“What I got only made me feel sour,” the other replied.
“Why should it, Giraffe?” Bumpus wanted to know.
“Because I was told the Germans seemed to be sending out thousands of their hard-riding cavalrymen to scatter through this part of the country and terrorize the people,” explained Giraffe.
“There would be another meaning to such a move, I should think,” ventured Thad.
“Right you are there, Thad,” continued the other. “That gunner let me understand it was believed the Germans, being held up so fiercely by the forts at Liége, were trying to make a flank movement so as to threaten Brussels from this side. And Thad, he said there wasn’t more’n one chance in ten we’d ever be able to get through the lines.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Giraffe,” remarked the patrol leader.
“But we don’t mean to give up yet, do we?” queried Bumpus, who never liked to quit; he had plenty of faults, but that of yielding could hardly be called one of his shortcomings.
“It doesn’t look like it,” admitted Thad; “for we’ve got our tank mended, and if there’s any gasoline to be had for love or money we’ll push on to-morrow, taking what comes, and making the best of it.”
“And always remembering,” said Giraffe, “that in case the worst comes we can go back to the Dutch border, cross over, and make for Rotterdam. That’s what the Belgian gunner told me. He was a fine young chap, and if he comes through the fighting all right I expect to hear from him after I get home again.”
As he never did, Giraffe was later on forced to the sad conviction that his new-found friend must have given up his young life in defence of his beloved country, as thousands of others did likewise.