"Good work, youngster!" he said. "Your eyes were sharp that time! If you hadn't seen the hands of that clock moving we might have been caught in a nice trap! Wait here--I'm going to make a barricade of the omnibuses."

"What does he mean?" cried Henri, almost frantic with curiosity.

"Why, I saw that the hands of the clock had moved! You said it had stopped, and I looked up. Then the next time I looked, the hands had moved around--two or three hours!"

"But how--and why--if the clock had stopped?"

"That's just it! That clock must be visible for some distance around, Harry. Suppose a German was there? He could be signalling, couldn't he?"

"Oh, a spy! I never thought of that! You mean he would tell other Germans to come here--that there was work for them to do?"

"Yes. I only hope Captain Hardy stopped him in time."

But Hardy was taking no more chances than he could help. He had guessed as quickly as Frank the probable reason for the strange antics of the clock's face. And now he made his dispositions quickly. Counting the armed drivers of each omnibus, and the extra man each carried, he had less than thirty men. But he drew up several of the omnibuses in a square formation in the central square of the village, and thus had an improvised fort. When he had done that he called sharply to the two boys.

"Get along with you--get away from here!" he said. "If we're going to have a fight it's no place for you. You've done us a mighty good turn--I don't want you running into danger because of it."

Even as he spoke a shot rang out. It was from the direction in which they had come!

"Just in time, too," he said, coolly.

A soldier came up to report.

"Uhlans, sir--a sight of them, too. Coming from the road we were taking.

I think we got one of them, sir. Toppled him off his horse, anyhow, sir."

"All right. Let them come," said Captain Hardy. "Go along now, boys. If you see the cavalry sent to escort us, tell them to hurry! We'll try to beat them off until we get help."

He turned away, and Frank picked up his wheel.

CHAPTER IX

A GLIMPSE OF THE ENEMY

Other ears than theirs had heard that firing, too. As they rode along they saw a cloud of dust before them, and soon men and horses emerged from the dust.

"Let's hide in the hedge along the road," said Frank. "Come on--they'll never see us."

"But they won't hurt us, Frank. They're English--our friends."

"Probably they are. But how do we know? They may be more Germans."

"Oh, I never thought of that! If they are--"

"Yes, if they are, it's good-bye to Captain Hardy and his supplies. But we can't help it. We've already done all we could for him."

They watched the oncoming cavalry, but even at a little distance, what with their speed and the dust, it was impossible to tell to which army they belonged. They were either English or German; that was all that could be certain. And that could be deduced from their khaki uniforms.

There were no colors to emerge, bright and vivid, from their dun ma.s.s; no points of steel, on which the rays of the sun might shine and be reflected.

"If they were French we could tell," said Henri, proudly. "We could see their red and blue uniforms and, if they were cuira.s.siers, their breastplates!"

"Yes. The French are far behind the times in that," said Frank, a little impatiently. "Nowadays armies don't try to act as if they were on dress parade. They wear uniforms that can't be seen any great distance away."

"The French army fights in the uniform in which its famous victories were won," said Henri.

"And it gets killed in them, too," said Frank. "Gets killed when it doesn't do any good. But that doesn't matter now. Ah, they're English! I can see that now. We needn't tell them to hurry--they're going for all they're worth now. They've heard the firing and are hastening."

The English hors.e.m.e.n swept by. They were riding low in the saddle, urging their horses on. Each man carried a carbine, ready to dismount at any moment and give battle as seemed best. In five minutes they had swept by.

"Two troops," said Frank. "Well, that ought to be enough, though there's no telling how many Uhlans there were. Ah, here come some more!"

This time it was a battery of light artillery--four guns, going along almost as quickly as the cavalry had done.

"That ought to settle it," said Frank, with satisfaction. "Even if they run into a brigade of Uhlans, the guns ought to do the trick. I don't believe they had any guns or we'd have heard them by this time."

"They're still fighting back there," said Henri, as they wheeled their bicycles back to the road. "I can hear the firing."

"Yes, and I think it must be a pretty lively skirmish, too," said Frank.

"Captain Hardy would keep them at it. Listen! The Uhlans must outnumber them three or four to one. I hope the others get up in time."

A few minutes gave a.s.surance that they had. They heard the firing still more loudly; then, a few minutes later, the heavier sound of the guns chimed in. And then there was silence behind them.

"Score one for our side," said Frank. "We know a little more than we did before, too. I think it's a safe guess that the Germans aren't in this direction. We can go along without worrying about them."

As he said that they were coasting down a little hill, at the bottom of which, Henri had said, another road crossed the one on which they were riding just around a little turn in the road. And as they took that turn, their feet off the pedals, they almost fell off their wheels in astonishment. For the transverse road was gray-green with soldiers; soldiers with spiked helmets, marching south!

A moment later they did fall off their wheels, deliberately, and at a common impulse, because it was the only way there was of stopping before they were in the midst of the German infantry. There was just a chance that they had not been seen and they took it, and fled to the hedge again, leaving their bicycles behind. There was no time to bother about such trifles now. The thing to do was to make good their escape, if they could.

"Whew!" said Frank, whistling. "That was a close shave, if you like!

Where on earth did they come from? And how is it they didn't see the English cavalry?"

"Perhaps they didn't care, if they did see them," said Henri, wide-eyed with astonishment. "Look, Frank, there must be thousands of them! Where can they be going?"

"Where did they come from? That's more to the point!" said Frank, vastly excited. "I know! They got the railway--that's what they did! They must have come through Arras. Jove, though, they took a terrible risk, Harry!

Because, no matter how many of them there are, they can't even begin to compare with the allies in numbers--not around here. But how can they be here without being seen? What are our aeroplanes doing?"

"I haven't seen one all day--not since we left Amiens, at least," said Henri. "But I know where they are--flying over the enemy's lines, trying to locate the guns exactly. That's what they try to do, you know. They decide just where a masked battery is, and then our fellows can drop their sh.e.l.ls right among their guns. The gunners can't get the range properly any other way. There isn't any powder smoke to help them any more, you know. So I suppose that's where they are."

"Then I tell you what I think happened. I think they cut the railroad, or, rather, they didn't cut it. I bet they ran those fellows down there through on trains--right through our army."

"How could they do that?"

"Easily--no, not easily. It wouldn't be easy at all. But it's possible.

They've caught a lot of our men, haven't they? Well, couldn't they use their uniforms so that it would look as if it was a French or an English train? Let me have your field gla.s.s. It's better than mine."