“It was,” said Fred, grimly.  “I’ll tell you about that later, Boris!  You’d better get everyone out of this place.  We can’t stay here any longer.  Unless I’m greatly mistaken, this will be used as a target for artillery by morning.  It will if Ivan is right.”

“He rushed by me just now.  He would say nothing except that you were behind.”

“He’s at the wireless.  Come on!  We’ll see if he has found out anything more.”

For ten minutes after they reached the turret, they could get nothing out of Ivan, who was sending hard, with only an occasional pause to listen to what the other operator sent to him.  Then he sat back with a sigh of relief.

“We were in time!” he said.  “These troops back here are the ones that were supposed to be massing behind Liok, to resist the feint we were making there.  They are too clever, those Germans!  They have their airships to tell them the truth, and their railways to move men swiftly from one side to another.  But they have not enough men!  We shall beat them yet.  Our attack will stop.  See—­look here!”

He moved to a table, and with pens and pencils made a rough diagram of the position.

“They gave up Gumbinnen without a fight, and formed in a half circle behind.  They had so few men there that it was an invitation to us to try to outflank them.  Our right could sweep out and draw in behind their left—­so.  And then their supporting troops could outflank our right, in turn, and it would be caught between two fires!  They have fewer troops than we in East Prussia to-day, but ours are separated, while they risked all to bring all theirs together at this one point and left the south unguarded from Mlawa to Liok!  Oh, it was daring—­Napoleon might have planned that!”

“I see,” said Fred.  “Then when they had won here, they could have used their railway to move troops southward?”

“Exactly so!  A hundred and fifty thousand men all together can beat a hundred thousand, if all else is equal.  But one army of a hundred thousand can beat two of seventy-five thousand apiece, meeting them at different times.  So our attack will stop.  We shall leave a covering force here at Gumbinnen—­or perhaps all our troops here will stay, but on the defensive, while others are rushed up from Grodno to outflank them, not on their right, as they hoped, but on their extreme left!”

He was silent for a moment.

“I need one man here,” he said.  “One man, to keep the engine running for the dynamo.  Everyone else must leave this house.  You, Boris Petrovitch, most of all—­you and your cousin.  I am responsible to your father for your safety for it is through my fault that the plans were badly made.”

“But why must you stay, Ivan?” asked Boris.

“I must stay until I am ordered away,” said Ivan.  “But it will not be safe here after daylight—­perhaps there will be trouble even before that.  Yes, I think it will be very soon now.”