“We are about to start for a new position,” was what the captain said, briefly; “and no doubt room may be found for you on a couple of the caissons. You must be good friends to France to be made a target for Uhlan guns. Yes, after all, it is but a little thing, and no harm can come of it. So find your seats, young Messieurs, for we are off immediately.”
The gunners and the drivers of ammunition carts were eager to accommodate. Somehow it seemed as though they looked on Thad and his three chums as allies. Possibly this came of their having shared dangers of the driver who blew up his store of ammunition lest it fall into the hands of the invading foe.
Thad and Bumpus were given seats on one caisson while the other boys found room on a second. The driver who had no longer a charge also secured a lift, for it turned out there was another seat vacant on a gun; and the fact that one of the other men had a bloody bandage wrapped around his left arm told the story of the shrapnel that had burst overhead.
So they were soon on the road, the horses again galloping under the incentive of both voices and lashes. Thad took note of the fact that their progress was in a southerly direction. From this he knew that by degrees the battery would manage to swing around until it reached a location much nearer the spot where that furious boom of great guns told of a battle in progress.
The boys all knew that they were yielding to the great temptation that had waylaid them. By rights they should be heading directly for Paris instead of allowing themselves to be tempted to follow along the course of the French army. Bumpus, if given the opportunity, might have taken that course, but it was a case of three against one, and he had no choice in the matter but to keep right along with the balance of the company.
In fact, to tell the truth, much as Thad and Allan and Giraffe would like to please such a beloved chum as Bumpus, they just could not resist the yearning to try and see more of the tremendous historical events that were transpiring on those battlefields of France, so near the capital that the boom of the big guns might almost be faintly heard there, if the wind proved favorable.
Discretion was thrown to the winds. Such a grand chance to witness the making of history came but once in a life-time, and they would be silly to deliberately cast it aside when it was offered to them for the taking.
All they had to do was to sit there and allow themselves to be carried along to the new location of the fast-moving field battery, evidently now scheduled to take a more active part in the day’s engagement.
Thad knew that he was doing a very rash thing. His conscience also reproached him whenever he thought of poor Bumpus, for it was really a pity that the stout chum, who did not have much stomach for fighting and exciting adventures, should be dragged into their midst. Thad tried to salve his conscience by telling himself that they might run across a chance whereby they could make themselves useful in some capacity, perhaps by assisting the ambulance corps connected with the Red Cross. Sooner or later he knew there would be many Americans enlisted in this humane work, and it would at least give them a valid excuse for being there on the field of battle.
Now they came on other detachments of the French army, men working big guns that seemed to fairly shatter the surrounding atmosphere each time they were fired. The enormous missiles that they sent for a distance of miles must have torn terrible holes in whatever they struck.