CHAPTER XIX
RECOGNITION!
Even the enemy, the hated Germans, found that the Boy Scouts were useful. There was constant danger of an outbreak, and the Germans had no desire to destroy Amiens. Had they been attacked from the houses, they would have lost heavily; in house-to-house fighting civilians, battling at close range, can inflict great damage on the best of regular troops. Such an outbreak would have meant the killing and the wounding of hundreds of German soldiers. The punishment would have been terrible, indeed, but that would not have brought a single Prussian back to life—a single Bavarian, rather, since these were Bavarian troops.
The Boy Scouts served as intermediaries between the Germans and the French civil authorities. They carried messages, and, at the order of the mayor, they submitted themselves to the orders of the German staff when it was necessary to explain a new decree to the citizens. They had many other things to do, also. It was largely the scouts who saw to the gathering of the supplies requisitioned by the Germans. The enemy had been inexorable in this respect; they set a definite time limit for the filling of every requisition they made, and it was well understood that drastic measures would be taken were they not satisfied.
Each day a new group of hostages was taken into the Hotel de Ville, now occupied as headquarters by the German staff, rather than the buildings formerly used by the Second Corps d'Armee of France. These hostages, it was explained, would be shot at once if orders were not obeyed or if Germans were attacked. There were many irksome rules. Every citizen was required to salute a German officer whenever he saw him. Lights must be out at a certain hour each night, and after that hour any citizen found in the streets without a permit was liable to arrest and execution without trial. They were under martial rule.
But always the sound of heavy firing in the southeast continued.
"I really believe the great battle is being fought at last, Henri!" said Frank. "We have heard that firing now for three days. It comes from the direction of the Marne. There is another thing. Since yesterday no troop trains have gone south through Amiens."
"But empty trains go through!" cried Henri. "And they come back, loaded with German wounded! You are right, Francois! We have begun to drive the Prussians back to the Rhine!"
News they had none. All Amiens was cut off from the world. Whatever the German invaders knew they kept strictly to themselves. It was only by such inferences as they could draw from the sound of firing in the direction of Paris and by the passage of trains through the city that they were able to form any opinion at all.