第34章

Much has been said of the work of spies - said and written.Here is a woman in Paris sending forbidden messages on a marked coin.Men are tapped on the shoulder by a civil gentleman in a sack suit, and walk away with him, never to be seen again.

But of one sort of spy nothing has been written and but little is known.Yet by him are battles won or lost.On the intelligence he brings attacks are prepared for and counter-attacks launched.It is not always the airman, in these days of camouflage, who brings word of ammunition trains or of new batteries.

In the early days of the war the work of the secret service at the Front was of the gravest importance.There were fewer air machines, and observation from the air was a new science.Also trench systems were incomplete.Between them, known to a few, were breaks of solid land, guarded from behind.To one who knew, it was possible, though dangerous beyond words, to cross the inundated country that lay between the Belgian Front and the German lines, and even with good luck to go farther.Henri, for instance, on that night before had left the advanced trench at the railway line, had crawled through the Belgian barbed wire, and had advanced, standing motionless as each star shell burst overhead, and then moving on quickly.The inundation was his greatest difficulty.Shallow in most places, it was full of hidden wire and crisscrossed with irrigation ditches.Once he stumbled into one, but he got out by swimming.Had he been laden with a rifle and equipment it might have been difficult.

He swore to himself as his feet touched ground again.For a star shell was hanging overhead, and his efforts had sent wide and ever increasingly widening circles over the placid surface of the lagoon.Let them lap to the German outposts and he was lost.

Henri's method was peculiar to himself.Where there was dry terrain he did as did the others, crouched and crept.But here in the salt marshes, where the sea had been called to Belgium's aid, he had evolved a systemof moving, neck deep in water, stopping under the white night lights, advancing in the darkness.There was no shelter.The country was flat as a hearth.

He would crawl out at last in the darkness and lie flat, as the dead lie.And then, inch by inch, he would work his way forward, by routes that he knew.Sometimes he went entirely through the German lines, and reconnoitered on the roads behind.They were shallow lines then, for the inundation made the country almost untenable, and a charge in force from the Belgians across was unlikely.

Henri knew his country well, as well as he loved it.In a farmhouse behind the German lines he sometimes doffed his wet gray-green uniform and put on the clothing of a Belgian peasant.Trust Henri then for being a lout, a simple fellow who spoke only Flemish - but could hear in many tongues.Watch him standing at crossroads and marveling at big guns that rumble by.

At first Henri had wished, having learned of an attack, to be among those who repelled it.Then one day his King had sent for him to come to that little viilage which was now his capital city.

He had been sent in alone and had found the King at the table, writing.Henri bowed and waited.They were not unlike, these two men, only Henri was younger and lighter, and where the King's eyes were gray Henri's were blue.Such a queer setting for a king it was - a tawdry summer home, ill-heated and cheaply furnished.But by the presence of Belgium's man of all time it became royal.

So Henri bowed and waited, and soon the King got up and shook hands with him.As a matter of fact they knew each other rather well, but to explain more would be to tell that family name of Henri's which must never be known.

"Sit down," said the King gravely.And he got a box of cigars from the mantelpiece and offered it."I sent for you because I want to talk to you.You are doing valuable work.""I am glad you think it so, sire," said Henri rather unhappily, because he felt what was coming."But I cannot do it all the time.There areintervals-"