“Yes,” replied the other; “it seems there’s another road tapping this place that leads to Calais, which, you know, is on the Channel, and the terminus of a boat line coming from Dover over in England.”
“Sure thing,” remarked Giraffe; “and we figured that since England has butted into this war game she must be sending her little army across the Channel, or the Straits of Dover that way, to help her ally France hold the Kaiser in check.”
“Well, they have a great need of every kind of car at Calais, it seems, passenger and freight, to carry men and munitions from there into the interior. So there has been made up a long train of empties that is going to start across country right away, aiming for Calais. And the railway people here have made arrangements to carry all those who want to head that way, if they promise not to kick at the poor accommodations.”
“Well, any port in a storm,” said Giraffe; “we’ll shut our eyes and go in a cattle van if necessary and not say a single word.”
“Only too glad of the chance,” added Bumpus gratefully; “because once we get to Calais we’ll be out of the line of the invading German army; and it ought to be a whole lot easier for us to make Paris from that point than away up here on the border of Belgium.”
“Yes, it would seem so,” Thad added, with a wrinkle across his forehead; as if even at that time he might be having a faint vision of the terrible difficulties they were destined to meet later on while trying to accomplish their object.
“Lead us to it, Thad,” implored the impatient Giraffe.
Already they could see that some of the excited passengers had commenced to move away. The word was being passed along the line that if they chose to head for the city on the Channel there was an opportunity offered, and few, if any, declined the opening, for they were fairly wild to get deeper into their native country.
When the four American scouts, a little later on, found themselves at another station and gazing upon a long string of traffic vehicles they could not keep from exchanging smiles.
It certainly looked as though already the sudden and violent demands made upon all the railways of Northern France for transportation on account of the mobilization of the troops, with their batteries, and horses, had caused a tremendous drain on their limited resources. They did not have these things “down pat” to the minutest detail, as in Germany, where every man, young and old, knew exactly what was expected of him when a certain order went forth, and the whole nation moved like a gigantic machine, in unison.