A RESPITE
Never before in the course of a somewhat varied life had Dalroy felt so
irresolute, so helplessly the victim of circumstances. Bereft of the
local knowledge possessed by Joos and the other Belgians, any scheme he
adopted must depend wholly on blind chance. The miller had described the
wood as occupying a promontory in a bend of the Meuse, with steep cliffs
forming the southern bank of the river. There was a tow-path; possibly,
a series of narrow ravines or clefts gave precarious access from the
plateau to this lower level. Probably, too, in the first shock of
fright, the people in the hut had made for one of these cuttings, taking
Irene with them. They believed, no doubt, that the Englishman had been
shot or captured, and after that spurt of musketry so alarmingly near at
hand the lower part of the wood would seem alive with enemies.
Dalroy blamed himself, not the others, for this fatal bungling. Before
snatching a much-needed rest he ought to have arranged with Joos a
practicable line of retreat in the event of a night alarm. Of course he
had imposed silence on all as a sort of compulsory relief from the
tension of the earlier hours, but he saw now that he was only too ready
to share the miller's confidence. Not without reason had poor Dr.
Lafarge warned his fellow-countrymen that "there were far too many
Germans in Belgium." Schwartz and his like were to be found in every
walk of life, from the merchant princes who controlled the trade of
Antwerp to the youngest brush-haired waiter in the Cafe de la Regence at
Brussels.
Dalroy was aware of a grim appropriateness in the fate of Schwartz. The
German automatic pistols carried soft-nosed bullets, so the arch-traitor
who murdered the Vise doctor had himself suffered from one of the many
infernal devices brought by _Kultur_ to the battlefields of Flanders.
But the punishment of Schwartz could not undo the mischief the wretch
had caused. The men he led knew the nature and purpose of their errand.
They would report to the first officer met on the main road, who might
be expected to detail instantly a sufficient force for the task of
clearing the wood. In fact, the operation had become a military
necessity. There was no telling to what extent the locality was held by
Belgian troops, as, of course, the runaway warriors would magnify the
firing a hundredfold, and no soldier worth his salt would permit the
uninterrupted march of an army corps along a road flanked by such a
danger-point. In effect, Dalroy conceived a hundred reasons why he might
anticipate a sudden and violent end, but not one offering a fair
prospect of escape. At any rate, he refused to be guilty of the folly of
plunging into an unknown jungle of brambles, rocks, and trees, and
elected to go back by the path to the foot of the quarry, whence he
might, with plenty of luck, break through on a flank before the Germans
spread their net too wide.
He had actually crossed some part of the clearing in front of the hut
when his gorge rose at the thought that, win or lose in this game of
life and death, he might never again see Irene Beresford. The notion was
intolerable. He halted, and turned toward the black wall of the wood.
Mad though it was to risk revealing his whereabouts, since he had no
means of knowing how close the nearest pursuers might be, he shouted
loudly, "Miss Beresford!"
And a sweet voice replied, "Oh, Mr. Dalroy, they told me you were dead,
but I refused to believe them!"
Dalroy had staked everything on that last despairing call, little
dreaming that it would be answered. It was as though an angel had spoken
from out of the black portals of death. He was so taken aback, his
spirit was so shaken, that for a few seconds he was tongue-tied, and
Irene appeared in the moonlit space before he stirred an inch. She came
from an unexpected quarter, from the west, or Argenteau, side.
"The others said I was a lunatic to return," she explained simply; "but,
when I came to my full senses after being aroused from a sound sleep,
and told to fly at once because the Germans were on us, I realised that
you might have outwitted them again, and would be looking for us in
vain. So, here I am!"
He ran to her. Now that they were together again he was swift in
decision and resolute as ever. "Irene," he said, "you're a dear. Where
are our friends? Is there a path? Can you guide me?"
"Take my hand," she replied. "We turn by a big tree in the corner. I
think Jan Maertz followed me a little way when he saw I was determined
to go back."
"I suppose I had unconscious faith in you, Irene," he whispered, "and
that is why I cried your name. But no more talking now. Rapid, silent
movement alone can save us."
They had not gone twenty yards beneath the trees when some one hissed,
"Vise!"
"Liege, you lump!" retorted Dalroy.
"Monsieur, I----"
"Shut up! Hold mademoiselle's hand, and lead on."
He did not ask whither they were going. The path led diagonally to the
left, and that was what he wanted--a way to a flank.
Maertz, however, soon faltered and stopped in his tracks.
"The devil take all woods at night-time!" he growled. "Give me the
highroad and a wagon-team, and I'll face anything."
"Are you lost?" asked Dalroy.
"I suppose so, monsieur. But they can't be far. I told Joos----"
"Jan, is that you?" cried Leontine's voice.
"_Ah, Dieu merci!_ These infernal trees----"
"Silence now!" growled Dalroy imperatively. "Go ahead as quickly as
possible."
The semblance of a path existed; even so, they stumbled over gnarled
roots, collided with tree-trunks which stood directly in the way, and
had to fend many a low branch off their faces. They created an appalling
noise; but were favoured by the fact that the footpath led to the west,
whereas the pursuers must climb the cliff on the east.
Leontine, however, led them with the quiet certainty of a country-born
girl moving in a familiar environment. She could guess to a yard just
where the track was diverted by some huge-limbed elm or far-spreading
chestnut, and invariably picked up the right line again, for the
excellent reason, no doubt, that the dense undergrowth stood breast high
elsewhere at that season of the year.
After a walk that seemed much longer than it really was--the radius of
the wood from the hut being never more than two hundred yards in any
direction--the others heard her say anxiously, "Are you there, father?"
"Where the deuce do you think I'd be?" came the irritated demand. "Do
you imagine that your mother and I are skipping down these rocks like a
couple of weasels?"
"It is quite safe," said the girl. "I and Marie Lafarge went down only
last Thursday. Jules always goes that way to Argenteau. He has cut steps
in the bad places. Jan and I will lead. We can help mother and you."
Dalroy, still holding Irene's arm, pressed forward.
"Are we near the tow-path?" he asked.
"Oh, is that you, _Monsieur l'Anglais_?" chuckled the miller. "Name of a
pipe, I was positive those _sales Alboches_ had got you twenty minutes
since. Yes, if you trip in the next few yards you'll find yourself on
the tow-path after falling sixty feet."
"Go on, Leontine!" commanded Dalroy. "What you and your friend did for
amusement we can surely do to save our lives. But there should be
moonlight on this side. Have any clouds come up?"
"These are firs in front, monsieur. Once clear of them, we can see."
"Very well. Don't lose another second. Only, before beginning the
descent, make certain that the river bank holds no Germans."
Joos grumbled, but his wife silenced him. That good lady, it appeared,
had given up hope when the struggle broke out in the kitchen. She had
been snatched from the jaws of death by a seeming miracle, and regarded
Dalroy as a very Paladin. She attributed her rescue entirely to him, and
was almost inclined to be sceptical of Joos's sensational story about
the killing of Busch. "There never was such a man for arguing," she
said sharply. "I do believe you'd contradict an archbishop. Do as the
gentleman bids you. He knows best."
Now, seeing that madame herself, after one look, had refused point-blank
to tackle the supposed path, and had even insisted on retreating to the
cover of the wood, Joos was entitled to protest. Being a choleric little
man, he would assuredly have done so fully and freely had not a red
light illumined the tree-tops, while the crackle of a fire was
distinctly audible. The Germans had reached the top of the quarry, and,
in order to dissipate the impenetrable gloom, had converted the hut into
a beacon.
"_Misericorde!_" he muttered. "They are burning our provisions, and may
set the forest ablaze!"
And that is what actually happened. The vegetation was dry, as no rain
had fallen for many a day. The shavings and store of logs in the hut
burned like tinder, promptly creating a raging furnace wholly beyond the
control of the unthinking dolts who started it. The breeze which had
sprung up earlier became a roaring tornado among the trees, and some
acres of woodland were soon in flames. The light of that fire was seen
over an area of hundreds of miles. Spectators in Holland wrongly
attributed it to the burning of Vise, which was, however, only an
intelligent anticipation of events, because the delightful old town was
completely destroyed a week later in revenge for the defeats inflicted
on the invaders at Tirlemont and St. Trond during the first advance on
Antwerp.
Once embarked on a somewhat perilous descent, the fugitives gave eyes or
thought to naught else. Jules, the pioneer quoted by Leontine, who was
the owner of the hut and maker of sabots, had rough-hewed a sort of
stairway out of a narrow cleft in the rock face. To young people, steady
in nerve and sure of foot, the passage was dangerous enough, but to Joos
and his wife it offered real hazard. However, they were allowed no time
for hesitancy. With Leontine in front, guiding her father, and Maertz
next, telling Madame Joos where to put her feet, while Dalroy grasped
her broad shoulders and gave an occasional eye to Irene, they all
reached the level tow-path without the least accident. Irene, by the
way, carried the rifle, so that Dalroy should have both hands at
liberty.
Without a moment's delay he took the weapon and readjusted the magazine,
which he had removed for the climb. Bidding the others follow at such a
distance that they would not lose sight of him, yet be able to retire if
he found the way disputed by soldiers, he set off in the direction of
Argenteau.
In his opinion the next ten minutes would decide whether or not they had
even a remote chance of winning through to a place of comparative
safety. He had made up his own mind what to do if he met any Germans.
He would advise the Joos family and Maertz to hide in the cleft they had
just descended, while he would take to the Meuse with Irene--provided,
that is, she agreed to dare the long swim by night. Happily there was no
need to adopt this counsel of despair. The fire, instead of assisting
the flanking party on the western side, only delayed them. Sheer
curiosity as to what was happening in the wood drew all eyes there
rather than to the river bank, so the three men and three women passed
along the tow-path unseen and unchallenged.
After a half-mile of rapid progress Dalroy judged that they were safe
for the time, and allowed Madame Joos to take a much-needed rest. Though
breathless and nearly spent, she, like the others, found an irresistible
fascination in the scene lighted by the burning trees. The whole
countryside was resplendent in crimson and silver, because the landscape
was now steeped in moonshine, and the deep glow of the fire was most
perceptible in the patches where ordinarily there would be black
shadows. The Meuse resembled a river of blood, the movement of its
sluggish current suggesting the onward roll of some fluid denser than
water. Old Joos, whose tongue was seldom at rest, used that very simile.
"Those cursed Prussians have made Belgium a shambles," he added
bitterly. "Look at our river. It isn't our dear, muddy Meuse. It's a
stream in the infernal regions."
"Yes," gasped his wife. "And listen to those guns, Henri! They beat a
sort of _roulade_, like drums in hell!"
This stout Walloon matron had never heard of Milton. Her ears were not
tuned to the music of Parnassus. She would have gazed in mild wonder at
one who told of "noises loud and ruinous,"
When Bellona storms
With all her battering engines, bent to raze
Some capital city.
But in her distress of body and soul she had coined a phrase which two,
at least, of her hearers would never forget. The siege of Liege did,
indeed, roar and rumble with the din of a demoniac orchestra. Its
clamour mounted to the firmament. It was as though the nether fiends,
following Moloch's advice, were striving,
Arm'd with Hell flames and fury, all at once,
O'er Heaven's high towers to force resistless way.
Dalroy himself yielded to the spell of the moment. Here was red war such
as the soldier dreams of. His warrior spirit did not quail. He longed
only for the hour, if ever the privilege was vouchsafed, when he would
stand shoulder to shoulder with the men of his own race, and watch with
unflinching eye those same dread tokens of a far-flung battle line.
Irene Beresford seemed to read his passing mood. "War has some elements
of greatness," she said quietly. "The pity is that while it ennobles a
few it degrades the multitude."
With a woman's intuition, she had gone straight to the heart of the
problem propounded by Teutonism to an amazed world. The "degradation" of
a whole people was already Germany's greatest and unforgivable offence.
Few, even the most cynical, among the students of European politics
could have believed that the Kaiser's troops would sully their country's
repute by the inhuman excesses committed during those first days in
Belgium. At the best, "war is hell"; but the great American leader who
summed up its attributes in that pithy phrase thought only of the
mangled men, the ruined homesteads, the bereaved families which mark its
devastating trail. He had seen nothing of German "frightfulness." The
men he led would have scorned to ravage peaceful villages, impale babies
on bayonets and lances, set fire to houses containing old and bedridden
people, murder hostages, rape every woman in a community, torture
wounded enemies, and shoot harmless citizens in drunken sport. Yet the
German armies did all these things before they were a fortnight in the
field. They are not impeached on isolated counts, attributable, perhaps,
to the criminal instincts of a small minority. They carried out bestial
orgies in battalions and brigades acting under word of command. The
jolly, good-humoured fellows who used to tramp in droves through the
Swiss passes every summer, each man with a rucksack on his back, and
beguiling the road in lusty song, seemed to cast aside all their
cheerful camaraderie, all their exuberant kindliness of nature, when
garbed in the "field gray" livery of the State, and let loose among the
pleasant vales and well-tilled fields of Flanders. That will ever remain
Germany's gravest sin. When "the thunder of the captains and the
shouting" is stilled, when time has healed the wounds of victor and
vanquished, the memories of Vise, of Louvain, of Aershot, of nearly
every town and hamlet in Belgium and Northern France once occupied by
the savages from beyond the Rhine, will remain imperishable in their
horror. German _Kultur_ was a highly polished veneer. Exposed to the hot
blast of war it peeled and shrivelled, leaving bare a diseased,
worm-eaten structure, in which the honest fibre of humanity had been
rotted by vile influences, both social and political.
Women seldom err when they sum up the characteristics of the men of a
race, and the women of every other civilised nation were united in their
dislike of German men long before the first week in August, 1914. Irene
Beresford had yet to peer into the foulest depths of Teutonic
"degradation"; but she had sensed it as a latent menace, and found in
its stark records only the fulfilment of her vague fears.
Dalroy read into her words much that she had left unsaid. "At best it's
a terrible necessity," he replied; "at worst it's what we have seen and
heard of during the past twenty-four hours. I shall never understand why
a people which prided itself on being above all else intellectual should
imagine that atrocity is a means toward conquest. Such a theory is so
untrue historically that Germany might have learnt its folly."
Joos grew uneasy when his English friends spoke in their own language.
The suspicious temperament of the peasant is always doubtful of things
outside its comprehension. He would have been astounded if told they
were discussing the ethics of warfare.
"Well, have you two settled where we're to go?" he demanded gruffly. "In
my opinion, the Meuse is the best place for the lot of us."
"In with you, then," agreed Dalroy, "but hand over your money to madame
before you take the dip. Leontine and Jan may need it later to start the
mill running."
Maertz laughed. The joke appealed strongly.
Madame Joos turned on her husband. "How you do chatter, Henri!" she
said. "We all owe our lives to this gentleman, yet you aren't satisfied.
The Meuse indeed! What will you be saying next?"
"How far is Argenteau?" put in Dalroy.
"That's it, where the house is on fire," said the miller, pointing.
"About a kilometre, I take it?"
"Something like that."
"Have you friends there?"
"Ay, scores, if they're alive."
"I hear no shooting in that direction. Moreover, an army corps is
passing through. Let us go there. Something may turn up. We shall be
safer among thousands of Germans than here."
They walked on. The Englishman's air of decision was a tonic in itself.
The fire on the promontory was now at its height, but a curve in the
river hid the fugitives from possible observation. Dalroy was confident
as to two favourable factors--the men of the marching column would not
search far along the way they had come, and their commander would recall
them when the wood yielded no trace of its supposed occupants.
There had been fighting along the right bank of the Meuse during the
previous day. German helmets, red and yellow Belgian caps, portions of
accoutrements and broken weapons, littered the tow-path. But no bodies
were in evidence. The river had claimed the dead and the wounded
Belgians; the enemy's wounded had been transferred to Aix-la-Chapelle.
Nearing Argenteau they heard a feeble cry. They stopped, and listened.
Again it came, clearly this time: "Elsa! Elsa!"
It was a man's voice, and the name was that of a German woman. Maertz
searched in a thicket, and found a young German officer lying there. He
was delirious, calling for the help of one powerless to aid.
He seemed to become aware of the presence of some human being. Perhaps
his atrophied senses retained enough vitality to hear the passing
footsteps.
"Elsa!" he moaned again, "give me water, for God's sake!"
"He's done for," reported Maertz to the waiting group. "He's covered
with blood."
"For all that he may prove our salvation," said Dalroy quickly. "Sharp,
now! Pitch our firearms and ammunition into the river. We must lift a
gate off its hinges, and carry that fellow into Argenteau."
Joos grinned. He saw the astuteness of the scheme. A number of Belgian
peasants bringing a wounded officer to the ambulance would probably be
allowed to proceed scot-free. But he was loath to part with the precious
fork on which the blood of "that fat Busch" was congealing. He thrust it
into a ditch, and if ever he was able to retrieve it no more valued
souvenir of the great war will adorn his dwelling. They possessed
neither wine nor water; but a tiny rivulet flowing into the Meuse under
a neighbouring bridge supplied the latter, and the wounded man gulped
down great mouthfuls out of a _Pickel-haube_. It partially cleared his
wits.
"Where am I?" he asked faintly.
Dalroy nodded to Joos, who answered, "On the Meuse bank, near
Argenteau."
"Ah, I remember. Those cursed----" Some dim perception of his
surroundings choked the word on his lips. "I was hit," he went on, "and
crawled among the bushes."
"Was there fighting here this morning?"
"Yes. To-day is Tuesday, isn't it?"
"No, Wednesday midnight."
"_Ach, Gott!_ That _verdammt_ ambulance missed me! I have lain here two
days!"
This time he swore without hesitation, since he was cursing his own men.
Jan came with a hurdle. "This is lighter than a gate, monsieur," he
explained.
Dalroy nudged Joos sharply, and the miller took the cue. "Right," he
said. "Now, you two, handle him carefully."
The German groaned piteously, and fainted.
"Oh, he's dead!" gasped Irene, when she saw his head drop.
"No, he will recover. But don't speak English.--As for you, Jan Maertz,
no more of your 'monsieur' and 'madame.' I am Pierre, and this lady is
Clementine. You understand?"
Dalroy spoke emphatically. Had the German retained his wits their
project might be undone. In the event, the pain of movement on the
hurdle revived the wounded man, and he asked for more water. They were
then entering the outskirts of Argenteau, so they kept on. Soon they
gained the main road, and Joos inquired of an officer the whereabouts of
a field hospital. He directed them quite civilly, and offered to detail
men to act as bearers. But the miller was now his own shrewd self again.
"No," he said bluntly, "I and my family have rescued your officer, and
we want a safe conduct."
Off they went with their living passport. The field hospital was
established in the village school, and here the patient was turned over
to a surgeon. As it happened, the latter recognised a friend, and was
grateful. He sent an orderly with them to find the major in charge of
the lines of communication, and they had not been in Argenteau five
minutes before they were supplied with a _laisser passer_, in which they
figured as Wilhelm Schultz, farmer, and wife, Clementine and Leontine,
daughters, and the said daughters' fiances, Pierre Dampier and Georges
Lambert; residence Aubel; destination Andenne.
There was not the least hitch in the matter. The major was, in his way,
courteous. Joos gave his own Christian name as "Guillaume," but the
German laughed.
"You're a good citizen of the Fatherland now, my friend," he guffawed,
"so we'll make it 'Wilhelm.' As for this pair of doves," and he eyed the
two girls, "warn off any of our lads. Tell them that I, Major von
Arnheim, said so. They're a warm lot where a pretty woman is
concerned."
Von Arnheim was a stout man, a not uncommon quality in German majors.
Perhaps he wondered why Joos looked fixedly at the pit of his stomach.
But a motor cyclist dashed up with a despatch, and he forgot all about
"Schultz" and his family. As it happened, he was a man of some ability,
and the hopeless block at Aix caused by the stubborn defence of Liege
had brought about the summary dismissal of a General by the wrathful
Kaiser. Hence, the Argenteau major was promoted and recalled to the
base. His next in rank, summoned to the post an hour later, knew nothing
of the _laisser passer_ granted to a party which closely resembled the
much-wanted miller of Vise and his companions; he read an "urgent
general order" for their arrest without the least suspicion that they
had slipped through the net in that very place.
Meanwhile these things were in the lap of the gods. For the moment, the
six people were free, and actually under German protection.