Motor Boat Boys Down the Danube; or, Four Chums Abroad

By now it might be lying a mass of ruins for aught they knew; and somewhere in the midst their mother had been living the last they heard from her. Yes, Jack could easily appreciate what agonies of mind the couple must be enduring as they crouched there in each other’s arms, and with throbbing hearts listened to the hoarse crash of the opposing guns, the one friendly and the other freighted with hatred and animosity.

There was, of course, no danger to the party on the motorboat from the shells that were passing so high overhead, describing a parabola in their flight, something after the manner of a rainbow. Jack’s fears were along other lines.

If, as he suspected, this night bombardment on the part of the Austrian batteries was meant to occupy the attention of their foes while a force of troops was being ferried over the river or a temporary bridge made of pontoons and planks thrown across, it would mean that sooner or later the fugitives must be brought up with a round turn and find themselves caught in a trap.

One shell burst prematurely, and almost overhead, giving them a severe shock, for the sound was deafening. All of them involuntarily dropped down and held their breath in suspense. Then they heard missiles striking the water all around with an angry hiss, some of them terribly close.

“Nothing doing!” muttered Josh, when the fusillade had stopped and it became evident that they had escaped being struck.

“It was a narrow escape, all the same,” said Jack, with deep gratitude in his voice, though at the same time he remembered to keep his tones low.

All of them were fervently hoping there would be no more short fuses with the shells that were screaming overhead. It was bad enough to be passing underneath such a rain of fire without incurring the added peril of being unintentionally struck.

Back and forth the duel continued. The Serbian gunners were evidently bent on giving as good as they received. They also hoped, no doubt, to make things so warm up there on the heights that the Austrians would cease firing in order to save their guns from being dismounted.

Every yard counted for the fugitives. Hope grew stronger in the heart of Buster as they continued to glide along on the bosom of the river and nothing happened to disturb this feeling of increasing confidence. He really began to believe, perhaps for the first time, that they were going, after all, to float beyond the dangerous zone and find safety below.

As he afterwards declared, Buster lived years during that period of suspense. It seemed to him that minutes must be hours, for each one was fraught with such unlimited possibilities of evil that such things as seconds were not to be reckoned with at all.

The friendly clouds still held the moon from coming forth to betray them, and it was undoubtedly true that they were passing the worst of the line of bombardment. Given just a certain amount of time and they could count themselves safe from that source of danger.

There remained the possibility of coming upon the Austrian forces below starting to bridge the river or cross on boats.

Jack believed that it was not wise for a white man to shout until he was fully out of the woods. While the prospect certainly looked hopeful, he would not allow himself to believe the danger was over until many more miles had been passed.

Between Belgrade and the Iron Gate, which latter is situated at the junction of Austria, Serbia and Rumania, there is a stretch of river nearly a hundred miles in extent. Here the Danube makes another sharp turn amidst wonderful scenery, and for a long distance forms the boundary between Serbia and Rumania.

Jack realized full well that they could not count themselves free from peril until they saw the shore of Rumania on their left. He hardly knew whether it would be wise for them to try and make progress during daylight, for they might be picked up at any time by Austrian soldiers afloat on the river, or made the target of concealed guns ashore, under the impression that the motorboat must belong to Serbs.

Josh, being an ardent chap and easily influenced by outer appearances, actually believed everything was going the right way, and that they had escaped from the jaws of another dilemma. Only for Jack’s caution he would very likely have been inclined to voice his delight in some boisterous way; but he did not dare give his feelings full sway.

So far the current had done all they could have asked. It had swept the boat onward persistently, and without any sound to betray them. Before now, doubtless, those men from the anchored monitor must have found where they had built their little cooking fire and learned that the mysterious motorboat had vanished, either down the river or back again whence it came. Jack was not bothering himself in the least about the things that were gone. The wheel of the mill would never turn again with the water that was past, according to his notion.

He kept looking ahead all the time. Something was bothering him, undoubtedly, for Josh discovered that the skipper had his hand up to his ear, as though trying to add to his powers of hearing.

“What is it, Jack?” he whispered.

“I saw lights below, moving lights, and something is going on, I’m afraid,” Jack told him. “The sound of the guns deadens everything. I believe it is being kept up on purpose to hide something else. See, you can catch the lights I spoke about now.”

“Say, I thought I caught something like hammering just then, Jack,” said the other in fresh excitement. “Do you think the Austrians can be trying to get some of their troops across the river under cover of the darkness and fog?”

“I’ve been afraid we’d find that was the meaning of all the firing,” Jack answered. “The Austrians don’t dare try it in broad daylight, but hope to push enough men over to-night to hold a bridge-head, and then follow with their field artillery.”

“But what would they try to do, cross on boats, Jack?”

“If that was hammering we really heard,” came the reply, “then it means they are trying to spread a pontoon bridge across the Danube. Long before dawn they could land thousands of men with many guns on the Serbian side of the river.”

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SMASHING OF THE PONTOON BRIDGE

“It must be a bridge they’re building,” said Josh presently, “because just then I saw a light move along, as if held by some one who was running.”

Sounds began to reach them at the same time, which were very significant. On the whole Jack realized that there could no longer be the slightest doubt about the fact that the Austrians were pushing out a pontoon bridge with all the haste they could throw into the undertaking.

Already they seemed to be much more than half-way across the river, having, no doubt, selected a place where it was not unusually wide. And what were the Serbs doing all this while? Had they been caught napping, so that when the dawn broke the enemy would have secured a firm footing on the southern bank of the disputed river and could move the balance of his forces across at his leisure?

It looked that way, though Jack doubted it very much. From what he had read and heard of the people of the smaller kingdom he believed they were too smart not to see through the device of the enemy. He rather fancied they were in force somewhere in the darkness shrouding the southern bank, and that just when the Austrians were congratulating themselves on having met with splendid success something was scheduled to happen calculated to give the invaders a surprise.

Jack realized that it was folly for them to continue down the river. If the pontoon bridge had already reached a point three-quarters of the way across, the workers on it would quickly discover the oncoming motorboat. Indeed, the chances were the craft must bump up against one of the pontoons and could get no further.

This would be bad enough, but Jack fancied there was something ten times more dreadful awaiting them if they reached the swaying structure. Should the waiting Serbs conclude the time had come to put an end to this bridge building, a hurricane of shot and shell would be hurled across the scanty water separating them from the shore, and few there would be who could escape the rain of missiles.

That was no place for neutrals, Jack decided. The only thing that remained for them to do was to make speedily for the shore. To accomplish this desired end it would be necessary for them to start up the engine at once, though Jack meant to keep the muffler in place and cut out all the noise he could, not wishing to draw attention to that quarter.

That was where the benefit of preparedness came in handy. It took him but three seconds to accomplish what he wanted to do. Following the cranking there came a series of explosions that were not very loud, and immediately the boat started off at a lively clip.

Every one waited with more or less nervousness to see if anything happened, but not a shot was fired. Those at work on the swinging bridge were in too feverish a condition of making haste to bother about a few spluttering sounds like that; while the concealed Serbs, if there were really any such near by, did not want to disclose the fact of their presence in the vicinity by doing anything prematurely.

Jack immediately swung the boat around and headed up-stream again. He fancied they were a little too close to the pontoon bridge-builders for safety if anything did happen, as he fully expected would be the case.

When he had gone a short distance he headed for the southern shore, meaning to come to the land and stay there until something was decided, one way or the other.

“Slow up, Jack!” exclaimed Josh, who was shading his eyes with his hand, though more from habit than because he thought it aided him in seeing. “We’re close to the bank now.”

Cutting off the power, Jack allowed the boat to glide forward. George had taken up the push-pole, and with this he proceeded to help things along. So they presently came into shallow water and ran aground close to the shore, which stood out above them against the gray sky, there being something of a small bluff.

So far everything had worked well. Jack felt they had reason to be more than satisfied with the progress made. Here they could remain in secret and await coming events. If the bridge were finished, and the Austrians commenced passing over, the boys would have to make some new plans looking to the future. Everything depended on the next half hour.

The furious hammering up on the distant heights across the river still continued, and Serbian guns answered every shot, so that it might not appear they were either lacking in ammunition or courage.

There was a stir in the middle of the boat. Jack could easily guess that the two passengers were aware of the fact that they could easily spring over the side and find their feet pressing their native soil. Now was the time for them to go ashore. They could either flee to the interior or else risk everything in entering the capital after the bombardment had ceased once more, in search of the mother, who had been last heard from there.

The boy gripped each one of them by the hand. What he said they could not understand, though it was easy to guess the meaning of his warm words of thanks. They had each one of them to kiss the little girl, for Josh boldly started it and no one wished to be left out.

After that the Serbian lad jumped over the side, standing in water up to his ankles, and lifted his sister to dry ground. The four motorboat chums saw them no more, but they would always remember the incident with pleasure.

After the two had gone Jack breathed more easily. He felt that he could face the future, no matter what it had in store for them, with a better spirit, now that the pretty little girl had been removed from danger in their company. Besides, it must always be a source of satisfaction to himself and mates to remember that they had been enabled to prove of more or less assistance to those who were in deep trouble, with no way out of the difficulty save by the help of the American lads.

“I wonder now if the Serbs are asleep at the switch while all this thing is going on below here?” George said, after a little more time had passed, and they could hear the working human beavers on the pontoon bridge more plainly than ever.

“Don’t you believe it,” Josh told him. “Look up and see what a splendid ambush this little bluff would make. Well, take my word for it, down below there Serbs are crouching in bunches, waiting with their machine guns until just when it seems the bridge is going to be joined with the shore. Then you’ll hear something drop!”

“My stars!” muttered Buster, “I wouldn’t want to be one of those poor fellows at work with those pontoons, not for all the gold in King Solomon’s mine I wouldn’t. They won’t have a ghost of a show, I’m afraid.”

“But we’re far enough away from the place not to be in danger – how about that, Jack?” George went on to say in a cautious tone.

“Only a random shot could come this way, if the Austrians on the other shore start things going. I don’t believe they will, because they’ll be afraid of hitting their own men.”

“This is exciting, all right,” ventured Josh.

“Well, better all keep still again,” Jack remarked; “we might attract some attention, you know, and that’s the last thing we want to do right now. If the bridge is destroyed we can wait a while until things cool off, and then try our luck again, dropping down with the current.”

They kept as well behind the side of the boat as possible, acting on Jack’s advice, though the thin shell could hardly serve as a means of protection in case a projectile of any sort came that way.

Once more the minutes dragged fearfully, though their suspense was hardly of the same personal nature as before. It seemed to Buster that there was a mine to be exploded out there on the river, and that those soldiers who were working feverishly to complete the bridge must be directly over it. Any second now they might expect to hear a dreadful crash, and catch the shouts of those who were in range of the firing, as well as the rending of the boats under the rain of missiles.

Nearer still the Austrian bridge builders were coming. They had been well trained in their business, those army engineers, and worked methodically, even while laboring under a tremendous strain both of body and mind.

Jack, chancing to come in contact with Buster, found the other shivering as if he had the ague. He knew that it was due to agitation consequent upon excitement. Doubtless the beads of perspiration were rolling down Buster’s cheeks at the same time, even though the night air was rather chilly now instead of being warm.

Jack was glad he had been wise enough to come back up the river some little distance before reaching land. If the Austrian batteries turned some of their guns on that shore later, the boys would stand less chance of being hit when the mighty shells exploded along the bluff.

“Oh! I wish it was all over with!” groaned Josh, upon whom the dreadful suspense was telling terribly.

Hardly had he said this than the very atmosphere about them seemed to be rent with a tremendous explosion. A gun had been fired not far away, for the fire blazed forth from the little bluff almost over their heads. There was heard a dreadful rending of planks and boats, accompanied by shouts and shrieks.

This was the opening gun.

Almost immediately there leaped from the shore below the boys what looked like a long zigzag line of fire. Accompanying it came the discordant grinding of numerous machine guns, sending a constant stream of missiles out there upon the swaying pontoon bridge.

The darkness was for the time being dispelled, and the boys saw with staring eyes such a vivid picture as comes seldom in the lives of any one not a soldier. It fascinated even while appalling them by its horrible reality.

The constant flashing of the rapid-fire guns dazzled their eyes, but at the same time they could see the strange low bridge built upon the aligned pontoons. It had been hastily but fairly well constructed, considering that the workmen had to handle their tools in almost utter darkness. Instinct and long practice had to take the place of eyesight.

They were swarming like bees all over the structure even then, some carrying planks and others hurrying back for new burdens. Just on the down-river side the boys could catch glimpses of many who seemed to be pushing other pontoons out, by holding on to the part of the bridge already finished. These they expected to use in filling the remaining gap between the present terminus of the bridge and the intended anchorage on the bank.

Alas! they were never given the opportunity to carry out their well-laid plans. That hurricane of lead and iron was sweeping everything before it. Men were going down by dozens; some plunged from the bridge into the river, seeking to take the chances of being drowned to the certainty of death in that hailstorm of deadly messengers.

Every conceivable manner of outcry could be heard. Men shrieked, and shouted, and probably swore in their own language. They were sprawled out all over the shuddering bridge, some crawling, others perfectly still. It seemed to be a regular shambles the wide-awake Serbs had made of that promising pontoon bridge. Instead of being “asleep at the switch,” as one of the boys had hinted, it seemed that they had set a sly trap, and simply bided their time, waiting until the enemy had almost completed his work before setting out to demolish it.

Again the boys heard that larger gun somewhere close by give tongue. As they continued to stare as though spellbound they saw that this time the gunner had planned to smash the bridge half-way across. True had been his aim, for the missile cut a passage completely through the pontoons, leaving a gap some four feet or more wide there.

Josh gave vent to a cry; he could no longer suppress the emotion that seemed to be overpowering him. Unless he did something, or said something, he would begin to believe it must all be a horrible nightmare.

“Look, oh! look!” was what he exclaimed shrilly, forgetting all need of caution, for the guns were still grinding forth with that weird strain that, once heard, could never be forgotten; “they’ve smashed the bridge over there with that shell! This half of it is beginning to break up and float away with the current. It’s all going to pieces, I tell you!”

They could see that Josh had not overestimated the terrible damage that had been wrought by that cleverly aimed shell. Deprived of its supports, the near end of the line of pontoons had already yielded to the drag of the current and was beginning to pass down-stream. As it went it also commenced to break into smaller sections. Here a boat sank, having been pierced by some of the numerous bits of flying metal. Again others broke away and floated off by themselves, often with dead or living freight.

The whole surface of the water seemed to be dotted with innumerable fragments of what only three minutes before had been a splendid specimen of engineering skill. The Serbs had waited until just the right time to strike their blow. They had made it felt, too, for the Austrian losses must have been terribly severe. More than that even, the injury to the morale of the dual kingdom’s troops must have counted for a whole lot, while renewed confidence would be the portion of the defenders of the southern bank.

It was almost like a strange dream to some of the boys. Buster, who had gazed at the wonderful spectacle with distended eyes, might have been noticed to pinch himself violently on the leg, as though hardly able to believe that he was really awake and looking at such a picture of war’s horrors.

The firing had mostly stopped by now, only that big gun sent another shell over, and succeeded in cutting another third of the pontoons loose, to be carried down-stream in a state approaching chaos.

Once again did darkness fall like a merciful curtain upon the scene. The boys were glad to have its horrors shut out from their sight. Never so long as they lived would they be likely to forget that smashing of the pontoon bridge.

CHAPTER XIX

THE AFTERMATH OF BATTLE

“Was it real, and did we see that bridge knocked into flinders?” asked Buster, when the terrific racket had in the main died out and it was possible for them to exchange comments or ask each others’ advice.

“As genuine as anything that ever crossed our path,” replied Josh. “Ugh! wasn’t it fierce, though, to see those poor Austrians crawling like ants all over the old thing when it began to break up? Some of them were badly wounded, too. I tell you, we’ll be seeing that sight many a time when we wake up from a bad dream.”

“But what are we going to do now, fellows?” George wanted to know.

“The way is clear again,” suggested Josh, helplessly.

“And will be right along to-night, unless those Austrian engineers try to shove out another lot of their pontoons, to be smashed into kindling wood,” George said.

“There they begin firing again!” exclaimed Buster, in a fresh tremor; “oh! I wonder what’s in the wind now.”

“It’s all from over the river on the Austrian side, you notice,” Jack remarked, after the crash of a shell had been heard not a sixth of a mile below them and apparently close to the bluff that marked the river’s edge.

“They’re as mad as hops over the smart way the Serbs knocked their bridge down, seems like,” suggested Buster.

“That’s where your head’s level, Buster!” exclaimed Josh; “if they can’t have the game go their own way they won’t play in the Serbs’ back-yard. So now they’re meaning to shell the river bank over here.”

“What for?” asked the fat chum wonderingly. “They can’t see a single one of the Serbs’ batteries, or even a man for that matter.”

“But they’ve located the different spots where that hot fire came from, and are hoping to get a few of the enemy guns with their big shells,” continued Josh, who could always be depended on to do the explaining when he grasped a subject himself.

“Well, then, I do hope they won’t drop a shell over this way and give us a bad scare,” said Buster.

“That’s a fact; that gun by which the bridge was cut to pieces did get in its work from near by here!” added George uneasily.

“I heard men talking and horses whinnying between the bursts of firing,” said Jack; “so I reckon they cleared out just as soon as their work was done. That’s the case, too, all along the line, the batteries and their supporting columns falling back to new positions so as to avoid the bombardment they know mighty well is going to come.”

Sitting there in the boat, they watched the fitful flashes of fire on the ridge far back from the river. It was much more thrilling than any storm they had ever seen; and then would come the crash as each enormous shell exploded on the southern side of the hotly contested stream that served as the border between the hostile countries.

Once there was a frightful detonation not far away from where the boys huddled aboard the little motorboat. The Austrian gunners had commenced to send missiles toward the spot from which the Serb gun had barked. Doubtless a terrible hole had been knocked in the bluff, a cavity that looked like a crater resulting from the explosion.

Every one of them had felt the shock attending the bursting of the high explosive shell, though luckily none of the fragments chanced to scatter in their direction.

“Oh! that was an awful crack!” groaned Buster, as though his heart might have tried to jump into his throat and partly choke him. “I do hope they won’t give us an encore. A hundred feet further this way and our name would have been Dennis.”

“Huh!” grumbled George, “better say it would be Mud, because we’d have gone into the river with tons of the earth here.”

“Listen! The Serbs are replying now!” said Jack.

“And that gun sounded exactly like the one that knocked the bridge to bits,” added Josh.

“Let’s hope, then, the fellows across on the hills there recognize its bark!” George exclaimed with considerable fervor, “and realize that it isn’t around this region any longer. Then they won’t bother wasting any more of their ammunition in bombarding this place.”

Apparently this was just what happened, for that shell was not followed by others, much to the relief of the boys. Buster in his heart even forgave the Austrians all they had done to nearly frighten him to death because of their forbearance now.