German. "Without them----" He waved an expressive hand. "But to-morrow
we shall deliver the _coup de grâce_. We have not boasted idly,
Excellenz." His eyes looked searchingly through their pince-nez on the
calmly interested face of the neutral. "When Germany threatens she
performs."
On the morning of the 25th the German guns roared over white fields
of snow, through veils of the softly falling flakes that fluttered
inexhaustibly from the leaden sky. Their thunder swelled louder and
ever louder as the batteries which had changed position, consequently
upon the French withdrawal during the night, got to work, searching
for their target, more or less accurately finding it despite the
difficulty of observation. Not a minute was to be lost. The anxious
German staff knew that the reinforcements of their foes must be
hurrying--hurrying. Some perhaps had already arrived. If night fell
without definite victory, the morrow would surely see fresh masses
against them, reinvigorating the defence. Victory to-day--complete
victory--Douaumont captured, the pursuit pressed into the streets of
Verdun--meant victory indeed. Mighty therefore was the effort. By noon
every German battery was firing at its maximum. Under the leaden sky,
over the white ground, in the still cold of a bitter frost, their
thunder swelled and crashed, roaring in a never-ending frenzy. Eighteen
German divisions were massed to break down all opposition. Already they
had attacked--again and again. Again and again, the rapid detonations
of the French guns had leaped into the din, smiting desperately,
frantically, to stay them. Over there, in the mist-hung gullies of the
plateau, on its bare open spaces between the woods, the snow had ceased
to be white--save where it fell freshly upon the huddled bodies of the
fallen.
In the afternoon the weather cleared somewhat. More distant views
were possible. On the higher of the Twins of Ornes, the knolls just
south-west of the Forêt de Spincourt, stood the figure who more than
any other individual would have to dare the answer for all the agony
rolled out there before him, for all the agony that no eye could
measure, spread over continents, crying to strange stars. Spiked
helmet on his head, long grey cavalry-cloak wrapped about him, his
field-glasses held to his eyes by the right hand only, he gazed upon
the now distant conflict. At his side stood a younger figure, his face
masked also by binoculars. Behind them was a group of dignitaries,
generals of high position, the distinguished neutral and the Oberst who
never quitted him. All gazed to the wooded scarp of the Heights of the
Meuse, their glasses pointing south-south-west.
The great masses of woodland rose dark from the snow of the plain a
long stretch of undulating, climbing tree-tops. Beyond them the bare
bulk of the plateau humped itself yet higher, dirty grey against the
sky. It rose to a culminating knoll--Douaumont! All that bare plateau
was whelmed in a drifting reek, but the highest point was like a
volcano in eruption. Great founts of smoke shot up from it incessantly,
spread in the air in heavy plumes that overhung. It was the objective
of the 3rd Corps (Brandenburgers), attacking under the eye of the
Kaiser so particularly their chief. Their orders were that Douaumont
was to be taken at all costs. On the Twin of Ornes operators from Army
Headquarters had taken over the telephone dug-out. Behind them the line
was clear to Berlin--waiting--waiting for the triumphant announcement
that should thrill the world.
Somewhat impatiently the neutral scanned the lofty distances where the
great drama was being enacted. Innumerable puffs of bursting shells
indicated the conflict but gave no hint of its varying fortunes.
The professional instinct was strong within him, the report to his
Government an ideal to which it strove. To perfect that report he
must see the fight at closer quarters, must describe the effects of
the French fire as a complement to the already written minute on the
German batteries. His keen eye picked out a position of vantage on the
Heights. Then he waited for an opportunity, alert for the moment when
the eye of majesty should rest itself from the distant view, should
fall upon him. The opportunity occurred. The glance of the All-Highest
swept over him, preoccupied. The neutral stepped forward, saluted,
indicated the far-off point.
"_Ich bitte um Erlaubnis, Majestät_,"[15] he said.
A frowning glance rested upon him for an instant, intolerant of aught
save the mighty contest whose issue was the fate of nations.
"_Gestattet_,"[16] was the curt, indifferent reply.
The German Oberst, standing behind the neutral, changed colour. He had
no option but to accompany this damnable foreigner in his mad adventure
into unnecessary danger. He, too, saluted "Majestät," followed the
neutral to the spot where a number of orderlies stood at the heads of
saddled horses. They had been sent forward in case the dignitaries
should require them.
In a few moments the two officers, followed by mounted attendants, were
slithering down the snowy side of the knoll, were cantering across the
valley towards Ornes.
High above them towered the dark Bois de la Chaume as they threaded
the débris-covered street of the wrecked village. It was packed with
Brandenburger infantry waiting to advance. They followed the road
southward, at the foot of the hills, towards Bezonvaux. Everywhere the
infantry stood thick, waiting. The cannonade mounted to a frightful
intensity, appalling even the ears now habituated to it, bewildering
the senses, troubling the sight. French shells came whining, screaming,
rushing, to burst with loud crashes in the woodland rising on their
right hand, on the road and the fields through which it passed. Domes
of dark smoke leaped upward from the earth, preceding the stunning,
metallic detonation. White shrapnel puffs clustered thickly above the
trees. Bezonvaux was a ruin. They turned off from it to the right,
up a rough track that climbed into the woods. The snow on the track
had been trampled into a dirty slush. All about them lay bodies, grey
and blue; weapons pell-mell as they had fallen from a suddenly opened
grasp. Their horses shuddered, whinnied, jerked nervous ears, moved
disconcertingly sideways from red stains soaking deep into the snow.
Just under the edge of the plateau the neutral stopped, dismounted,
threw his reins to an orderly. The Oberst followed his example. His
face was blotchy white, he trembled in every limb.
"We shall see nothing, Excellenz--absolutely nothing," he asseverated
appealingly.
"We can at least try," replied his guest. "Something is happening over
there."
Above them, some distance ahead, was a tremendous uproar, a chaos of
violent thudding slams, splitting crashes, a faint troublous murmur of
human voices. Behind them, up the rough track, a column of infantry
was advancing, overtaking them. They ascended with a steady progress,
splashing through the slush; officers waving swords, shouting; rank
upon rank of tense faces that had lost their humanity in the tremulous
brute; glazed staring eyes under the spiked helmets; singing, singing
like drugged, doomed gladiators marching to the arena. They passed
upward.
The neutral, to whom his conductor had nervelessly surrendered the
initiative, led the way. They left their horses behind them, struck off
at a tangent to the right, through the woods, climbing always. They
emerged upon the plateau, in a clearing. Across the open space, from
a whelm of smoke and noise in the distance, groups of grey men were
running swiftly towards them, shouting inarticulately. Along the edge
of the woods was a line of pickets. Their weapons rose to the shoulder.
Sternly, every fugitive but those wounded was driven again into the
fight. Those who hesitated, screaming under the menace of the rifle,
dropped shot.
The neutral hurried along the verge of the wood, scanning every tall
tree carefully, expectantly. "Ah!" He had found what he sought.
Against the green bark of a lofty beech dangled a rope ladder. It was
an abandoned French artillery observation post. He scrambled up the
ladder, followed by the trembling, shivering Oberst. High up among the
topmost branches was a little platform.
The neutral settled himself, adjusted his binoculars, pushed aside
the twigs. He looked out over an undulating terrain, dark with woods
that ceased raggedly in deep indentations short of a bare hog's back
that gathered itself into a hump. That bare ground was smothered in a
turmoil of smoke that fumed to the grey sky, far to right and left.
But through it, in chance rifts, his glasses revealed a dark mass
upon the highest point. A reek of white smoke drifted away from it as
from burning buildings, mingling with the darker clouds of incessant
explosions. He had a glimpse of a rounded cupola. It was Douaumont!
The snow on the open space between the fort and the woods was grey. It
was moving with crawling life like the festering of a stagnant pool.
Over it burst occasional puffs of shrapnel.
"Ah!" The cry was involuntary from both the watching men. From the
woods emerged masses of running tiny grey figures, running, running
towards the fort. The open space was covered with them. A moment of
tense expectation when the heart seemed to stop--and then, as by a
terrible magic, great fountains of dark smoke and darker objects leaped
up among those running figures, countless explosions. A canopy of
vicious little shrapnel bursts in thousands spread itself over them.
Under it men sprawled in great patches, seemed to be fighting the air
ere they tumbled and fell. A horrid screaming came faint through the
uproar. More masses rushed out, were beaten down. There was a running
to and fro of men bewildered--a headlong flight.
The storm of fire did not cease. It rolled over the plateau towards the
woods, remorselessly following the fugitives. Louder and louder, nearer
and nearer, the crashes, the fountains, the puffs--the great mingled
reek of the inferno--rolled towards the two men in the observation post.
The Oberst clutched the neutral's arm.
"Excellenz!" he shouted stammeringly. "We must go. I insist. I have
superior authority--written authority--my discretion--I insist!" he
almost screamed. His hand groped for a scrap of paper which he waved.
"Arrest!" he cried like a maniac. "Arrest if you do not come!"
The storm of French shells was a very near menace. The neutral
acquiesced with a shrug of his shoulders. Nimbly they descended the
ladder.
On the ground they found themselves among a swarm of slightly wounded,
terror-stricken men. One of them, a tall, bearded Brandenburger, his
clothes torn to rags, was shrieking and laughing in a manner horrible
to hear. His comrades drew away from him as he clutched at them. He was
insane.
"Only I am left!" he cried. "Only I! They are all dead--dead--out
there. They were meant to be dead. They were dead men before we
attacked--all dead men running on--I could see it in their faces--only
I was alive! And now they are still crawling--crawling--dead men!"
His tone emphasised the horror of his words, struck a chill. A sentry
lowered his rifle, irresolutely.
The maniac turned, waved a hand to the westward. The sun, on the point
of setting, showed itself in a rift of the threatening snow clouds,
sank, a great ball of glowing fire, over the rim of the plateau. Its
last rays were lurid on the face of the madman, as he stood, arm
outstretched, his eyes flaming, his tangled beard falling upon his
rags, like some antique prophet of the wilderness.
"Woe! woe!" he shrieked. "_Nach Verdun! Nach
Verdun--Verdunkelung!_"[17] He finished in a scream of maniac
laughter, glorying in the crazy assonance of the words. "_Nach
Verdun--Verdunkelung!_"
The neutral and the Oberst hurried through the woods to their horses.
A rapid ride with the German always in front, and once more they
ascended the Twin of Ornes. As they arrived at the summit they found
themselves among wildly cheering men. "_Douaumont! Douaumont is
taken!_" Far away to the south-south-west, rocket after rocket shot up
into the darkening sky. Already the great news had gone--electrical--to
Berlin.
The crowd of dignitaries descended the steep path in the gloom to where
the motor-cars were ranked in waiting. Along the road passed streams of
wounded who could walk, phantoms half-distinguished in the dim light.
Joyous were the voices of the War-Lords. One, a familiar tone, chanted:
"_Nach Verdun! Nach Verdun--Paris!_"[18]
Out of the darkness came a screamed reply, a burst of insane laughter.
"_Nach Verdun--Verdunkelung! Nach Verdun--Verdunkelung!_"
It was the voice of the crazed Brandenburger. There was a scuffle, the
sound of a man hurried away, resisting.
All through that dark journey as the car bumped and lurched over the
atrocious roads, the words beat in a refrain through the mind of the
neutral. "_Nach Verdun--Verdunkelung!_" He wondered. Eclipse? Was it
the sun of Germany that set on the French position? The Oberst was
loquaciously cheerful.
That night, in the great map-hung apartment, the War-Lords received
the news that their further advance was barred.
Next morning a furious counter-attack surrounded a handful of defenders
in the fort for which they had paid so much. The French reinforcements
had arrived.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: War economy.]
[Footnote 12: "The thing is absolutely simple!"]
[Footnote 13: Vide Mr. John Buchan's _History of the War_, Vol. XIII.]
[Footnote 14: "Nach" means "to, towards," and also "after."--"To
Verdun! _After_ Verdun--Paris!"]
[Footnote 15: "I beg permission, Your Majesty."]
[Footnote 16: "Granted."]
[Footnote 17: "To Verdun! _After_ Verdun--Eclipse."]
[Footnote 18: "To Verdun! After Verdun--Paris!"]
THE CHÂTELAINE OF LYSBOISÉE
(AN IDYLL BETWEEN THE TRENCHES, 1914)
(Note.--This story is founded upon an actual occurrence narrated by
Paul Grabein, "Im Auto durch Feindesland," Berlin, 1916.)
The sun set while a regiment of Zouaves was marching across the
plateau. The after-glow yet illumined the sky when its leading files
turned obliquely off to the right along a rough track that presently
dropped abruptly into a deep ravine, sculped by one of the streamlet
tributaries of the Oise. Bare for a little way below the lip, save
for some scattered juniper bushes stiffly perpendicular from the
close-cropped slope, the sides of the ravine were dark with a dense
growth of tree and thorn. The road plunged into it.
Down and down went the road in a gloomy tunnel of arching boughs that
scarce left an interstice for the twilight sky. It reached the floor of
the little valley, followed it to the right in a more gentle descent.
On its left a brook fell swiftly through a plantation of silver birch
in a channel that brimmed to the long, rank, water-flattened grass and
anon plashed over boulders in a miniature cascade. Save for the steady
tramp of the marching troops and the occasional squawk of a frightened
jay, there was no sound in the valley.
Mounted upon a magnificent black horse, the colonel rode at the head of
the column. Seen in profile, his face was remarkable--virile, powerful,
and intellectual. When it turned to full face it fascinated. Not the
steel-grey eyes looked for under those level brows, but a pair of full
brown orbs, romantic as those of an Arab, met the gaze. He raised his
hand as the column approached a pair of high ornamental iron gates, set
in a frame of lofty arched stone and surmounted by a carved escutcheon,
on the left side of the road. "Halt!"
Behind him there was a clatter of accoutrements as the long column
broke its ranks, settled itself in seated groups, with piled arms, by
the roadside. In front, the advance-guard, receiving the order from
the connecting files, halted also. The colonel walked his horse to the
gates. The padlocked chain that had held them closed hung broken from
one of the wrought-iron scrolls. The gates had evidently been forced.
He pressed his horse's flank against one of them, slipped through the
opening, and set off at a trot down a long avenue of ancient poplars.
His capitaine-adjutant, cantering up from the leading company, followed
the wave of his hand.
Beyond the clearing of lawn and Cupid-crowned fountain into which he
emerged, lay a long white stone mansion, picturesque but not remarkable
in its seventeenth-century architecture. Every window was shuttered.
Throwing the reins to his companion, he dismounted and, with the stiff
gait from long hours in the saddle, ascended the broad curving steps to
the main entrance.
Only at his second summons on the loud, harshly clanging bell was there
any answering sign of life. One of the great doors opened slightly
until checked by a chain, and a woman's voice asked: "Who is it?"
"French officers, madame. Is the _patronne_ at home?"
"I cannot see you," said the voice, evading the question.
The colonel placed himself so as to be visible through the narrow
aperture. "Attendez!" said the voice. The door closed again.
A minute or two of waiting in the chill, misty air and once more the
door opened, this time fully. "Entrez, monsieur!" said the voice.
He found himself in a large lofty hall, dimly illumined by the candle
held by a little bent old woman. "Par ici, monsieur!" she said.
She led him through salon after salon. In the flickering light he could
only just discern that they were richly furnished. At last she stopped
and tapped at a closed door.
He was admitted into an apartment of costly and tasteful comfort, lit
with warm soft radiance from a shaded pedestal lamp. Pine logs were
burning on the hearth of a high stone fireplace. To one side stood a
grand piano. A great dog, stretched before the hearth, growled surlily.
These were salient details he was scarcely conscious of noting. His
eyes were held by the woman who rose from an arm-chair by the fire.
Tall, gowned simply in a long robe of soft pale green, the lamplight
shimmered on the waved masses of her auburn hair as she moved. Not
vulgarly beautiful--the mouth was large, though well-cut--an oval
ivory-white face looked into his. No longer very young--she was at
least thirty--her instantly felt charm came accentuated by a hint of
incomplete maturity. Those quiet eyes could still look at life with a
questioning scrutiny, receptive of the new experience. They met his
now and a personality leaped into them, communed with him ere yet a
word had been uttered. Outwardly, only, they were still strangers. He
noticed that she wore no jewellery as he bowed courteously, fez in hand.
"Madame, I am the colonel of the --th Regiment of Zouaves. A necessity,
that must be disagreeable to you, forces me to ask your hospitality for
my officers and men."
"For to-night only?" Her voice was singularly deep and rich.
"Perhaps for several, madame."
"You are many?"
"Eleven hundred men and twenty officers."
"A strong battalion!"
"Three battalions, madame," he corrected gently.
The expression of the eyes, which had never left his, changed slightly.
The wordless, languageless message they were exchanging with his own
was interrupted. "Ah," she said in a voice of sympathy. "You come from
the battle? From the Marne?"
"Yes, madame. We were on the Ourcq. Since then, on the Aisne."
Her face lit up.
"But certainly! Who would refuse anything to the brave men who have
saved France! You will excuse the coolness of your reception, Monsieur
le colonel? We have had other guests--less welcome." The colonel
thought of the broken chain on the gate. "Marie!" This to the old woman
who stood by the door, shading the candle in her hand, incongruous
in this luxurious apartment. "Place the large dining-room at the
disposition of _messieurs les officiers_. The kitchen also." She turned
again to the colonel. "I can offer only ten bedrooms to your officers,
Monsieur le colonel, but doubtless they can arrange themselves. The
stables are large, there are three barns and a disused mill, and there
is a loft at the top of the house. I hope you will find room for all
your men. There is plenty of straw in the barns. They may use it
freely. Please consider the house entirely at your disposition." And
all this time the eyes were talking wordlessly. And his, although he
knew it not, were replying.
"You are too kind, madame!"
"It is a happy privilege, Monsieur le colonel!"
His business was finished, yet he felt curiously unwilling to go, much
though awaited him to do. His apology seemed addressed as much to his
own hidden inner self as to her.
"Mille remerciments, madame! You will excuse me if I withdraw? My men
are very tired. Once more, a thousand thanks, madame----?"
She answered his unuttered question, a smile lighting up eyes and face.
"--La comtesse de Beaupré et Lysboisée."
He bowed.
"Le colonel Victor de Montévrault."
She held out a slender hand. Involuntarily, almost, he touched it with
his lips as he took it in his own. She did not stir. He did not see her
face.
"Au revoir, madame, et tous mes remerciments!"
"Au revoir, monsieur," she answered in her rich, deep voice.
He felt her eyes upon him as he turned to follow Marie, candle in hand,
once more through the series of dark apartments.
A little later and the château and its precincts were thronged with the
soldiers of the three war-worn battalions as they installed themselves
for the night. From the great yard between the stables and the barns
came the glow of cooking fires.
But not for all was the hour of rest arrived. In a little room of the
château the colonel, with his three _chefs de bataillon_ of whom one
only was a major, was poring over a large-scale map and indicating the
positions for the lines of sentries, outposts and _grand'gardes_. Up
the opposite side of the ravine to that which they had ascended, well
in advance across the high open ground, and down the valley road he
posted them. On the three battalion commanders the greatest vigilance
was enjoined. Ahead of them there should be French cavalry, but those
were the days of flux and reflux in the meeting tides of war, and all
things were possible.
Later still, the colonel sat at the head of the long lamp-lit table
in the great dining-room. From the walls dim portraits in lustreless
frames looked down upon the backs of the loudly chattering Frenchmen
in the exotic, Oriental uniforms. There was little or no talk of the
bitter, terrible but finally victorious days through which they--it
seemed to each of them miraculously--had lived. Animated discussion
of the future was the rule--a future confidently regarded through the
glow of the so recently victorious past. Bold strategic plans were
elaborated, illustrated with cruet and table-knives. There was much
talk of envelopment, of a rapid dash on Le Cateau, Valenciennes and
Mons that should hurl the Boche, deprived of his communications, into
the tangled thicket of the Ardennes, if indeed he escaped at all. The
colonel took no part in these arguments. He sat silently sipping the
wine which a generous hostess had caused to be placed in ample quantity
upon the table. His large brown eyes were soft, the muscles of his face
relaxed. It is possible that he thought of something quite other than
war.
One of the soldier orderlies flitting behind the chairs touched him on
the shoulder.
"Pardon, mon colonel, but the domestic wishes to speak to you."
He turned in his chair to see the ancient Marie at the door.
"Madame presents her compliments, m'sieu le colonel, and would be
honoured if you would take your coffee with her."
The colonel rose in his chair.
"Bonsoir et bonne nuit, messieurs!"
"Bonsoir, mon colonel," was reiterated from the score of upturned
faces. "Bonne nuit."
In her cosy warm salon the châtelaine sat by the fire, a glow softly
playing over her features. At her side, on a little table, a silver
coffee-service steamed. As the colonel entered she looked up to greet
him with a smile, indicating the corresponding arm-chair on the other
side of the hearth. The large dog at her feet raised his head, wagged
his tail in friendly welcome.