Plainly there had been a great change in the character of the battle over night. The heavy thunder of the guns was greatly reduced in volume, though they should still have been able to hear it. And it was unmistakably coming from further north. It must be that the Germans were retreating. But they walked for three hours before they knew for certain that they were right.
They did not meet the cuirassiers of whom they had heard. Instead a cloud of dust that they saw for two miles before men emerged beneath it turned out to be a column of French infantry. They were in their Boy Scout uniforms, and the men who first saw them at the side of the road cheered them. Soon a captain came up to them.
"Eh bien, mes enfants!" he said. "What do you do here? Where do you come from!"
They told him Amiens, and he laughed.
"And it is there, precisely, that we are going!" he laughed. "The Germans are out by now and our men were in there an hour ago!"
Frank and Henri cried out in delight at the news.
"May we go with you?" asked Frank. "We would like to go back as soon as possible."
"As to that you must ask the colonel. He will decide—and, see, here he comes now in his automobile! I will report to him that you are here."
But there was no need, for the officer who sat in the car was Colonel Menier himself, and at the sight of them he laughed aloud.
"Ah, my brave ones!" he cried. "So you are here! Ride with me! Did the Germans drive you from Amiens? I shall drive you back!"