The Secret Battleplane

by Percy F. Westerman

Trudging with his back to the gale Dick held on doggedly. Unless the wind veered or backed he could be fairly certain of his direction. With a change of wind, coupled with the fact that the sun was completely overcast, there would be no means of finding his way.

Before he had covered a mile and a half the lad encountered the first inhabitant of that dreary district. An old peasant, his bent form enveloped in a tattered cloak, was tending swine. Dick made no effort to avoid him. This man's attitude towards him might be taken as a specimen of the reception he would be likely to receive in the village. On approaching, the peasant regarded the flying officer with the undisguised curiosity that dwellers in rural districts invariably bestow upon strangers; until, realising that the newcomer was one of the military "caste," the old fellow bared his head, standing stock still in the downpour until Dick, who curtly acknowledged the act of homage, had walked past.

A little further on the lad struck a lane, so deep in slime that it was of no use as a means of progression. Worn several feet below the surface of the adjoining ground it resembled a stagnant ditch of liquid mud. However, guessing that it must lead to the village, Dick struggled gamely on, keeping to the slightly firmer ground by the side of the primitive by-way.

In another quarter of an hour he descried the misty outlines of the little village looming up through the mirk.

With a quickening pulse the lad pressed on, and gained the outskirts of the straggling hamlet. The road, even in the village, was little better than the quagmire without. At first there were no signs of human beings. A few ducks revelled in the slush and rain. A gaunt pig wallowed in the mud, nosing amidst the garbage in search of food. Peat-reeking smoke was issuing from some of the chimneys, and, beaten down by the rain, was driving over the saturated ground in eddying wisps.

Dick hastened onwards in the direction of the church, the only building with a pretence of importance in the squalid village. At the same time he kept his eyes and ears on the alert in the hope of finding some sort of a place where he could get the important work carried out. There was almost a total absence of shops in this particular quarter. Commercial intercourse, if any, must be carried on in a very meagre fashion, he argued.

Presently the lad's quick ear distinguished the clang of a blacksmith's hammer—not the quick, merry ring that characterises the smith's activity in Merry England, but the slow, listless hammering of a toiler whose heart is not in his work.

Guided by the sounds Dick turned down a narrow street until he came to a low stone and plaster building, through the two glazeless windows of which bluish smoke was issuing. Over the open door was a sign, setting forth that Johannes Müller was a skilled worker in iron-work, especially in connection with agricultural implements.

Striding pompously to the door as well as the slippery nature of the ground permitted, Dick entered the low smithy. Within were two men, neither of whom, owing to the hiss of the bellows-fanned flames, had heard him approach. The elder of the twain was a short, thick-set man in a grey shirt open at the neck, a pair of trousers reaching but a few inches below his knees, a pair of rusty boots and a paper cap. His hairy chest and gnarled arms betokened great strength, although his lower limbs were ill-developed, and seemed scarcely able to support the weight of his body. His features were coarse and brutal, the sinister effect being heightened by his soot-stained face and yellow protruding eyes. He had just set aside a light hammer and was resting upon the heavy "striker," while his assistant coaxed a mass of iron into a state of white heat.

The second man's features were hard to judge, for the lower part of his gaunt face was hidden by a bushy, unkempt beard of a light brown colour. His clothing consisted of a ragged shirt and trousers; his toes, innocent of socks, peeped through rents in an odd pair of boots that in England would look out of place anywhere except on a rubbish heap. His movements were listless and dejected, and as, for the first time, he caught sight of Dick, he shot a glance of mingled hatred and contempt. He made no attempt to attract the smith's attention to the new-comer, and it was not until the young officer stamped imperiously upon the cobbled stone floor that the old fellow was aware of the presence of his uniformed visitor.