Remembering that they had crossed the Meuse the night before, Kenneth steered to the left until he sighted the river, then deflected southward, and followed its course, keeping on the side of the left bank.
There was no means of telling at what point he would cross the northern frontier of Belgium. Ascending to a great height, in order to escape shots from either Belgian or Dutch frontier guards, he soon discovered a town of some size extended on both banks of the river. This could only be Maestricht. Within twenty minutes of passing this he came in sight of a much more considerable town through which the river flowed spanned by several bridges.
"Better land now," shouted Granger, "or they'll be taking shots at us from the forts. This is Liége."
Almost before he had finished speaking the monoplane began to rock like a ship at sea, and Kenneth had to exert his utmost skill to preserve its equilibrium. A shell had burst a few hundred yards below them. Some seconds later they heard the dull thunder of the gun's discharge. Clearly it was no longer safe to continue the southward course. Kenneth swerved to the right, and making a steep vol plane, swooped into the cornfield of a farmhouse close by the high road.
The people of the farm, at the sight of the German uniforms, fled precipitately for shelter. Already "the terror of the German name" had become a by-word in the countryside.
"We are in hot water, I'm afraid," said Granger. "Strip off your coat; you're all right underneath."
Kenneth had hardly taken off his coat and helmet when there was a sound of galloping horses. A dozen Belgian mounted infantrymen dashed up the road, leapt the low wall of the farm steading, and shouted to them to surrender. Granger whipped out his pocket handkerchief and waved it in the air. The Belgians dismounted, and part of them advanced, the lieutenant at their head with revolver pointed, the men covering the fugitives with their rifles.
"You are our prisoners," said the officer in bad German.
"Charmed, my dear sir," replied Granger in excellent French. "Contrary to appearances, we are not Germans, but Englishmen."
"Ah bah!" snorted the lieutenant. "You wear German uniforms."
"L'habit ne fait pas le moine," said Granger with a smile. "The fact is as I state it: we are Englishmen who have escaped from Cologne."
"The aeroplane is German," the officer persisted.
"We commandeered it, there being no English machine available. Unluckily we have no papers on us to prove our nationality; they were taken from us by the Germans who arrested us as spies."
"Bah!" said the lieutenant again. That two Englishmen arrested as spies should have been able to escape on a German monoplane laid too great a strain upon his imagination. "You are my prisoners. Hand over your arms."
Granger at once gave up the revolver, and Kenneth allowed himself to be searched. The officer rummaged the aeroplane for plans and other incriminating documents, then ordered two of his men to mount guard over it, and marched the prisoners through the farmyard to the road, under the gratified glances of the farm people at their windows. Kenneth carried his policeman's uniform.
After walking about a mile, they came to a regiment encamped in a field beside the road. The lieutenant led his prisoners to the commanding officer, and explained the circumstances of their capture.
"You say you are English?" he said, scanning the two men.
"I assure you that is the truth," replied Granger. "We were both arrested as spies in Cologne, but by an ingenious stratagem of my friend here we obtained possession of a German aeroplane, and are delighted to find ourselves in Belgian territory, among a friendly people."
"You speak very good French."
"Which is not to our discredit, I hope," said Granger with a smile.
The Colonel was plainly even more incredulous than his subordinate. A man who spoke such good French must be a German spy! He took up the receiver of a field telephone. Ascertaining that an aide de camp was at the other end of the wire he said:
"Two men, one in police, the other in military uniform, German, have landed from a Taube monoplane west of Liers. They say they are English, but they are clearly German spies. I await orders."
The prisoners, who had heard all, watched his face grimly set as he held the receiver to his ear.
"It's extraordinary, the persistence of a fixed idea," said Granger in a low tone to Kenneth. "If he heard us speaking English I suppose he would take it as a clinching proof that we are Germans! The uniforms, our salvation in Cologne, are here our damnation."
"They'll send us to the General, won't they? He won't be such an ass."
"We shall see."
A few minutes passed. Then the look of blank expectancy on the Colonel's face gave way to a look of satisfaction. He laid down the receiver.
"Shoot them!" he said laconically, turning to the lieutenant.
Granger smiled at Kenneth, whose cheeks had gone red with indignation rather than pale from fear.
"What rot!" said the boy.
"I said I should die in my boots," remarked Granger. "My fate has been hanging over me these ten years. But there's a chance for you. Why not tell them about the bridge?"
"They'd only think I was funking, and wouldn't believe me. I won't do it."
They were led away towards a clump of trees on the outskirts of the camp. The lieutenant was selecting his firing party. A crowd of troopers, some in uniform, others in their shirt sleeves, came flocking around. One or two officers moved more leisurely towards the scene. Suddenly one of these started, and hurried forward with an exclamation of surprise.
"Mon Dieu, it's you, Ken!" he cried, seizing Kenneth's hand.
"Hullo, Remi," said Kenneth, his face lighting up. "Just tell your colonel I'm not a German, will you?"
"Of course I will. And your friend?"
"As English as I am. This is my pal, Remi Pariset," he said to Granger.
"I am delighted to meet you," said Granger, bowing, "even though our acquaintance should prove of the shortest."
Pariset, asking his fellow lieutenant to delay, ran to the Colonel, and returned immediately with him.
"I beg a thousand pardons, gentlemen," said the Colonel. "I am desolated at the injustice I have unwittingly done you. Pray accept my apologies."
"Not at all, Colonel," said Granger. "Appearances were against us. You were quite justified in your suspicions; it was our misfortune that we couldn't change our dress on the way.... I've had many a close shave," he added in an undertone to Kenneth, "but was never quite so near my quietus."
"I was feeling rather rummy," Kenneth confessed: "a queer feeling, not exactly fear; a sort of emptiness."
When the troopers learnt the truth, they broke into cries of "Vivent les Anglais! Vive l'Angleterre!" and the prisoners found themselves the idols of the camp. They were invited to join the officers at lunch, and ate with good appetites, having had no food but rye bread and beer since the previous midday. The officers drank their health with hilarity when Granger had related the trick by means of which they had escaped from Cologne, and Kenneth was toasted with embarrassing fervour.
"The bridge! That will be a clincher," whispered Granger in his ear.
Kenneth's French was not so good as his German, but he managed, even though haltingly, to convey to his interested auditors the gist of the scheme he had overheard. The officers were much concerned. None of them was able to identify the place from the bare description which was all that Kenneth could give them. The bridge was clearly not in the line of the Germans' probable advance; its destruction could only be meant to assist them. But the clues, slight though they were, must be followed up, and the Colonel declared that he would communicate with headquarters about the matter.
After lunch he took Kenneth aside.
"I gather that you have not known your companion long?" he said.
"That is true," replied Kenneth. "I met him for the first time yesterday."
"You will pardon me, I am sure. Lieutenant Pariset's voucher for you is sufficient; but in such times as these I should not be doing my duty if I allowed Mr. Granger to be at large without enquiry. Will you explain that to him, and ask him to give me a reference to a British authority?"
"Certainly. I am sure you will find things all right."
"The dear man!" laughed Granger when Kenneth told him this. "He needn't have been so careful of my feelings as to ask you to break it to me. I've no doubt I can satisfy him."
He mentioned the name of an official high in the British Foreign Office.
"A telegram to that address will bring me a character," he said. "Meanwhile I am out of work, and a sort of prisoner on parole. I am sorry, because I fear it means that we shall be separated for a time. You, I suppose, will want to be up and doing."
"Yes. I've talked things over with Pariset, and he wants me to go with him in his aeroplane in search of that bridge. But we'll meet again before long. I'm jolly glad we came across each other."
They shook hands cordially and parted.
Meanwhile Lieutenant Pariset had been in consultation with the commander of the Belgian Flying Corps. It had been decided that Pariset, accompanied by Kenneth, should make a reconnaissance in his aeroplane along the railway lines with a view to discover the bridge that was threatened. The German monoplane, though faster than his own, was discarded: it would certainly have been fired upon as it crossed the Belgian lines. There was no clue as to the direction in which the bridge lay, whether north, east, south or west of Liége. But it seemed certain that the Germans would not wish to blow up any bridges on the east. They would rather preserve them, in order to facilitate their advance. It was more probable that the bridge in question was on a section of the railway by which reinforcements, either French or Belgian, might be despatched to Liége. It was therefore decided to scout to the west and south.
Early in the afternoon Pariset and Kenneth started, working towards Brussels by way of Tirlemont and Louvain. Kenneth had been provided with field-glasses, through which he closely scanned every bridge and culvert, while Pariset piloted the machine. Flying low, they were able to examine the line thoroughly. All that Kenneth had to guide him was the knowledge that the bridge was near a mill. There was a tunnel between them. It was therefore pretty clear that the bridge and the mill could not be far apart.
They flew over the main line as far as Brussels without discovering any bridge that fulfilled the conditions. Then they retraced their course and scouted along the branch lines running south from Louvain, Tirlemont and Landen respectively. Within a few hours they had examined the whole triangular district that had Brussels, Liége, and Namur at its angles. At Namur they descended for a short rest, then set off again, to try their luck on the lines running from the French frontier.
Both felt somewhat discouraged. To trace the many hundreds of miles of railway that crossed the country between the Meuse and the Somme promised to be work for a week. Indeed, it was getting dark by the time they had run through the coal-mining and manufacturing district between Mons and Valenciennes. Alighting at the latter place, they heard that great numbers of German troops had already crossed the Belgian frontier, and the forts of Liége were being attacked. There was much excitement in the town, and Pariset had some difficulty in getting petrol to replenish his tanks.
Next morning they set off early along the line running eastward through Maubeuge to Charleroi. It seemed unlikely that they would find the spot they sought in the midst of a manufacturing district, but if they were to succeed, nothing must be left untried.
Towards ten o'clock they were crossing a stream to the south-east of Charleroi when Kenneth suddenly gave a shout. He had noticed on the stream a water-mill, between which and a larger river, apparently the Sambre, the railway crossed the stream on a brick bridge of four arches. The mill was at least two hundred yards from the bridge, a distance that seemed too great to have been tunnelled; but it was the first spot he had seen that in any way conformed to the particulars he had overheard, and it appeared worth while to examine the place more closely.
The importance of the bridge was obvious. Its destruction would seriously delay the transport of any French troops that might be sent northwards to support Namur or Liége, and correspondingly assist the Germans in an attempt to take either of those towns by a coup de main.
At Kenneth's shout Pariset turned his head, understood that some discovery had been made, and nodded. He did not at once prepare to alight. If Germans were in possession of the mill they would notice the sudden cessation of the noise of the propeller, which they must have heard, and might take warning from the descent of the aeroplane in their neighbourhood. Luckily he had been flying low, so that the course of the machine could not be followed for any considerable distance. Having run out of sight beyond a wood, he selected an open field for his descent, and alighted a few hundred yards from a farmhouse.
"Have you found it?" asked Pariset eagerly.
"I saw a mill and a railway bridge," replied Kenneth; "but we were going too fast for me to be sure it's the right place."
"Well, we shall have to find that out. We'll get the farmer to help us run the machine into his yard, and then reconnoitre."
The farmer and a group of his men were already hurrying towards them. In a few words Pariset enlisted their help. The aeroplane was run into the yard, and placed behind a row of ricks that concealed it from the outside.
"We should like some bread and cheese and beer," Pariset said to the farmer. "May we come in?"
"Surely, monsieur," was the reply. "Come in and welcome. Ah! these are terrible times. I don't know how long I shall have a roof over my head. But they say the English are coming to help us. Is that true?"
"Quite true. My friend here is an Englishman."
"Thank God! Oh! les braves Anglais! All will be well now. Come in, messieurs; you shall have the best I can give you."