Part 25 (1/2)

Almost to the Swiss border it ran, but no one could get across the Swiss border here without running into Prussian bayonets. To the east, where the Rhine flowed and where the mountains were, some reckless soul might manage it in a night's journeying, if he would brave the lonesome fastnesses; though even there the meshes of forbidding wire, charged with a death-giving voltage, stretched across the path. It was not an inviting route.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”DON'T LOOK SURPRISED,” TOM SAID IN AN UNDERTONE. Page 198]

You may believe it or not, as you please, but along this new road score upon score of young women and mere girls toiled and slaved with pickaxe and shovel. And some fell and were lifted up again, with threats and imprecations, and toiled on. There were some who came from Belgium, whose hands had been cut off, and these were harnessed and drew stones.

They lived, if you call it living, in tents and wooden barracks along the line of work, and in these they spent their few hours of respite in fearful, restless slumber.

Over them, like a black and threatening cloud, was the clenched, blood-wet iron fist. Now and then one broke down in hysterics and was ”arrested” and taken before the commander who sprawled and drank wine in a peasant cottage nearby. For the road must be made and German militarism tolerates no nonsense....

Across the fields toward this road pa.s.sed a young fellow in the uniform of a petty officer. He carried in his hand a paper and a pair of handcuffs. He was repeating to himself a phrase in the German language in which he had just been carefully drilled. ”Wo ist sie?”

It was all the German that he knew.

Approaching the road, he pa.s.sed along among the workers, who glanced up at him covertly and plied their implements a little harder for his presence. Coming upon a soldier who was marching back and forth on guard, the officer showed him the paper and said, ”_Wo ist sie?_” The guard pointed farther down the line at another soldier, whom the officer approached and addressed with his one, newly-learned question.

The second soldier scanned the workers under his charge, then made as if to take the paper and the handcuffs, but the officer held them from him with true German arrogance, intimating that all he wished was to have the worker identified and he would do the rest. He did not deign to speak to the soldier.

When the subject of his quest had been pointed out to him he strode over to her, with a motion of his hand bidding the soldier remain at his post. The girls, who were working ankle-deep in the thick earth, fell back as this grim embodiment of authority pa.s.sed and stole fearful glances at him as he laid his hand upon the shoulder of one of their number who was throwing stones out of the roadway. She was a slender girl, almost too delicate for housework, one would have said, and her face bore an expression of utter listlessness--the listlessness that comes from long fatigue and lost hope. Her eyes had the startled, terror-stricken look of a frightened animal as she looked up into the face of the young officer.

”Don't speak and don't look surprised,” he said in an undertone, as he snapped the handcuffs on her wrists. ”I'm Tom Slade--don't you remember? You have to come with me and we'll take you across the Swiss border tonight. It's all planned. Don't talk and don't be scared. Answer low--Is your mother here?”

A heavy stone that she was holding fell and he could feel her shoulder trembling under his hand. She looked at him in doubtful recognition, for the face was grim and cold and there was a look of hard steel in the eyes. Then she glanced in terror at one of the soldiers who was marching back and forth, rifle in hand.

”He won't interfere--he won't even dare to salute me. If he comes near I'll knock him down. Is your mother here?”

”She iss wiz ze friends in Leteur. Her zey do not take.”

Her voice was low and full of a terror which she seemed unable to overcome and as she looked fearfully about Tom was reminded of the night when they had talked together alone in the arbor.

”They didn't catch me yet and they won't,” he said. ”They're not scouts.

Come on.”

She followed him out of the upturned earth and down the line, where he strode like a lord of creation. Never so much as a glance did he deign to give a soldier. A few of the young women who dared to look up watched the two as they cut across a field and, whispering, some said her lot would be worse than she suspected--that her arrest was only a ruse.... They came nearer to the truth in that than they knew.

Others spoke enviously, saying that, whatever befell her, at least she would have a little rest. The more bold among them continued to steal covert glances as the two went across the field, and fell to work again with a better submission, noticing the overbearing demeanor of the brutal young officer who had arrested their companion.

”You are come again,” she finally said timidly; ”like ze good genii.” It was difficult for her to speak, but Tom was willing for her to cry and seem agitated, for they were coming to houses now, where crippled soldiers sat about and children scurried, frightened, out of their path and called their mothers who came out to stare.

”My father--I may not yet talk----”

”Yes, you can talk now. I know all about it.”

”Everything you know--you are wonderful. He told us how ze zheneral, he say, '_Lafayette, we are here!_' And now you are here----”

”I told you you could sing the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_ again,” he said simply.

”When we get over there, you can.”