad-shouldered beast-like individual. He turned his head impatiently and growled something into the telephone, though what it was Heinrich Hilker, seated behind him, did not understand. How could he? How could he realize that these gruff words shouted at him contained all the venomous contempt of which the pilot was capable, and yet a contempt which he dared not show too openly.
"This—this Hilker—a spy—yes!" the pilot was saying to himself. "Not that I blame him for that, for it's a dangerous game to play, and calls for courage. But is the fellow honest with anyone at all?—with us, for instance? I doubt it. Yet, what is one to think? For his record for America is splendid, and now he goes to join the Americans again. Bah! it's a dangerous game to play; that is, dangerous for us should he elect to tell the Americans all he knows about us."
So Heinrich Hilker, intriguer, ruffian, rascal that he was, had succeeded in arousing the suspicions of one at least of his compatriots, while certainly he had aroused in the minds of Bill and Larry and his chums something far beyond suspicion. Not that Heinrich Hilker himself cared what others thought. To him the work that he was engaged on was the height of enjoyment. America, for some unexplained reason, seemed to have aroused all his enmity. Well, Americans were down below there. He would soon be amongst them. A friend—yes, a friend for the moment. And what would his coming portend? Disaster!
He rubbed his gloved hands together and chuckled into the telephone.
"Wait until I get there," he told himself. "Wait till I learn all about them! Wait until my signals bring shells smashing into their batteries! Then they'll know. Then they'll learn what it means to hunt Heinrich Hilker from their country."
"Stop!" he shouted. "That's the church tower! Now steer her to the right, then drop! The ground is clear behind, and you can make a landing."
The broad back in front wriggled and writhed, the strong shoulders heaved upwards. If Heinrich Hilker had been a man of discernment, and less engaged with his own affairs and his own importance, he would have appreciated the fact that that heave, that wriggle, denoted something not altogether pleasant. Indeed it denoted the anger of the pilot, his hatred for his passenger, his indignation with this man who ventured to give him—an experienced pilot—instructions. He growled a reply into the telephone, and, sighting the spot to which Heinrich had referred, sent his machine down in a spinning nose-dive.
"I'll scare the life out of him," he thought. "Let him believe he's about to be dashed to pieces—there!" and he threw his hands up from the "joy-stick".
But Heinrich never even blinked his eyelids. His thoughts were upon the task he had before him, and his eyes were riveted upon the ground. All thought of his own personal safety had left him for the moment, while that heaving of the shoulders in front of him, like the reply the pilot had growled at him, escaped his attention.
"Down!" he shouted. "Faster!"
"Faster! The man's crazy," thought the pilot, pulling his machine out of its spinning nose-dive with some little difficulty. "What if we find a crowd of the enemy there! But the landing-place looks broad enough. Get ready to move out! I shall drop here like a stone, give you half a minute to dismount, and be off again instantly."
Heinrich's answer was to begin to unbuckle the belt which strapped him securely to his seat, and to make sure that no part of his clothing was entangled in the framework. He bent easily over the side of the fuselage, which was now lying horizontally, and then half rose to his feet as the machine, already within a thousand feet of the ground, shot down at a steep angle. Presently the pilot flattened it, dropped it again, bumped his wheels, and, having already switched off his engine, finally brought the aeroplane to a standstill.
"Au revoir!" shouted Heinrich, for by then the pilot—a skilful fellow—had got his engine going again.
"To the devil with you!" muttered the latter. He waved an arm, turned one glance upon the figure now standing a few feet from his machine, opened his throttle, and went bounding off and so into the air and away from the spot where he had landed.
As for Heinrich, he watched the departure for two minutes, and then, turning, walked towards the church-tower which had been his landmark. It was perhaps a minute later when a man accosted him.
"Say!" someone cried; "halt! Who goes there? Advance and give the countersign!"
"Hundred and forty-first Regiment!" came the prompt answer. "Name—John Miller—American Expeditionary Force, same as yourself, sonny. Say, did you see that aeroplane just now?" he asked, approaching the sentry.
"Yep. Must 'a been one of ours. Thought it landed on the flats yonder, but wasn't certain, and couldn't get a view from just here."
"Good-night, sonny!"
The two men stood opposite one another for just a brief moment, and then Heinrich passed on towards the American encampment which this sentry guarded.
"John Miller—eh? Oh! Just John Miller! Now I'd have sworn——" the sentry told himself as he paced to and fro—a lithe, tall, sinewy young fellow, a magnificent example of American manhood. "Gee, now! Where have I met that chap before?—and not liked him either. John Miller—why, bless us! Now, where?"
He swung his rifle to his shoulder and marched to and fro far more rapidly than the regulations warranted. His beat took him as far as the church tower in one direction, and back to the post to which barbed wire was attached, and which marked the limit of the encampment occupied by his own particular comrades. Something was agitating this fine young fellow—some fleeting memory the essence of which just escaped him. In his mind's eye he could picture the figure—the somewhat sloping shoulders, the rather bullet head, and the particular cast of countenance of this John Miller, who had just answered his challenge, had given him the correct counter-sign without faltering.
That he was not American born he felt quite sure; that he was of alien extraction he was ready to venture upon a wager; but that did not say that John Miller was not an altogether reputable person. For there are thousands of alien-born Americans who are now in the American ranks fighting against the nation which threatens the liberties of all the free peoples of the world. The man's eye absorbed the thoughts of the sentry.
"Same sort of gleaming optic," he said. "Now where? This gets me! I——"
He suddenly halted and grounded his rifle, the butt-end striking the hard earth with a clang. One hand grabbed the muzzle just below the bayonet, while the other went to his waist, where the thumb stuck within his belt. Then a low deep-drawn whistle escaped from between the pursed-up lips of the sentry. He shouldered his weapon, and, turning abruptly, walked with even more decided step toward the guard-tent.
"Sergeant of the Guard!" he called.
Presently a man, taller than himself, with tin hat tilted somewhat over his eyes, turned out of the tent and approached him.
"Aye?" he asked, in brusque yet kindly tones; "what now, Dan? Somethin' special?"
Dan! Could Larry and Jim have caught but a glimpse of this fine young fellow, what shouts of joy they would have given. How they would have rushed towards him and gripped his hands. For this Dan was none other than their chum away in Salt Lake City at the copper-mine—the same Dan whom Heinrich Hilker had shot down in that famous encounter. And here was a coincidence! Dan, recovered of a desperate wound—thanks to his magnificent physique and wonderful health—had volunteered, and had followed his chums across the water. Here he was—tin-hatted, arrayed in khaki, drilled, and thoroughly well informed in matters pertaining to modern warfare—on sentry duty, and for a moment face to face with the man who had done his best to kill him. More than that, that man was a spy—none other than Heinrich Hilker—and Dan, with the swiftness for which he was notorious, had recognized him.
True, the fleeting glance he had obtained of this ruffian as he peered at his face under the thin beams cast by the moon-crescent had given him hardly even an inkling, but it had set some odd corner of his brain at work, had stirred, as it were, some cell in his cerebral matter, which, since the affair in the mine, had until that moment been lying dormant. Dan had caught a glimpse of Heinrich Hilker in a similar way when the light had been thrown full upon him in the heart of the copper-mine, just before Dan himself had been put out of action by the bullet he had fired, and now this second fleeting glance recalled that old memory, and that memory had developed to the point where he recognized that he, Dan, had information of the utmost importance.
"Well, Dan," repeated the Sergeant of the Guard. "Report, eh?"
"Serious, Sergeant. I'd like to go before the officer right now. Will you take me?"
"Jim, there," the Sergeant called, "I want a relief at once. Turn out, Jim!" And straightway he relieved his sentry. "Now, Dan, boy, we'll go right off. Say, Lootenant, this here's Private Dan Holman, same as you know, and he's asked to come along with a report that he considers important."
The officer, who had been hastily summoned—a stoutly-built, thick-set fellow—took a long look at Dan, and answered him in business-like fashion.
"Report, eh? Sentry duty—what? Come over here! Now," he said.
"Confidential, Lootenant," Dan told him. "No offence to the Sergeant, but my report's a matter of no end of importance, not only to you and to me, sir, but to all us Americans. It's a report that a Commander-in-Chief should have right now—the sooner the better."
Those who knew Dan knew him to be a strong and steady and promising young soldier, not the sort of fellow upon whom the moonbeams could have played a trick, or a man given to imagining something out of the ordinary. The officer merely took another glance at him, ordered the Sergeant back to the guard-tent, and, turning upon his heel, led the way to Divisional Head-quarters. There it was that Dan told his story.
"And you recognized this man as a German—a German agent who shot the barman at a saloon near Salt Lake City, and afterwards nearly put you out of action for good? You're sure?"
"Certain, sir!" Dan told him promptly. "I've only had, as you might say, a peep at the fellow once, way over by Salt Lake City, and the second time just now, but I'm as sure as sure! You've a spy landed right here and right now—a spy dressed in American uniform, who speaks English same as you and me—a spy who'd do his utmost to damage the American army."
That the information might well prove of the utmost importance was clear to the Divisional Commander, just as it was to the Intelligence side of his Staff. There followed a discussion, and presently sharp orders were issued.
"We'll muster every man at dawn," the Commander ordered—"every man, whether he's serving with his battalion, or as a cook, or what-not; fatigue parties, men in camp, men in billets—every single man of this division—and we'll call the roll-call from end to end of the camp. If that John Miller's here, we'll get him. 141st Regiment, eh?" he said. "Now how did the fellow get his information? He must have had news from this quarter, for see how he got into the camp! This private will be attached to the Intelligence for the time being. We shall have to hunt for this man, for he's likely to prove, while at large, a real danger."
He was likely to prove, in addition, a spy so cunning as to be not so easily captured as the Commander imagined. Did they think, indeed, that Heinrich Hilker, a man who had spied in many countries and under varying conditions, would be so easily trapped? Why, even then, as the order was issued for an early morning muster of the whole division, Heinrich heard the news. At the moment he stood at the entrance to a tent, for all the world as though he had just turned out to see whether daylight were coming. He stretched his arms and yawned, and, seeing a sergeant about to pass, hailed him.
"What time o' day?" he asked.
"4.30."
"Be daylight in another hour," he suggested, smothering another yawn.
"Yep, an hour or a little more. There's a muster a half an hour after that—six o'clock sharp—every man-Jack of the division."
"A muster! A blame nuisance! What for?"
"Dunno! It's a blame nuisance, as you say—some! But guess they've got a reason!"
Heinrich guessed also. He stood outside the tent stretching his arms until the man was out of sight, and then, looking about him for a few moments, he sped off into the darkness and presently disappeared from sight. Yet, when the muster was held in the misty early hours of the morning, Heinrich, though absent, though not to be found among the American ranks, was yet within sight of the parade. In a little corner of a church tower, hidden beneath the tiles of the broken roof, lying full length on a truss of straw, placed there for him by a peasant who was his accomplice, he watched the whole scene and chuckled.
"My brave Alphonse!" he said, as the parade he witnessed was presently dismissed. "You see that! These American swine, eh? And you chuckle! Ha! where are you, Alphonse? You are a sly, slippery, cunning fellow."
But a few minutes before, the figure of a man had actually been beside Heinrich, staring out between the cracks in this tower, and pointing and gibing, and then, as the German turned, the man was no longer there. Now, however, as he called, there was just the merest trace of a sound on the rungs of the ladder which led to this loft in the tower of the church, and half a minute later a long, hooked-nosed visage was thrust over the edge of the floorway, up through the square opening—a leering, bleary, pock-marked face, crowned by a head of hair which was thin at the temples and decidedly so on the crown—the face of an inebriate, followed by the figure of a man who had once upon a time been powerful. Now, creeping and cunning and noiseless in his movements, it was clear from his attenuated frame, from his big bones and joints, his sunken flanks, his thin calves, and his claw-like hands, that the man was no longer what he had been. And what was his nationality? French? Bah! The man spoke like a peasant of those parts, and yet trace his history back.
Alphonse, as he was generally known, had dropped upon this part of the country as if literally from the skies. He had simply arrived there late one evening, when only a young man, and, having put up at a local cabaret for some few days, he presently blossomed forth as the owner of the local forge. Pierre, the man who had controlled the forge for many and many a year, had died, conveniently it seemed, and here was Alphonse installed in his stead—Alphonse, who charged such ridiculously low prices, who did his work so well, who was such a "hail fellow" with all the French farmers and their men—Alphonse, who seemed to have so much money jingling in his pockets, who was so curious about other people's affairs, who travelled now and again to the neighbouring cities, who, it was whispered, had more than once been met by strangers—yet, Alphonse, the shoesmith, who did good work and charged the most reasonable prices.
Years went by, and Alphonse grew older. Perhaps it was the lonely life; perhaps it was some secret grief which preyed upon him. In any case, Alphonse's visits to neighbouring cabarets became more frequent and lasted longer; and here was the result. A fine figure of a man at one time, he was now attenuated, horrid to look upon, while his face was that of a leering, cunning, crafty, and unscrupulous drunkard. Let us whisper more—in his cups, Alphonse spoke German with perfection.
"See!" he said hoarsely, pushing forward a gnarled finger and pointing out through the cracks between the tiles from which Heinrich the spy was peering. "They thought to take you so easily, these Americans! But it is you—no, it is I—who have outwitted them—outwitted them, you hear? and the wretch broke into a dry, echoing chuckle which reverberated from the tiles around him, and from the walls of the old tower, till Heinrich was startled.
"Peace, you fool!" he growled, turning upon him. Whereat the big, bony fingers of the other man assumed the shape of claws, his brow knitted, and for a moment he scowled at his companion; then he pointed again.
"Outwitted—yes!" he whispered hoarsely, as though fearful that the Americans down below, all unconscious of their presence, might overhear them. "And what a prize! How we shall still further upset their plans! In a little while—in a week or two perhaps—in less for all we know—the signal will come to us; we shall know that our comrades yonder are about to strike once more, and it may be for the last time, for the Fatherland. Then——"
The wretch broke again into that dry, creaking, rusty cackle which grated upon Heinrich's nerves so much.
"Then! What?" he asked abruptly, angrily.
"Then! I'll tell you," the man responded. "We—you and I—will see to it that it is here that our comrades break through. That it is we who discover ourselves to the great German general and claim our reward. Reward! Money, money, money in plenty; far more than the German Government has sent me in these past years that I have lived in this vile country amongst these vile peasants, and have done the bidding of the Fatherland—money with which to live. Ah, that will be worth while!"
Heinrich positively shivered. The man's face acted like a douche of cold water upon him, and then those huge, bony fingers positively gave him the creeps.
"Worth while!" he said rapidly. "Money for what? More visits to the cabaret? Well, we will see; but we must work, and work hard, together."
"Ah! Yes, work hard, as I have worked for years, and you too, no doubt, my comrade, work for the Kaiser and the Fatherland."
Down below American battalions were dismissing—those fine Americans who had come four thousand miles across the Atlantic to meet the barbarians of the twentieth century—were strolling off to their bivouacs, their cook-houses, their rest-huts, and so on. Not one, perhaps, suspected that so near at hand lay the spy for whom their general was searching; not one, as he cast an eye upward and caught a glimpse of that picturesque yet half-shattered tower, realized that there lay the man whom they were seeking; and he, this Heinrich and the odious creature by his side, boded no good to these gallant men who had come to stand beside the British and their allies.