"So will I and everyone else, Harry. But the great thing for our side now is to win delay. Every day is as important as a battle. Russia moves slowly, but when she is fully in the field she will have as great an army ready as France and Germany together."
"Well, I hope you are right. Ah, now we are out of the town. We can go a little faster. En avant!"
In the fields women and young boys were working hard, getting in the harvest that the men had abandoned. Never had a countryside looked more peaceful, except that at every bridge they passed now was a sentry, usually a man of the reserve, held back from the front for this sort of duty, while the younger men were at the front to do the actual fighting.
For a long time they were not challenged. The sentries looked at them idly, but decided that they were not at all likely to be Prussian spies, and let them pass. But when they came to the railroad line leading from Amiens to Arras, which they had to cross, it was different. Their crossing was at a culvert, where the road passed under the tracks. Here there was not one sentry, but a post, under the command of a one-legged veteran.
To him they were forced to make explanations, which he received gravely, studying Frank with particular attention.
"So you carry despatches," he said. "You have a word, a countersign, perhaps?"
"Mezieres," said Henri, promptly.
"Very well. Pass, then, but keep an eye open. There were Uhlans here before daybreak."
"Here?"
"They are beginning to show now. We hear they were in Arras yesterday. Some stayed with us. They sought to blow up the culvert here."