Page 160 - A Hero of Liége

"To Durbuy, I think," said Granger. "There's a bridge across the Ourthe.
The Germans may be there; they move so confoundedly fast; but that's our

only chance of reaching the Belgian lines."

In a few minutes they reached the by-road to the left. It was narrow, but, to
Kenneth's joy, not so deeply rutted as the main road. He was getting the
utmost out of the car, which thundered along at forty miles an hour, the

engine knocking furiously whenever it was called upon to breast an incline.

For some distance they neither met nor passed any traffic. When at last they
overtook an empty farm cart, the driver had barely time or space to draw
into the side to avoid them. A few yards further on in rounding a curve

Kenneth saw a heavy motor transport wagon ahead, going in the same
direction. At the sound of the horn the driver looked round, and seeing the

armoured car manned apparently by Uhlans he drew in hastily to the bank,
no doubt supposing that it was engaged in urgent work. Kenneth slowed
down slightly to avoid a collision, scraped past, then raced on as before.

In less than half a minute afterwards he gave a cry of dismay. At the foot of

a short hill two heavily laden carts were drawn full across the road.
Kenneth jammed on the brakes, foot and hand; Granger, rendered
suspicious by the position of the carts and the absence of horses, stood up

and in a moment shouted to Pariset, his voice rising above the groaning and
shrieking of the mechanism.

"Germans in bushes!"

Pariset had seen them almost as soon as Granger. Before the car had come
to a standstill within a dozen yards of the obstruction, the machine gun

began to spit bullets in reply to the fusillade that rattled on the armoured
sides of the car and the shield of the gun. A few seconds of brisk firing;
then the deadly hail from the machine gun crashing through the foliage into

the ranks of the ambuscaders made their position hopelessly untenable, and
a remnant of the Horse Grenadiers who had lain in hiding there fled helter

skelter over the adjacent fields.