The Hosts of the Air by Joseph A. Altsheler (books under 200 pages txt) 📕

blue that one sometimes sees in winter, and which can make a man fancy that it is summer when he looks up, rather than winter when he looks down.

While John ate and drank, he continually scanned the skies looking for the coming of the Arrow. He saw aeroplanes hovering here and there over the French and German lines, but none coming toward Chastel.

He had expected, too, that Weber might return in the morning, but he did not reappear and John felt a distinct disappointment. Many had been killed, but Wharton and Carstairs had reported that no body had resembled Weber's. Then it was certain that he had not fallen. Perhaps the Germans had driven him ahead of them, and he would rejoin the French at some distant point.

The morning passed, slow and bright, but it did not bring Lannes. General Vaugirard himself came about noon, a huge purring man in a huge puffing automobile. He cast an approving eye over Bougainville's work, and puffing his cheeks still wider whistled a low, musical note.

"It could not have been done better," he said. Then he caught sight of John and exclaimed:

"Ah, here is our young American, he who has been transformed into a good Frenchman! Glad am I to see you alive and unhurt, but I bring you news which is unpleasant. Ah, well, such is life! It must be expected in a war like this."

Alarm leaped up in John's heart. He felt instinctively that it concerned Lannes! Was he dead? But he steadied his voice and said:

"May I ask what it is, General?"

"That young friend of yours and great servant of his nation, Philip Lannes, the famous aviator. He has been wounded. No, don't be alarmed, it's not mortal, but it will keep him in hospital for some time. It happened two days ago, nearly a hundred miles west of here. He had just landed from his aeroplane, and he was fired at by some German skirmishers hidden in a wood. Fortunately French cavalry were near and drove off the Germans. Lannes is so young and so healthy that his recovery will be complete, though slow."

"What a misfortune at such a time!" exclaimed John.

"What do you mean by 'at such a time'?"

Then John related the presence of Julie Lannes in Chastel and the manner of her capture by Auersperg. He told, too, why she had come there.

General Vaugirard puffed out his huge cheeks and whistled a note or two.

"I can't understand why Lannes should have wanted her to come to such an exposed place," he said. "But youth is daring and doesn't always count the risks."

Youth was daring and John resolved that he would help to prove it.

"General," he said, "could I ask your aid in a little matter that concerns me?"

"If it is not to betray our army to the Germans I think you can."

"I want you to help me to become a spy. I'll make the request to Captain Colton, and then, if it's indorsed, I'll go eastward and see what I can find out about the Germans."

"But I understood that she was not a German."

John reddened from brow to chin.

"I admit that much," he said, "but at the same time I intend to serve France all I can. I might be of more help that way than as a mere minor officer in the trenches."

"If you're successful, yes; if caught, all's lost. Hard trade, that of spy."

"But I want to go, sir. I never wanted to do anything so much before in my life. You'll help me, won't you?"

"But how can you go among the Germans? Your German is not the best in the world."

"It's better than you think. I've been devoting most of my leisure to the study of it in the last six months. Besides there are subjects of Germany who do not speak German at all. I shall claim to be a native of French Lorraine. I learned French in my infancy and I speak it not like an American or an Englishman but like a Frenchman."

"That helps a lot. What's to be your new name?"

It was not a matter to which John had given any thought, but as he glanced at the ruined town the question solved itself.

"Chastel, Castel," he said. "I shall drop the 'h' and call myself Jean Louis Castel, born in French Lorraine in 1893, after that region had enjoyed for more than twenty years the glorious benefits of German military rule."

"Very well," said the General. "Now go and see Captain Colton."

Captain Colton's lips twisted into a crooked smile when he heard John. His glance was a mingling of sympathy and apprehension. He knew the great dangers of the quest, but he liked John Scott and he could understand.

"John," he said, calling him by his first name, "I would not send anybody upon such an errand as yours. You recognize the fact that the chances are about ten to one you'll find a bullet at the end of your search."

"I think I'll get through."

"It's a good thing to hope. I think I can procure this commission for you from General Vaugirard. But we'll go to him at once. We'll not let the grass grow—or rather, the snow melt under our feet while we're about it."

John did not tell him that he had already spoken to the general, as he wished the whole proceeding to be in perfect order.

General Vaugirard was by a fire which had been built in the Place near the shattered fountain. Wrapped in a huge overcoat he looked truly gigantic as he walked up and down thinking.

"Let me speak with him first," said Captain Colton.

John held back and saw the two talk together earnestly a minute or two. Then the big general beckoned to him and as John approached he said:

"The request that you have made through Captain Colton is granted. In a war like this is may be the good fortune of a spy to render a very great service."

John bowed.

"Thank you, sir," he said simply.

"I understand that you wish to start at once," continued the general. "Dress like a peasant, and look with all your eyes and listen with all your ears. And don't forget while you're seeking the enemy's secrets that all France loves a lover."

John flushed a deep red, and Vaugirard and Colton laughed. The general put his hand in the most kindly fashion upon John's shoulder.

"You are one of the bravest of my children," he said, "and I have an affection for thee, thou stalwart American youth. See to it that thou comest back again. Thy hand, Monsieur Jean Castel, for such, I hear, is to be your name."

John's hand was engulfed in the huge palm. General Vaugirard gave it a great shake and turned away. Then John and Captain Colton walked back to the place that had been allotted to the Strangers, where it soon became known to Wharton and Carstairs that their comrade would depart that night upon a quest, seemingly hopeless. They drew John aside:

"Scott," said Carstairs, "are you really going? It's certain death, you know."

"A German bullet or a German rope," said Wharton, "and you'll never be seen or heard of again. It's an ignominious end."

"As surely as the night comes I'm going," replied John to both questions. "I understand the risks and I take them."

"I knew the answer before I asked you," said Carstairs. "You Americans are really our children, though sometimes you're not very respectful to your parents. They call us prosaic, but I think we're really the most romantic of the races."

"It's proved," said Wharton, "when sober fellows like Scott go away on such errands. I think you'll win through, Scott, in the way you wish."

John knew that the good wishes of these two friends, so undemonstrative and so true, would follow him all the time and he choked a little. But when the lump in his throat was gone he spoke casually, as if he were not venturing into a region that was sown thick and deep with dragon's teeth.

At the advice of Captain Colton he slept several hours more that afternoon, and in the darkest part of the night, clothed simply like a peasant, but carrying a passport that would take him through the French lines, he said good-by to his friends, and, taking his life in his hands, departed upon his mission. Lest he be taken for a franc-tireur he was entirely unarmed, and he wore a thick blue blouse, gray trousers equally thick, and heavy boots. He also carried, carefully concealed about his person, a supply of gold and German notes, although there would not be much use for money in that region of the dragon's teeth into which he was venturing.

He re-crossed the little river on the same high-arched bridge by which he had come, skirted the hospital camp, and then bore off toward the east. It was past midnight, the skies were free from snow, but there were many low, hovering clouds which suited his purpose. He was still back of the French lines, but his pass would take him through them at any time he wished. The problem was how to pass those of Germany, and the difficulty was very great, because for a long distance here the hostile trenches were only three or four hundred yards apart.

He discerned to the eastward a dim line of hills which, as he knew, rose farther on into mountains, and it occurred to him that he might find it easier to get through in rough country than in the region of low, rounded hills, where he now stood. He carried a knapsack, well filled with food, a blanket roll, and now he resolved to push on all night and most of the following day, before passing the French lines.

Keeping a watchful eye he pursued his steady course across the hills. The depth of the snow impeded speed, but action kept his heart strong. The terrible waiting was over, he was at least trying to do something. Fresh interests sprang up also. It was a strange, white, misty world upon which he looked. He traveled through utter desolation, but to the east, inclining to the north was a limitless double line, which now and then broke into flashes of flame, while from points further back came that mutter of the big guns like the groanings of huge, primeval monsters.

It seemed to John barbarous and savage to the last degree. He knew that he was in one of the most densely populated and highly cultivated portions of the world, but the dragon's teeth were coming up more thickly even than in the time of old Cadmus.

He walked until it was almost morning without seeing a human being, and then, the snow having dragged on him so heavily, he felt that he must take rest. Crawling into a hole in the snow that he scraped out under a ledge, he folded himself between his blankets and went to steep.

CHAPTER VII THE PURSUIT

John Scott would not perhaps have slept so well in a hole in the snow if he had not been inured to life in a trench, reeking in turn with mud, slush, ice and water. His present quarters were a vast improvement, dry and warm with the aid of the blankets, and he had crisp fresh air in abundance to breathe. Hence in such a place in the Inn of the Hedge and the Snow he slept longer than he had intended.

His will to awake at the rising of the sun was not sufficient. The soothing influence of warmth and the first real physical relaxation that he had enjoyed in three or four days overpowered his senses, and kept him slumbering on peacefully long after the early silver of the rising sun had turned to gold on the snow.

He had dug so deep a hole and he lay so close under the hedge that even a vigilant scout looking for an enemy might have passed within a dozen feet of him without seeing him. Another drift of snow falling after he had gone to sleep had covered up his footsteps and he was as securely hidden as if he had been a hundred miles, instead of only a scant two miles, from the double French and German line.

No human being noticed his presence. A small brown bird, much like the snowbird of his own land, hopped near, detected the human presence and then hopped deliberately away. Nobody was in the snowy fields. They were within range of the great German guns, and the peasants were gone. Had John been willing to search longer he could easily have found an abandoned house for shelter. As he had made mental notes before, Europe was now full of abandoned houses. In some regions rents must be extraordinarily low.

While he slept,