The Guns of Europe

by Joseph A. Altsheler

The three found the breakfast good as usual. Gasoline could be obtained. It was not for civilians, but as they were soldiers serving France they were able to buy a supply. The news that they desired was scarce, although there was a vast crop of rumors which many told as facts. John was learning that war was the mother of lies. He believed only what men had seen with their own eyes, and but little of that. It was incredible how people described in detail things they had witnessed, but which had never occurred.

Had a British army landed? It had. It had not. Where was it? It was in Belgium. It was in France. It was at the training camps in England. There was plenty of information, and one could choose whatever he liked best. John and Carstairs looked at each other in dismay. They had a car, but where were they to go. At least they carried dispatches for a British army which some of the French believed to be in France. But Wharton took no notice of the difficulty. He was silent, and preoccupied with their triumphant arrival that was coming.

John asked the most questions, and at last he found a woman whose words seemed to be based upon fact and not imagination. She had a cousin who was employed in the telegraph, and her cousin told her, that British troops had landed, that some of them at least had reached Paris, and then had gone north toward Belgium, the region of Mons or Charleroi, she believed. She spoke quietly and with much detail, and John believed that she had a mind able to tell the truth without exaggeration.

He held a brief conference with Carstairs, who had now replenished the gasoline, and who had also put stores of food in the car. Carstairs agreed with him that the statement was probably correct, and that at any rate they ought to govern themselves in accordance with it. They did not consult Wharton, who they knew was thinking only of the papers.

John took the wheel. Like Wharton he did not know much about driving, but it was a time when one had to do things. Carstairs soon fell asleep, but Wharton sat rigidly erect, staring before him.

John had felt the emotion of triumph strongly that morning, but now much of it was departing. The country was growing more beautiful than ever. He had never seen any outside his own to match it. This had the advantage of age and youth combined. Buildings were gray and soft with centuries, but the earth itself was fresh and eternal with youth. But he knew beyond any shred of doubt that it would soon be torn to pieces by the fighting millions.

There was no occasion for haste now, as they must feel the way, and they were beyond the German advance. While Carstairs slept and Wharton stared ahead he examined the country. Once they passed near a town of considerable size, and he saw on a hill, in the center of it a great gray cathedral, its fine stonework glittering like tracery.

Then he saw the graybeards, the women, and the young boys and girls coming into the fields to work. All the men of fighting age were gone. He had seen the same in Germany, but it struck him anew with painful force, this turning of millions of workers upon one another, weapons in hand.

John stopped beside the fields once or twice and talked with the peasants. The old men could tell him nothing. They were stolid and stoical. Yes, there was war, but it was not any business of theirs to find where the armies were marching, and his heart went out more strongly than ever to the people, over whom military ambition and the folly of kings were driving the wheels of cannon.

It was well toward midday before he secured any real information. They encountered at the crossing of a brook a small French patrol under a lieutenant, an intelligent man, whom by lucky chance Carstairs had met two weeks before.