CHAPTER VIII.
ONE DARK NIGHT IN YPRES.
The sky had turned dark over Ypres, rain had commenced to fall in streets so remarkably clean that they really did not need this bath from above. It was just the kind of a night, though, for the risky venture undertaken by our Aviator Boys. They were going to see their old friends, and nothing but a broken leg would check their willing steps on the way to the prison house that contained Captain Johnson and Josiah Freeman.
Leon knew the best way to get there. The darkest ways were light to him, and he was not afraid that rain would spoil his clothes. To guide these wonderful flying boys was the happiest thing that had happened to him in all his days, and, too, he had a strong dislike for the Germans who had invaded the homeland. His father was even now fighting in the ranks of the Allies at Nieuport, and his mother was wearing her heart out in the fields as the only breadwinner for her little brood.
There were comparatively few of the gray troops then in the town. The main columns were moving north to the Dixmude region, where the horizon was red with burning homes. To guard prisoners, garrison the town and care for the wounded not many soldiers were then needed in Ypres, and non-commissioned officers mostly were in command.
The streets were empty and silent, and lights only occasionally seen. At midnight Billy, Henri and Leon paused in the deep shadow of a tall elm, the branches of which swept the front of the dingy red brick dwelling, two stories in height and heavily hung with vines. Leon knew the place like a book, for he had been serving as an errand boy for the guards quartered there.
He whispered to Henri that the men who had sent the note were in the front room on the second floor.
Behind the brick wall at the side of the house was a garden. Billy and Henri, on Leon’s advice, decided to try the deep-set door in the garden wall as the only way to get in without stirring up the sentry in the front hall. With the first push on the door the rusty hinges creaked loudly.
The front door of the house was thrown open, and a shaft of light pierced the darkness. The boys backed up against the wall, scarcely daring to breathe. The soldier looked up at the clouds, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, muttered something to himself, turned back and slammed the door with a bang. At this the boys gave a backward heave, and were through the door and into the garden.
This interior was blacker than the mouth of an inkwell. Billy cautiously forced the door back in place.