It was the terminating storm of a long season of rain which had wrought havoc to the roads and railroad lines—already in sorry plight from overuse and German artillery fire. Great dependence, it seemed, was placed upon those sturdy youngsters of the Motorcycle Corps, particularly just then, when the wires were down, their supporting poles sprawling in mud or flood.
Archer told me that on that night they could plainly see from Nancy, where he was stationed, the little church in Chateau Seulans across the Lorraine border, and could distinguish pigmy figures of German sentries there, so vivid was the lightning at times.
He says that he had not seen Slade for nearly a year, though I hardly think it could have been as long as that. In any case, he had been stationed at Nancy for a month or two and his duties in the quiet sector (Sleepy Hollow, they called it) were hardly more exciting than those of an American letter-carrier. It rained almost unceasingly, the soldiers drilled and played cards, and baled out their trenches, which were “running rriverrs,” to quote my young friend. Sometimes Fritzie made a night raid and the boys in khaki made a party call for good manners. But there wasn’t much going on.
“What would you do if you had a real job—something urrgent?” Archer says one of the boys asked him.
“I’d take carre of it, all right,” he answered.
“You’d need a boat to get from here to Chaumont now,” the other fellow said. “Did you look into Mess Dugout 4? It’s nothing but a mudhole.”
“Wherre I’m sent, I’ll go,” said Archer. “I don’t carre if it’s to Berrlin.”
“Would you make a try for Paris if you had a message for General Pershing?” his companion teased.
“No, I’d send worrd to General Perrshing to come herre and get it,” Archer retorted; which apparently ended the talk.
At last something happened. In the latter part of the afternoon they got a signal from the squint bag[[1]] and hauled the thing down, the rain pattering upon its taut bulk and streaming off like a waterfall. The occupant of its cosy little car announced that the Germans seemed to be massing all the way from Frouard to the Marne Canal, and that barges were moving westward along the Canal from La Garde. The observer thought they might be bringing troops from the railroad town of Berthelingen, or from Azoudange, where the prison camp was. It had long been necessary for the Germans to rob Peter to pay Paul and if they were depleting their guard at the great camp it probably meant that some big enterprise was in the air. A flier was promptly sent up to reconnoiter eastward, but the weather was too much for him and he came down like a drowned bat.