Now Freddy had seen some Lancers on the evening before, but he was not going to tell the Germans, whatever might happen to him, so he said he had no idea where the British were. “They must be where you have come from,” declared the German officer. But the boy stuck to it that he had not seen them, and the officer at last said: “We are going to keep you a week till you tell me something.”
“Of course I was a bit frightened,” said Freddy, “but I had resolved that I would never give away the English. They gave me a meal, and after two hours we started on the march. I had to walk between two German soldiers, and was told that if I ran away I should be shot. At the end of three days we got close to Mons. I had often cycled over the roads we went, and knew the country well. I was again questioned by officers as to where I had seen British troops, but I still said I had never seen any. And then an officer said: ‘We are going to let you go, but you must not come back through German lines.’”
They gave him back his bicycle, and two German soldiers took him a mile, and then told him to ride off.
CHAPTER IV
THE BATTLE OF MONS
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with nature’s teardrops as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,—alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow