Bob entered Petit-Bois about noon, skirting the edge of it until he could get enough idea of its streets to seem passably familiar with the ones leading to the farther end of the village. His cap was pulled down over his eyes, and his clumsy shoes no longer impeded his steps as they had done at first. He bent his shoulders forward too, with a suggestion of physical unfitness.
Thrusting his hands into his pockets he walked along at a good rate on a pretty, tree-bordered street, until he reached the center of the village with its shops and red-roofed houses, one or two of them damaged by shell-fire, beyond which the little, spired church showed against the gray sky. Not many people were on the streets and the few were mostly German soldiers off duty, wearing an air of self-importance which contrasted strongly with the hasty and anxious looks of the French women, children and occasional men who went about such business as they had. What might have marked Bob out for notice was his fresh color and the clear eyes shaded beneath his cap, for terror and privation had taken the healthy bloom from the French country-folk, and even the children wore a serious, apprehensive look as they hurried by, wrapped in their scanty shawls against the biting air.
Bob did not linger, having no desire to remain in a crowd, and possessed by one idea—to see all he could and get away as soon as possible. He went on up the street, passed the church, and turning into a lane found himself presently at the eastern end of the village. Along its outskirts a road ran at right angles to the principal street, and as Bob reached it he saw, to his discomfort, a German sentry walking guard. Beyond the little grove of oaks just back of the road Bob's fancy pictured with eager certainty one of the concrete block-houses, or machine-gun emplacements that formed the projected second line of defense. He stepped out on to the road and immediately received a threatening gesture of the sentry's bayonet, eloquent enough, though the man was some distance from him, accompanied by a thumb pointed vigorously back in the direction of the village. Bob turned unwillingly into the lane again, frowning at the oak grove before he strolled slowly away from it.
"Fine chance I have of seeing anything," he thought, fuming, as he shuffled along. "I don't make a very dangerous spy."
He returned to the church, found a second by-way and made for another part of the forbidden road. This way was not so deserted as the lane he had left, and as he passed a dozen people he quickened his pace a little, thinking his idle wandering might look suspicious. He was the less conspicuous, though, as many of the villagers were wandering about themselves with little object. Their livelihood gone, their hearts wrung with grief or anxiety, they seemed to have little purpose in their actions, and those who met Bob's eyes looked at him with dull indifference, or at most with a mild curiosity. The German soldiers left them unmolested, so far as Bob could see. Even the most brutal, he guessed, had seen enough of abusing an unarmed and helpless population. Once an officer passed quickly by, having the whole road to himself by unanimous consent of the other pedestrians. He was a tall, powerful-looking man, a captain, as Bob saw by a glance at his shoulder. It went severely against the grain to salute him, but Bob could not risk being brought into notice by a reprimand and he raised his hand briskly with the others. The officer did not condescend to return the salute, but his eyes passed over Bob's shabby figure indifferently, which was all Bob wanted.
As he neared the road again he peered across it as well as he could before coming under the sentry's gaze, and to his delight he saw plainly a square, white spot rising slightly from the ground in the moss among the tree-trunks. He hastily calculated the distance between this lane and the other and decided that the block-houses were at least a hundred yards apart. His sketches made from the airplane were fairly accurate, and would be of great service when the looked-for retreat commenced from the hard-pressed German lines before the village. He was consumed with a desire to get nearer the road, but the few houses along the lane had already ended, and it was empty except for himself. He felt that it would be going too far to show himself again to the sentry appearing from a second deserted road. To the left he heard the sound of drums and caught sight of a big farmhouse not far off, which, to judge from the crowd of soldiers gathering about its yard, had been turned into a barracks.
It was, of course, something to have verified his observations of the morning, and he had a pretty good idea of what protection the houses of the village would afford an army defending the second line, but Bob was far from satisfied as he once more neared the church. He glanced up at the spire, wondering if by hook or by crook, or by any of those marvelous schemes that seem easy enough when you read about them, he could get up inside the belfry and use the glasses carefully hidden under his blouse. While he gazed up, blinking at the mist-covered sun, a hand laid quickly on his arm made him jump in spite of all his self-control. He turned, expecting he knew not what, to see a thin, little woman with a shawl drawn like a hood over her face.
A house close by them had been partly shattered by shell-fire, and a gaping hole still showed in the wall. "Come in here," she whispered, and drew Bob inside the wrecked door out of sight of passers-by.
"Mr. Bob," said Elizabeth, pushing back her shawl and showing her haggard, frightened face. "Oh, Mr. Bob, why did you come here? Go quickly away, I beg you—for your mother's sake!"
"Elizabeth!" said Bob, staring unbelievingly at the troubled face before him. Then as the shock of her recognition of him outweighed his curiosity he asked, bewildered, "Who knows I am here? Have you told any one?"