"There's one chance," said Frank. "I remember that I saw a little inn on the road the Germans took this afternoon. We're not so very far from that now. These little inns along the roads in France all have petrol for motorists who run short. If I went there I might get some."
Greene shook his head doubtfully.
"The government's taken all the essence it could find," he said, "I don't believe they'd have any. And, besides, there's a good chance that the Germans have men there."
"Still it's a chance," said Frank. "Won't you let me try? If I can't get it we shan't lose much time. And if I do, look at the difference it would make."
"That's true enough," said Greene. "All right, try it. I'll mend up the hole, when I find it, and if you do get some essence, we can be off at once. Good luck!"
Frank was on his way already, slipping away in the direction whence they had come. Luckily enough, he got his bearings by the windmill from which he had observed the wood into which the Germans had gone. To make his way to the road along which he and Henri had first seen the Germans passing was an easy matter. But he was afraid of roads by this time, and the more so because he knew that the Germans, having been aroused by the attack from the sky, would be doubly on the alert. So he stuck to the side of the road, religiously taking advantage of every bit of cover he could find to escape the foe.
"They knew they'd given themselves away just as soon as they fired at us," he reasoned, thinking half aloud as he trudged along, which was a habit of his. "And I don't believe they know they hit us at all. They do know that they didn't bring us down at once. Anyhow, there's no reason for them to be secret any more, and if they stay in that wood, they'll throw out pickets now, because they'll think that as soon as we went back and made our report troops would be sent to rout them out. It's up to me to be mighty careful."
That was good sound reasoning, too. From all he had learned since the war began, he knew that the Germans were by no means foes to be despised. They had been pretty generally victorious, but that was not all. They had shown a capacity for being always ready, for thinking of everything that might come up to block their plans. And he was sure, therefore, that the German commander would not argue that the aeroplane had got clean away just because the probabilities indicated that it had. He was almost certain to beat the country within a reasonable area for it, in the hope of finding it crippled and thus unable to carry the news it had come to get.
"I bet the Germans wouldn't have sent just one aeroplane," he reflected. "They'd have sent two, so that if anything happened to one, the other could have brought back the news."
But though he was thinking hard, he didn't linger as he went. Soon he came to the transverse road along which the Germans had gone, and turned in the direction they had taken. It was beginning to rain a little now, and it was very dark. He still stuck to the fields, though he was close to the road, and he found nothing to bar his way to the inn. When he got there, moreover, he found the place dark and deserted. Not a soul was in sight, but there were evidences that spoke as eloquently as men or women could have done. In the tap room furniture was smashed and broken and shattered glass was about the floor. Plainly the Germans had stopped as they went by.