Kitabı oku: «Under Fire For Servia», sayfa 5

CHAPTER IX
BACK TO SEMLIN

It was beginning to grow dark when they set out from Steve's house.

Maritza, the old servant who seemed to idolize Steve, had given them a wonderful meal. Dick liked the old peasant woman. She reminded him of the stories he had read of old southern mammies. It was plain that she was wholly devoted to the Dushan family, and that she would do anything for them. But in spite of that, she ordered Steve around as if he had been a child of her own, and Steve, who seemed to Dick to possess a goodly share of independence, accepted her orders with the utmost meekness.

"She was with the family before I was born," he explained. "I can remember how she used to order me about when I was a little chap. And she's pretty nearly as bad with my father, too. I can tell you he does what he's told. It's a wonder she hasn't insisted on going with him in the campaign, just to make sure that he changes his shoes when his feet get wet and wears heavy clothes when it's cold!"

Dick laughed, but he could understand Maritza's attitude well enough. She had mothered him, too, and, despite his excitement, which made him inclined to slight his meal, had insisted on his eating generously.

"I don't know what mischief you two boys will be up to to-night," she had said, "but if you've got a good hot meal in your stomachs you'll be in a better condition for it, whatever it is."

As they left the house, Steve explained that they had a long walk before them.

"Horses are at a premium," he said. "Otherwise we might have ridden, because I could have got them. But they are so badly needed in the field that everyone has given up all the animals that are at all fit for service."

"You don't use cavalry very much, though, do you?"

"No, not as a rule. Our men fight better on foot, and a great deal of our fighting is done in mountainous country that is all split up with ravines and clumps of woods. It was so, at least, against the Turks and the Bulgarians. But in this war there will be some chance for cavalry, at first, anyhow. And, besides, the horses are needed for the guns."

"Oh, yes! I didn't think of that. You don't use motor cars much, I suppose?"

"We can't. We haven't the roads. If the French get in, they and the Germans will use cars a great deal, I suppose, for all sorts of things. But our roads are too bad for that. It's just as well, because the Austrians have had so much more money to spend than we that they are far ahead of us. They've got better heavy guns than we, too, but I don't think they'll get much more chance to use them. We are not going to shut ourselves up in fortresses. And when it comes to field pieces we can hold our own with them a good deal better."

"Field guns will be the ones most used, won't they?"

"We think so. We've got light guns that are easy to move about, and we've got the men who know how to handle them, too. Our men are all veterans, and that is going to make a lot of difference. They know what it is to have hard fighting, and if things go against them at first it won't bother them. My father says that the experience we have had in actual war will be worth five army corps."

"Who is the commander-in-chief?"

"General Pushkin. Everyone agrees that he was the one great soldier that the Balkan wars produced. He won his battles against the Turks easily, and without the loss of great numbers of men, and when the Bulgarians attacked, we and the Greeks fought the campaign according to his strategy. The German military attaché said that General Pushkin was fit to command the greatest army in the world. He said he was a military genius of the first rank, and one of the greatest soldiers developed in Europe since the time of von Moltke."

"Then he must be good, because the Germans know a good soldier when they see him."

"He has done everything that has been required of him so far. This war with Austria will be his great test – only he doesn't regard it as a test, but as an opportunity. My father says that that is the true mark of a man's character. He says the weak man, who hasn't got it in him to succeed, thinks of a difficult thing he has to do, or to try to do, as a trial, a test, and that the big man, who is sure to amount to something, simply looks at it as a chance to show what he has in him."

"I know what you mean." Dick nodded. "My own father used to say that, too. That was the trouble with Mike Hallo, I guess. If things looked hard he was always complaining, and my father used to get pretty sore at him sometimes. My father just gritted his teeth and went to work. I remember hearing them talk about the panic a few years ago. An awful lot of business houses were smashed then, but my father pulled through, though Hallo wanted to quit. He said they would only be throwing good money after bad if they kept on."

They had been walking briskly while they talked, and it was not long before they came to the flat, marshy ground near the banks of the Danube. Here it was a sluggish, thick, yellow stream, flowing along impressively because of its bulk, but lacking every element of beauty and romance.

"This doesn't look much like the beautiful blue Danube, does it, Steve?" Dick suggested.

"No," said Steve, with a laugh. "It's not pretty – not here. There is some fine scenery between here and the coast, though, where it marks the boundary between Roumania and Bulgaria. And it's all historic. On the Bulgarian side further down, the ground is high, with a sharp ascent from the river. There was some fierce fighting in the Russo-Turkish war – the war that freed Bulgaria, you know, and really helped a lot to make Servia free, too. At one place the Russians crossed in boats and stormed the heights, with the Turks above, firing down on them."

"They must have been brave in those days!"

"The Russians? There are no braver troops in Europe – there never have been!"

"They didn't do very well against the Japanese."

"It wasn't the fault of the soldiers. Their generals were poor, and everything was badly managed. I think that if the Germans despise the Russian army they are making a great mistake. Russia learned many lessons in the war with Japan, and when she fights again, soldiers will be in command, not politicians. Here we are; this is the boat."

Dick looked curiously at the little craft. She was painted a dull, leaden grey, and he could guess that at a very short distance it would be almost impossible to detect her. In other ways, too, she was especially designed for the business she was intended for.

"Isn't she a little beauty?" said Steve, enthusiastically. "See – that's armor plate, very thin, of course, but tough and strong, that covers her entirely on the outside. Then she's decked over with armor plate, too, so that one can be inside and expose practically nothing. The engine is sheathed the same way, and all the essential working parts. She can pass through a rain of bullets without being hurt; it would take a shell to make any real impression on her, and she's so fast that it would be a hard job for a man to get her with one."

"I never saw anything like her," said Dick. "You say she's fast, too?"

"Twenty-five miles an hour easily, Dick! That's fast enough for anything she's ever likely to have to do. The Austrians have launches, armed and armored ones, but nothing that's in a class with this boat for speed and power."

"She doesn't carry any guns, though?"

"No. She's meant to run away, not to fight. There are a couple of rifles and automatic pistols and ammunition aboard, but really she is a scout, pure and simple, and she would only fight to escape. You see, with such a lot of armor plate and defensive equipment generally, they had to figure pretty carefully on weight, or they'd have lost speed. And speed's the most important thing with a boat like this. All aboard, now! We'll be off in a minute!"

Dick took his place aboard, and found that there was plenty of room under the plate of steel that covered almost the whole length of the little boat. Then Steve followed him, and in a moment the engine was purring and they were moving away.

"That's the quietest motor I ever heard in a power boat," said Dick.

"Exhaust under water and a special muffler as well," said Steve. "She'd be useless if she gave herself away when she was a mile from anyone, wouldn't she?"

"It means less speed, though."

"Yes, that's so. But it doesn't make difference enough to make up for the safety it gives. You see, we could pass within a cable length of one of those Austrian monitors now and they'd never know it. We'll have to do just about that, too, before the night's over, I'm afraid."

"Where are you going to land, Steve? In Semlin itself?"

"No. That would be too risky and there's no need for it. I'm going to keep right on up the Danube, past the mouth of the Save, and we'll land above the town and circle back. They'll keep a very sharp lookout now along the river bank in Semlin, but I don't think they'll be so careful on this side. They'll trust to their river patrol and the mines."

"You think the river will be mined?"

"Oh, surely!"

"Wouldn't it be a good thing for your side to do some mining, too?"

"It's probably been done already, especially in the Save. We have only one or two small gun-boats, which wouldn't have a chance in a fight with the Austrians on water. But I think we'll be able to make them see that it isn't any too safe for their monitors. We can't beat the Austrians by main strength, so we'll have to use all the tricks we can. I think they'll find out before very long that there are more ways of killing a dog than by shooting him."

Now they were out in midstream. Perhaps a mile above them, as they swung diagonally across the river, an Austrian monitor, painted a dun color so that she was almost the hue of the river, was swinging at anchor, squat and ugly, but menacing and business-like in her appearance, too. Steve did not lay his course up the middle of the broad stream, however. Instead, he slipped well over to the east bank, and began moving swiftly upstream when he was under the shadow of the eastern bank, here rising fairly well.

If anyone on the monitor observed them there was no sign of it. They passed her, and another of the same type. On the Hungarian shore, above them, occasionally they could hear the calling of sentries. The Austrians were guarding the river carefully, and Steve chuckled a little as he heard these evidences of careful watching. Then they passed the mouth of the Save, and were wholly in Austrian or, rather, Hungarian territory. For now the bank on both sides was part of the Dual Monarchy.

At the confluence of the two rivers a blaze of light swept the water constantly, but there was still dense shadow under the eastern bank of the Danube, for the chief concern of the Austrians seemed to be for a dash of some sort down the Save. Danger from the other direction seemed not to be thought of at all.

Once past that pool of light, it was a matter of ten minutes of fast running. Then Steve swerved sharply and cut across the river, to run into a little, sheltered inlet, and under a door that was raised at a blast from a peculiar compressed air whistle. They were in a small boathouse – a perfect concealment for the little motor boat. The house was built right over the water, and there was no danger now that prowlers would find her.

Inside, as the boat glided under the door, which slipped down into place beside her, was a man in Austrian uniform, a fact that startled Dick tremendously at first. Steve noticed this, and grinned.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "This man is a good Serb, though he is not a Servian. He is one of us, but he is an Austrian subject, and forced to serve in their army – which he does willingly enough, since he can help us greatly by doing so. There are many such Serbs in Austrian uniform to-day, but most of them will be sent to other parts of the theatre of war, if Austria has brought on a general war."

The soldier had a boat hook out, and now he drew them to a landing stage and made the boat fast as they leaped out.

Steve indulged in a low-toned conversation with the Austrian, and frowned. Then he turned to Dick.

"Dick, I don't like to ask you to do this," he said, "but will you stay here alone for a few minutes? I find I have to join a secret meeting. They don't know about you yet, and it is absolutely forbidden to introduce a stranger at such a meeting without notice. You understand? I'll be back soon."

"Go ahead!" said Dick. "I don't mind staying here a bit, Steve, and I see how it is, of course. You can't help it."

"I thought you'd say that," said Steve, greatly relieved. "All right! I'll be back just as soon as I can, and it certainly won't be long."

Then Steve and the soldier went out. For a few moments there was silence. And then a closet door opened, and Dick, paralyzed with fear and dismay, saw a face emerge – the face of Mike Hallo!

CHAPTER X
A DARING DECISION

"Where is Milikoff?" Steve Dushan asked the soldier, as soon as they were outside. They had left the boathouse, of course, by the land side, and moved swiftly away from the water side.

"He is at the house by the pond," answered the soldier. "The others were there too, ten minutes ago. But since then anything may have happened!"

"Yes," said Stepan, grimly. "It was stupid work – letting Hallo get away, when once they had him in their grip! Still, there is no use in crying over spilt milk. We must get him back, that is all. He knows the thing that we have got to learn, and I think we shall be able to persuade him to share his knowledge with us!"

"No doubt," said the soldier, shrugging his shoulders. "The man who plays with both sides is always weak. It is always a dangerous thing to run with the hare and ride with the hounds!"

The country hereabout was flat and waste, low-lying marsh lands, with here and there a pond coming close to the road. Beside one of these ponds, which, at a guess, might be useful in winter for the ice it would carry, stood a small house, from one window of which a light showed.

"Wait for me here," said Steve to the soldier, and went inside. He gained admittance by a peculiar knock, and the door was opened for him at once by a man in the garb of a priest. Stepan laughed at himself for starting back.

"Aha, you didn't know me!" said the priest, with a merry laugh. "Now I know that this is a good disguise!"

"Yes, it's a good one, Milikoff," said Stepan. "But what is this about Hallo? Did you actually let him escape after holding him here?"

"Yes," growled Milikoff, all his pleasure in the excellence of his disguise vanishing. "He has been here fifty times before; that was the chance we took, since we had to meet him somewhere. He came alone to-night, and we were able to seize him very easily. And then, just as I saw that it was nearly time for you to come, he had gone!"

"How did he get away?"

"He fooled us all by showing something none of us thought he had – a little courage! He dropped from the window above. That was how we knew he was gone, for he broke a pane of glass in one of the greenhouse beds as he dropped. We rushed out – "

"You were so near as that, and still he got away?" said Stepan, with a groan.

"Oh, we were out after him at once!" said Milikoff. "He ran toward the river, and we were after him. We drove him in. We have that much consolation, Stepan – we drove him into the water, and though we watched a long time for him to come up, there was no sign of him. I think he drowned like the rat he was!"

"You think so, and it does seem probable. But we can't be sure! And, even so, he is worth more to us alive than dead. For the time, at least. He is a wretched traitor – treacherous to both sides. I wouldn't mind his death, because he has sent hundreds of men better than himself to death of late. But I wish we had been able to hold him and use him. He would have been afraid of us, I think, when he discovered how much we knew!"

"It would have been enough for him to see you, Stepan, and know that you were one of us, I think. He would have guessed very quickly what you were doing during all those weeks when you were so close to him. That is what has saved us. If it had not been for you we would have trusted him, I think, with his tale of how the Austrian government had wronged him, and his pretence that he was one of a group that wanted a free and independent Hungary!"

Stepan was thinking hard.

"Where are the others?" he asked.

"They are busy in the town. We are almost ready to blow up the arsenal, and perhaps we shall be able to finish the tunnel and plant the mine to-night."

"That will be good," Stepan nodded, "unless Hallo has warned them. It was he who gave us the information as to just where we should have to place the mine, and he must have guessed what use we would make of it."

"Perhaps so. But they have not moved any of the stores. If we can explode our mine, we shall strike a good blow for Servia."

"We may say that without boasting, Milikoff. The reserve ammunition for two corps is here. They have been careless because they did not expect anything like a general engagement for some time, especially when the government moved to Nish. But I am uneasy still about Hallo."

"I think you need not be, Stepan. I tell you we were right on his heels, and there was no way for him to escape. He went into the water beyond a doubt, and I do not believe that he was strong enough to swim the Danube. Besides, we would have seen him had he done that, and shot him."

"I don't think he swam the Danube, I'm quite sure he could not have managed that. What I am afraid of is that he doubled on his tracks in some fashion and got ashore."

"But that was even more impossible, I tell you! We expected him to try to do that, and we watched out especially to make it too hard for him to do it, even though he is as slippery as an eel."

"And still I should like to make sure, I think. I shall have to go into Semlin."

"To look for him? It will be risky."

"Perhaps, but it can't be helped. I doubt if it will be so risky, though. I'm not sure that even Hallo suspects yet that I was more than I seemed."

"Wouldn't your sudden disappearance just at this critical time give it away to him?"

"I don't think so, because I was very careful to arrange a good excuse. I have talked for two or three weeks of the illness of my uncle in Buda-Pesth, and have said that if he became worse perhaps I might have to go home very suddenly. And I left a note in the office when I came out yesterday, because I was sure I would not be back, saying I had been called away. I didn't say I was going to Buda-Pesth – just that I was called away."

"Well, if no one else had any reason to suspect you, you will be safe enough, for you won't see Hallo."

"I am going, anyhow. But first, Milikoff – you are to stay here, I suppose?"

"Yes, until daybreak, at least."

"Good! I left a friend at the boathouse – an American, but one who is with us, heart and soul, and has proved it at the risk of his life already. I want him to come here and wait for me."

"You are sure he is all right? We have to be careful, Stepan."

"If you can trust me, you can trust Dick Warner," said Stepan.

"That is enough. Let him come!"

"Right! I will send Vanya."

He stepped to the door and called to the Serb in the Austrian uniform, who was waiting outside.

"Vanya," he said, "will you go back to the boathouse and return with the friend I left there? Tell him that I want him to come, and show him the way."

"At once," said the soldier, and was off.

Stepan returned and found Milikoff studying some papers.

"You had better keep a guard at the boathouse when you have a man to send there," suggested Stepan. "Vanya will be on duty before long, I suppose?"

"Yes. We shall not be able to use him again. Not at once, at least. I am surprised that we have had the chance to use him at all. But, as a matter of fact, two Serbo-Croatian regiments are here, or near here."

"The Austrians are in a tight place," said Stepan, with a laugh. "They know that they may have to fight Italy, and so they are sending the Italian troops from the Trentino and Trieste to the Galician frontier, to fight the Russians. And they have to use every regiment. They might as well keep their Serbs and Croats here – they will fight as readily against Servia as against Russia. If they could spare first line troops for garrison work and for watching the Italian border, they might manage. But they cannot. That duty they must leave to the reserves and the old men. I believe their plan is to surround the troops that may be disaffected with Hungarians and true Austrians who can be depended upon absolutely."

"They can depend upon their Hungarian levies now," said Milikoff. "But for how long will that be true? If a few battles are lost, if Russian troops pour through the passes of the Carpathians and the Cossacks come within sight of Buda-Pesth? After all, Hungary is an independent kingdom, and a part of the Austrian empire only of her own free will. Her army is her own, and she has her own parliament and her own ministers. There is no reason why she should not have a king of her own again when she chooses. We may see the rise of another Kossuth, who would force Hungary to make peace with Russia and with Servia. At least you may live to see it."

"Do you really think so?" asked Stepan, eagerly. "That would be glorious! Oh, we are lucky, after all, Milikoff, we Servians! Our country may be small, but it is our own. We do not have to rule a score of different subject races. All those who live under our flag do so willingly. We do not have to drive our soldiers into the ranks with whips and threats of shooting."

"No! And after this war, if God is still with us, as he has been, our brothers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Albania, too, will come under our flag. The old Serb kingdom will be fully restored. Montenegro will join us, and we shall have borders that are made by the limits of the Serb race."

"There has been talk of annexing part of Hungary when we win," said Stepan.

"Slavonia we can take, because it is peopled by our kin, Stepan. But we want no Magyars under our rule. Let them keep their country. Or else we should face the troubles we have brought upon them."

Stepan looked at his watch and tossed his head impatiently.

"Time for me to be off," he said. "Why are they so long? I want to see Dick before I go, but I can't wait much longer – "

He was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Vanya, the soldier who had gone to fetch Dick.

"He is not there!" he cried. "The boathouse is empty – except for the boat in which you came!"

Stepan and Milikoff stared at one another, aghast.

"This is Hallo's work!" said Stepan, furiously. "He has a grudge against this friend of mine! Ah, I see it all now, Milikoff – how he escaped! He went into the water – you are right! But tell me, now – was it near the boathouse?"

"Yes, now that I remember, it was."

"Then can't you see what happened? He dived and swam under the door. It would be easy enough for anyone who could swim at all well and knew the ground. Heavens, he must have been in there when we first came in with the boat!"

And now their dismay knew no bounds. Milikoff saw that Stepan was right; it was exactly what must have happened.

"I'm a dolt – a fool!" he cried, bitterly. "That I never thought to search the boathouse!"

"Who would have thought?" said Stepan. "But it is no time to think of what is done and can't be undone. Now, more than ever, I must go after him. I have to try to save my friend, and it is doubly imperative now that we should catch Hallo."

"Let me come with you!"

"No. Your work is too important for you to take risks. I will go alone."