The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front Part 31

"Maybe they're Germans!" exclaimed Charlie.

"They probably are," Blake answered. "But we've got to be rescued from here and take our chance with them. It's better than being buried alive.

h.e.l.lo, there!" he shouted. "Help us get out!" and he began tearing at the stones with his hands.

Seeing his object, his chums helped him. And then some one on the other side of the rocky barrier also began pulling down the stones, so that in a little while, the light becoming momentarily greater, the boys saw a way of escape open to them.

But it was a strange way. For when the rocks had been pulled down sufficiently to enable them to crawl through, they emerged into a s.p.a.ce--a small room, as it were--walled with solid logs. Logs also formed the roof. It was a room lighted by a lantern, and on a pile of bags in one corner lay a huddled figure of a man. Standing near him was another man--a man in a ragged blue uniform--and at the sight of his face Blake murmured:

"Lieutenant Secor!"

"At your service!" said the Frenchman, bowing slightly.

"No!" bitterly cried Blake. "Not at _our_ service--you traitor!"

The Frenchman seemed to wince, but at that moment a call from the huddled man in the corner attracted his attention. He bent over him, drew back the covering and revealed in the lantern's glow the face of Labenstein.

The German raised himself on one elbow, and a wild look came over his face. His eyes gleamed brightly for a moment.

"They--they here!" he murmured. "Well, perhaps it is better so."

"How better? What does he mean?" asked Blake. "Does he think----"

"Hus.h.!.+" and the Frenchman spoke softly. "This is the end--of Labenstein!" And even as he spoke the man fell back dead.

Lieutenant Secor seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, as though the death of the other had brought a great release to him.

"Now I can speak," said the officer. "Now I can explain, and perhaps you will again regard me as a friend," he said softly.

"Well," returned Blake, "you probably saved our lives by helping us get out of the tunnel. But as for being friends with----"

"Please do not say it," begged the lieutenant. "I have had to play a part. It is over now. I can again take my place with my comrades and fight openly for France. For I have learned all his secrets and whence the spy-leaks came. Now my unpleasant mission is over!"

"What--what do you mean?" asked Joe, beginning, as did his chums, to have an inkling of the truth. "Aren't you two working together against us and for Germany?"

"Never I!" cried the Frenchman. "I am a member of the French Secret Service, and for months I have consorted with that dog!" and he pointed at the dead man. "I but played a part to gain his confidence and to learn from what sources Germany was getting her secret information about our soldiers and yours. Now I know. I will explain. But come, we must get out of here."

"Can we get out?" asked Blake.

"Surely, yes. The tunnel goes from here into the German trenches, and the other end was not damaged by the explosion."

"But," exclaimed Joe, "the German trenches! We don't want to go there to be captured again."

"Have no fear," said the Frenchman, with a smile. "I should, perhaps, have said what _were_ the German trenches. They are now held by some of your own troops--the brave Americans!"

"They are?" cried Charlie.

"That is true! You shall see!"

"Hurrah!" cried the moving picture boys, and their fears and weariness seemed to depart from them in a moment.

"The great airs.h.i.+p raid was a success," went on the Frenchman. "Our troops and yours have made a big advance, and have captured many prisoners. They would have had Labenstein, but he is beyond prisons now.

Let us go hence! Even dead I can not endure his company. I suffered much on his account."

"Well, things are happening so fast I don't know which to begin to think of first," remarked Joe. "But, on general principles, I presume it's a good thing to get out of this tunnel. Come on, boys."

"One moment," interposed the lieutenant. "Perhaps you will like to take these with you."

He stooped and lifted a pile of trench bags, and the boys saw the boxes of moving picture films.

"Ours?" cried Joe.

"None else," answered the Frenchman. "I trust you will find them all right."

"Not a seal broken!" reported Charlie, who had quickly examined the cases. "This is great!"

Together, hardly able to believe their good luck, they made their way out of the log-protected room--once a German bomb-proof dugout. As they emerged into the trenches, carrying the films, the boys saw American soldiers.

"The Stars and Stripes!" cried Charlie, as he noted the United States flag. "Now we're all right!"

"Whew! We did make some advance!" added Blake, as they saw how the battle lines of the French and Americans had been extended since they had crawled into No Man's Land the night before.

The boys learned later that the airs.h.i.+p raid was the forerunner of a big offensive that had been carried out when they were held prisoners and in the tunnel. The Germans had been driven back with heavy loss, and one of their ammunition dumps, or storage places, had been blown up, which had caused the collapse of the tunnel.

That the moving picture boys were welcomed by the soldiers, among whom they had many friends, goes without saying. And the recovery of the films was a matter for congratulation, for they were considered very valuable to the army.

"Though it was Lieutenant Secor who really saved them for us," explained Blake, when the story of their adventure was being told.

"And I am glad the time has come when Lieutenant Secor can appear in his true light," said Captain Black. "Even I suspected him, and he lost many friends who will come back to him, now that he risked all to serve his country in a role seldom honored--that of getting secret intelligence from the enemy."

For that is what the French lieutenant had been doing. Even while he was in the United States, where the boys first met him, he had been playing that part.

"But I a.s.sure you," he said to Blake and the others, "that the destruction of your films by my auto was an accident. When I found you believed it done purposely I let it go that way, as it helped me play my part the better. Also, I had to act in a manner to make you believe I was a friend of Labenstein. But that was all a part."

And it had not been an easy part for the French officer to play. He had, in ways of his own, come to suspect Labenstein, who went under various names, sometimes that of Karl Kooder. This man, who held forged citizens.h.i.+p papers of the United States, was a German spy and had done much to aid the Kaiser. But he accepted Lieutenant Secor as a co-worker, on the latter's representation that he, too, was a friend of Germany, or rather, as the Frenchman made Labenstein think, was willing to become so for a sum of money. So the two seemingly worked together.

"And it was thus you knew us," said the lieutenant to the boys.

"Labenstein, to use one of his names, had orders to make all the trouble he could for you when you reached France, and to prevent your getting any pictures, if possible. Of course he could not do that, but he tried, even to the extent of writing a false note in London that caused your arrest. I had, seemingly, to help him, but all the while I was endeavoring to find out where the leak was on our side that enabled him to profit. And I found out. The leak will be stopped.

"I even seemed to join Labenstein in signaling the submarine, though that night, had he really succeeded in calling her with your light, I would have killed him where he stood. However, the depth charge solved that question.

"I had to escape from the s.h.i.+p with him to lull his suspicions against me. Then I went into the German ranks with him, being thought a deserter! That was hard for me, but I had my duty to perform.

"The rest you know. It was by a mere chance that Labenstein, when I was with him, came upon your films after the gas attack. He thought to profit personally from selling them, which is why he did not turn them over at once to his superiors. Ever since then he has been trying to dispose of them to enrich himself. And I have been trying to find a way to get them back to you without betraying myself and my mission.

"At last chance favored me. The big air attack came just after I had secured all the information I wanted. I was about to go back to my comrades and arrange for the capture of Labenstein if I could. He still had the films and was about to sell them to another German--a traitor like himself.

"Then came the big explosion, and he was fatally hurt. We both took refuge in the tunnel, Labenstein carrying with him the films, and you came just as Labenstein died. Well, perhaps it is better so."

"Yes," agreed Blake, "I think it is."