Across the Frontier

A train steamed slowly into Storbach station. The stationmaster and a host of officials crossed the platform and prepared to search and interrogate the passengers with that thoroughness and also with that lack of courtesy and consideration which seem peculiarly Prussian.

The engine-driver and his fireman, momentarily released from toil, crossed to the near side of their engine, leaned over the rail, and prepared to enjoy the proceedings. The platform was well lighted, but beyond was a wall of darkness into which the eye could not penetrate more than a yard or two. Suddenly, out of this obscurity, three men appeared. Swiftly they crossed the platform, and, without a moment's hesitation, sprang upon the engine.

"See this?" growled one of them—it was Peck—levelling his bayonet at the engine-driver who had shrunk back into the cab. "You do? Well, then, keep quiet or you'll feel it—sharp. We're desp'rit men, we are, and that's all about it."

The engine-driver understood well enough, and the fireman, who had been similarly cornered by another of the trio, seemed to understand equally well that the first doubtful movement on his part would be his last. Full possession having thus been obtained, the three new-comers gave an eye to what was happening on the platform.

Events there were sufficiently exciting. From all sides armed men of a particularly wild-looking variety had suddenly invaded the platform. One group had promptly seized the telegraph office and seen to it that no messages appealing for help should be sent along the wires in either direction. In fact they went a step further, and put the instrument out of action so thoroughly that all risk from this source was at an end for a long time to come.

The main body as promptly attacked the guard of soldiers in charge of the station and overwhelmed them utterly at the first onrush. German Landsturm and Landwehr troops were as children in the hands of these veteran British and French soldiers, and complete victory was won at the cost of two men slightly wounded only. Then came the turn of the astonished officials, railway porters, and the few passengers waiting to enter the train. These surrendered with commendable promptitude, and, dumbfounded with amazement, were shepherded into one of the waiting-rooms and locked securely in.

The passengers on the train were ordered out on to the platform, ushered into another waiting-room, and there similarly secured. All was now ready, and Max gave the signal for the men who had been stationed outside, guarding all exits, to close in and for the whole of the band to entrain.

Running forward to the engine, Max sprang up and gave the signal to start.

"Full speed ahead, Peck. Let her go."

That worthy, by the aid of very expressive pantomime, assisted by a sentence or two in German from Max, quickly induced the engine-driver and fireman to perform their offices, and the train moved out from the platform to the tune of suppressed cheers from its delighted occupants. The two miles to the frontier were covered in a few minutes, and with a cheer, no longer suppressed but full of heart-felt gladness, the fugitives saw the last outpost of their enemies flash by. They were now in a friendly country and had only to play their cards with care and moderation to find themselves once more on the way to their native lands.

Presently Max ordered the train to be brought to a standstill. They were now well into Holland and there were no line guards, and, at that hour, none to mark their doings. All rifles and bayonets were handed out and dropped into a muddy ditch. Then the journey was resumed until they reached a siding into which the train could be run.

The driver and firemen were gagged, bound hand and foot, and left in charge of their empty train while their captors marched on foot across country en route for Rotterdam. They were stopped and questioned many times, but on each occasion they were eventually allowed to proceed.

At the great Dutch port Max and Dale took leave of their soldier friends. Max, now that he had brought the band to safety, wished to seek out his mother and sister, and Dale, of course, must go with him.

On the deck of a ship bound for England the two friends said good-bye to Shaw and his stanch command, and when they trod the gangway back to the shore of Holland the cheer that went up brought all the Dutchmen and German spies about the dock hurrying to the scene. Huzza after huzza rent the air, and, when the ship drew away out into the stream on its way to the ocean, the strains of the Marseillaise and Rule Britannia could be heard high above the throb of engines and the clank and rattle of the busy port.

"Fine fellows, those," remarked Dale with more than a suggestion of regret in his voice.

"None better," replied Max emphatically. "And how well the men of the two races worked together. I think it must be an earnest of the way France and Britain will work together in the great alliance."

"Aye. And what part are we going to play, old man?" asked Dale eagerly. "'Pon my word I feel all on fire to get to work and strike a few good blows for England."

"So we will, but we have earned a rest, so let us go to Maastricht and stay quietly with my mother and sister for a little while. Then we will go to England and offer ourselves for service in any capacity in which we can be of most use. Then 'hard all' right up the course."

"Hurrah! I'm with you. Forward all! Paddle!"

"But I should like a job that will give me a chance to give an eye occasionally to the Durend works," presently remarked Max meditatively.

"There you go again," groaned Dale. "Those works of yours are the bane of my life. There's no getting away from them for a moment."

"They're my special job, and Schenk is my special enemy," replied Max in the steady resolute tone Dale knew so well. "There is no one who can take my place there in thwarting the enemy's plans, and while I live I can never forget it."

"I don't believe you can," agreed Dale comically, "so it's no use my trying. I suppose that will be the end of your fine talk about our offering our services to the British authorities?"

"Not at all, old man. What about the Secret Service? With our knowledge of Belgium and its languages I should think they might find us employment that will be every whit as useful to the Allies as fighting in the ranks. And it will give me a chance, occasionally, to see what Schenk is up to, and, perhaps, to try another fall with him."

"Well, that doesn't sound so bad. Anyway it is good enough to think about a little more before we make up our minds. Now for Maastricht and that rest we've been chasing ever since we left Liége for the Ardennes. At last there seems a chance of our getting it."

At Maastricht Max had a joyful reception. His mother had never lost hope of his safe return, but the suspense had been trying, and the news from Liége had not been of a kind to reassure her. However, here he was back again, safe and sound, and in that fact all fears and anxieties were forgotten. Dale shared in the welcome, and for a week or two the friends stayed happily at home. Then the leaven began to work again, and one day Dale found Max going carefully through the miscellaneous lot of papers which he had taken from his father's safe along with the money and securities on which his mother had since been living.

"Business, eh?" he enquired jocularly.

"Something of the sort," admitted Max. "Looking through those old papers we raided out of Schenk's clutches. Some of them are his and not my father's, and I can see why he was so anxious to get them back again. Why, here is correspondence—between the rascal and someone who, I expect, is an agent of the German Government—dating back years before the war, in which Schenk is instructed to prepare the Durend works for the eventuality of a German occupation of Liége. It's all here, even to the laying down of concrete gun-platforms, one of which the impudent beggar disguised as our tennis-court."

"Good! Anything else?"

"Nothing quite so good as that. Plans of the Durend mines and works and such-like. They may be useful some day."

"When we get rid of Schenk, eh? That will be some time yet, so you need not bother your head about plans of the works. In fact, to put it mildly—I don't want to hurt your feelings—I expect the place will be so altered when you get it back that you won't recognize it, and those plans will be of mighty little use to you or anyone else."

"Yes," replied Max thoughtfully. "You're referring to Schenk's threat that, if ever the Germans had to leave Liége, he would smash up the works so thoroughly that not one brick would be left upon another?"

"Aye."

"He's just the man to do it."

"He is that. And the less reason for you to bother about the place. It's no use worrying; it can't be helped."

"I'm not so sure. Anyway I'm going to do what I can to save the place. As for these papers of Schenk's, I'm going to hand them over to the British consul. They'll be useful, I don't doubt, as one more proof of Germany's deep-laid plans for war."

Max did as he proposed, and the papers were accepted with alacrity and forwarded to the British Foreign Office. At the same time Max made application on his own and Dale's behalf for employment in Belgium as members of the British Secret Service. After a week or two's delay, during which time enquiries no doubt were being made into their credentials, an official arrived with the necessary documents, and after a long conversation, detailing exactly what was required of them, Max and Dale were accepted and enrolled.

A few days later they had said good-bye to their home in quiet Maastricht and were away across the frontier, in the great whirlpool of the war once more.

They resumed the disguises of Walloon workmen, which had already served them in such good stead, and applied for work in Liége and all the big towns of Belgium. For two years and more they worked steadily, in different workshops up and down the country, gathering news and transmitting it faithfully to the agents of the British Government. They were cool and reliable observers, and their information was found to be so uniformly accurate that it was relied upon more and more as the months went by.

The Great Coup

At the commencement of their work in the Secret Service, Max and Dale visited Liége, and, while collecting information there, thought out and put into operation a far-reaching plan that they hoped might checkmate Schenk's schemes for the destruction of the Durend works when the Germans should be forced to evacuate the city. It was a plan formulated after they had again got into touch with M. Dubec and the small band of men who still loyally refused to work in the interests of the invaders. M. Dubec had imparted to them the information—not unexpected—that Schenk had placed mines under all the workshops, and put everything in readiness for blowing them into the air whenever he should wish to do so.

"I have it from one of the men who actually helped to dig and fill them, Monsieur. He was not allowed to help in the wiring, and he believes this was done secretly at night, by Germans whom Schenk knew he could trust."

"So you know that the shops are mined, but do not know where the wires run?"

"That is true, Monsieur."

"Could you not find out?"

"I do not think so, Monsieur. Since that last affair of ours there have been too many sentries in the yards, especially at night. It would be impossible to dig anywhere."

"We ought to do something, Dubec."

"Yes, Monsieur?"

"But the job is to know what," Dale struck in. "We can't tunnel underground, I suppose, and get at them that way, so we must find out by spying where the wires are run to—eh, Max?"

"Tunnel?" ejaculated Max. "That's an idea, Dale. Those old mines we were tracing in the plans the other day! Why not?"

"Why not what?" asked Dale a little testily.

"Why, you know we noticed that one of them ran right up to the outskirts of the city? Well, why shouldn't we continue it secretly, until we get beneath the yards, and then burrow upwards to the workshops? Then we can remove the mine-charges from below, and sit still and hold tight until the great day arrives."

"Hurrah!" cried Dale enthusiastically. "The very thing. Phew! what a coup it will be!"

"We shall, of course, have to get Dubec here and one or two others to arrange it for us. They must go to work in the Durend mines, and take it in turns to spend a night down there. Each man, as his turn comes, must go into the old workings, and continue the gallery fixed upon in the direction of the Durend works. Narrow seams of coal, not worth working, did run in that direction according to the plans, and they will have no difficulty in getting rid of the coal of course. The rock they hew out must be taken away and dumped in remote, abandoned workings, where it is not likely to be found or understood."

"'Pon my word, it sounds like the real thing," cried Dale with fresh enthusiasm. "But it'll take a long time I should think, so we must make a start at once. What do you think, Dubec?"

"Yes, Monsieur, it will take much time. But we will work hard, knowing that we are working for our country. It will make our hearts light again to feel that we are once more of use, and some who might give way will keep on and on, refusing to bend the knee to the German tyrants and to work their will."

"Yes, it may well do that," said Max thoughtfully. "And if any object that they will be helping the Germans by sending coal up to the surface, tell them that I say that the other work they are doing far outweighs that. If we can secure the Durend works intact, ready to make shells and guns for the Allies when the Germans are driven out, we shall have struck a strong blow—aye, one of the strongest—for our side."

"I will tell them, Monsieur, though I do not think it will be necessary."

"Any money and tools that will be required I will supply. And I will occasionally come down into the mine and correct the direction in which you are driving the gallery. We must be exact, or all our work will be wasted."

After a few days' more planning, and another consultation with Dubec, the details of the scheme were settled to everyone's satisfaction, and the work commenced. The direction of affairs on the spot was left to Dubec, and to him was also left the responsibility of deciding to what men the secret should be imparted. Then Max and Dale left the district and went on with their own special work, satisfied that the last and final stratagem for defeating Schenk was in good hands, and likely, in the course of time, to be brought to a successful issue.

It is not here that we can describe the many adventures that befell Max and Dale while in the British Secret Service. They were numerous and exciting enough, but this tale deals primarily with the fortunes of the great Durend workshops and their influence in the war. A long, tedious period of trench fighting now began on the Western Front. There were no big territorial changes, although there were many attacks on a grand scale at Ypres, at Verdun, on the Somme, and in the plain of Flanders. But this period, tedious though it was, came to an end at last in the great German retreat. Then came for Max and Dale the crucial period of all their long and patient scheming to outwit their own special enemy, Otto von Schenkendorf, the manager of the Durend works.

When the great retreat began, Max and Dale were at Liége, on the spot. At the gates of the works they watched the serried ranks of workmen and workwomen as they trudged out in response to the manager's orders that the works must be closed and that all workers of German nationality or sympathies must retire across the frontier. The anger and consternation in their faces were a treat to see, after the long years of their arrogance towards men and women of Belgian nationality. The war was virtually over—so said their faces—and many of them were doubtless dreading lest infamies, similar to those wreaked on the helpless Belgians, might be perpetrated in their towns and villages.

As the crowd thinned, Max and Dale caught sight of the manager, accompanied by a German officer, seated in a great grey motor just inside the gates, apparently waiting for the last workman to file out and away. The guard of soldiers was still there, standing stiffly to attention, and it seemed to Max that there was an air of tension about them all, as though something was about to happen. He could well guess what. Suddenly, in the distance, there came the sound of dropping rifle-shots.

"They've cut it pretty fine, if those shots mean the advance guard of the Allies," remarked Max in a voice tense with excitement. "The works are clear of the workmen; now for the last great act. Then the curtain!"

Herr Schenk—as we shall continue to call him—stood up in his car and shouted to the officer of the guard:

"You have your instructions, Lieutenant. Act upon them now without delay."

The officer saluted, turned about with military precision, and strode into the guard-room.

Herr Schenk resumed his seat, nodded to the chauffeur, and the car moved slowly through the gates into the road. Max thought he was about to leave the works for good and all, but the car stopped at the side of the road a hundred yards or so from the gates, and all in her stood up and gazed back in the direction of the works. In the distance, but nearer now, could be heard a brisk fusillade of rifle-shots, with now and again the brief chatter of a machine-gun.

"Strong cavalry patrols approaching," commented Max. "They are driving in scattered bodies of stragglers or outposts, I should say. Look now at Schenk! He is waiting for the works to go up sky-high."

The moments passed, and nothing happened. A minute, two minutes, three minutes. Still there was no change, and the tense attitude of the men waiting in the car relaxed, and they began talking together in low tones. Suddenly the figure of the officer of the guard appeared at the gates, gesticulating excitedly.

Schenk gave a quick order to the chauffeur. The car was turned and moved quickly back to the gates, and there stopped. The officer of the guard ran to it, leaned over the side, and explained volubly. Max and Dale, from where they stood, could hear nothing of what was said, but they knew, almost as well as if they had heard, that the officer was explaining that he had tried to fire the mines, but somehow without success.

With a gesture of rage or impatience Schenk sprang out of the car, and, followed by both officers, ran quickly to the guard-room and disappeared from view.

The dropping shots had approached quite near, and Max believed that the skirmishers could not be more than half a mile away, and were advancing with a speed that indicated that they consisted either of cavalry or armed motors.

"I'd give something to see their faces now—wouldn't you, Max?" queried Dale, who could hardly contain himself in his delight.

Max was busy scribbling on a sheet of paper torn from his notebook, and did not for a moment reply. When he had finished, he folded it up carefully and addressed it on the outside. "Let us walk past the gates, Dale, as though just passing. I am going to administer the coup de grâce to our friend Schenk."

They crossed the road and slouched along past the gates. As they passed the great grey motorcar, Max lightly dropped the note he was carrying on to the seat which Schenk had just been occupying. The chauffeur was looking eagerly in the direction of the guard-room, and did not observe the act or the missive. They slouched on until they turned a corner, and then Max cried eagerly:

"Now back again and in that garden among the bushes. We shall see it all, and see Schenk's face when he reads my note."

"What did you say, old man?"

"Let us get out of sight there, and I will tell you."

In a few moments the two friends were snugly ensconced in a clump of bushes in a garden very near the entrance to the works. The grey car was still occupied only by the chauffeur, but they could tell, by his listening attitude and the expectant looks of the guards, that an altercation of some sort was going on inside the guard-room.

"This is what I said, old man," Max went on in a voice which betrayed his excitement:—

"Good, old man! That'll make the beggar sit up if anything will. Hark! cavalry. Ours or theirs, I wonder?"

In a measure they were answered by a sudden move of the soldiers guarding the gates. The lieutenant had shouted an order, and they fell into marching order and strode swiftly away in the direction of the frontier. The officer remained where he was, and was almost immediately joined by Herr Schenk and the other officer. All three walked quickly to the motor and got in.

The manager, as he did so, picked up a letter lying on his seat and glanced at the writing. He gave a start that was visible even to the watchers at the other side of the road, then plucked it open with nervous, jerky movements. He glanced quickly through it and sprang uncontrollably to his feet, his face aflame with passion.

The officer at his side shouted to him in alarm and endeavoured to pull him back into his seat.

Suddenly there was a loud clatter of horses' hoofs at the end of the street, and a body of Belgian cavalry debouched into view. The chauffeur of the grey car instantly started and turned his machine, and it moved away with ever-increasing speed, Schenk still standing and gesticulating wildly, with Max's letter clenched in his right hand, and the officer endeavouring ineffectually to drag him back into his seat. As the car passed the two watchers, they could not repress their exultation, but jumped to their feet and gave a loud, full-throated British cheer.

THE TWO WATCHERS GAVE A LOUD, FULL-THROATED BRITISH CHEER

The officer whose hands were free drew his revolver and fired viciously at them. The shots went wide, and in a moment or two the car had turned a corner and vanished out of sight.

A squadron of Belgian cavalry clattered by, and Max shouted to the officer in command that a car containing German officers had just driven off and that a detachment of infantry was only a matter of a few minutes ahead. The officer nodded and pressed on, while Max and Dale cheered the men as they rode eagerly by.

"I think we have seen the last we shall see of Schenk, Dale," Max remarked as they crossed the road and entered the Durend yards.

"Yes, and I don't suppose you, or anyone else in Belgium, will be sorry."

"No; least of all our Walloon workmen. They hated him to a man for his overbearing, tyrannical ways. We are all well rid of him."

The works seemed strangely deserted. The doors of the workshops stood wide open, but inside all was still. The great lathes were just as they had been left, some with shells half turned, indicating the haste with which the attendants had obeyed the call to go. Other hands would doubtless finish the turning, and the shells would be fired at the Germans and not against the armies of the Allies.

"I suppose Schenk will have taken all the firm's cash?" suggested Dale presently.

"Yes, of course. But that will be more than covered by the additions he has made to the buildings and plant since the Germans came. I should think the concern is worth twice as much as when he took it in hand for the Fatherland."

"That's great! No wonder he nearly went out of his mind when he found he must leave it all intact and in first-rate working order for you to enter into. If he lives until he is as old as Methuselah he will never forget it."

"I don't think his German friends will let him forget it. They will find it hard to forgive a bungle that leaves a first-class munition factory absolutely undamaged in the hands of their enemies. I don't envy Schenk his job of persuading them that he couldn't help it."

"Not after the other explanations he has had to make on our account—those siege-gun drawings, the wrecking of the power-house, workshops, etcetera."

"No, he is a back number now, and he will be lucky if it is no worse."

(Long afterwards they learned that the exasperation of the Germans at Herr Schenk's failure to destroy his workshops before the evacuation, was so great that he was tried by court-martial, and, notwithstanding his considerable influence, promptly shot.)

A burst of cheering from the town in the direction of the market-place drew the attention of the two young fellows away from the works to the events that were taking place in the town. They left the works, closing the great gates after them, and joined the townspeople in their great welcome to the soldiers of Belgium and the Allies as they passed through in triumph in pursuit of their enemies. It was all very exhilarating, and even the discovery that Max's house had been burned to the ground was insufficient to damp their patriotic ardour, for they had expected no less. It had not been possible to arrange to save this, and, as Max said, so long as the works were saved it mattered little about the house. Another could soon be found, or built for that matter. But the works—to get those into full swing in quick time was the equivalent of a victory for the Allies.

And in almost full swing they were in a couple of days. All that day and the next the loyal workmen dribbled back—some from the town, some from remote villages, and many from across the Dutch border. With hearty goodwill they threw themselves into their work, and soon the roar of the lathes and engines announced that the Durend works were themselves once more.

The tale of how Max Durend had fought the long battle of the works, of how vigilantly he had watched over them, and of how, at last, he had won the greatest fight of all in saving them from destruction, passed from mouth to mouth among the workmen. If anything had been needed to cement the strong bond between them and their employer, this would have supplied it. But their relations were already of the best, and this great story served but to set a seal upon it and to render the link between the two unbreakable.

And from strength to strength the great workshops went on. Ever in the van of progress—for Max had learned his work from the bottom upwards and was ever ready to learn more—secure in the possession of skilled workmen filled with zeal and goodwill, well-directed, and trusted far and wide, the Durend works expanded until they were twice the size of any similar concern in Belgium.

Jack Dale stuck to Max to the end. He followed his friend's example and went through all the shops, learning the work thoroughly, and later on became the manager of an important branch of the firm. Eventually he married Max's sister, and drew closer yet the ties which held him to his friend.

Max became, in the fulness of time, something of a figure in Belgium, and did much to aid its recovery from the ravages of the enemy. He never forgot his English blood, and was a foremost supporter of all movements which might draw the two countries closer to one another in friendship and esteem.