The Forest of Swords: A Story of Paris and the Marne by Joseph A. Altsheler (i like reading TXT) 📖

region about it. A good way to reach the front, is it not, Mr. Scott?"

"Fine. I fancy that we're hurried forward to make a link in a chain, or at least to stop a gap."

"And those large birds overhead are scouting for us."

"Look! One of them is dropping down. I dare say it's making a report to some general higher in rank than ours."

He pointed with a long forefinger, and John watched the aeroplane come down in its slanting course like a falling star. It was a beautiful night, a light blue sky, with a fine moon and hosts of clear stars. One could see far, and soon after the plane descended John saw it rise again from the same spot, ascend high in air, and shoot off toward the east.

"That may have been Lannes," he said.

"Likely as not," said de Rougemont.

John now observed General Vaugirard, who sat erect in the front of his automobile, with a pair of glasses, relatively as huge as himself, to his eyes. Occasionally he would purse his lips, and John knew that his favorite expression was coming forth. To the young American's imaginative mind his broad back expressed rigidity and strength.

The great murmuring sound, the blended advance of so many men, made John sleepy by-and-by. In spite of himself his heavy eyelids drooped, and although he strove manfully against it, sleep took him. When he awoke he heard the same deep murmur, like the roll of the sea, and saw the army still advancing. It was yet night, though fine and clear, and there before him was the broad, powerful back of the general. Vaugirard was still using the glasses and John judged that he had not slept at all. But in his own machine everybody was asleep except the man at the wheel.

The country had grown somewhat hillier, but its characteristics were the same, fertile, cultivated fields, a small wood here and there, clear brooks, and church spires shining in the dusk. Both horse and foot advanced across the fields, but the roads were occupied by the motors, which John judged were carrying at least twenty thousand men and maybe forty thousand.

He was not sleepy now, and he watched the vast panorama wheel past. He knew without looking at his watch that the night was nearly over, because he could already smell the dawn. The wind was freshening a bit, and he heard its rustle in the leaves of a wood as they pushed through it.

Then came a hum and a whir, and a long line of men on motor cycles at the edge of the road crept up and then passed them. One checked his speed enough to run by the side of John's car, and the rider, raising his head a little, gazed intently at the young American. His cap closed over his face like a hood, but the man knew him.

"Fortune puts us on the same road again, Mr. Scott," he said.

"I don't believe I know you," said John, although there was a familiar note in the voice.

"And yet you've met me several times, and under exciting conditions. It seems to me that we're always pursuing similar things, or we wouldn't be together on the same road so often. You're acute enough. Don't you know me now?"

"I think I do. You're Fernand Weber, the Alsatian."

"And so I am. I knew your memory would not fail you. It's a great movement that we've begun, Mr. Scott. France will be saved or destroyed within the next few days."

"I think so."

"You've deserted your friend, Philip Lannes, the finest of our airmen."

"Oh, no, I haven't. He's deserted me. I couldn't afford to be a burden on his aeroplane at such a time as this."

"I suppose not. I saw an aeroplane come down to earth a little while ago, and then rise again. I'm sure it was his machine, the Arrow."

"So am I."

"Here's where he naturally would be. Good-bye, Mr. Scott, and good luck to you. I must go on with my company."

"Good-bye and good luck," repeated John, as the Alsatian shot forward. He liked Weber, who had a most pleasing manner, and he was glad to have seen him once more.

"Who was that?" asked de Rougemont, waking from his sleep and catching the last words of farewell.

"An Alsatian, named Fernand Weber, who has risked his life more than once for France. He belongs to the motor-cycle corps that's just passing."

"May he and his comrades soon find the enemy, because here is the day."

The leaves and grass rippled before the breeze and over the eastern hills the dawn broke.

CHAPTER IV THE INVISIBLE HAND

It was a brilliant morning sun, deepening the green of the pleasant land, lighting up villages and glinting off church steeples. In a field a little distance to their right John saw two peasants at work already, bent over, their eyes upon the ground, apparently as indifferent to the troops as the troops were to them.

It was very early, but the sun was rising fast, unfolding a splendid panorama. The French army with its blues and reds was more spectacular than the German, and hence afforded a more conspicuous target. John was sure that if the war went on the French would discard these vivid uniforms and betake themselves to gray or khaki. He saw clearly that the day of gorgeous raiment for the soldier had passed.

The great puffing sound of primeval monsters which had blended into one rather harmonious note ceased, as if by signal, and the innumerable motors stopped. As far as John could see the army stretched to left and right over roads, hills and fields, but in the fields behind them the silent peasants went on with their work—in fields which the Republic had made their own.

"I think we take breakfast here," said Rougemont. "War is what one of your famous American generals said it was, but for the present, at least, we are marching de luxe. Here comes one of those glorious camp-kitchens."

An enormous motor vehicle, equipped with all the paraphernalia of a kitchen, stopped near them, and men, trim and neatly dressed, served hot food and steaming coffee. General Vaugirard had alighted also, and John noticed that his step was much more springy and alert than that of some officers half his age. His breath came in great gusts, and the small portion of his face not covered by thick beard was ruddy and glowing with health. He drank several cups of coffee with startling rapidity, draining each at a breath, and between times he whistled softly a pleasing little refrain.

The march must be going well. Undoubtedly General Vaugirard had received satisfactory messages in the night, while his young American aide, and other Frenchmen as young, slept.

"Well, my children," he said, rubbing his hands after his last cup of coffee had gone to its fate, "the day dawns and behold the sun of France is rising. It's not the sun of Austerlitz, but a modest republican sun that can grow and grow. Behold we are at the appointed place, set forth in the message that came to us from the commander-in-chief through Paris, and then by way of the air! And, look, my children, the bird from the blue descends once more among us!"

There were flying machines of many kinds in the air, but John promptly picked out one which seemed to be coming with the flight of an eagle out of its uppermost heights. He seemed to know its slim, lithe shape, and the rapidity and decision of its approach. His heart thrilled, as it had thrilled when he saw the Arrow coming for the first time on that spur of the Alps near Salzburg.

"It's for me," said General Vaugirard, as he looked upward. "This flying demon, this man without fear, was told to report directly to me, and he conies at the appointed hour."

Something of the mystery that belongs to the gulf of the infinite was reflected in the general's eyes. He, too, felt that man's flight in the heavens yet had in it a touch of the supernatural. Lannes' plane had seemed to shoot from white clouds, out of unknown spaces, and the general ceased to whistle or breathe gustily. His chest rose and fell more violently than usual, but the breath came softly.

The plane descended rapidly and settled down on the grass very near them. Lannes saluted and presented a note to General Vaugirard, who started and then expelled the breath from his lungs in two or three prodigious puffs.

"Good, my son, good!" he exclaimed, patting Lannes repeatedly on the shoulder; "and now a cup of coffee for you at once! Hurry with it, some of you idle children! Can't you see that he needs it!"

John was first with the coffee, which Lannes drank eagerly, although it was steaming hot. John saw that he needed it very much indeed, as he was white and shaky. He noticed, too, that there were spots of blood on Lannes' left sleeve.

"What is it, Philip?" he whispered. "You've been attacked again?"

"Aye, truly. My movements seem to be observed by some mysterious eye. A shot was fired at me, and again it came from a French plane. That was all I could see. We were in a bank of mist at the time, and I just caught a glimpse of the plane itself. The man was a mere shapeless figure to me. I had no time to fight him, because I was due here with another message which made vengeance upon him at that time a matter of little moment."

He flecked the red drops off his sleeve, and added:

"It was but a scratch. My weary look comes from a long and hard flight and not from the mysterious bullet. I'm to rest here an hour, which will be sufficient to restore me, and then I'm off again."

"Is there any rule against your telling me what you've seen, Philip?"

De Rougemont and several other officers had approached, drawn by their curiosity, and interest in Lannes.

"None at all," he replied in a tone all could hear, "but I'm able to speak in general terms only. I can't give details, because I don't know 'em. The Germans are not many miles ahead. They're in hundreds of thousands, and I hear that this is only one of a half-dozen armies."

"And our own force?" said de Rougemont eagerly.

Lannes' chest expanded. The dramatic impulse was strong upon him again.

"There is another army on our right, and another on our left," he replied, "and although I don't know surely, I think there are others still further on the line. The English are somewhere with us, too."

John felt his face tingle as the blood rose in it. He had left a Paris apparently lost. Within a day almost a tremendous transformation had occurred. A mighty but invisible intellect, to which he was yet scarcely able to attach a name, had been at work. The French armies, the beaten and the unbeaten, had become bound together like huge links in a chain, and the same invisible and all but nameless mind was drawing the chain forward with gigantic force.

"A million Frenchmen must be advancing," he heard Lannes saying, and then he came out of his vision. General Vaugirard bustled up and gave orders to de Rougemont, who said presently to John:

"Can you ride a motor cycle?"

"I've had some experience, and I'm willing to make it more."

"Good. In this army, staff officers will no longer have horses shot under them. We're to take orders on motor cycles. They've been sent ahead for us, and here's yours waiting for you."

The cycles were leaning against trees, and the members of the staff took their places beside them. General Vaugirard walked a little distance up the road, climbed into an automobile and, standing up, looked a long time through his glasses. Lannes, who had been resting on the grass, approached the general and John saw him take a note from him. Then Lannes went away to the Arrow and sailed off into the heavens. Many other planes were flying over the French army and far off in front John saw through his own glasses a fleet of them which he knew must be German.

Then he heard a sound, faint but deep, which came rolling like an echo, and he recognized it as the distant note of a big gun. He quivered a little, as he leaned against his motor cycle, but quickly stiffened again to attention. The faint rolling sound came again from their right and then many times. John, using his glasses, saw nothing there, and the giant general, still standing up in the car and also using his glasses, saw nothing there either.

Yet the same quiver that affected John had gone through this whole army of two hundred thousand men, one of the