Harper's Round Table, May 19, 1896

by Various

It was the critical moment in the famous sham battle of Easter Monday. The bicycle corps was a mile and a half away, and the signal post had been captured by the enemy. Unless the corps could be brought into the action the day was lost, and the wood road running back of the "Cardinal's Nob" offered the only possible means of communication. But could the message be conveyed in time? Colonel Howard turned to his son Jack, who stood anxious and silent at the front handle-bars of the Arrow, a modern racing quad, geared to 120, and stripped down to the enamel. The inspection seemed to satisfy him, and hastily scribbling a few lines on a page torn from his note-book, he handed the order to his son.

"Get this through if you possibly can," he said, briefly, and turned again to his field-glasses.

A moment later and Jack and his crew were carrying the Arrow down the steep sides of the "Nob" to the wood road that ran below. The road was in splendid condition, hard and smooth as a racing-track, and the boys were all picked riders, and bound to hold on to their grips until the tires began to smoke.

"It will be a scorch, fellows," said Jack, as he swung himself into his saddle; "but let her run off easily until we can get to pedalling all together. Now, then, hit her up!"

The Arrow jumped forward like a hare as the long chain tightened and the riders bent over to their work. It took Jem Smith, No. 2, a moment longer to find his left pedal, and then the eight legs began to go up and down with the mechanical regularity of so many piston-rods. Once fairly into the long rhythmical swing, every ounce of power told, and the tense spokes hummed merrily as the speed increased and the road-bed slipped away beneath the rapidly revolving wheels. Jack Howard had his cap drawn well down over his eyes, and his hands were tightly clinched on the front handle-bars. So long as the way was smooth and the crew were pumping in strict time the Arrow steered with the certainty and quickness of a racing sloop; but every now and then a shallow rut or a half-hidden stone would cause the long machine to swerve like a flying horse, and it would take all of Jack's strength, even with the assistance of No. 2, whose handle-bars were coupled to the steering head, to keep the Arrow steady on her course. Above all, it was necessary that every rider should pay strict attention to the business in hand, or rather under foot. Uneven pedalling meant lost power and hard steering, while a slipped pedal might result in an ugly fall and a general smash-up.

Three-quarters of a mile from the "Nob" there was a gate across the road, with the approach on a curve that was also slightly down-grade. As was only prudent, speed was reduced, and the Arrow rounded the turn well under control. Luckily so, for the gate was closed. This was rather odd, for the bicycle corps had passed over the road only an hour before, and it had been understood that they should leave the gate open. The loss of time was vexatious, but there was nothing to do but to stop. The Arrow ran slowly up to the obstruction, and Jack called to Dick Long, the end man, to jump off and swing the gate aside.

"Hands up!" came with startling distinctness from the high, thickly wooded slope that bordered the road on either side, and Jack looked up straight into the barrel of a regulation army carbine that for the moment yawned as wide as the muzzle of a hundred-ton gun. It was the enemy, sure enough, a sergeant with a dozen men, and the Arrow had walked straight into the trap. Resistance was as impossible as it was hopeless, for the boys had strapped their carbines securely to the framing of the quad, and the surprise had been complete.

"You're captured," said the umpire, who had accompanied the ambuscade. "Hand over your despatches to the sergeant and stand at attention."

It was a dreadfully mortifying situation for the boys, but their captors were inclined to be magnanimous.

"It's not your fault, Jack," chuckled the jolly sergeant, as he took the precious despatch; "it was just a little game of strategy in which we happened to hold the high cards."