"This does not yet mean war!"
So M. Donnet had cried, in a final word of warning, meaning, if possible, to do his part in the government's plan, still in force, of restraining the passions of the French people. No. It did not mean war. Not quite. But it meant that war was inevitable; that within a few hours, at the most, mobilization would be ordered. This was on Saturday. And that evening Germany declared war on Russia. Within an hour posters were everywhere. The general mobilization had been ordered.
The teachers in that school were young men. On the word they went. Each knew what he had to do. Each had his little book of instructions. He needed no orders. The mere fact that mobilization had been ordered was all he needed to know. He knew already where he must report, where his uniform and his equipment would be given to him, and which regiment he was to join. He was a soldier by virtue of the three years, or the two, he had spent already with the colors. He did not have to be drilled; all that had been done. He knew how to shoot, how to live in camp, how to march. If he was a cavalryman, he knew how to ride; if an artilleryman, how to handle the big guns.
And as with the teachers, so it was with the other men about the school,—the gardeners, the servants, all of them. Within an hour of the time when the order was issued, they were on their way and the school was deserted, save for boys and one or two old men, who bewailed the fact that they were too old to fight. In the streets St. Denis looked like a deserted village. All the young men were going.
Swiftly preparations were made to close the school. Madame Donnet, left in charge when her husband went, called the boys together.
"You must get home," she said. "Here you cannot stay. There will be no way to care for you. And soon, too, the school will be used as a hospital. So it was in 1870. I shall stay, and I shall prepare for what is to come. M. Donnet telegraphed yesterday to all the parents, bidding them be ready for what has come. I will give money for traveling expenses. And in happier times we shall meet again."
Save for the friendly offer Henri had already made, Frank Barnes might well have been in a sorry plight. And, indeed, he offered now to let his chum withdraw his invitation.
"I have plenty of money, Harry," he said. "And if I go into Paris, to the American ambassador, or the consul, he will see that I am all right until my uncle comes. Your family won't want a guest now."
But Harry wouldn't hear of this.
"Now more than ever!" he said. "It will be different. True—not as we had planned it before this came. But you shall come, and perhaps we shall be able to do something for France with the Boy Scouts. We shall see. But this much is certain—I think we shall not be able to go to Amiens at once. Amiens is in the north—it is that way that the soldiers must go, soldiers from Paris, from Tours, from Orleans, from all the south. It is from the north that the Germans will come. Perhaps they will try to come through Belgium. So, until the troops have finished with the railways, we must wait. We will go to my aunt in Paris."
And go they did to Madame Martin, Henri's aunt, who lived in a street between the Champs Elysees and the Avenue de l'Alma, not far from the famous arch of triumph that is the centre of Paris. At the station in St. Denis, where they went from the school, they found activity enough to make up, and more than make up, for the silence and stillness everywhere else. The station was choked with soldiers, reservists preparing to report on the next day, the first of actual mobilization. Women were there, mothers, wives, sweethearts, to bid good-bye to these young Frenchmen they might never see again because of war.
And there was no room on the trains to Paris for any save soldiers. The gates of the station were barred to all others, and Frank and Harry went back to the school.
"I know what we can do, of course," said Harry. "It isn't very far. We'll leave our bags here at the school, and make packs of the things we need. And then we'll ride in on our bicycles. We were stupid not to think of that before."
That plan they found it easy to put into execution. They had meant to abandon their bicycles for the time being, at least, but now they realized what a mistake it would have been to do that, since with every normal activity cut off by the war, the machines were almost certain to be their only means of getting from one place to another, in the beginning at least.
Mounted on their bicycles, they now found their progress easy. The roads that led into Paris were crowded, to be sure. They passed countless automobiles carrying refugees. Already the Americans were pouring out of Paris in their frantic haste to reach the coast and so take boat to England. On Saturday night automobiles were still allowed to leave Paris. Next morning there would be a different story to tell.
In Paris, when they began to enter the more crowded sections, they saw the same scenes as had greeted them in St. Denis, only on a vastly larger scale. Everywhere farewells were being said. Men in uniforms were all about. Officers, as soon as they were seen, were hailed by the drivers of taxicabs, who refused even to think of carrying a civilian passenger if an officer wanted to get anywhere, or, if there were no officers, a private soldier. The streets were crowded, however, and with men. Here there were thousands, of course, not required to report at once.
"When mobilization is ordered," explained Henri, "each man in France has a certain day on which he is to report at his depot. It may be the first day, the third, the fifth, the tenth. If all came at once it would mean too much confusion. As it is, everything is done quickly and in order."
"It doesn't look it," was Frank's comment.
"No," said his chum, with a laugh. "That's true. But it's so, just the same. Every man you see knows just when he is to go, and when the time comes, off he will go. Why, even in your America, now, all the Frenchmen who have gone there are trying to get back. I know. They will be here as soon as the ships can bring them. They will report to the consul first—he will tell them what to do."
They made slow progress through the crowded streets. Already, however, there was a difference in the sort of crowding. There were fewer taxicabs, very many fewer. And there were no motor omnibuses at all.
"What has become of them?" asked Frank. "Aren't there men enough to run them?"
"Yes, and they are running them," said Henri, dryly. "But not in Paris. They are on their way to the border, perhaps. Wherever they are, they are carrying soldiers or supplies. The government has always the right to take them all. Even at the time of the manoeuvres, some are taken, though not all. It is the same with the automobiles. In a few days there will be none left—the army will have them all. Officers need them to get around quickly. Generals cannot ride now—it is too slow to use a horse. You have heard of Leon Bollet?"
"No. Who is he?"
"He is a famous automobile driver in races. He has won the Grand Prix. He will drive a general. He is a soldier, like all Frenchmen, and that will be his task—to drive some great general wherever he wants to go."
That was how the meaning of mobilization really came home to Frank, who learned more from the things he missed that he was accustomed to seeing than from new sights. In the boulevards, for instance, where as a rule the little tables in front of the cafes would be crowded, all the tables had vanished. That was a result of what was happening. Everything brought the fact of war home to him. To him it was even more vivid perhaps than to Henri, who had been brought up to know that some time all this would come about, and saw little that he had not been sure, some time, of seeing.
The crowds delayed them. Sometimes they had to dismount from their wheels and walk for a space, but in the end they came to their destination. Madame Martin, Henri's aunt, greeted him with delight.
"We were thinking of you, Henri!" she said. "Your uncle said to me only to-night, when we heard of the mobilization: 'And what of Henri? He cannot go home yet.' I knew you would come to us! And you have brought a friend? That is very well."
"Oh—an American!" she exclaimed, a moment later. "You have done well, my nephew."
"I'm half French," said Frank. Somehow he was beginning to feel very proud of that. These last few hours, that had shown him how France rallied in the face of a terrible and pressing danger had made it easier for him to understand his mother's love of her own land. He was still an American above all; that he would always be. But there was French blood in his veins after all, and blood is something that is and always must be thicker than water.
So he had to explain himself, and when he spoke of the uncle who was to come for him Madame Martin looked concerned.
"I am glad that you are here," she said, simply. "It may be hard for him to get here. But we can look after you until he comes. There is room enough—and, ma foi, you shall have all that we have!"