by Gordon Bates
CHAPTER XX
THE RETURN OF COUSIN EMILE
Assured by Voissard that he would return to the village, the fourBrothers kept up an anxious lookout for him. Five days went by, butCousin Emile did not materialize. During this time new platoons andsquads were formed from those depleted by trench duty, and the twodetachments, though smaller, were soon in good order again.
The Khaki Boys were required to be on hand for roll call at 6:30 everymorning. Breakfast was followed by daily inspection and parade. Afterthat they drilled until noon. The rest of the day and evening wastheirs, unless on some special detail, Taps sounding at the usual time.
Though the resting detachments were well behind the lines, they werenot immune from shrapnel directed against passing ammunition andsupply-trains, and even against ambulances, as these last rushed thewounded to hospital. Then there was always the danger of being bombedby enemy aeroplanes. Frequently, these Boche planes would appearsailing high overhead, only to be shelled by Archies, and driven backby Allied aircraft. It was not a particularly safe district in which torest, but it certainly offered plenty of excitement.
For two days after their arrival, the guns kept up a furious racketnight and day. Now and then they gleaned some word of the conflict fromambulance drivers or men who had come from the trenches on specialerrands. The Americans were grittily holding their own, it seemed.They had gone over the top on the very morning in which the Khaki Boyshad arrived in rest billets. There had been a wholesale slaughter ofBoches. Many machine guns and prisoners had been taken. The Hun'sfirst-line trench had been blown up.
The Boches had beaten a wild retreat to their second trench, and werenow engaged in trying to hold it. Many Sammies had been killed orwounded, but the Germans had suffered more in casualties. All this andother news pertaining to the fight that still raged, the Khaki Boysheard. They gloried in the way "our fellows are putting it all overFritz."
Bob's first move after settling down was to get a pass and go to thevillage where Gaston was quartered at his expense. Finding that itwas not more than twenty miles from their billet, and that he couldreach it and return by train, he cordially invited his bunkies toaccompany him. Jimmy and Ignace declined to go on the expedition, butRoger good-naturedly consented. "You need a friend on such a dangerousdetail," he slyly remarked.
It took the two a whole afternoon and evening to make the trip.Triumphantly returning with his pet just before Taps, Bob tied Gastonup outside the barrack, trustingly expecting him there in the morning.In the night, however, Gaston basely chewed his rope in two anddeserted.
Bob, being of the loyal opinion that Gaston was "no yellow deserter,"but had been "pinched," he spent his leisure time the following daygoing from pillar to post savagely asking, "Who's got my goat?"
Toward night he found the lost one in the backyard of a cottage, calmlyfeasting upon a linen tablecloth, which had appealed to his peculiarappetite.
Bob and the owner of the tablecloth discovered Gaston at about thesame moment. Gaston got a beating and Bob a wigging in French, bothdelivered by an irate housewife. It ended by Bob's going down in hispocket for the price of one linen tablecloth. Gaston, nobly resentingthis outrage, charged upon the scolding woman, and thereby addedto his master's difficulties. Bob finally roped him, and led himback to billets, sadly pondering as he went on the trials of being"foster-papa to a blamed old goat."
In the morning Gaston had again taken French leave. This time hewandered gaily up to the schoolhouse where a platoon of 509th men werebilleted. They received him with open arms, and promptly adopted himas a mascot. In due season Bob appeared, and just as promptly partedGaston from his new friends. Next day they stole him back again.
Bob's first four days in billet were largely spent in getting his goat,losing it, and getting it again.
On the afternoon of the fifth day he came back to billet from a trip tothe schoolhouse looking completely disgusted.
"Those pesky guys have got Gaston again," he announced, as he went overto where his three bunkies sat on the floor, backs propped against thewall, and busily engaged in writing letters. "They can keep him, too.I'm through being a father to an ungrateful brute that tries to butthis foster-parent over on sight."
This nettled confession was received with shouts of unsympatheticlaughter.
"Oh, laugh now. It's very funny," jeered Bob. Nevertheless, he laughed,too, as he dropped down beside Jimmy.
"Did he go for you? I'm surprised," teased Roger. "He's such a gentle,friendly beast."
"Did he?" Bob snickered. "Those thieves had him tied to a post out inthe school-yard. When he saw his papa, he lowered his head and came onthe run. Good thing he was roped. You should have heard those ginksyell. They kidded Bobby to a finish. Said Gaston must have taken me fora Hun, and a lot of stuff like that.
"They've got a mangy old red ribbon tied around his neck with anidentification tag hung on it," continued Bob. "It was a blank tag,all right, but they've cut on it with a knife, 'Gaston, Platoon 4,509th Infantry.' The robbers! Can you beat that? I certainly was goodto that beast. Treated him fine, and spent a lot of time and money onhim. That's the way, though. Be kind to your goat and somebody else'llget it. Bobby's all through being a foster-papa. He's going to spendhis golden hours and copper coins on himself hereafter. I was bitterlydeceived in Gaston."
"Hope it won't wreck your young life," chuckled Jimmy.
"Never I like him, that Gaston. He always the too fraish. I think mebbehim Boche goat an' no Franche. So is it he is the no good," giggledIgnace.
"Well, I'm all done with him," declared Bob. "Hope he bowls over afew of those smarties in Platoon 4. He owes it to me to do it. My,what a busy little bunch you are. Guess I'd better write a few lettersmyself."
"Go to it, then, and don't bother us," retorted Roger. "We want to getthrough with our writing before mess. To-night----"
Roger was interrupted by a sudden exclamation from Jimmy. The latter'sglance happening to stray to an open door at the far end of the long,barn-like room, he leaped to his feet and hurried to it. A uniformedman stood on its threshold, his dark eyes roving up and down the place,as though in search of someone.
"_Mon cher_, Blaise!" he exclaimed with outstretched hand as Jimmyneared him. "It is for you I have been searching."
"We had given you up, sir." Jimmy was radiant with delighted surprise."We thought you had been detailed to some special movement against theBoches."
"Not as yet." Voissard smiled mysteriously. "I have been in Paris sincelast we met. But to-morrow night my work begins."
Before he could say more, Jimmy's bunkies had come up, and wererespectfully greeting the Flying Terror of France.
"I have come to invite you to the _petit souper_ at the Inn," Voissardpresently said. "There we shall be able to talk for a little. I havesome things to relate to you of my nephews whom I saw while away. Thereis also the old matter of the man whom you described to me. Also thereis another matter to be discussed."
Cousin Emile's invitation was gladly accepted, and a few minutes laterthe five men left the barrack for a quaint little inn, to which theaviator conducted them.
Seated together at a rear table, the four Brothers were not concernedas to what they ate. They had found one inn to be about the same asanother in regard to "eats." All offered eggs, cheese, brown bread, redwine, and not much else.
In this instance, however, Voissard held a lengthy consultation withthe innkeeper himself, which sent him hustling for the kitchen.
"Now while thus we wait I will speak of my nephews first," began theaviator. "Both are now in the Nieuport squad. Each has been out twice,and has a Boche plane to his credit. They send you many good wishes,and are in hopes to see you before long somewhere out here."
He went on to tell them further of the doings of the Twinkle Twins,smilingly answering the countless eager queries put to him by the KhakiBoys.
While they were still discussing the famous Twinkle Twins, their dinnerappeared in the shape of two immen
se, beautifully browned omelets, withother accompanying delicacies, which made them open their eyes. CousinEmile, it seemed, knew a thing or two about French inns, which theydid not.
Directly the meal had been served and the waiter had withdrawn,Voissard reached into a pocket of his sky-blue uniform blouse, and drewfrom it a small photograph. Handing it across the table to Jimmy, hesaid simply:
"Look well at this."
Jimmy looked. His gray eyes flashed as he exclaimed: "It's the sameold smile! I mean, it's my tiger man! Then your friend, the Prefect ofPolice, knew him----"
"Very well," finished Voissard. "But not as Charles Black. This man'sreal name is Adolph von Kreitzen. He is an Austrian, and one of themost villainous creatures of the Central Powers that ever drew breath.Before the war his crimes were many, yet he always eluded capture.During the first two years of the war he did much damage to our causeas a spy.
"Suddenly no more was heard of him. It was thought by my friend thePrefect that he had either entered the German army or been ordered tocommit suicide by his master, on account of some failure on his part tocarry out a mission intrusted to him. This is often the fate of thosewhose work as spies displeases their finicky war-lord. He graciouslyrewards their efforts for the Fatherland with disgrace or death.
"Later, however, it was learned that von Kreitzen had been seen inBelgium. A soldier who had formerly been connected with, the ParisPolice Bureau saw and recognized him. He immediately sent word to thePrefect. Men were sent to Belgium to trail him, but again he escapedthem.
"That was the last report of him until I went to the Prefect withwhat you related to me in Paris. My friend immediately recognized vonKreitzen from the description you gave me. I would have gone to yourtraining camp with this photograph had I not received your commander'skind telegram.
"Strange to say, the next day after our meeting in the cafe, a reportcame to the Prefect that a man resembling von Kreitzen had beenrecently seen in Paris. Thus it may well be true that after you saw himin Belfast, he went from there to England, and thence to Paris. Wherehe is now, who knows?" Voissard shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps backin Germany; perhaps with his kind on the Western front; perhaps dead.Again he has disappeared."
"I'll tell you a queer thing, sir. I never mentioned it before, even tomy bunkies here."
Jimmy recounted to Voissard the attack made on them by the hiddengunman on the evening of their return from Paris to the training camp.
"Somehow I always had an idea that this tiger fellow, von Kreitzen,spotted us in Paris, and trailed us to the village. He saw me andwanted to get me. It rather tallies with what you say about his havingbeen seen in Paris."
"When is a clam not a clam? When it's a blazing old tight-mouthBlazes," was Bob's caustic conundrum, self-answered.
"Well, I had a right to be a tight-mouth if I felt like it," defendedJimmy. "If I'd said a word about it, then you fellows would have eithertold me I was crazy or else you'd have worried about little Jimmy'shealth. So I just canned it."
"I wouldn't be surprised if it _was_ that von Kreitzen who went snipingat us that night," said Roger reflectively. "It's not such a wildidea. He might have caught sight of you in Paris, Blazes, and followedyou down on the same train. He might have been in another compartmentdisguised. I don't remember seeing anyone who got off the train thatnight except four or five Sammies. They went into an _estaminet_ acrossfrom the station."
"I saw an old man and a little girl. I remember seeing those doughboys,too," put in Bob.
"So see I him, the solder and 'nother man. He have the much blackwheeskar an' the hat over the face. He walk ver' quick no look atnothin'," was Ignace's placid contribution.
"I don't remember noticing anyone in particular," mused Jimmy. "Iguess----"
"I guess Iggy saw the most!" interrupted Bob excitedly. "Iggy saw_him_, this von Sweitzer, or whatever his name is. That's about the wayhe'd fix up to keep shady--false whiskers and his hat over his nose.If you had not been so keen on keeping still, Blazes, we might havefigured this thing out long ago."
"It wouldn't have done us any good," demurred Jimmy.
"It would have been some satisfaction, anyhow, to have somebody to layit to," grumbled Bob.
Thus during the meal the talk continued to center on Jimmy's "tigerman." It was the element of mystery that appealed so strongly to theKhaki Boys. It made them forget for the time the grim reality of war.Long after the meal was finished, they still sat at the table listeningto interesting information which Voissard had gathered concerningthe intricate spy-system which the Central Powers have establishedthroughout the civilized world.
"I have still the news for you which must interest Blaise most ofall," declared Cousin Emile at last, smiling at Jimmy. "Because ofhis pleasure, I am sure all will be pleased. You said to me, _moncher_ Blaise, that you would give much to go with me over the lines._Voila!_ Your wish has been granted. It has not been easy to gainthe permission. It has been done, however. To-morrow morning yourcommanding officer will send for you. I have already talked with him.To-morrow afternoon you and I will be leaving here on a little journeyof our own for the glory of France and her Allies."