Part 20 (2/2)

”Germany!” cried the Corporal, his carelessness vanis.h.i.+ng. ”Why--what d'ye mean? D'ye think we want to find a good safe prison?”

”No. Your men insist on one more attack on the Germans, as a reprisal for the burning of the village. Well, we cannot do anything in Belgium, for it would only mean another village burned. If we make the attack in Germany it will be different. They can hardly burn down their own villages.”

Corporal Shaw held out his hand. ”Well done, lad!” he cried heartily, and the other men within ear-shot echoed his words. ”That's a stroke of genius, and we are with you to a man. What are you going to attack--nothing less than Metz, of course?”

Max smiled and shook his head. ”Something a little less ambitious will have to do, I think. After another night march we shall be on the spot, and can get to work.”

”What are you going to do, lad?”

Max hesitated a moment. Should he keep the men ignorant of the nature of the enterprise until the hour for it had struck? It was hardly worth while--in forty-eight hours or so it would be all over.

”To block the main line between Aix and Liege,” he answered simply.

”Phew! I think you mentioned wild-cat exploits the other day. What sort of cat exploit is this?”

”It must be carefully planned beforehand.”

”Humph! Trains filled with troops pa.s.sing every five minutes; the lines thick with guards. It'll want careful planning--and a trifle more. In fact, it'll need the devil's own luck. What say you, boys?”

”No matter, Corp,” cried Peck testily. ”Give the lad his head. We ain't particular, so long as it's a fust-cla.s.s sc.r.a.p.”

”It'll be all that,” grunted Shaw.

”Did we expect to git out of this show alive?” retorted Peck. ”What's the odds? Let the lad 'ave his way--he's grubbed us well anyhow.”

The other men murmured an a.s.sent, and it was clear that most of the band were quite ready to follow Max in an attempt, however desperate, on the Germans' main line of communication. The Frenchmen were quite ready to agree to anything that would lead to another encounter with the enemy in company with their British comrades, and so Max was left in possession of the field and charged with full responsibility for the tremendous task before them.

Two days later the whole of the band arrived safely within a mile or so of the great main line which runs between Aix-la-Chapelle and Liege, and then on through Namur to Paris. A stoppage to their communications on this line would disconcert the Germans in a way that hardly anything else could do, and Max, from the knowledge he had gained, while at Liege, of the great trains loaded with troops and munitions that constantly pa.s.sed through at all hours of the day and night, was very well aware of it. Next to his darling scheme for the frustration of the Germans' plans as regards the Durend works, the breaking of the great railway through the town had seemed the most serious blow that could be aimed at the Germans by a few men working independently of the great military forces of the Allies. It was a difficult matter, but not impossible. That was enough.

Max and Dale, accompanied by Shaw, reconnoitred the railway after hiding their men well away out of sight. The first point reached Max did not consider suitable, and it was not until they had approached the line at several different places that he found a spot that satisfied him. This spot was one where the line pa.s.sed along a fairly deep cutting, the sides of which were thickly overgrown with bushes with here and there a young tree. It was a spot at which it would be easy to approach the line unseen. And yet this was not Max's chief reason for selecting it. His design had been to find a spot where the line at night-time would have dark patches of shadow cast upon it here and there.

Dale and Corporal Shaw now returned to the spot where the band had been left in hiding, while Max set out for Aix-la-Chapelle alone. He still wore the workman's clothes in which he had masqueraded for so long, and, with his excellent knowledge of the German tongue, he had little to fear so long as he took care not to blunder into a military patrol. Without misadventure he reached Aix, and purchased a dozen spanners similar to those used by plate-layers, except that the handles were short and lacked the great leverage necessary for their work. This difficulty would, however, be easily got over by cutting stout rods from the woods and las.h.i.+ng them to the short spanners. The tools thus obtained would, he knew, be fully suited to the end in view.

The reconnoitring of the railway had disclosed the fact that the guards were stationed only about eighty yards apart. Also that they were changed every four hours, at four o'clock, eight o'clock, midnight, and noon.

An hour before midnight Max led the band towards the line at the point fixed upon. He had already, at some pains, explained exactly what he desired each man to do, and from their intelligent eagerness felt pretty well a.s.sured that they would not fail from want of zeal or knowledge of the part they had to play. To the Frenchmen he, of course, explained matters in their own tongue, and found them equally as ready as their Island brethren.

The moon, what there was of it, was fairly low in the heavens, and the long shadows Max counted upon so largely in his plans were much in evidence. Silence was another factor of importance, and the feet of all the men were swathed in long strips of cloth--their puttees in the case of the British soldiers, and strips from their clothing in the case of the Frenchmen.

The band was divided into three groups, and the orders were that on arriving at the edge of the cutting all were to remain motionless in hiding until the guards were changed at midnight. Then three men from each band were to creep up close to one of the three sentries marked down for attack, and wait for an opportunity to seize and kill or capture him without raising an alarm.

The latter point Max insisted upon as of the utmost importance. The groups of three might spend two hours, even three hours, he told them, so long as they performed their task without making a noise that would attract the attention of the sentries on either side. The darkness of the line, from the shadows of the trees and bushes and the deepness of the cutting itself, Max felt he could rely upon to prevent the other sentries from seeing if aught were amiss. The important thing, therefore, was that they should perform their task without noise.

Promptly at midnight the sentries were changed. The momentary bustle was, as arranged carefully beforehand by Max, taken advantage of by the groups of three to creep close up to their objectives. Then things settled down again in quietude. All was peaceful and silent between the thunder of the trains, and time was allowed the sentries to grow accustomed to their surroundings and to develop any individual habits of carelessness that might be theirs. At first the men marched to and fro rather frequently. Later, they contented themselves with leaning on their rifles and making themselves as comfortable as such a position would allow. There had been no attacks on any part of the line in Germany so far as had become known, and there was no reason in the world why these line guards should expect one now.

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