"If we can," said Jack. "I don't know where the ship we came over on, the _St. Mark_, has been sent to. London and Paris are overrun with American refugees. When we were there, hundreds of them were unable to get passage, or even change their money."
"Oh, the whole world seems to have been shuffled in this thing," frowned Tom, "but let me introduce my friend, Philander Pottle. He's a photographer for a New York newspaper."
The boys shook hands with Pottle, a dark young fellow who talked as explosively as a machine gun.
"Glad to meet you--fine fight--be here soon--great pictures--snap! bang!--action--that's the stuff!"
"We're going out toward the front, that is, if we can get by," declared Tom; "want to come along?"
"I don't know what your father----" began Jack doubtfully.
"Oh, there's no danger so long as we don't get in any of the scrimmages ourselves," he declared, "and then the American flag and the Red Cross emblem will keep us out of trouble."
Both boys were anxious to go, so that it did not take much more persuasion to make them get in.
"Now then off we go--bang! biff!--big guns!"
Outside the city lay an open country. Far off they could see a great cloud-like mass of smoke which, no doubt, marked the place where the fight was taking place.
"We'll make a detour to the north," declared Tom. "There's rising ground there and we can look down without danger of getting hit."
"Not want to get hit--cannon ball--gee whizz, off goes your head--much better keep it on," said Pottle, in his firecracker way.
"He talks as fast as a photographic shutter moves," chuckled Bill to Jack in a low voice and the other could not but agree. As they rode on, they passed groups of soldiers and artillery. Now and then a lumbering wagon, bringing back wounded men lying on piles of straw, jolted by, bearing mute testimony of the havoc going on at the front.
The boys began to feel sick and queer and even Tom sobered down at these sights. They were stopped several times by small skirmishing bands and made to show their papers, for a few days before German spies had been captured in a car flying an American flag. The car sped up a hill and then started swiftly down on the other side of the acclivity.