Few animals save dogs and cats could be seen. Evidently the Germans had tried to make a clean sweep of the forty miles and more they covered like a vast fan, in falling back to the prepared positions along the Aisne. Those horses or cows that had been saved from the general slaughter or seizure must have been artfully secreted somewhere, so that they escaped the keen search. As for chickens, not a solitary rooster’s crow had the boys heard since early dawn; for fowls of every description are first looked after by the soldier marching through a hostile country.
Long caravans of supplies were crawling over other roads, all heading for the front and coming from the direction of Paris. No wonder that every thoroughfare must be crowded with vehicles of transportation, when a million Frenchmen in arms had to be fed daily, not to mention the enormous quantities of ammunition that must be expended between the rising and the setting of every sun.
The more Rod saw of this the greater grew his admiration for the genius of the men whose brains had to command all these thousands of details looking to the provisioning of such a vast host. It was an experience the educational value of which could never be fully estimated; and often would the boy ponder over the problems that must have confronted those who were responsible for the solution of them.
They had numerous little adventures by the way, though as a rule these were in the line of narrow escapes from nasty spills, on account of ruts in the road. Rod frequently gave warning when he reached an especially bad stretch of ground, for he was well aware of the failings of his two chums–Josh with his impetuous ways, and Hanky Panky rather apt to be careless as well as clumsy.
One thing in particular Rod noticed, and this was that as they proceeded the sounds ahead of them kept on growing louder. Evidently then they were coming up on that part of the Marne country where the last rearguard action was being fiercely contested.
Von Kluck and his proud army must be continually finding themselves pushed further and further away from the beautiful city in which they had fully expected to be encamped ere this; though they grimly contested every mile they gave up, bound to sacrifice as few of their heavy guns as possible.
Another thing staggered the boys when they came to think of it. During the Civil War in their own country some of the greatest battles then known to history were fought, and the numbers on both sides did not really amount to more than two hundred thousand men. Here there were more than as many million grappling in deadly earnest, supplied with the most wonderful of modern death-dealing weapons, with engineers highly educated along the lines of utilizing these engines of wholesale destruction.
No wonder then the dead and wounded were as the leaves of the forest when the wind of late October tears them from their hold upon the branches and scatters them in windrows behind the logs and stumps and in fence corners.
Rod had some reason to believe that if they were allowed to proceed forward on this particular day they would presently reach the regiment in which Andre, sought so earnestly in the interest of his family, had an humble part. He was determined that should fortune favor them and the object of their search be accomplished he would listen no longer to the pleadings of Josh, but strike for Paris, so as to get away from this war-blasted country as quickly as possible.
It was beginning to pall upon Rod. After all he was only a boy, and had never been accustomed to such terrible sights as of late were being continually thrust before him. Nature has its limits, and Rod believed he was now very close to the end of his endurance.