"It's come, Froebel," said the captain. He stretched his arms, as if glad of the chance. "I've had a fine trip from Aachen! The worst roads I ever tried to push a motorcycle over! But I'm here—so that's even! There are more coming. General von Emmich's army is on the march already. We have even now taken possession of Luxembourg. To-night the Belgian government finally declined to give us the right to move our troops through their little toy country! So we must fight them, too."
"I'm not sorry," said Froebel. Some of the stiffness had gone out of his manner. "I'll be glad to get a chance to do some fighting instead of this eternal spying! And who knows? If I am lucky, I may get a little swifter promotion than I had hoped for."
"Oh, I forgot," said the other. "Congratulations, Froebel! You have your captaincy, and a staff detail. That's unofficial, of course. But I've seen the order."
"Good," said Froebel, impassively. "But if you stay with the line, Poertner, you'll be a colonel before I'm a major. Enough—to business! I have bad news."
"Bad news? What sort?"
"It's that clumsy fool Ridder! He has been mapping the whole field of operation here, as you know—details of the forts, and the location of all the concealed gun mountings and platforms we have put in in case the Belgians should be foolish enough to try to stop us by force."
"Yes, yes! What of it?"
"Eh? He had those papers—those simply invaluable papers! And he was alarmed by two Belgian boys in Boy Scout uniform—thought they were soldiers coming to arrest him! He took to his heels and naturally, being boys, they followed! He dropped his papers going over a fence! When he missed them he went back. But he found no trace of them. He is sure that the two boys got them."
"Donnerwetter! That's a bad business, Froebel! I fear for our friend Ridder! The intelligence department will not be altogether pleased by this. But what if the boys have them? Is there a chance, do you think, that they will understand them?"
"Who knows? Some devil might lead them to take them to a Belgian officer! However—even so, there is this much of good about it. There is no time for them to do anything. They can't get at our gun platforms. If they had a week! But you say General von Emmich is already on the march? That means that war has been declared?"