"Like that! And why not you, too? They won't take the trouble to search twice."
It was the work of only two minutes to lift up the motor-cycle and hide it in the hay. The boy concealed himself also, leaving only the smallest breathing-space.
The farm-wagon rolled into Thuin, the farmer showing the German order that he had received and clamoring for pay. The only response was a threat to cut off his thumbs if he failed to deliver the hay before nightfall. He drove on sulkily.
Near Marchienne, where a small road branched off to the west, the farmer stopped and helped Horace to take down the machine.
"Good luck!" he said quietly and drove on, grumbling, as he went, about the price of his hay.
It was now four o'clock in the afternoon, and Horace sped forward, finding, to his discomfiture, that the little road was tending northward towards Bray. The roar of the battle, muffled at first as he drove through the coal-pit region, grew louder and louder. The woodland country ceased, and in place of fields and trees the landscape became one of shafts, chimneys and piles of débris on which grew a few stunted pines, a landscape which fitted well with the hideous ugliness of war. The motor-cycle throbbed on and presently Horace ran into the lines of an infantry regiment, not dressed in the blue jackets and red trousers of the French[16] nor in the iron-gray of the German, but in the khaki of the English.
"Where's your commander?" he asked, in English, forestalling suspicion.
"Over 'ere!" said a Tommy. "What 'ave you got in yer bonnet?"
"Dispatches," the boy answered, "for headquarters."