A Friend in Need
"Half a mo'! What's that? Looks like a regular haystack," grunted Stuart, as he dropped from the train and stood in the fairway, one hand held out in front of him, and a ponderous finger pointing into the darkness.
"What's what? Oh, that!—that! Yes, it looks like a haystack," admitted Jules, following the direction of his indicating finger.
"On wheels! A hay-load on a truck," suggested Henri, peering into the gloom, and seeing the ghostly outline of twenty or more trucks which stood upon the rails in a siding quite close to them. "A truck of hay, Stuart—hay!"
"Or straw," growled the huge Englishman. "Well, what of it? What's it matter to us if it's straw or hay, or any sort of thing? What's anything matter, so long as it don't help us?"
He was in quite an irritable mood, and his voice sounded as though he were ready to quarrel with anyone on the smallest pretext. It was therefore with an exclamation of impatience that he realized that Henri, with quick impulsiveness, had gripped him by the arm and was shaking him eagerly.
"What's—what's up then?" he demanded peevishly; and then, looking in the direction in which the Frenchman was now pointing, grumbled loudly: "Still on about that hay or straw? You're wasting time, Henri."
"Idiot!" the impulsive Frenchman told him. "Haven't you heard of Germans hiding up in a hayrick—hiding as spies? It's a chance; let's take it. Get your knife ready."
When they had crossed the tracks and reached the line of trucks it was indeed to find that an opportunity for further escape was right before them. For here were half a dozen trucks stacked high with hay, and each covered with a tarpaulin. To cast off one end of the tarpaulin, to burrow a hole in the hay, to tread their way into the stacks, and to hack a space sufficient to accommodate their bodies was no great difficulty, and though, in the midst of their work, the train started, it made the job all the easier; for then, throwing discretion to the wind, they tossed what hay was superabundant overboard, and, having by that means obtained a cosy little nook in one of the stacks, put the tarpaulin back into position, and, sleepy now after their labours, and content that they were securely hidden, fell fast asleep, careless of the direction in which they might be travelling. And two days later, having in the meanwhile been lucky enough to obtain some food and water at a siding into which the trucks were shunted, they heard the brakes grind, and felt the train come to a gradual standstill.
"We shall have to get clear of this," said Henri. "Lucky it's night-time again. I wonder where we are?"