weather"--that combination of natural conditions which so oddly favoured
the enemy always. It had often occurred to him as strange; on sea and
land, mist, rain and wind, the fog and drying sun worked ever on _their_
side. The coincidence was odd, to say the least. And now this glimpse of
rising moon and sunset sky reminded him unpleasantly of the subject.
Legends of pagan weather-gods passed through his mind like hurrying
shadows. These shadows multiplied, changed form, vanished and returned.
They came and went with incoherence, a straggling stream, rushing from
one point to another, manoeuvring for position, but all unled, unguided
by his will. The physical exercise filled his brain with blood, and
thought danced undirected, picture upon picture driving by, so that soon
he slipped from German weather and pagan gods to the witchcraft of past
centuries, of its alleged association with the natural powers of the
elements, and thus, eventually, to his cherished beliefs that humanity
had advanced.
Such remnants of primitive days were grotesque superstition, of course.
But had humanity advanced? Had the individual progressed after all?
Civilization, was it not the merest artificial growth? And the old
perplexity rushed through his mind again--the German barbarity
and blood-lust, the savagery, the undoubted sadic impulses, the
frightfulness taught with cool calculation by their highest minds,
approved by their professors, endorsed by their clergy, applauded by
their women even--all the unwelcome, undesired thoughts came flocking
back upon him, escorted by the trooping shadows. They lay, these
questions, still unsolved within him; it was the undercurrent, flowing
more swiftly now, that bore them to the surface. It had acquired
momentum; it was leading somewhere.
They were a thoughtful, intellectual race, these Germans; their music,
literature, philosophy, their science--how reconcile the opposing
qualities? He had read that their herd-instinct was unusually developed,
though betraying the characteristics of a low wild savage type--the
lupine. It might be true. Fear and danger wakened this collective
instinct into terrific activity, making them blind and humourless; they
fought best, like wolves, in contact; they howled and whined and boasted
loudly all together to inspire terror; their Hymn of Hate was but an
elaboration of the wolf's fierce bark, giving them herd-courage; and a
savage discipline was necessary to their lupine type.
These reflections thronged his mind as the blood coursed in his veins
with the rapid climbing; yet one and all, the beauty of the evening, the
magic of the hidden town, the thoughts of German horror, German weather,
German gods, all these, even the odd detail that they revived a pagan
practice by hammering nails into effigies and idols--all led finally to
one blazing centre that nothing could dislodge nor anything conceal; a
woman's voice and eyes. To these he knew quite well, was due the
undesired intensification of the very mood, the very emotions, the very
thoughts he had come out on purpose to escape.
"It is the night of the vernal equinox," occurred to him suddenly, sharp
as a whispered voice beside him. He had no notion whence the idea was
born. It had no particular meaning, so far as he remembered.
"It had _then_ ..." said the voice imperiously, rising, it seemed,
directly out of the under-current in his soul.
It startled him. He increased his pace. He walked very quickly,
whistling softly as he went.
The dusk had fallen when at length he topped the long, slow hill, and
left the last of the atrocious straggling villas well behind him. The
ancient city lay far below in murky haze and smoke, but tinged now with
the silver of the growing moon.
4
He stood now on the open plateau. He was on the heights at last.
The night air met him freshly in the face, so that he forgot the fatigue
of the long climb uphill, taken too fast somewhat for his years. He drew
a deep draught into his lungs and stepped out briskly.
Far in the upper sky light flaky clouds raced through the reddened air,
but the wind kept to these higher strata, and the world about him lay
very still. Few lights showed in the farms and cottages, for this was
the direct route of the Gothas, and nothing that could help the German
hawks to find the river was visible.
His mind cleared pleasantly; this keen sweet air held no mystery; he put
his best foot foremost, whistling still, but a little more loudly than
before. Among the orchards he saw the daisies glimmer. Also, he heard
the guns, a thudding concussion in the direction of the coveted Amiens,
where, some sixty miles as the crow flies, they roared their terror into
the calm evening skies. He cursed the sound, in the town below it was
not audible. Thought jumped then to the men who fired them, and so to
the prisoners who worked on the roads outside the hospitals and camps he
visited daily. He passed them every morning and night, and the N.C.O.
invariably saluted his Red Cross uniform, a salute he returned, when he
could not avoid it, with embarrassment.
One man in particular stood out clearly in this memory; he had exchanged
glances with him, noted the expression of his face, the number of his
gang printed on coat and trousers--"82." The fellow had somehow managed
to establish a relationship; he would look up and smile or frown; if the
news, from his point of view, was good, he smiled; if it was bad, he
scowled; once, insolently enough--when the Germans had taken Albert,
Peronne, Bapaume--he grinned.
Something about the sullen, close-cropped face, typically Prussian, made
the other shudder. It was the visage of an animal, neither evil nor
malignant, even good-natured sometimes when it smiled, yet of an animal
that could be fierce with the lust of happiness, ferocious with delight.
The sullen savagery of a human wolf lay in it somewhere. He pictured its
owner impervious to shame, to normal human instinct as civilized people
know these. Doubtless he read his own feelings into it. He could imagine
the man doing anything and everything, regarding chivalry and sporting
instinct as proof of fear or weakness. He could picture this member of
the wolf-pack killing a woman or a child, mutilating, cutting off little
hands even, with the conscientious conviction that it was right and
sensible to destroy _any_ individual of an enemy tribe. It was, to him,
an atrocious and inhuman face.
It now cropped up with unpleasant vividness, as he listened to the
distant guns and thought of Amiens with its back against the wall, its
inhabitants flying----
Ah! Amiens...! He again saw the woman staring into his obedient eyes
across the narrow space between the tables. He smelt the delicious
perfume of her dress and person on the stairs. He heard her commanding
voice, her very words: "We count on you.... I know we can ... we do."
And her background was of twisted streets, dark alley-ways and leaning
gables....
He hurried, whistling loudly an air that he invented suddenly, using his
stick like a golf club at every loose stone his feet encountered, making
as much noise as possible. He told himself he was a parson and a Red
Cross worker. He looked up and saw that the stars were out. The pace
made him warm, and he shifted his haversack to the other shoulder. The
moon, he observed, now cast his shadow for a long distance on the sandy
road.
After another mile, while the air grew sharper and twilight surrendered
finally to the moon, the road began to curve and dip, the cottages lay
farther out in the dim fields, the farms and barns occurred at longer
intervals. A dog barked now and again; he saw cows lying down for the
night beneath shadowy fruit-trees. And then the scent in the air changed
slightly, and a darkening of the near horizon warned him that the forest
had come close.
This was an event. Its influence breathed already a new perfume; the
shadows from its myriad trees stole out and touched him. Ten minutes
later he reached its actual frontier cutting across the plateau like a
line of sentries at attention. He slowed down a little. Here, within
sight and touch of his long-desired objective, he hesitated. It
stretched, he knew from the map, for many leagues to the north,
uninhabited, lonely, the home of peace and silence; there were flowers
there, and cool sweet spaces where the moonlight fell. Yet here, within
scent and touch of it, he slowed down a moment to draw breath. A forest
on the map is one thing; visible before the eyes when night has fallen,
it is another. It is real.
The wind, not noticeable hitherto, now murmured towards him from the
serried trees that seemed to manufacture darkness out of nothing. This
murmur hummed about him. It enveloped him. Piercing it, another sound
that was not the guns just reached him, but so distant that he hardly
noticed it. He looked back. Dusk suddenly merged in night. He stopped.
"How practical the French are," he said to himself--aloud--as he looked
at the road running straight as a ruled line into the heart of the
trees. "They waste no energy, no space, no time. Admirable!"
It pierced the forest like a lance, tapering to a faint point in the
misty distance. The trees ate its undeviating straightness as though
they would smother it from sight, as though its rigid outline marred
their mystery. He admired the practical makers of the road, yet sided,
too, with the poetry of the trees. He stood there staring, waiting,
dawdling.... About him, save for this murmur of the wind, was silence.
Nothing living stirred. The world lay extraordinarily still. That other
distant sound had died away.
He lit his pipe, glad that the match blew out and the damp tobacco
needed several matches before the pipe drew properly. His puttees hurt
him a little, he stooped to loosen them. His haversack swung round in
front as he straightened up again, he shifted it laboriously to the
other shoulder. A tiny stone in his right boot caused irritation. Its
removal took a considerable time, for he had to sit down, and a log was
not at once forthcoming. Moreover, the laces gave him trouble, and his
fingers had grown thick with heat and the knots were difficult to
tie....
"There!" He said it aloud, standing up again. "Now at last, I'm ready!"
Then added a mild imprecation, for his pipe had gone out while he
stooped over the recalcitrant boot, and it had to be lighted once again.
"Ah!" he gasped finally with a sigh as, facing the forest for the third
time, he shuffled his tunic straight, altered his haversack once more,
changed his stick from the right hand to the left--and faced the foolish
truth without further pretence.
He mopped his forehead carefully, as though at the same time trying to
mop away from his mind a faint anxiety, a very faint uneasiness, that
gathered there. Was someone standing near him? Had somebody come close?
He listened intently. It was the blood singing in his ears, of course,
that curious distant noise. For, truth to tell, the loneliness bit just
below the surface of what he found enjoyable. It seemed to him that
somebody was coming, someone he could not see, so that he looked back
over his shoulder once again, glanced quickly right and left, then
peered down the long opening cut through the woods in front--when there
came suddenly a roar and a blaze of dazzling light from behind, so
instantaneously that he barely had time to obey the instinct of
self-preservation and step aside. He actually leapt. Pressed against the
hedge, he saw a motor-car rush past him like a whirlwind, flooding the
sandy road with fire; a second followed it; and, to his complete
amazement, then, a third.
They were powerful, private cars, so-called. This struck him instantly.
Two other things he noticed, as they dived down the throat of the long
white road--they showed no tail-lights. This made him wonder. And,
secondly, the drivers, clearly seen, were women. They were not even
in uniform--which made him wonder even more. The occupants, too,
were women. He caught the outline of toque and feather--or was it
flowers?--against the closed windows in the moonlight as the procession
rushed past him.
He felt bewildered and astonished. Private motors were rare, and
military regulations exceedingly strict; the danger of spies dressed in
French uniform was constant; cars armed with machine guns, he knew,
patrolled the countryside in all directions. Shaken and alarmed, he
thought of favoured persons fleeing stealthily by night, of treachery,
disguise and swift surprise; he thought of various things as he stood
peering down the road for ten minutes after all sight and sound of the
cars had died away. But no solution of the mystery occurred to him.
Down the white throat the motors vanished. His pipe had gone out; he lit
it, and puffed furiously.
His thoughts, at any rate, took temporarily a new direction now. The
road was not as lonely as he had imagined. A natural reaction set in at
once, and this proof of practical, modern life banished the shadows from
his mind effectually. He started off once more, oblivious of his former
hesitation. He even felt a trifle shamed and foolish, pretending that
the vanished mood had not existed. The tobacco had been damp. His boot
had really hurt him.
Yet bewilderment and surprise stayed with him. The swiftness of the
incident was disconcerting; the cars arrived and vanished with such
extraordinary rapidity; their noisy irruption into this peaceful spot
seemed incongruous; they roared, blazed, rushed and disappeared; silence
resumed its former sway.
But the silence persisted, whereas the noise was gone.
This touch of the incongruous remained with him as he now went ever
deeper into the heart of the quiet forest. This odd incongruity of
dreams remained.
5
The keen air stole from the woods, cooling his body and his mind;
anemones gleamed faintly among the brushwood, lit by the pallid
moonlight. There were beauty, calm and silence, the slow breathing of
the earth beneath the comforting sweet stars. War, in this haunt of
ancient peace, seemed an incredible anachronism. His thoughts turned to
gentle happy hopes of a day when the lion and the lamb would yet lie
down together, and a little child would lead them without fear. His soul
dwelt with peaceful longings and calm desires.
He walked on steadily, until the inflexible straightness of the endless
road began to afflict him, and he longed for a turning to the right or
left. He looked eagerly about him for a woodland path. Time mattered
little; he could wait for the sunrise and walk home "beneath the young
grey dawn"; he had food and matches, he could light a fire, and
sleep---- No!--after all, he would not light a fire, perhaps; he might
be accused of signalling to hostile aircraft, or a _garde forestiere_
might catch him. He would not bother with a fire. The night was warm, he
could enjoy himself and pass the time quite happily without artificial
heat; probably he would need no sleep at all.... And just then he
noticed an opening on his right, where a seductive pathway led in among
the trees. The moon, now higher in the sky, lit this woodland trail
enticingly; it seemed the very opening he had looked for, and with a
thrill of pleasure he at once turned down it, leaving the ugly road
behind him with relief.
The sound of his footsteps hushed instantly on the leaves and moss; the
silence became noticeable; an unusual stillness followed; it seemed that
something in his mind was also hushed. His feet moved stealthily, as
though anxious to conceal his presence from surprise. His steps dragged
purposely; their rustling through the thick dead leaves, perhaps, was
pleasant to him. He was not sure.
The path opened presently into a clearing where the moonlight made a
pool of silver, the surrounding brushwood fell away; and in the centre
a gigantic outline rose. It was, he saw, a beech tree that dwarfed the
surrounding forest by its grandeur. Its bulk loomed very splendid
against the sky, a faint rustle just audible in its myriad tiny leaves.
Dipped in the moonlight, it had such majesty of proportion, such
symmetry, that he stopped in admiration. It was, he saw, a multiple
tree, five stems springing with attempted spirals out of an enormous
trunk; it was immense; it had a presence, the space framed it to
perfection. The clearing, evidently, was a favourite resting place for
summer picknickers, a playground, probably, for city children on holiday
afternoons; woodcutters, too, had been here recently, for he noticed
piled brushwood ready to be carted. It indicated admirably, he felt,
the limits of his night expedition. Here he would rest awhile, eat his
late supper, sleep perhaps round a small---- No! again--a fire he need
_not_ make; a spark might easily set the woods ablaze, it was against
both forest and military regulations. This idea of a fire, otherwise so
natural, was distasteful, even repugnant, to him. He wondered a little
why it recurred. He noticed this time, moreover, something unpleasant
connected with the suggestion of a fire, something that made him shrink;
almost a ghostly dread lay hidden in it.
This startled him. A dozen excellent reasons, supplied by his brain,
warned him that a fire was unwise; but the true reason, supplied by
another part of him, concealed itself with care, as though afraid that
reason might detect its nature and fix the label on. Disliking this
reminder of his earlier mood, he moved forward into the clearing,
swinging his stick aggressively and whistling. He approached the tree,
where a dozen thick roots dipped into the earth. Admiring, looking
up and down, he paced slowly round its prodigious girth, then stood
absolutely still. His heart stopped abruptly, his blood became
congealed. He saw something that filled him with a sudden emptiness of
terror. On this western side the shadow lay very black; it was between
the thick limbs, half stem, half root, where the dark hollows gave easy
hiding-places, that he was positive he detected movement. A portion of
the trunk had moved.
He stood stock still and stared--not three feet from the trunk--when
there came a second movement. Concealed in the shadows there crouched a
living form. The movement defined itself immediately. Half reclining,
half standing, a living being pressed itself close against the tree, yet
fitting so neatly into the wide scooped hollows, that it was scarcely
distinguishable from its ebony background. But for the chance movement
he must have passed it undetected. Equally, his outstretched fingers
might have touched it. The blood rushed from his heart, as he saw this
second movement.
Detaching itself from the obscure background, the figure rose and stood
before him. It swayed a little, then stepped out into the patch of
moonlight on his left. Three feet lay between them. The figure then bent
over. A pallid face with burning eyes thrust forward and peered straight
into his own.
The human being was a woman. The same instant he recognized the eyes
that had stared him out of countenance in the dining-room two nights
ago. He was petrified. She stared him out of countenance now.
And, as she did so, the under-current he had tried to ignore so long
swept to the surface in a tumultuous flood, obliterating his normal
self. Something elaborately built up in his soul by years of artificial
training collapsed like a house of cards, and he knew himself undone.
"They've got me...!" flashed dreadfully through his mind. It was, again,
like a message delivered in a dream where the significance of acts
performed and language uttered, concealed at the moment, is revealed
much later only.
"After all--they've got me...!"
6
The dialogue that followed seemed strange to him only when looking back
upon it. The element of surprise again was negligible if not wholly
absent, but the incongruity of dreams, almost of nightmare, became more
marked. Though the affair was unlikely, it was far from incredible. So
completely were this man and woman involved in some purpose common to
them both that their talk, their meeting, their instinctive sympathy at
the time seemed natural. The same stream bore them irresistibly towards
the same far sea. Only, as yet, this common purpose remained concealed.
Nor could he define the violent emotions that troubled him. Their exact
description was in him, but so deep that he could not draw it up.
Moonlight lay upon his thought, merging clear outlines.
Divided against himself, the cleavage left no authoritative self in
control; his desire to take an immediate decision resulted in a confused
struggle, where shame and pleasure, attraction and revulsion mingled
painfully. Incongruous details tumbled helter-skelter about his mind:
for no obvious reason, he remembered again his Red Cross uniform, his
former holy calling, his nationality too; he was a servant of mercy, a
teacher of the love of God; he was an English gentleman. Against which
rose other details, as in opposition, holding just beyond the reach of
words, yet rising, he recognized well enough, from the bed-rock of the
human animal, whereon a few centuries have imposed the thin crust of
refinement men call civilization. He was aware of joy and loathing.
In the first few seconds he knew the clash of a dreadful fundamental
struggle, while the spell of this woman's strange enchantment poured
over him, seeking the reconciliation he himself could not achieve. Yet
the reconciliation _she_ sought meant victory or defeat; no compromise
lay in it. Something imperious emanating from her already dominated
the warring elements towards a coherent whole. He stood before her,
quivering with emotions he dared not name. Her great womanhood he
recognized, acknowledging obedience to her undisclosed intentions. And
this idea of coming surrender terrified him. Whence came, too, that
queenly touch about her that made him feel he should have sunk upon his
knees?
The conflict resulted in a curious compromise. He raised his hand; he
saluted; he found very ordinary words.
"You passed me only a short time ago," he stammered, "in the motors.
There were others with you----"
"Knowing that you would find us and come after. We count on your
presence and your willing help." Her voice was firm as with unalterable
conviction. It was persuasive too. He nodded, as though acquiescence
seemed the only course.
"We need your sympathy; we must have your power too."
He bowed again. "My power!" Something exulted in him. But he murmured
only. It was natural, he felt; he gave consent without a question.
Strange words he both understood and did not understand. Her voice, low
and silvery, was that of a gentle, cultured woman, but command rang
through it with a clang of metal, terrible behind the sweetness. She
moved a little closer, standing erect before him in the moonlight, her
figure borrowing something of the great tree's majesty behind her. It
was incongruous, this gentle and yet sinister air she wore. Whence
came, in this calm peaceful spot, the suggestion of a wild and savage
background to her? Why were there tumult and oppression in his heart,
pain, horror, tenderness and mercy, mixed beyond disentanglement? Why
did he think already, but helplessly, of escape, yet at the same time
burn to stay? Whence came again, too, a certain queenly touch he felt
in her?
"The gods have brought you," broke across his turmoil in a half whisper
whose breath almost touched his face. "You belong to us."
The deeps rose in him. Seduced by the sweetness and the power, the
warring divisions in his being drew together. His under-self more and
more obtained the mastery she willed. Then something in the French she
used flickered across his mind with a faint reminder of normal things
again.
"Belgian----" he began, and then stopped short, as her instant rejoinder
broke in upon his halting speech and petrified him. In her voice sang
that triumphant tenderness that only the feminine powers of the Universe
may compass: it seemed the sky sang with her, the mating birds, wild
flowers, the south wind and the running streams. All these, even the
silver birches, lent their fluid, feminine undertones to the two
pregnant words with which she interrupted him and completed his own
unfinished sentence:
"---- and mother."
With the dreadful calm of an absolute assurance, she stood and watched
him.