CHAPTER THREE.
THE OLD COMPASS Tom took the limping Boche, his first war prisoner, to the Red Cross station at Vivieres where they had knives and scissors and bandages and antiseptics, but nothing with which to remove Prussian manacles, and all the king's horses and all the king's men and the willing, kindly nurses there could have done little for the poor Boche if Tom Slade, alias Thatchy, had not administered his own particular kind of first aid.
The French doctors sent him forth with unstinted praise which he only half understood, and as he sped along the road for Compiegne he wondered who could have been the allied gunner who at long range had cut Fritzie loose from the piece of artillery to which he had been chained.
"That feller and I did a good job anyway," he thought.
At Compiegne the whole town was in a ferment as he passed through.
Hundreds of refugees with mule carts and wheelbarrows laden with their household goods, were leaving the town in anticipation of the German advance.

They made a mournful procession as they passed out of the town along the south road with babies crying and children clamoring about the clumsy, overladen vehicles.

He saw many boys in khaki here and there and it cheered and inspired him to know that his country was represented in the fighting.

He had to pause in the street to let a company of them pass by on their way northward to the trench line and it did his heart good to hear their cheery laughter and typical American banter.
"Got any cigarettes, kiddo ?" one called.
"Where you going--north ?" asked another.
"To the billets west of Montdidier," Tom answered.

"I'm for new service.
I came from Toul sector." "Good-_night_! That's Sleepy Hollow over there." From Compiegne he followed the road across the Aronde and up through Mery and Tricot into Le Cardonnois.