"All right. I see what you mean. Come on, then. Let's be off!"
Already, as they rode through the streets of Amiens, the signs of what was to come were multiplying. Troops were marching out of the town, but they were going south, away from the battle line, it seemed. And the townspeople were not slow in taking the hint. They were gathering such things as they could carry with them, and all those with anything of real value, and with a place to take it, were preparing to get away before the coming of the Germans. The refugees from Belgium had told them lurid tales of the German treatment of captured places; they had no mind to share the fate of their unhappy neighbors in the plucky little country to the north. And so the exodus was beginning.
Henri was very much depressed.
"And this is war!" he said, sadly. "So far, except for the wounded, we have seen only the suffering of women and children. Where is the glory of war of which history tells? I want to see some fighting! I want to know that we are really resisting the invaders of the fatherland."
"You'll know it soon enough," said Frank, with a smile. "You are too impatient, Harry. And you must remember this. While all this is going on, Russia is advancing too. The Austrians have been well beaten all along their front already. Soon it will be the turn of the Germans to meet Russia. They cannot long devote all their energy to France and the British."
"That is so, Frank. But the Russians won't fight here."
"Perhaps not. But it will be the same. For every army corps that Russia sends into Prussia means that Germany can spare so many troops less for the war on this side. Harry, do you know what I think? I think Germany is beaten already!"
"How can you say that, Frank? We know now that they have pushed us back everywhere—that they are all over Belgium, and are marching on Paris, just as they did the last time—"
"No, not just as they did the last time, Harry. For then they marched on Paris with the field armies of France beaten—one of them captured, the other locked up in Metz. Now the armies of France are still in the field. And I say that Germany is beaten because her one chance in this war was to destroy France as she did in 1870—quickly. If she had done that, she might have been able to turn back, away from France, and meet Russia with her full strength."
"Oh, I see what you mean. But I'll feel better when we turn and fight, instead of running away from them."