World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
At first nothing resulted from our thorough search, but Munsey's eye
lighted on an Algerian serge lying in the corner of the room, and almost
at the same time I noticed some bricks in the chimney that seemed to be
loose. An old table in the middle of the room I pulled over to the
chimney, tugged at some of the brick that I had noticed, and the whole
thing caved in, part of a heliograph outfit falling out. The old fellow
made a dart for the door, but was peremptorily intercepted. "Damn you,
stay where you are!" I pulled out the rest of the stuff; there was a
complete heliograph apparatus, and a little red cap, such as the
Algerians wear, satisfying us both that the man doing the work used the
uniform of an Algerian.
On leaving the room, carrying the stuff with us and going down stairs,
we saw a box against the wall and I heard a funny noise from it as if it
contained something alive. I pulled it out and found it full of pigeons.
"Who owns these?" I asked.
"An Algerian soldier left them there," he answered.
We then examined the cellar and entire basement, but found nothing
further. We took the old fellow over to the gendarme who immediately
took charge of him, and returned to the battery where we imparted the
news of our find. It was the consensus of opinion that the spy was the
farmer himself, and that the Algerian uniform was a blind. We were
chatting away, discussing the matter, when the shells commenced flying
as thick as peas in a pod; so swift and smashing was the fusillade that
for awhile I thought hell's gate had opened wide. In less than no time
one of our guns was knocked out and, getting a "Stand to!" we replied as
fast as our legs and arms and heads would work.
The excellent quality of the work that Fritz did here made the fellows
unanimous that his information came from the farmer. Presently the duel
cooled down and we resumed our chat.
About a hundred yards off from the farmhouse where we had found the
heliograph and Algerian uniform, was a windmill of the kind commonly
seen in the farmhouses of the country, with large wings, and it happened
that while firing, one of the boys, Boxer, noticed that the mill was
going around in an irregular fashion,--going first one way and then
another, and then stopping, and he called our attention to it and we all
noticed it, and almost simultaneously with our observation of the mill,
four shells came over, knocking another of our guns into uselessness and
wiping out the crew, and after we got "Stand down!" and had cleaned up,
Boxer suggested that we go over and see what was in the windmill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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