August was drawing to its close. And still Henri and Frank were in Paris. Henri's father and his uncle had gone to the front; Frank's Uncle Dick, if he had tried to reach Paris or St. Denis, had not succeeded. Or if he had, he had been unable to get word to Frank. War in all its terrible reality was in full blast. Troops were passing through Paris still, going to the front. But they were older men now, the last classes of the reservists. Every night, too, the city was dark save for the searchlights that played incessantly from the high buildings and from the Eiffel Tower. For now there was a new menace. The Germans fought not on land alone, but in the air. At any time a German might appear, thousands of feet above the city, prepared to rain down death and destruction from the clouds.
Paris was quiet and resigned. Wounded men were coming back; hospitals, from which floated the Red Cross flag, were everywhere. The hotels were sheltering the wounded; churches, theatres, all sorts of buildings not commonly so used were in the hands of the doctors and the nurses. There were few newspapers; there was neither paper on which to print them, nor men to run the great presses or write what they usually contained. All were gone; all except the old and the children. Hundreds of thousands of men were still in Paris, but they were the garrison of the city, the men who would man the forts if the Germans came.
And now, to get the news, Harry and Frank went to the places where the bulletins were posted, becoming a part of the silent crowds that waited. Every day they took their places in the crowds, to learn what they could and carry the tale back to Madame Martin. She was too busy to stand among the crowds herself; every day she was doing her part, helping in the nursing, and helping, too, to relieve the distress among the poor.
One day the two friends turned away. They had seen the last bulletin; for some hours there would be no more news.
"I'm afraid it's not going well, Harry," said Frank.
"No," said Henri, almost with a sob in his voice. "It looks to me, too, as if the Germans were winning!"
"But many thought they would win, at first," said Frank. "It's not time to be discouraged yet, Harry. At first we all believed the Belgians were doing better than they could do—because they fought so well at Liege. Now Namur has fallen. And the English—they are falling back."
"Ah, well, that is so," said Henri, brightening a little. "We did not expect to fight in Belgium, we French. Wait till they try to enter France! We will stop them—at Lille, at Maubeuge, at Valenciennes!"
"I hope so, Harry," said Frank, soberly. "But do you know what I think? I believe we ought to go to your home at Amiens. I think you have been waiting here on my account—because you thought my uncle was coming. Well, I think he couldn't come. I am better off with you. And perhaps I can help, too. I think you should go to your mother, if she is alone at Amiens, because—"
Henri turned on him fiercely.
"Do you mean you think the Germans can get to Amiens?" he cried furiously. "Never! Never! They will never come so far! They will be stopped long before they get near it!"
"I think so—and I hope so," said Frank. "But if my mother were there I should want to be there, too. I've read a great deal about war and battles lately, Harry, and I know that often an army has to retreat, not just because it's beaten, but because it's necessary for battles that are planned later on. The English and the French toward the coast are retreating now—on the left of the allies. They are moving back toward Amiens, and the Germans are following them."
Henri continued to argue bitterly against the possibility that Frank suggested, but his arguments grew weaker. And when he told his aunt what Frank had said she sighed despairingly.
"I, too, have been thinking that," she said. "These are terrible times for our poor France. We shall win—everyone believes that. But we shall suffer greatly first. I have talked with General Broche—you know him, Henri. He is too old and weak to fight now, but he was active in 1870. And he says—he says that the government may move soon, away from Paris!"
"Then they think—!" cried Henri, almost overcome.
"They do not know—no one knows. But if there is to be another siege, it is better that the government should be where the Germans cannot bottle it up. I shall stay here, but I shall be safe. There are plenty to do what I need. Go to Amiens, Henri. Your place is near your mother. If there seems to be danger, beg her to come here, or even to go to her friends, the Douays, in Nice. There at least all will be safe."
Henri did not argue with his aunt. It was hard for him to realize the truth, as it was for Frenchmen older than himself. But he admitted it to Frank and even to himself, that night. And so the next morning they started for Amiens. An officer, returning to the front after bringing despatches to Paris, agreed to see that they reached the northern city safely. Without him, indeed, they would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to get aboard a train, for while other railways were open those that led to the front were entirely in the hands of the military authorities.
But thanks to the friendly officer, a friend of the Martin family in Paris, they reached Amiens quickly enough. On the way, more than once they passed long trains carrying wounded, and, several times, other trains on which were packed German prisoners. These, under close guard, looked out sullenly from the windows. The sight delighted Henri.
"That doesn't look much as if we were losing, does it?" he cried happily.
Amiens itself was a smaller Paris. In times of peace, Amiens is, like many other French cities, a curious place, owing to the contrast between its character as a busy, bustling, manufacturing town, and its other character as a place where there are many renowned examples of ancient art. But now it was quiet save for the ever present soldier. Troops were passing through the streets; in the station several hundred were entraining.
"Do soldiers go from here, too?" asked Frank.
"Yes. Amiens is the headquarters of the second army corps," explained Harry. "All the reservists of that corps report here, no matter where they live. When a regiment loses a lot of men, if it is in the second corps, new men from here go forward to fill their places. There is no sign of the Prussians, eh?"
"No," said Frank. "I hope there never will be! But, tell me, would they fight here? Are there fortifications?"
"Not new ones—no," said Harry. He pointed to the old citadel crowning one of the hills that commanded the town and the crooked, twisting course of the Somme river. "There is the old citadel. That still stands. But the ancient battlements have been dismantled. I believe that in time of war, if the enemy got past the troops in the field, they could come peacefully into Amiens. It is not a fortress, like Lille or Maubeuge. Oh, look, there are some of the scouts! I see Monsieur Marron. He is the directeur of the troop—the scoutmaster. Let us speak to him."
They went over to a tall man in khaki, who was speaking to an officer in the red and blue uniform of the French army. Henri saluted, and when the officer went away, the scoutmaster turned to him with a smile.
"Well—so you are here, Martin," he said. "Are you going to join? We will waive formalities—we need all the scouts we can get."
"Yes, sir, and I have brought a recruit. He is half French—the rest of him is American. But he wants to join, too. May he?"
"Certainly," said the scoutmaster. "Report to-night or in the morning. Get your uniforms. Who is your recruit?"
Frank was introduced, and the tall Frenchman shook hands with him.
"You will be welcome," he said. "My boys are at work, you see. They are serving as messengers. There has been plenty for us to do in these days, too. Pray God there may not be more—and of a less pleasant sort."
Frank observed the French scouts with interest. They were in khaki uniforms, with wool stockings, and short trousers that stopped just above the knee, and the soft campaign hats made famous by the pioneer scouts in England. Indeed, they looked like the English and American scouts in many respects.
"One moment," said Marron, checked by a sudden thought. "You speak French well?" He asked the question of Frank, who smiled.
"Yes, sir," he said, in French. "My mother was French, you see."
"That is very good," said the scoutmaster. "Never fear, I shall be able to keep you busy as long as I am here. Soon, I hope, they will let me go to the front, where I should be right now."
"I thought you would have gone, sir," said Henri.
"They wanted me to stay with my boys at the first," said Marron, with a shrug of his shoulders. "But they can do their work alone now, and there is no fear that they will not do it well."
Then Frank and Henri went off, on their way to Henri's house.
"So we have come to Amiens after all and we are to join the Boy Scouts, just as we planned that day when I said there would be no war this year!"
"Yes—but it's different, isn't it, Henri?"
"Yes, and we can be of some real use now."
"I am glad that we are here, aren't you? When we get our uniforms and go to work, I shall feel that we are really being used in the war. I—I'm an American, of course, but I've hated the idea that I was so close to this war and wasn't having anything to do with it."
"And I—I have been wishing, Frank, that they might have waited until I was old enough to fight for France!"