“And the car?” continued the other, even as his fingers closed upon the packet.
“A patriotic French gentleman who was already using it in the service of France donated it willingly for the purpose when he learned of the great need,” Thad went on.
“And you have been under fire too, I should say, for I can see where the body of the car has been torn by something like a bursting shell!” cried the other, as he allowed his admiring glance to rest once more on the resolute face of the boy at the wheel.
“But we are unharmed, and you have the dispatches, M’sieu!” returned Thad, significantly.
“Wait here until I return!” snapped the officer, with which he turned and went off on a run.
The agony was over. Bumpus could smile again now, and gradually get his customary high color back. So they continued to sit there and wait. It seemed very calm and delightful around them, for they were really at some distance from the fighting line. How strange it seemed that the commander-in-chief should be so far removed from the front, with all its dreadful noise and confusion. Here, surrounded by his maps, he could pace up and down in the little humble building where he had taken up his station, keep his finger on the pulse of the whole extended front, know accurately just how things were going, send hurry calls to this general or that, make any necessary changes in arrangements to offset some move on the part of the foe; and in fact manipulate the movements of half a million men as though he sat at a chess board with a comrade, under the soft rays of the evening lamp, to play a mock battle with bits of dumb ivory instead of living, breathing, suffering human beings.
To Thad in particular it was most wonderful, the quiet and repose of this thing; and he knew how it marked a vast change in the order of events since those days of our own Civil War, when a general sat upon his horse, as did Grant at many a battle, smoking his cigar, watching the play of events through his glass, receiving constant reports brought by couriers on horseback and personally directing the arrangements.
“Nowadays,” remarked Giraffe, also mindful of the great change that had taken place, “it’s the field telephone that takes the place of the wigwag work; while sky scouts in aeroplanes observe all that is going on below, to send messages to the gunners just how to direct their fire. But here comes our friend the colonel back to us.”
“And he seems to be smiling pleasantly too,” observed the gratified Bumpus, to whom that fact implied a great deal.
“Leave your car at one side of the road here,” said the officer as he arrived alongside. “It will be safe in the charge of these men, to whom I shall give an order to that effect. General Joffre has asked me to fetch you to him. He is interested especially because you are Americans, and also only boys. He wished me to tell you that he will gladly shake hands with you, though his time is too precious to grant you more than a minute just now.”