Whatever Uncle Samuel was up to he was certainly very busy about it and very quiet. On the little village green which the cottage faced groups of officers talked earnestly.
An enormous spool on wheels, which in the darkness seemed a mile high, was rolled silently from somewhere or other, the wheels staked and bound to the ground, and braces were erected against it. Very little sound was made and there were no lights save in the houses, which seemed all to be swarming with soldiers. Not a civilian was to be seen. Several soldiers walked away from the big wheel and it moved around slowly like one of those gigantic passenger-carrying wheels in an amusement resort.
Presently some one remarked that Collie was in and there was a hurrying away—toward the rear of the village, as it seemed to Tom.
"Who's Collie?" he ventured to ask.
"Collie? Oh, he's the Stormy Petrel; he's been piking around over the Fritzies' heads, I s'pose."
Evidently Collie, or the Stormy Petrel, was an aviator who had alighted somewhere about the village with some sort of a report.
"Collie can't see in the daylight," his neighbor added; "he and the Jersey Snipe have got Fritzie vexed. You going to run between here and the coast?"
"I don't know what I'm going to do," said Tom. "I don't suppose I'll go over the top, I'd like to go to Cantigny."
"Never mind, they'll bring it back to you. Did you know the old gent is here?"
"Pershing?"