Chapter XVII: Strategy

"Don't throttle me," Ginger murmured, scarcely able to speak from physical exhaustion and the reaction from mental strain. "Are you the Rutlands?"

"No, we ain't. Got a special fancy for the Rutlands, 'eemingly."

"I'm Murgatroyd, No. 939, 17th battalion, 3rd company, 1st platoon," said Ginger feebly.

"Oh, we know all about that. You German blighters all speak English, but you don't come it over us."

"Silence, Barnet; bring him along," said the officer.

"Yes, sir. Says he's a Rutland, sir."

Ginger was taken along the dark trench to a dug-out lit by a candle-lamp. The lieutenant looked at him. The uniform was German, from helmet to boots: the Iron Cross was on his breast; but the dirty, lined, unshaven face was not that of a German officer.

"Who do you say you are?" said the lieutenant, puzzled.

"Murgatroyd, lance-corporal in the 17th Rutlands, sir: called Ginger, sir: look at my hair."

He removed the helmet. The lieutenant laughed.

"The name suits you," he said. "But what have you been up to?"

"Taking French leave and German toggery, sir," said Ginger. "Beg pardon; could you give me a drink? My mouth's that parched. I'm all of a shake."

Refreshed by a cup of tea, Ginger told his story.

"A regular romance," said the lieutenant. "You're as plucky as you are lucky. By George! I should like to have seen the German taking off his uniform. He must have been very mad."

"He had a very swanky shirt, sir, but I couldn't stop to take that. Can I get back to my billet, sir?"

"Certainly. I'll send a man with you out of the trenches. You go round by the church, you know."

"I'll find my way, sir, never fear. If you'd give me a cigarette or two...."

"But you'll never get through in that uniform. I can't give you a change. Stay, I'll write you a note; don't wear the helmet."

"No, sir: I'll send it home to the kids, along with the Iron Cross."

"You've deserved that, at any rate. Well, good luck to you. I wish you were one of my men."

"Thank you, sir."

Somewhere about midnight, Ginger, after certain amusing adventures with the sentries, knocked at the door of Bonnard's cottage. There was some delay: then Bonnard opened the door, lifting a lighted candle.

"Bong swar, m'sew," said Ginger. "What O!"

"Ma foi!" ejaculated the Frenchman, throwing up his hands. "C'est Monsieur Ginjaire!"

"Ah, wee, wee! Large as life! Give me some grub, m'sew: la soupe; more so; anything; haven't had a good feed since I saw your jolly face last."

"Oll raight! Mais c'est merveilleux, epatant! Entrez donc, m'sieur Ginjaire; 'ow d'you do! Shake 'and!"

"Got the Iron Cross, m'sew," said Ginger with a grin, flicking the decoration with his finger-nail.

"Par exemple!" cried Bonnard. "Ah! vous avez fait un prisonnier; vous avez pris un officier prussien, n'est-ce pas? Bravo! 'ip, 'ip, 'ooray!"

There were growls through the closed door of the bedroom adjoining.

"Messieurs, messieurs," shouted the Frenchman excitedly, "c'est que m'sieur Ginjaire est revenu, avec la croix de fer. Eveillez-vous, messieurs, pour le voir."

"Shut up; taisez-vous!" called Harry, sleepily.

"Let 'em wait till morning," said Ginger. "Give me some grub. Don't want nothing else in all this wide world. I've got a fang, as you call it. J'ai fang, comprenny?"

"Ah oui! Vous allez manger tout votre soul."

"Cheese'll do for me ... What O!"

The door had opened, and Harry appeared, blinking.

"What's all this? ... Great Scot! Where on earth ... I say, Ken, it's Ginger!"

"Shut up and go to sleep."

"It's Ginger, I tell you. Wake up, man. In a German uniform!"

"Ginger, did you say?" cried Kenneth, joining him. "Well, I'm jiggered!"

Ginger, a spoon in one hand, a hunk of bread in the other, grinned as they rushed to him, clapped him on the back, shook each an arm.

"Don't choke me, mates," he spluttered. "Let me finish this soup, and I'll tell you a story as beats cock-fighting."

"Tuck in. They starved you, I suppose--the brutes!" said Harry. "Let's get our coats, Ken: it's chilly. Bonnard will make up the fire."

Presently, sitting around the fire, they listened to Ginger's story.

"I was sitting on the wing of that aeroplane, thinking of the missus and kids, when all of a sudden I was knocked head over tip from behind. When I came to myself, there was I strapped in the aeroplane, going through the sky like an express train. We came down in the village over yonder, and they lugged me to a colonel, and he asked me a heap of questions, and of course I wouldn't answer, and then they hauled me to a room, took away my belt and bay'net and boots, and locked me in. Here's the end of my milingtary career, thinks I, and only a lance-corporal!

"They gave me some black bread, like gingerbread without the ginger, and some slops they called coffee; I called it dishwater. I wondered how long I'd last on fare like that. But just before morning I was woke by a touch on my face, thought it was a mouse, slapped my hand up, and heard a little voice say 'Oh!' If I could only speak French like you! It was the woman of the house. She let me out and took me down to the cellar, and said something which I took to mean she'd give me the tip when to get away, but it might have been something else for all I know. Anyway, she didn't come back."

"A very unsafe place, I should think, with Germans," said Kenneth.

"There you're wrong. For why? 'Cos there was no wine there. The cellar was empty. Hadn't been used for an age, I should think. It was almost pitch dark; just a little air through some holes at the top of the wall. Well, there I was. The woman had given me some pang and fromarge, and a so of o--rummy lingo the French, ain't it?--and for I don't know how long I waited, thinking she'd come back and tell me the coast was clear. But she didn't, and knowing the Germans were all over the village I didn't dare to stir of my own accord. Besides, when you're expecting something, you don't trouble for a time. I was so sure the woman would come when she could.

"Down there in the dark, of course, I'd no notion of how time was going. I heard guns booming every now and again, and sounds in the house above, and being pretty easy in my mind, as I say, I dropped off to sleep. When I woke I finished off my grub, waiting as patient as a monument for the word to clear. Whether it was night or day I couldn't tell: there seemed to be someone moving about the house all the time. At last I got hungry and mortal sick of being alone in the dark, and began to wonder what I'd do if she didn't come back. Thought I'd try and have a look round. I felt my way to the door, and came to the bottom of the staircase. It was light up above, and I heard the Germans talking overhead, and didn't dare go up. I decided to wait till night and try again. I went to that staircase a dozen times, I should think, before night; the day seemed extra long; and even when night came I was dished, for a lamp was burning, and there were more voices than ever, and I heard someone playing a flute. I guessed they'd sacked the woman for letting me go, and smiled to myself at their hunting like mad for me all over the place.

"But it was no smiling matter there, I can tell you. I didn't sleep a wink that night, but kept on going to the staircase on the chance they were napping above. Not they! And I was getting hungrier and hungrier, and thirsty!--I never knew before what thirst was. I felt seedy, and a banging in my head, and couldn't keep still, going round and round that cellar till I was nearly mad."

"Why didn't you break out when we stormed the village?" asked Kenneth.

"How was I to know about that?"

"There must have been a terrific row," said Harry. "Close by, too."

"If I'd known I'd have been out like a shot, you bet. But I guess how it was. I must have got fair worn out with traipsing round and round, and fallen asleep at last, and when you go to sleep like that, nothing on earth 'ud wake you. 'Specially being used to the sound of guns in the trenches. Anyway, when I woke up, I was so mad for food that I said to myself I'd get out somehow and chance it. I went to the staircase; there was a light above, so I knew it was night, and I began to crawl up. But there was a footstep on the passage, and down I went again, but not into the cellar; that gave me the horrors. I sat in the dark at the foot of the staircase, in the hope there'd be quiet above in time.

"Well, I waited hours, it seemed. I heard laughing and talking, and knives and forks going, and that made me mad. I was just going to make a dash for it when I heard the Germans going along to the door. I didn't hardly dare to hope they'd all clear out, but I waited a bit, and all was quite still, and I crawled up on hands and knees so the stairs shouldn't creak. What I was afraid was that the servants were in the kitchen, but there wasn't a sound; and I crept along the passage.

"There was two doors, one on each side, open. On the right was the room where the officers had been dining. The sight of that table was too much for me, famished as I was. I must eat if I died for it. I was just a-going to begin when a little sound almost made me jump out of my skin. I snatched up a carving knife and whipped round, and there, across the passage, in the room opposite, was an officer writing at a table, with his back to me. Quick as lightning I thought if I could only get into his uniform I'd have a chance of getting through their lines in the dark. I listened: the house was quiet as a graveyard: and with the carving knife in my hand I stole across the passage."

He described his brief operations with the German lieutenant and his subsequent proceedings.

"And all I want now," he concluded, "is a photo of that Frenchwoman to send to the missus, and I hope she've come to no harm."

"You're a trump, Ginger," cried Harry, clapping him on the back. "You've certainly won that Iron Cross."

"It'll do for the kids to play with," remarked Ginger. "Myself, I wouldn't wear the thing the Kaiser gives away by the ton. Ah! I said I only wanted one thing, but there's another."

"What's that?"

"Why, to find that farmer that helped the German chap to strap me to the aeroplane. And he pretended to help us hunt for him. He's a spy, that's what he is."

"He was taken into our lines. I don't know what became of him," said Kenneth. "You must tell the captain to-morrow all about it, and he'll make enquiries. You must be fagged; get to bed. Our men will be jolly glad to have you back again."

Ginger's feat made him the hero of the battalion. The colonel promoted him full corporal, and sent a messenger at once to the Wessex regiment to enquire what had become of the farmer. The reply was that the French authorities had nothing against the man, who had lived in the neighbourhood for years, and he had been allowed to return to his farm. Colonel Appleton at once resolved to arrest him.

"We had better do everything in order," he said, to Captain Adams. "We're in France, and the authorities might feel hurt if we dispensed with them. I'll get the police commissaire of the district to take the matter up as there are no French military officers within thirty miles: it will save time. Tell the Three Musketeers to be ready to go with him to identify the man."

Later in the day the summons came. The three men found Captain Adams in the company of a stout little spectacled functionary, resplendent in a tri-colour sash, and two red-trousered gendarmes. The police commissary not being on the spot, the maire of the neighbouring town had undertaken the task. He had been a sergeant in the army of 1870, and was full of zeal. A motor-car was in waiting. Into this the party crowded. Ginger, clad in a new uniform with the double stripe on his sleeve, fraternised with the gendarmes at once, and conversed with them on the back seat in a wonderful jargon. Kenneth and Harry, as more accomplished in French, sat with the maire in front.

He was a fussy little man, proud of his antiquated military experience. Inclined to dilate on the details of his service under Mac Mahon, he was adroitly led by Kenneth to the business in hand. Then he was full of tactics and strategy.

"We must proceed by surprise, messieurs," he said. "That is a sound principle. I know the place well. We will stop at some distance from the farm house, and advance through the wood in skirmishing order, myself in the centre, the gendarmes supporting me, and you English gentlemen on the flanks. Thus we will converge upon the rear of the farm house, taking care to arrive simultaneously, and carry the place by a coup de main."

It occurred to Kenneth that there were defects in this plan, and that their object was to arrest a spy, not to carry a fortress. But he deemed it best to say nothing. The maire evidently liked the sound of his own voice, and was bursting with elation at having the conduct, after forty years, of what he regarded as a military operation.

"By this means," he went on, "we shall cut off the enemy from his line of retreat, which would afford him good cover if he could reach it. That I take to be sound tactics, messieurs."

About a mile from the farm house, on a hillside above the wood behind it, they came upon a shepherd tending two or three sheep. He looked up as the car ran up the hill, called out, "Bon soir, monsieur le maire!" and watched the car as it descended on the other side. It stopped at the foot, the six men got out, and set off across the field towards the wood. The shepherd, a big man with a wart on his nose, instantly took to his heels, and running downhill on the near slope, out of sight of the maire's party, made at full speed for the wood, about a quarter of a mile from the spot where the maire would enter it.

Meanwhile the maire had halted, and was impressively declaring his final instructions.

"You will advance cautiously through the wood, with the silence of foxes. Take cover, but preserve a good line: that is a sound principle. When you hear my whistle, advance at the double, converging on the centre--that is myself. It is well understood?"

Kenneth explained all this to Ginger, who rubbed his mouth and said:

"He don't happen to be General Joffre, I suppose! I reckon we three 'ud do better without him."

"We're under orders," replied Kenneth. "We must look out for our chance. Of course he ought to have sent some of us to the other side."

"He ought to have stayed at home to mind the baby," growled Ginger. "However!"

They extended, crept through the wood, and at the given signal dashed out upon the farm house. The maire was left far behind. The doors were open, back and front. Ginger was first in at the front, Harry at the back. The house was deserted. In the kitchen the table was laid for a meal; there was hot coffee in a pot: one of the cups was half full. The occupants had evidently left in haste: the surprise had failed.

The Englishmen rushed out, and Ginger collided with the maire, who was puffing and blowing, partly from haste, partly from fury at having been outstripped.

"My fault, m'sew," said Ginger, picking him up. "They've bunked."

Kenneth translated, soothingly.

"They must have escaped by the front while we approached from the rear," he said.

"My plan was sound. It would have succeeded if they had waited," said the maire. "And we gave them no warning: it is incomprehensible."

Meanwhile Harry, Ginger, and the gendarmes were scanning the neighbourhood, hastening to various points of vantage. Suddenly Ginger gave a shout. Far to the right, along the road by which the motor lorry had been driven, three cyclists were pedalling at full speed away from the farm. The rearmost was a big man, like the shepherd whom the party had passed on the hill. As soon as Harry saw them, he squared his elbows and ran towards the motor-car, nearly a mile away, shouting to Ginger to inform the others. By the time he drove back in the car, the maire had decided on pursuit, and was making calculations of speed. In a few moments the car was flashing along the road. But the cyclists had had eight or nine minutes' start. There was no sign of them. They had evidently quitted the road and made off by one or other of the by-paths on each side, along which, even had their tracks been discovered, the car could not follow them.

"We're done, all through him!" growled Ginger, in high indignation, with a jerk of his head towards the maire.

That little man was explaining to Kenneth that the soundest principles sometimes fail in practice through unforeseen contingencies.

"But they will not dare to return to the farm house," he said, "so that we have accomplished something."

They returned to the village. Kenneth gave the colonel a faithful report of the expedition. Colonel Appleton let out a hot word or two.

"Next time we have an arrest to make we'll do it first and consult the police afterwards," he said.