The German groaned piteously, and fainted.
“Oh, he’s dead!” gasped Irene, when she saw his head drop.
“No, he will recover. But don’t speak English.—As for you, Jan Maertz, no more of your ‘monsieur’ and ‘madame.’ I am Pierre, and this lady is Clementine. You understand?”
Dalroy spoke emphatically. Had the German retained his wits their project might be undone. In the event, the pain of movement on the hurdle revived the wounded man, and he asked for more water. They were then entering the outskirts of Argenteau, so they kept on. Soon they gained the main road, and Joos inquired of an officer the whereabouts of a field hospital. He directed them quite civilly, and offered to detail men to act as bearers. But the miller was now his own shrewd self again.
“No,” he said bluntly, “I and my family have rescued your officer, and we want a safe conduct.”
Off they went with their living passport. The field hospital was established in the village school, and here the patient was turned over to a surgeon. As it happened, the latter recognised a friend, and was grateful. He sent an orderly with them to find the major in charge of the lines of communication, and they had not been in Argenteau five minutes before they were supplied with a laisser passer, in which they figured as Wilhelm Schultz, farmer, and wife, Clementine and Léontine, daughters, and the said daughters’ fiancés, Pierre Dampier and Georges Lambert; residence Aubel; destination Andenne.
There was not the least hitch in the matter. The major was, in his way, courteous. Joos gave his own Christian name as “Guillaume,” but the German laughed.
“You’re a good citizen of the Fatherland now, my friend,” he guffawed, “so we’ll make it ‘Wilhelm.’ As for this pair of doves,” and he eyed the two girls, “warn off any of our lads. Tell them that I, Major von Arnheim, said so. They’re a warm lot where a pretty woman is concerned.”
Von Arnheim was a stout man, a not uncommon quality in German majors. Perhaps he wondered why Joos looked fixedly at the pit of his stomach.
But a motor cyclist dashed up with a despatch, and he forgot all about “Schultz” and his family. As it happened, he was a man of some ability, and the hopeless block at Aix caused by the stubborn defence of Liège had brought about the summary dismissal of a General by the wrathful Kaiser. Hence, the Argenteau major was promoted and recalled to the base. His next in rank, summoned to the post an hour later, knew nothing of the laisser passer granted to a party which closely resembled the much-wanted miller of Visé and his companions; he read an “urgent general order” for their arrest without the least suspicion that they had slipped through the net in that very place.