Adventure Magazine Cover — page 35: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Fresh Yank “Hurry,” said the Yank. ‘“Let’s get back before those wagons get going good.” The officer halted and the Yank prodded him over the kidneys with the rifle. ““Wait!”’ cried the officer fiercely. ‘Stop, fool! Let me think! It is true, I know it. There is ammunition in those wagons! Ammunition and other things!”’ He looked around at his captor and his lips were rather white. “No,” said he, “I’d rather go any way but toward these wagons.” The Yank looked around. They were in the center of an arena, an enclosure walled by smoke and flame. It seemed that they would be safe there, for there was no way for the fire to get at them, unless it burned the grass. As hard as he listened, the Yank could hear no distinct sounds of con- flict. The noise of the battle was so terrific that his ear drums could not regis- ter their impulses. Beyond the burning hay, in the direction that the Yank judged the enemy guns were, the noise and thunder of the explosions seemed to have increased. He could no longer distinguish the whining cough that the field gun gives as it spits forth its pro- jectile. He heard instead the sharp crack of shrapnel and the slam of high explosive shell. Perhaps the cavalry had gone that way and the Germans were shelling them. The lone gun of the British horse battery could not make all that racket. It was probably out of action now anyway. He came out of his abstraction with a start. “YT better keep my eye on this Portrait of an Officer,”’ the Yank told himself. The officer, however, was watching the flames creep along the line of wagons. The Yank suddenly realized that the heat was terrible. His throat was dry and the smoke began to make him cough. The billows of thick choking vapor rolled closer, shutting out the line of wagons. The officer’s figure became indistinct. “Come here,’ cried the Yank. “Stick right around, keep right in sight, if you don’t want me to put a hole in that hand- some tunic that will take a lot of tailoring to mend.” The officer came closer to the Yank, but he was grinning happily. “T’ve half a mind to kill you anyway,” choked the Yank. ‘“—— this smoke!”’ 25 The German began to cough and wipe his eyes himself. “Listen, Emglisher,” said he when he could speak, ‘‘we had better go away from this place. We had better go now, im- mediately. Anywhere but here! I speak with knowledge.” “Tf you can think,” replied his captor, “how to get through that burning hay, or across that wagon-line, then let’s go. But you lead the way. And don’t be in a hurry either.” The officer grinned again, though the water ran from his eyes, and the smoke strangled him. It occurred to the Yank that this man had discovered a way out of that fire-ringed enclosure, that this officer knew his way about that wagon-park very well, as of course he should. How about making him show the way out? While the Yank still debated this matter with himself, a vagrant breeze wandered through the park, entered the enclosure, and turning about in the current of hot ascending air, swept up the smoke as a curtain is lifted on a stage. Up went the curtain, and as stage scenery becomes visible, the Yank glimpsed rolling fields, green woods and men galloping. TA-TA-TA! Enter, right, a body of cavalry. The officer gave a tre- mendous shout, the troopers saw him, and the column, turning, came thun- dering down toward the entrance that the lifting smoke had revealed. The Yank, with slack jaw, saw that at the upper end of the arena, was a space per- haps twenty feet wide, on one side of which the flames licked at the hay, and on the other side was a clump of wagons, just be- ginning to burn. The smoke had been thick enough to obscure the country beyond and make the entrance look impassable. The advancing cavalry was in column of fours, magnificent horses, magnificent men, cantering across the field, the rolling thunder of four hundred hoofs like the growling of a mighty giant, the riders’ lances dark above their heads. They were a troop of uhlans. “Put down that rifle,” sneered the officer, “‘unless you want a lance through you!”’ ‘‘_____ you!’ cried the Yank. take you to —— with me!” He dropped his sword, threw his rifle to “TI can Go NOOK 1 @)