The Brighton Boys at Chateau-ThierryDriscoll, James R.
General
The Brighton Boys at Chateau-Thierry
Driscoll, James R.
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- France -- Juvenile fiction
“Thanks. Could yez lend me phw’at they call two francs, now, to git
us both some sweet, brown, mushy things, loike candy, but diff’runt?
It’s me own treat, now.”
“Chocolate? Sure. Here you are. You can get them at the Y. M. C. A.
hut in an _abri_ back of the woods and near our dressing station,”
Don informed him, and a little later the two lads were enjoying
mouthfuls of very satisfying sweetness, as they waited for more
wounded to be brought out to them. And as they waited Don turned to a
sentry to ask some questions. The sentry was glad to impart:
“The P. C. came over a little while ago and I heard him tell the
medical sergeant, here in the doorway, that they had a message from
the evacuation hospital about a Hun in a Red Cross ambulance getting
away around the woods here. The man I relieved said he saw the fellow
go past, and he went a whizzing, but he didn’t question him; nobody
does anything with the Red Cross on it. The P. C. said that they
hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the man, nor the ambulance, since and
they think he must have been heading for another sector. He can rip
off his red crosses there and let on he’s something else important.
They do those stunts. But if he’s caught, it’s good-night for him!”
Don was keenly disappointed. He had sent some very well directed
bullets straight after the escaping car, but they must have hit the
sides at an angle and glanced off. However cold-blooded and murderous
it appeared thus to shoot down a man, even a declared and vicious
enemy, the boy had done this deed against one who had murdered his
dear pal, Billy Mearns. Moreover, Don had wanted to write to his
father and to Mr. Stapley, at home, that the escaped man who had
helped to blow up the mills had been discovered and accounted for.
Don felt sure that this fake Red Cross driver and spy was the same
man--the narrow-eyed, tall individual that he and Clem Stapley had
spotted and listened to on the train coming from Brighton, more than
three months ago.
Now that the German spy had escaped again, he would surely turn
up somewhere else and do more harm. Like his bearded confederate
at Lofton, he could probably speak English and American English
perfectly, and no doubt he knew French also, for these spies were of
that sort--sharp-witted, brainy, learned scoundrels!
“He will try, yes, no doubt, but it will amount to very little. What
can he do?” replied the sentinel to whom Don made his pessimistic
remark.
“Are yez on to this?” said Tim Casey. “The Limburgers are a very
smart bunch, yis; in many ways, yiz; but, me b’y, they’re awful
stupid, do yez see? These here Huns are loike parrots. They’re windy
imitators, ye see, but bad ’cess to thim, they got no real sense.
They don’t know just phw’at they want. A parrot, me b’y, is always
hollerin’ fer a cracker, but did yez iver see it eat wan? Ye did not.”
“By which you mean to say--” began Don.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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