ANDENNE
Madame Joos was old for her fifty years, and heavy withal. Hers was not
the finer quality of human clay which hardens in the fire of adversity.
She became ill, almost seriously ill, and had to be nursed back into
good health again during nine long days. And long these days were, the
longest Dalroy had ever known. To a man of his temperament, enforced
inactivity was anathema in any conditions; a gnawing doubt that he was
not justified in remaining in Verviers at all did not improve matters.
Monsieur Garnier, the cure, was a frequent though unobtrusive visitor.
He doctored the invalid, and brought scraps of accurate information
which filtered through the far-flung screen of Uhlans and the dense
lines of German infantry and guns. Thus the fugitives knew when and
where the British Expeditionary Force actually landed on the Continent.
They heard of the gradual sapping of the defences of Liege, until Fort
Loncin fell, and, with it, as events were to prove, the shield which had
protected Belgium for nearly a fortnight. The respite did not avail King
Albert and his heroic people in so far as the occupation and ravaging of
their beautiful country was concerned; but calm-eyed historians in
years to come will appraise at its true value the breathing-space,
slight though it was, thus secured for France and England.
Dalroy found it extraordinarily difficult to sift the true from the
false in the crop of conflicting rumours. In the first instance, German
legends had to be discounted. From the outset of the campaign the
Kaiser's armies were steadily regaled with accounts of phenomenal
successes _elsewhere_. Thus, when four army corps, commanded now by Von
Kluck, were nearly demoralised by the steadfast valour of General Leman
and his stalwarts, the men were rallied by being told that the Crown
Prince was smashing his way to Paris through Nancy and Verdun. Prodigies
were being performed in Poland and the North Sea, and London was burnt
by Zeppelins almost daily. Nor did Belgian imagination lag far behind in
this contest of unveracity. British and French troops were marching to
the Meuse by a dozen roads; the French raid into Alsace was magnified
into a great military feat; the British fleet had squelched the German
navy by sinking nineteen battleships; the Kaiser, haggard and
blear-eyed, was alternately degrading and shooting Generals and issuing
flamboyant proclamations. Finally, Russia was flattening out East
Prussia and Galicia with the slow crunching of a steam roller.
Out of this maelstroem of "news" a level-headed soldier might, and did,
extract certain hard facts. The landing of Sir John French's force took
place exactly at the time and place and in the numbers Dalroy himself
had estimated. To throw a small army into Flanders would have been
folly. Obviously, the British must join hands with the French before
offering battle. For the rest--though he went out very little, and
alone, as being less risky--he recognised the hour when the German
machine recovered its momentum after the first unexpected collapse. He
saw order replace chaos. He watched the dragon crawling ever onward, and
understood then that no act of man could save Belgium. Verviers was the
best possible site for an observer who knew how to use his eyes. He
assumed that what was occurring there was going on with equal precision
in Luxembourg and along the line of the Vosges Mountains.
Gradually, too, he reconciled his conscience to these days of waiting.
He believed now that his services would be immensely more useful to the
British commander-in-chief in the field if he could cross the French
frontier rather than reach London and the War Office by way of the
Belgian coast. This decision lightened his heart. He was beginning to
fear that the welfare of Irene Beresford was conflicting with duty. It
was cheering to feel convinced that the odds and ends of information
picked up in Verviers might prove of inestimable value to the allied
cause. For instance, Liege was being laid low by eleven-inch howitzers,
but he had seen seventeen-inch howitzers, each in three parts, each part
drawn by forty horses or a dozen traction-engines, moving slowly toward
the south-west. There lay Namur and France. No need to doubt now where
the chief theatre of the war would find its habitat. The German staff
had blundered in its initial strategy, but the defect was being
repaired. All that had gone before was a mere prelude to the grim
business which would be transacted beyond the Meuse.
During that period of quiescence, certain minor and personal elements
affecting the future passed from a nebulous stage to a state of
quasi-acceptance. There was not, there could not be, any pronounced
love-making between two people so situated as Dalroy and Irene
Beresford. But eyes can exchange messages which the lips dare not utter,
and these two began to realise that they were designed the one for the
other by a wise Providence. As that is precisely the right sentiment of
young folk in love, romance throve finely in Madame Beranger's little
_auberge_ in the Rue de Nivers at Verviers. A tender glance, a touch of
the hand, a lighting of a troubled face when the dear one appears--these
things are excellent substitutes for the spoken word.
Irene was "Irene" to Dalroy ever since that night in the wood at
Argenteau, and the girl herself accepted the development with the
deftness which is every woman's legacy from Mother Eve.
"If you make free with my Christian name I must retort by using yours,"
she said one day on coming down to breakfast. "So, 'Good-morning,
Arthur.' Where did you get that hat?"
The hat in question was a purchase, a wide-brimmed felt such as is
common in Flanders. Its Apache slouch, in conjunction with Jan Maertz's
oldest clothes and a week's stubble of beard, made Dalroy quite
villainous-looking. Except in the details of height and physique, it
would, indeed, be difficult for any stranger to associate this
loose-limbed Belgian labourer with the well-groomed cavalry officer who
entered the Friedrich Strasse Station in Berlin on the night of 3rd
August. That was as it should be, though the alteration was none the
less displeasing to its victim. Irene adopted a huge sun-bonnet, and
compromised as to boots by wearing _sabots en cuir_, or clogs.
Singularly enough, white-haired Monsieur Garnier nearly brought matters
to a climax as between these two.
On the Wednesday evening, when the last forts of Liege were crumbling,
Madame Joos was reported convalescent and asleep, so both girls came to
the little _salon_ for a supper of stewed veal.
Naturally the war was discussed first; but the priest was learning to
agree with his English friend about its main features. In sheer dismay
at the black outlook before his country, he suddenly turned the talk
into a more intimate channel.
"What plans have you youngsters made?" he asked. "Monsieur Joos and I
can only look back through the years. The places we know and love are
abodes of ghosts. The milestones are tombstones. We can surely count
more friends dead than living. For you it is different. The world will
go on, war or no war; but Verviers will not become your residence, I
take it."
"Jan and I mean to join our respective armies as soon as Monsieur Joos
and the ladies are taken care of, and that means, I suppose, safely
lodged in England," said Dalroy.
"If Leontine likes to marry me first, I'm agreeable," put in Maertz
promptly.
It was a naive confession, and every one laughed except Joos.
"Leontine marries neither you nor any other hulking loafer while there
is one German hoof left in Belgium," vowed the little man warmly.
The priest smiled. He knew where the shoe pinched. Maertz, if no loafer,
was not what is vulgarly described as "a good catch."
"I've lost my parish," he said jestingly, "and, being an inveterate
match-maker, am on the _qui vive_ for a job. But if father says 'No' we
must wait till mother has a word. Now for the other pair.--What of you?"
Irene blushed scarlet, and dropped her serviette; Dalroy, though
flabbergasted, happily hit on a way out.
"I'm surprised at you, monsieur!" he cried. "Look at mademoiselle, and
then run your eye over me. Did ever pretty maid wed such a scarecrow?"
"I must refer that point to mademoiselle," retorted the priest. "I don't
think either of you would choose a book by the cover."
"Ah. At last I know the worst," laughed Dalroy. "Who would believe that
I once posed as the Discobulus in a _tableau vivant_?"
"What's that?" demanded Joos.
Dalroy hesitated. Neither his French nor German was equal to the
translation.
"A quoit-thrower," suggested Irene.
"Quoits!" sniffed the miller. "I'll take you on at that game any day you
like for twenty francs every ringer."
It was a safe offer. Old Joos was a noted player. He gave details of his
prowess. Dalroy, though modestly declining a contest, led him on, and
steered the conversation clear of rocks.
Thenceforth, for a whole day, Irene's manner stiffened perceptibly, and
Dalroy was miserable. Inexperienced in the ways of the sex, he little
dreamed that Irene felt she had been literally thrown at his head.
But graver issues soon dispersed that small cloud. On Saturday, 15th
August, the thunder of the guns lessened and died down, being replaced
by the far more distant and fitful barking of field batteries. But the
rumble on the cobbles of the main road continued. What need to ask what
had happened? Around Liege lay the silence of death.
Late that afternoon a woman brought a note to Dalroy. It bore no
address. She merely handed it to him, and hurried off, with the furtive
air of one afraid of being asked for an explanation. It ran:
"DEAR FRIEND,--Save yourself and the others. Lose not a moment.
I have seen a handbill. A big reward is offered. My advice is:
go west separately. The messenger I employ is a Christian, but I
doubt the faith of many. May God guard you! I shall accompany
you in my thoughts and prayers.--E. G."
Dalroy found Joos instantly.
"What is our cure's baptismal name?" he inquired.
"Edouard, monsieur."
"He has sent us marching orders. Read that!"
The miller's wizened face blanched. He had counted on remaining in
Verviers till the war was over. At that date no self-respecting Belgian
could bring himself to believe that the fighting would continue into the
winter. The first comparative successes of the small Belgian army,
combined with the meteoric French advance into Alsace, seemed to assure
speedy victory by the Allies. He swore roundly, but decided to follow
the priest's bidding in every respect save one.
"We can't split up," he declared. "We are all named in the _laisser
passer_. You understand what dull pigs these Germans are. They'll count
heads. If one is missing, or there's one too many, they'll inquire about
it for a week."
Sound common-sense and no small knowledge of Teuton character lurked in
the old man's comment. Monsieur Garnier, of course, had not been told
why this queerly assorted group clung together, nor was he aware of the
exact cause of their flight from Vise. Probably the handbill he
mentioned was explicit in names and descriptions. At any rate, he must
have the strongest reasons for supposing that Verviers no longer
provided a safe retreat.
Jan Maertz was summoned. He made a good suggestion. The direct road to
Andenne, via Liege and Huy, was impracticable, being crowded with troops
and transports. Why not use the country lanes from Pepinster through
Louveigne, Hamoir, and Maffe? It was a hilly country, and probably clear
of soldiers. He would buy a dog-team, and thus save Madame Joos the
fatigue of walking.
Dalroy agreed at once. Even though Irene still insisted on sharing his
effort to cross the German lines, two routes opened from Andenne, one to
Brussels and the west, the other to Dinant and the south. Moreover, he
counted on the Allies occupying the Mons-Charleroi-Namur terrain, and
one night's march from Andenne, with Maertz as guide, should bring the
three of them through, as the Joos family, in all likelihood, would
elect to remain with their relatives.
In a word, the orderliness of Verviers had already relegated the
excesses of Vise to the obscurity of an evil but half-forgotten dream.
The horrors of Louvain, of Malines, of the whole Belgian valley of the
Meuse, had yet to come. An officer of the British army simply could not
allow his mind to conceive the purposeful criminality of German methods.
Little did he imagine that, on the very day the fugitives set out for
Andenne, Vise was completely sacked and burned by command of the German
authorities. And why? Not because of any fault committed by the
unfortunate inhabitants, who had suffered so much at the outbreak of
hostilities. This second avalanche was let loose out of sheer spite. By
this time the enemy was commencing to estimate the fearful toll which
the Belgian army had taken of the Uhlans who provided the famous
"cavalry screen." Over and over again the vaunted light horsemen of
Germany were ambuscaded and cut up or captured. They proved to be
extraordinarily poor fighters when in small numbers, but naturally those
who got away made a fine tale of the dangers they had escaped. These
constant defeats stung the pride of the headquarters staff, and
"frightfulness" was prescribed as the remedy. The fact cannot be
disputed. The invaders' earliest offences might be explained, if not
condoned, as the deeds of men brutalised by drink, but the wholesale
ravaging of communities by regiments and brigades was the outcome of a
deliberate policy of reprisal. The Hun argument was convincing--to the
Hun intellect. How dared these puny Belgians fight for their hearths and
homes? It was their place to grovel at the feet of the conqueror. If any
worn-out notions of honour and manhood and the sanctity of woman
inspired them to take the field, they must be taught wisdom by being
ground beneath the heel of the Prussian jack-boot.
If the dead mouths of five thousand murdered Belgians did not bear
testimony against these disciplined marauders, the mere journey of the
little party of men and women who set out from Verviers that Saturday
afternoon would itself dispose of any attempt to cloak the high-placed
offenders.
They arranged a rendezvous at Pepinster. Dalroy went alone. He insisted
that this was advisable. Maertz brought Madame Joos and Irene. Joos,
having been besought to curb his tongue, convoyed Leontine. Until
Pepinster was reached, they took the main road, with its river of
troops. None gave them heed. Not a man addressed an uncivil word to
them. The soldiers were cheery and well-behaved.
They halted that night at Louveigne, which was absolutely unscathed.
Next day they passed through Hamoir and Maffe, and the peasants were
gathering the harvest!
Huy and Andenne, a villager told them, were occupied by the Germans, but
all was quiet. They pushed on, turning north-west from Maffe, and
descended into the Meuse valley about six o'clock in the evening. It was
ominous that the bridge was destroyed and a cluster of houses burning in
Seilles, a town on the opposite, or left, bank of the river. But Andenne
itself, a peaceful and industrious place, seemed to be undisturbed.
While passing a farm known as Dermine they fell in with a priest and a
few Belgians who were carrying a mortally wounded Prussian officer on a
stretcher.
Then, to his real chagrin, Dalroy heard that the Belgian outposts had
been driven south and west only that morning. One day less in Verviers,
and he and the others would have been out of their present difficulties.
However, he made the best of it. Surely they could either cross the
Meuse or reach Namur next day; while the fact that some local residents
were attending to the injured officer would supply the fugitives with an
excellent safe-conduct into Andenne, just as a similar incident had been
their salvation at Argenteau.
The stretcher was taken into the villa of a well-to-do resident; and, it
being still broad daylight, Joos asked to be directed to the house of
Monsieur Alphonse Stauwaert. The miller was acquainted with the
topography of the town, but the Stauwaert family had moved recently to a
new abode.
"Barely two hundred metres, _tout droit_," he was told.
They had gone part of the way when a troop of Uhlans came at the gallop
along the Namur road. The soldiers advanced in a pack, and were
evidently in a hurry. Madame Joos was seated in the low-built, flat
cart, drawn by two strong dogs, which had brought her from Verviers.
Maertz was leading the animals. The other four were disposed on both
sides of the cart. At the moment, no other person was nearer than some
thirty yards ahead. Three men were standing there in the roadway, and
they moved closer to the houses on the left. Maertz, too, pulled his
team on to the pavement on the same side.
The Uhlans came on. Suddenly, without the slightest provocation, their
leader swerved his horse and cut down one of the men, who dropped with a
shriek of mingled fear and agony.
Retribution came swiftly, because the charger slipped on some rounded
cobbles, crossed its forelegs, and turned a complete somersault. The
rider, a burly non-commissioned officer, pitched clean on his head, and
either fractured his skull or broke his neck, perhaps achieving both
laudable results, while his blood-stained sabre clattered on the stones
at Dalroy's feet. The nearest Uhlans drove their lances through the
other two civilians, who were already running for their lives. In order
to avoid the plunging horse and their fallen leader, the two ruffians
reined on to the pavement. They swung their weapons, evidently meaning
to transfix some of the six people clustered around the cart. The women
screamed shrilly. Leontine cowered near the wall; Joos, valiant soul in
an aged body, put himself in front of his wife; Maertz, hauling at the
dogs, tried to convert the vehicle into a shield for Leontine; while
Dalroy, conscious that Irene was close behind, picked up the
_unteroffizier's_ sword.
Much to the surprise of the trooper, who selected this tall peasant as
an easy prey, he parried the lance-thrust in such wise that the blade
entered the horse's off foreleg and brought the animal down. At the same
instant Maertz ducked, and dodged a wild lunge, which missed because the
Uhlan was trying to avoid crashing into the cart. But the vengeful steel
found another victim. By mischance it transfixed Madame Joos, while the
horse's shoulder caught Dalroy a glancing blow in the back and sent him
sprawling.
Some of the troopers, seeing two of their men prone, were pulling up
when a gruff voice cried, "_Achtung!_ We'll clear out these swine
later!"
Irene, who saw all that had passed with an extraordinary vividness, was
the only one who understood why the order which undoubtedly saved five
lives was given. A stout staff officer, wearing a blue uniform with red
facings, rode with the Uhlans, and she was certain that he was in a
state of abject terror. His funk was probably explained by an irregular
volley lower down the street, though, in the event, the shooting proved
to be that of his own men. Two miles away, at Solayn, these same Uhlans
had been badly bitten by a Belgian patrol, and the fat man, prospecting
the Namur road with a cavalry escort, wanted no more unpleasant
surprises that evening. Ostensibly, of course, he was anxious to report
to a brigade headquarters at Huy. At any rate, the Uhlans swept on.
They were gone when Dalroy regained his feet. A riderless horse was
clattering after them; another with a broken leg was vainly trying to
rise. Close at hand lay two Uhlans, one dead and one insensible. Joos
and Leontine were bending over the dying woman in the cart, making
frantic efforts to stanch the blood welling forth from mouth and breast.
The lance had pierced her lungs, but she was conscious for a minute or
so, and actually smiled the farewell she could not utter.
Maertz was swearing horribly, with the incoherence of a man just
aroused from drunken sleep. Irene moved a few steps to meet Dalroy. Her
face was marble white, her eyes strangely dilated.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
"No. And you?"
"Untouched, thanks to you. But those brutes have killed poor Madame
Joos!"
The wounded Uhlan was stretched between them. He stirred convulsively,
and groaned. Dalroy looked at the sword which he still held. He resisted
a great temptation, and sprang over the prostrate body. He was about to
say something when a ghastly object staggered past. It was the man who
received the sabre-cut, which had gashed his shoulder deeply.
"_Oh, mon Dieu!_" he screamed. "_Oh, mon Dieu!_"
He may have been making for some burrow. They never knew. He wailed that
frenzied appeal as he shambled on--always the same words. He could think
of nothing else but the last cry of despairing humanity to the
All-Powerful.
Owing to the flight of the cavalry, Dalroy imagined that some body of
allied troops, Belgian or French, was advancing from Namur, so he did
not obey his first impulse, which was to enter the nearest house and
endeavour to get away through the gardens or other enclosures in rear.
He glanced at the hapless body on the cart, and saw by the eyes that
life had departed. Leontine was sobbing pitifully. Maertz, having
recovered his senses, was striving to calm her. But Joos remained
silent; he held his wife's limp hand, and it was as though he awaited
some reassuring clasp which should tell him that she still lived.
Dalroy had no words to console the bereaved old man. He turned aside,
and a mist obscured his vision for a little while. Then he heard the
wounded German hiccoughing, and he looked again at the sword, because
this was the assassin who had foully murdered a gentle, kind-hearted,
and inoffensive woman. But he could not demean himself by becoming an
executioner. Richly as the criminal deserved to be sent with his victim
to the bar of Eternal Justice, the Englishman decided to leave him to
the avengers coming through the town.
The shooting drew nearer. A number of women and children, with a few
men, appeared. They were running and screaming. The first batch fled
past; but an elderly dame, spent with even a brief flurry, halted for a
few seconds when she saw the group near the dog-team.
"Henri Joos!" she gasped. "And Leontine! What, in Heaven's name, are you
doing here?"
It was Madame Stauwaert, the Andenne cousin with whom they hoped to find
sanctuary.
The miller gazed at her in a curiously abstracted way. "Is that you,
Margot?" he said. "We were coming to you. But they have wounded Lise.
See! Here she is!"
Madame Stauwaert looked at the corpse as though she did not understand
at first. Then she burst out hysterically, "She's dead, Henri! They've
killed her! They're killing all of us! They pulled Alphonse out of the
house and stabbed him with a bayonet. They're firing through the
openings into the cellars and into the ground-floor rooms of every
house. If they see a face at a bedroom window they shoot. Two Germans,
so drunk that they could hardly stand, shot at me as I ran. Ah, dear
God!"
She swayed and sank in a faint. The flying crowd increased in numbers.
Some one shouted, "Fools! Be off, for your lives! Make for the
quarries."
Dalroy decided to take this unknown friend's advice. The terrified
people of Andenne had, at least, some definite goal in view, whereas he
had none. He lifted Madame Stauwaert and placed her beside the dead body
on the cart.
"Come," he said to Maertz, "get the dogs into a trot.--Leontine, look
after your father, and don't lose sight of us!"
He grasped Irene by the arm. The tiny vehicle was flat and narrow, and
he was so intent on preventing the unconscious woman from falling off
into the road that he did not miss Joos and his daughter until Irene
called on Maertz to stop. "Where are the others?" she cried. "We must
not desert them."
In the midst of a scattered mob came the laggards. Joos was not
hurrying at all. He was smiling horribly. In his hand he held a large
pocket-knife open. "It was all I had," he explained calmly. "But Margot
said Lise was dead, so it did his business."
"I'm glad," said Dalroy. "It was your privilege. But you must run now,
for Leontine's sake, as she will not leave you, and the Germans may be
on us at any moment."
Luckily, the stream of people swerved into a by-road; the "quarries"
of which some man had spoken opened up in the hillside close at hand.
On top were woods, and a cart-track led that way at a sharp gradient.
Dalroy assisted the dogs by pushing the cart, and they reached the
summit. Pausing there, while Irene and the weeping Leontine endeavoured
to revive Madame Stauwaert, to whom they must look for some sort of
guidance as to their next move, he went to the lip of the excavation,
and surveyed the scene.
Dusk was creeping over the picturesque valley, but the light still
sufficed to reveal distances. The railway station, with all the houses
in the vicinity, was on fire. Nearly every dwelling along the Namur road
was ablaze; while the trim little farms which rise, one above the other,
on the terraced heights of the right bank of the Meuse seemed to have
burst into flame spontaneously. Seilles, too, on the opposite bank, was
undergoing the same process of wanton destruction; but, a puzzling
thing, rifles and machine-guns were busy on both sides of the river, and
the flashes showed that a sharp engagement was taking place.
A man, carrying a child in his arms, who had come with them, was
standing at Dalroy's elbow. He appeared self-possessed enough, so the
Englishman sought information.
"Are those Belgian troops in Seilles?" he inquired.
The man snorted. "Belgians? No! They retreated to Namur this morning.
That is a Bavarian regiment shooting at Brandenburgers in Andenne. They
are all mad drunk, officers and men. They've been here since eleven
o'clock, first Uhlans, then infantry. The burgomaster met them fairly,
not a shot was fired, and we thought we were over the worst. Then, as
you see, hell broke loose!"
Such was the refuge Andenne provided on Monday, 20th August. Hell--by
order!