Percy Keese Fitzhugh

“ There was the town of Norne, and just west of it a road with tiny figures distributed along it.
Archer was all a-quiver as he took the glass. "I can see the house," he said; "it's right near the road, it's got a flag on it. When the light strikes it you can see the black spot. Oh, look, look!"
"I can't look when you've got the glass," said Tom in his dull way.186
"I can see the battleline!" cried Archer.
Tom took the glass with unusual excitement. Far across the Alsatian country, north and south, ran a dim, gray line, seeming to have no more substance than a rainbow or the dust in a sun-ray. ”

“ In swimming, above all things, this is futile and dangerous, and presently Tom regained his mental poise and struck out calmly, swimming in the direction in which the wind bore him, for there was nothing else to do. Not that his effort helped him much, but he knew the good rule that one should never be passive in a crisis, for inaction is as depressing to the spirit as frantic exertion is to the body. ”

“ Tom concluded.
In his crude way Tom had stumbled upon a great truth, which is the one chief consideration in the matter of successful disguise. You must feel your part if you would act it. As he had said, they did not know how German soldiers felt (no civilized mortal knows that!) , but he knew that the Germans were plentiful hereabouts and no novelty, and that their only hope of simulating two of them lay in banishing all timidity and putting on a bold front.
"One thing, we've got to keep our mouths shut," he said. "Most people won't bother us but we've got to look out for officers. ”

“ Ziss is where Mam'selle is—so! Close by it lives my comrade, Blondel. Ziss is noble army to command, ugh!" He gritted his teeth. "All are women!"
Tom looked at the map, as old Melotte poised his skinny finger above it and peered eagerly up into his face from the depths of his scraggly white hair. It was little enough Tom knew about military affairs and he thought that this lonesome old weaver was in his dotage. But surely this new road could be for but one purpose, and that was the quick transfer of troops from the Alsatian front to the Swiss border. ”

“ If Archer answered his voice was drowned by the wind and rain. For a few moments Tom struggled against the elements, hoping to regain the Alsatian shore. His one guiding instinct in all the hubbub was the conviction that the wind smelled like an east wind and that it ought to carry him back to the nearer shore. He would have given a good deal for a glimpse of his precious little compass now.
"Where are you?" he called again. "The light's gone. Let the wind carry you back—it's east." ”

“ Yet it was twilight and the distant river had become a dark ribbon and the outlines of the poor houses below them blurred and indistinct in the gathering darkness before Tom could bring himself to re-enter the haunts of men. ”

“ He said that some one told him that when the American General Pershing came to France, he stood by the grave of Lafayette and said, 'Lafayette, we are here.'"6
"Ah, Lafayette, yes!" said the old man, his voice shaking with pride.
"But we must not even know there is a great army of Americans here. We must know nothing. We must be blind and deaf," said Madame Leteur, looking about her apprehensively.
"America will bring us many good things, my sweet Florette," said her father more cautiously, "and she will bring triumph to our gallant France. But we must have patience. ”

“ Why did Florette not come? Who had walked across the plank roof of that musty prison? The fact that they could only guess at the time increased their dread and made their dreadful predicament the harder to bear. Moreover, the air was stale and insufficient and their heads began to ache cruelly.
"We can't stand it in here much longer," Tom confessed, after what seemed a long period of waiting. "Pretty soon one of us will be all in and then it'll be harder for the other. We've got to get out, no matter what."
"Therre may be a Gerrman soldierr within ten feet of us now," Archer said. ”

“ The two fugitives, elated at their deliverance, but tremblingly apprehensive, stood hesitating at so radical a move as complete emergence from their hiding place.
"We can't crawl out of herre in daylight, that's surre," whispered Archer. "D'you think maybe she'll come even now—if we waited?"
"It must be long after midnight," Tom answered. "You wait here and hold the door up while I crawl out. Don't move and don't speak. ”

“ One of us has got to stay awake and listen. We can't afford to take any chances."
Archibald Archer needed no urging and in a minute he was sprawled upon the straw, dead to the world. The daylight was glinting cheerily through the interstices of tangled vine over the opening when he awoke with the heedless yawns which he might have given in his own beloved Catskills.
"Don't make a noise," said Tom quickly, by way of caution. "We're in the wine vat in Leteur's vineyard in Alsace, remember." It took Archer a moment to realize where they were. ”

“ All Archer's buoyancy was gone, but he tried to take heart from his comrade's stolid, frowning face and quiet demeanor.
"We can set fire to the whole business if we have to," said Tom, "so don't get rattled. We ain't going to die. Here, hold this."
Archer held the stick, blowing upon it, while Tom heated an end of the wire, holding the other end in some of the damp straw. ”

“ The west slopes of this romantic region were abrupt, almost like the Palisades of the Hudson, running close to the river in some places, and in other places descending several miles back from the shore, so that a panoramic view of southern Alsace was always obtainable from the sharp edge of this forest workshop of Santa Claus. In the east the plateau slopes away and peters out in the lowlands, so that, as one might say, the Black Forest forms a kind of huge natural springboard to afford one a good running jump across the Rhine into Alsace. ”

“ It seemed that the very things needed by two fugitives in a hostile country were the very things needed in an observation balloon. One unpleasant task Tom had to perform, and that was to remove the blouse from the hanging German and don it himself, which he did, not without some shuddering hesitation.
"It's the only thing," he said, "that would make anybody think somebody's been here, and that's just what we've got to look out for. ”

“ In a little while they came to the toymaker's cottage, with the mechanical cuckoo and the windmills and the basket of soldiers and animals and the old Swiss toymaker himself, sitting like a big toy, in the doorway.
"Well—I'll—be——" began Archer.
Tom simply gaped, too perplexed to speak. He had believed that he was something of a woodsman,175 and he certainly believed that he would not go north supposing that he was going south! Could there be another Swiss toymaker, and another cottage and another squawking cuckoo, exactly like the others? ”

“ They did not get out of the way of people at all; they let the people scurry out of their way and were very bold and high and mighty and unmannerly, and truly German in all the nice little particulars which make the German such an unspeakable beast.
Tom forgot all about the good old scout rule to do a good turn every day and camouflaged his manners by doing a bad turn every minute—or as nearly that as possible. It was good camouflage, and got them safely through the streets of Norne, where they must do considerable hunting to find the home of old Melotte's friend Blondel. ”

“ However, by dint of doubling and twisting the wire, he succeeded after many attempts and innumerable straightenings of the wire, in joggling the stubborn hasp free from the padlock eye on which it had barely caught.
"There it goes!" he said with a note of triumph in his usually impassive voice.48
Instantly Archer's hands were against the door ready to push it up.
"Wait a minute," whispered Tom; "don't fly off the handle. How do we know who's wandering round? Sh-h! Think I want to run plunk into the Prussian soldier that walked over our heads? Take your time." ”

“ Pausing in suspense, yet encouraged by their expectant silence, he spoke to some one behind him in the bushes and there emerged a young fellow quite as ragged as himself.
"It's all right," said Tom confidently, and apparently in great relief. "It's them."
"You must come inside ze house," whispered Florette fearfully. "It is not safe to talk here."
"There isn't any one following us," said Tom's companion reassuringly. "If we can just get some old clothes and some grub we'll be all right."
"Zere is much danger," said the girl, unconvinced. "We are always watched. But you are friends to Armand. ”

“ It was dark when they reached the river bank187 and explored the shore for some means of getting across. At last they discovered a float with several boats attached to it and a ramshackle structure hard by within which was a light and the familiar sound of a baby crying.
"We've got to make up our minds not to be scared," said Tom, "and we mustn't look as if we were scared. You can't make believe you're not scared if you are. Let's try to make ourselves think we're really German soldiers and then other people will think so. We've got to act just like 'em." ”

“ There's no use getting discouraged. We'll just have to bore another one."
Long afterward, Archibald Archer often recalled the patience and doggedness which Tom displayed that night.
"As long's the first hole has helped us to find something out, it's worth while, anyway," he said philosophically.
Resolutely he went to work again, like the traditional spider climbing the wall, heating the almost limp wire and by little burnings of a sixteenth of an inch or so at a time he succeeded in making another hole through the heavy planking. But this time the wire encountered a metallic obstruction. ”

“ There's one thing, that house is very old and people don't move around here like they do in America. So if I see anything that makes me think the house is French then probably the people are French too."96
It was a sensible thought, more dependable indeed than Tom imagined, for in poor Alsace and Lorraine, of all places, people who loved their homes enough to remain in them under foreign despotism would probably continue living in them generation after generation. There is no moving day in Europe. ”

“ He felt sure that the man had not been strangled, but had been killed by impact with some heavier branch higher up in the tree; but he must have made footprints before he climbed the tree, and——
Suddenly he jumped to his feet, remembering what he had thought to be a guardhouse. It lay a hundred or more feet beyond the dangling body and as they neared it it lost its sentinel-station aspect altogether.
"Well—what—do you—know about that?" said Archer.
"It's an observation balloon, I'll bet," said Tom. "A Boche sausage! Look for another man before you do anything else—there's always two. ”

“ Tom looked at Archer, who screwed up his freckled nose and gazed shrewdly at the Germans with a sagacious and highly satisfied look in his mischievous eye.
"That's the treaty, is it?" he said. "And that's just the kind of—shut up!" he interpolated, glancing sideways at Tom. "I'll do the talking—that's just the kind of stuff you'rre trying to put overr on President Wilson, too—tryin' to make the otherr fellerr think he's licked and then making believe you'rre willing to be generous. ”

“ Tom panted as they scrambled up.
"There's nobody up here, that's surre," Archer answered.
"We'll just lie low till daylight and see if we can get a squint at the country. Then tomorrow night we'll hike it south. If we go straight south we've got to come to Switzerland."
"It's lucky we've got the compass," said Archer.
"Maybe this is a ridge we're on," Tom said. "If it is, we're in luck. We may be able to go thirty or forty miles along it. One thing sure, it'll be more hilly the farther south we get 'cause we'll be getting62 into the beginning of the Alps. There ought to be water up here." ”

“ A fellerr in prison told me General Perrshing wants a lot of men with glass eyes—to peel onions. Look out you don't trip on that root! Herre's anotherr. If you'rre under sixteen what part of the arrmy do they put you in? The infantry, of course. Herre's——"
"Never mind," laughed Tom. "Look where you're stepping."
"What I'm worrying about now," said Archer, his spirits mounting as they made their way southward, "is how we're going to cross the frontierr when we get to it. They've got a big tangled fence of barrbed wirre all along, even across the mountains, to where the battleline cuts in. ”

“ He handed Florette a little iron button, which she took with a trembling hand, watching him as he clutched the arbor post.
"From Armand? You know heem?" she asked, amazed. "You are American?"
"He's American, too," said Tom, "and he's with General Pershing in France. We're goin' to join him if you'll help us."
For a moment the girl stared straight at him, then turning to her father she poured out such a volley of French as would have staggered the grim authorities of poor Alsace. ”

“ Tom whispered to Archer.
"They might as well try to capturre the moon as put France out of business," said Archer.
Yes, big or little, man or woman, one or a million, in devastated home or devastated country, she is always the same, gallant, spirited, defiant. Vive la France!
While Madame Blondel plied them with food she told them the story of the new road—another shameless item in the wake of German criminality and dishonor.
"They will wait to see if Amerique can send her troops. They will trust zese submarines—so long. No more! All the while they make zis road—ozzer roads. ”

“ Of the purposes and fate of their late "enemies" they had no inkling and they did not greatly concern themselves about this pair of fugitives who had crossed their path. They knew, from the gossip in "Slops" prison, that Germany was full of deserters who were continually being rounded up because, as Archer blithely put it, they were "punk scouts and had no resourrce—or whatever you call it." Tom did not altogether relish the implication that a deserter might be a good scout or vice versa, but he agreed with Archer that the pair they had encountered would probably not "get away with it." ”