Part 14

"They are signalling from inside our line here," said the Commandant, "over there to the enemy guns beyond Ramskappele. Some spy down here with a flash-lamp is telling them that we're out of ammunition."

"But can't we catch the spy?" urged Hilda. "That light doesn't look to be more than a few hundred yards away."

"That is further away than it looks," answered Jost; "that's all of a mile away. He's hidden somewhere in a field."

Mrs. Bracher seized Victor by the arm, and faced the Commandant.

"I know where he's hidden," she cried. "Let me show you."

The Commandant nodded assent.

"Messieurs, les Belges," she commanded in a sharp, high voice, "come with me and move quickly!"

She brought them back to the car.

"Send for four of your men," she said to Jost. They came.

"Wait in the house," she said to Hilda.

"Now we start," Mrs. Bracher ordered. "Victor, you take the wheel. Drive down the Furnes road."

They drove in silence for five minutes, till her quick eye picked a landmark out of the dimness.

"Drive the car slowly past, and on down the road," she ordered, "don't stop it. We six must dismount while it is moving. Surround the house quietly. The Commandant and I will enter by the front door."

They had come to the deserted farm-house. It loomed dimly out of the vacant fields and against the background of travelling clouds. Victor stayed at the wheel. Mrs. Bracher, the Commandant, and the four soldiers, jumped off into the road. The six silently filed into the door-yard. The four soldiers melted into the night. Mrs. Bracher caught the handle of the door firmly and shoved. The door gave way. She and Jost stepped inside. The Commandant drew his pistol. He flashed his pocket light down the hall and up the stairs. There was nothing but vacancy. They passed into the room at their right hand. Jost's light searched its way around the room. In the corner, stood a tall soldier, dressed in green.

"Let me introduce Monsieur Rollo, the spy," said Mrs. Bracher. There was triumph in her voice. The Commandant put a whistle to his lips and blew. His four men came stamping in, pistols in hand.

"Clever device, this," said Mrs. Bracher. She had stooped and lifted out a large electric flash lamp from under a sweater.

"Clever woman, this," said the Commandant, saluting Mrs. Bracher. "How did you come to know the place?"

"Monsieur Rollo uses double tires on a wet soil," she explained.

"Monsieur Rollo will now bring his signal lamp outside the house," the Commandant said curtly. "He will signal the enemy that our reinforcements and ammunition have arrived, and that an attack to-night will be hopeless. He may choose to signal wrongly. In that case, you men will shoot him on the instant that firing begins at Pervyse."

The soldiers nodded. They marched Rollo to the field, and thrust his signal lamp into his hands.

"One moment," he said. He turned to Mrs. Bracher.

"Where is the American girl to-night?" he asked.

"At Pervyse, of course," replied the nurse, "where she always is. The very place where you wanted to bring your men through and kill us all."

"I had forgotten," he said. "If Mademoiselle Hilda is at Pervyse, then I signal, as you suggest"--he turned to the Commandant--"but not because you order it--you and your little pop-guns."

Mrs. Bracher sniffed scornfully.

"One last bluff of a bluffer, as Hilda would say," she muttered.

The soldiers stood in circle in the mud of the field, the tall green-clad figure in their midst.

Rollo turned on the blinding flash that stabbed through the night. He held it high above his head, and at that level moved it three times from left to right. Then he swung the light in full circles, till it became a pinwheel of flame. Four miles away by the sea to the north, a white light shot up into the sky, rose twice like a fountain, and was followed by a starlight that fed out a green radiance.