Reprisals
Dale was at one with the soldiers in desire for reprisals, but Max was
dead against the whole idea. It was not that he was less indignant at
the cruel wrong just inflicted upon innocent peasants, but he feared
that any more such acts would react upon the country people in precisely
the same manner. A reprisal which brought fresh trouble upon yet another
set of innocent folk would, he felt, be worse than useless, and he spoke
his mind freely to Corporal Shaw on the subject.
"You've done no good," he ended, "by attacking the line and tearing up a
few rails. Your methods were too wild to bring about any real damage.
All you have done is to make it additionally hard for me to get you
safely out of the country."
"Humph!" grunted the Corporal rather sourly. "I know you've done some
neat little things in Liege, but could you manage a better affair out
here? I give you leave to try. As for getting us out, I don't see much
prospect of that coming off, my lad."
"I'll get you out if you'll drop all these wild-cat exploits," replied
Max firmly. "Is it a bargain?"
The Corporal consulted with his men for a few minutes. "No," he said,
shaking his head emphatically, "the men refuse to sneak out of the
country before they have what they call redressed the wrong done those
poor villagers. They want one more good cut at the Germans to make that
good, and then they are ready to make tracks for home, if you think you
can get us there."
"Will you let me plan the reprisal attack as well as arrange to get you
out?" asked Max quickly.
The Corporal opened his eyes a little.
"So _you_ do think you can do better? Well, I don't mind; you shall plan
the reprisal and then get us out of the mess. Done!"
"Done!" replied Max firmly, and it was thus settled that he should, from
that time forward, practically take command of the little band, subject
only to the stipulation that the escape should not be arranged until the
Germans had been made to pay, and pay handsomely, for their recent
exhibition of brutality.
As soon as that was decided, Max changed the direction of the retreat to
due east, and in that direction they continued all day. When night fell,
the men looked about them for a comfortable spot to sleep, but Max would
not allow them to stop, and, with frequent halts for rest, they
continued on their way all through the night. There was some grumbling,
but it was soon silenced; and, when all was said and done, the men
recognized that Max managed to feed them fairly well. This part of the
business he saw to himself. At nearly every farm-house he passed he
managed to purchase some food. None of the soldiers were allowed to come
within sight of the people, and, with this precaution, and his knowledge
of the language, he hoped that no suspicions of the destination of the
food would be aroused.
During the following day the band hid themselves in a copse and slept.
It was nearly dark when Max aroused them and told them they must go on.
"We've been travelling a good many miles, lad," remarked Shaw
carelessly. "Where are we now?"
"In Germany," replied Max.
"Germany!" cried the Corporal, his carelessness vanishing. "Why--what
d'ye mean? D'ye think we want to find a good safe prison?"
"No. Your men insist on one more attack on the Germans, as a reprisal
for the burning of the village. Well, we cannot do anything in Belgium,
for it would only mean another village burned. If we make the attack in
Germany it will be different. They can hardly burn down their own
villages."
Corporal Shaw held out his hand. "Well done, lad!" he cried heartily,
and the other men within ear-shot echoed his words. "That's a stroke of
genius, and we are with you to a man. What are you going to
attack--nothing less than Metz, of course?"
Max smiled and shook his head. "Something a little less ambitious will
have to do, I think. After another night march we shall be on the spot,
and can get to work."
"What are you going to do, lad?"
Max hesitated a moment. Should he keep the men ignorant of the nature of
the enterprise until the hour for it had struck? It was hardly worth
while--in forty-eight hours or so it would be all over.
"To block the main line between Aix and Liege," he answered simply.
"Phew! I think you mentioned wild-cat exploits the other day. What sort
of cat exploit is this?"
"It must be carefully planned beforehand."
"Humph! Trains filled with troops passing every five minutes; the lines
thick with guards. It'll want careful planning--and a trifle more. In
fact, it'll need the devil's own luck. What say you, boys?"
"No matter, Corp," cried Peck testily. "Give the lad his head. We ain't
particular, so long as it's a fust-class scrap."
"It'll be all that," grunted Shaw.
"Did we expect to git out of this show alive?" retorted Peck. "What's
the odds? Let the lad 'ave his way--he's grubbed us well anyhow."
The other men murmured an assent, and it was clear that most of the band
were quite ready to follow Max in an attempt, however desperate, on the
Germans' main line of communication. The Frenchmen were quite ready to
agree to anything that would lead to another encounter with the enemy in
company with their British comrades, and so Max was left in possession
of the field and charged with full responsibility for the tremendous
task before them.
* * * * *
Two days later the whole of the band arrived safely within a mile or so
of the great main line which runs between Aix-la-Chapelle and Liege, and
then on through Namur to Paris. A stoppage to their communications on
this line would disconcert the Germans in a way that hardly anything
else could do, and Max, from the knowledge he had gained, while at
Liege, of the great trains loaded with troops and munitions that
constantly passed through at all hours of the day and night, was very
well aware of it. Next to his darling scheme for the frustration of the
Germans' plans as regards the Durend works, the breaking of the great
railway through the town had seemed the most serious blow that could be
aimed at the Germans by a few men working independently of the great
military forces of the Allies. It was a difficult matter, but not
impossible. That was enough.
Max and Dale, accompanied by Shaw, reconnoitred the railway after hiding
their men well away out of sight. The first point reached Max did not
consider suitable, and it was not until they had approached the line at
several different places that he found a spot that satisfied him. This
spot was one where the line passed along a fairly deep cutting, the
sides of which were thickly overgrown with bushes with here and there a
young tree. It was a spot at which it would be easy to approach the line
unseen. And yet this was not Max's chief reason for selecting it. His
design had been to find a spot where the line at night-time would have
dark patches of shadow cast upon it here and there.
Dale and Corporal Shaw now returned to the spot where the band had been
left in hiding, while Max set out for Aix-la-Chapelle alone. He still
wore the workman's clothes in which he had masqueraded for so long, and,
with his excellent knowledge of the German tongue, he had little to fear
so long as he took care not to blunder into a military patrol. Without
misadventure he reached Aix, and purchased a dozen spanners similar to
those used by plate-layers, except that the handles were short and
lacked the great leverage necessary for their work. This difficulty
would, however, be easily got over by cutting stout rods from the woods
and lashing them to the short spanners. The tools thus obtained would,
he knew, be fully suited to the end in view.
The reconnoitring of the railway had disclosed the fact that the guards
were stationed only about eighty yards apart. Also that they were
changed every four hours, at four o'clock, eight o'clock, midnight, and
noon.
An hour before midnight Max led the band towards the line at the point
fixed upon. He had already, at some pains, explained exactly what he
desired each man to do, and from their intelligent eagerness felt pretty
well assured that they would not fail from want of zeal or knowledge of
the part they had to play. To the Frenchmen he, of course, explained
matters in their own tongue, and found them equally as ready as their
Island brethren.
The moon, what there was of it, was fairly low in the heavens, and the
long shadows Max counted upon so largely in his plans were much in
evidence. Silence was another factor of importance, and the feet of all
the men were swathed in long strips of cloth--their puttees in the case
of the British soldiers, and strips from their clothing in the case of
the Frenchmen.
The band was divided into three groups, and the orders were that on
arriving at the edge of the cutting all were to remain motionless in
hiding until the guards were changed at midnight. Then three men from
each band were to creep up close to one of the three sentries marked
down for attack, and wait for an opportunity to seize and kill or
capture him without raising an alarm.
The latter point Max insisted upon as of the utmost importance. The
groups of three might spend two hours, even three hours, he told them,
so long as they performed their task without making a noise that would
attract the attention of the sentries on either side. The darkness of
the line, from the shadows of the trees and bushes and the deepness of
the cutting itself, Max felt he could rely upon to prevent the other
sentries from seeing if aught were amiss. The important thing,
therefore, was that they should perform their task without noise.
Promptly at midnight the sentries were changed. The momentary bustle
was, as arranged carefully beforehand by Max, taken advantage of by the
groups of three to creep close up to their objectives. Then things
settled down again in quietude. All was peaceful and silent between the
thunder of the trains, and time was allowed the sentries to grow
accustomed to their surroundings and to develop any individual habits of
carelessness that might be theirs. At first the men marched to and fro
rather frequently. Later, they contented themselves with leaning on
their rifles and making themselves as comfortable as such a position
would allow. There had been no attacks on any part of the line in
Germany so far as had become known, and there was no reason in the world
why these line guards should expect one now.
One of the sentries presently came to a halt in the shadow cast by a
tree. He was thus out of sight of his comrades on either side, and the
three men in deadly attendance upon him were satisfied that their chance
had come. Noiselessly emerging from the shadows, they stole upon him
from behind. One seized him by the throat in a grip of iron, stifling
all utterance, another pinioned his arms to his sides, while the third
caught the rifle which fell from his startled hand. Between the three
the struggles of the unfortunate sentry were quickly mastered. He was
securely pinioned, gagged, and dragged out of harm's way into the
shelter of the bushes.
The capture of one made the capture of the two others comparatively
easy. It was only necessary to await a moment when the farther sentinel
was facing away from the next man marked down for attack, before
springing upon him. One after the other the three guards were
successfully placed out of action, and the stern work of reprisal was at
hand.
As a precautionary measure, two men, wearing the tunics and helmets of
the captured Germans, were stationed as sentries one at each end of the
break, to satisfy their German neighbours in case they should miss the
sight of the comrades who had gone.
Then rapidly Max selected two pairs of rails, one pair on the up-line
and one on the down-line, and the dozen great spanners were quickly at
work. Certain of the nuts of the rails and of some of the chairs were
carefully loosened a little, and everything was made ready to shift one
end of each rail as soon as the signal should be given. Then the men
withdrew once more to the obscurity of the bushes.
Having satisfied himself that everything was in readiness, Max settled
himself to watch the trains as they passed, and to seize upon the
essential moment. Trains were now running less frequently than at every
hour in the twenty-four, and in the comparative silence he could tell
when a train was approaching while it was yet some miles away. It was
his intention to await the almost simultaneous approach of two trains
from opposite directions, and in steady patience he waited.
His men did not know the full extent of his plans and were impatient to
see the result of their--to them--successful labours. They could not
understand this halt, and grumbled under their breath at the strange
hesitancy of their young leader. But everything had gone so well under
his guidance that none of them dared to express his discontent aloud,
and Max was left to put the finishing touch upon his plans in peace.
Suddenly his ear caught the sounds he had been awaiting.
"Forward!" he commanded in an undertone in two languages.
The men sprang quickly on to the lines and wrestled with the nuts and
bolts with all their might. In a very short space of time the rails were
loose at one end and the chairs removed. Then Max gave the word for all
four rails to be levered inwards, towards the centre of the track, until
the loose ends were a foot out of line with the other rails.
The chairs were then roughly refixed at the extreme ends of the
sleepers, and the bent rails bolted as firmly as possible in their new
positions. While this was being done the four rails next the gaps were
unbolted and entirely removed. When all was done there was a break 40
feet long in each track, and the pair of rails on the side from which
the trains were approaching had been bent inwards, and now pointed
towards the corresponding pair on the other track, thus:--
[Illustration]
For the first time the men now understood the whole significance of the
work they were doing. They had known enough of their young leader's
plans to expect much, but now they expected a great deal more and moved
off the track full of suppressed excitement and jubilation. Like a
pistol-shot it had come to them that the brutal destruction of the poor
village beyond Bastogne was about to be very amply revenged indeed.
The rumble of the two trains approaching from opposite directions was
now drawing very close, and the men hung about in the bushes, a few
yards up the side of the cutting, watching eagerly for any sign that the
drivers had seen the short breaks in the line and were bringing their
trains to a standstill. But there was no sign of this. The trains
approached at a steady speed, and the drivers, if on the look-out,
noticed nothing amiss in the patches of deeper shadow in the half
darkness of the gloomy cutting.
The two trains reached the fatal spot almost at the same moment. Both
followed the direction of the tampered rails and left the track with a
bumping grind that made those who heard it shudder. Then they collided
with a crash that could be heard for miles. The engines reared up almost
on end--as though in a desperate attempt to leap over one another--and
rolled over on their sides. Behind them the great wagons still drove on
and piled themselves up on high in a welter of hideous confusion.
The noise, the confusion, the sense of dire destruction, were almost
paralysing; but, almost without being conscious of it, Max found himself
eagerly scanning the wrecked wagons to see what they contained. The
"bag" was one sufficient to satisfy the most ardent patriot. The trucks,
or some of them, of the train bound outwards to Liege clearly contained
the guns of several heavy batteries. Those of the inward train were
filled with machinery and other stores filched from the great Belgian
workshops and being transferred to Germany to set up fresh works there.
A few of the trucks of the inward train appeared to contain shells, and
these Max marked down as the point for the final attack.
The noise of the collision, of course, brought all the men guarding the
line, within hearing, hurrying to the scene. None of them, or of the
survivors of those on the trains, had any thought that the catastrophe
was anything but an accident, and no attempt was made to search for
possible enemies. Most of the German soldiers, indeed, flung down their
weapons and busied themselves in the task of extricating men and horses
from the piles of overturned wagons.
Thus when again, at Max's signal, the band of British and French
soldiers left their hiding-places they were able, in the darkness, to
mingle with the Germans and go about their final work almost
unchallenged. In only two instances were German officers or
non-commissioned officers inconveniently inquisitive, and those
difficulties were solved by an instant attack with the bayonet. Even
these conflicts were insufficient to attract special attention amid the
general turmoil. Any who noticed the actions might readily enough have
concluded that they were the result of a quarrel or of some demented
victim of the accident attacking an imaginary foe.
The work which still kept Max and his auxiliaries on the dangerous scene
of their successful exploit was that of bringing down great bundles of
straw and dead wood, prepared some time beforehand, from the top of the
railway cutting where they had been hidden in readiness. The wagons,
which Max had ascertained to be indeed full of shells, were what they
were after, and against these the bundles were piled. Almost unmolested
the exulting men made all ready for the final blow which should set the
seal upon their terrible reprisal.
And yet, when it came to the point, Max hesitated to give the order to
fire the pyre. There might yet be some unfortunate men pinned alive
beneath the wreckage, and he was unwilling to add to their miseries the
dreadful fate of being burned alive. For ten, fifteen, and almost twenty
minutes he waited, until he could feel satisfied that none were likely
still to remain alive beneath the pile. His own men indeed, well knowing
what was coming, had busied themselves in dragging out their fallen foes
from the certain fate which would otherwise have befallen them,
forgetting their desire for reprisals in their pity for wounded and
helpless men.
At last the moment arrived. Max gave the word, the straw was fired, and
the band beat a hasty retreat to the shelter of the bushes on the north
side of the cutting.
A loud cry of warning and alarm arose from the German soldiers as the
flames shot up into the air, illuminating the track for many yards
around. A harsh command rang out, and a number of men dashed forward to
beat or stamp out the flare.
"Those men must be kept away, Corporal," cried Max quickly. "We must not
leave until the fire has got firm hold."
"Bayonets, men," cried Corporal Shaw sharply. "Get ready to charge
home."
"No, no, Corporal," cried Max, seizing him by the arm; "no bayonet
fighting this round. Keep them away by rifle-fire from the bushes. They
know nothing of us now; let them remain as ignorant as possible."
"Right. Ten rounds, rapid, boys! Ready! present! fire!"
The Germans had barely reached the fire and begun to pull away the
burning faggots, when a sudden and withering hail of bullets swept down
upon them. Half of them fell at once, and the remainder recoiled in
confusion and doubt. Fire seemed to spit from the darkness all about
them, and none knew for the moment whether they were in the presence of
a foe, or whether a detachment of their own men, but just arrived, had
taken them for enemy wreckers. Long before the officer in command could
rally his men, push out scouts to ascertain the cause of the rifle-fire,
and set the main body to resume their task, the fire had caught such
firm hold that it was obvious to all that at any moment the shells might
explode.
A general stampede away from the vicinity of the burning wagons ensued,
and at a respectful distance the discomfited Germans gazed at the fire
or occupied themselves in firing in the direction apparently taken by
their unseen foes.
Suddenly, with an ear-splitting roar, the shells exploded. The
concussion was tremendous, and huge showers of shells, broken bits of
wagons, gravel, and flaming wood fell heavily in all directions. Many of
those looking on were killed outright by the avalanche of falling
material, and the remainder fled in mad panic from the deadly scene.
Max had already withdrawn his men beyond the edge of the cutting and
marched them a couple of hundred yards farther down the line. The
explosion caused them no casualties beyond a few minor cuts and bruises,
and, with one last look at the track beneath them, they turned their
backs upon the place and marched silently away towards the Dutch
frontier.
The work of reprisal for a foul deed was done. Where the explosion had
taken place an enormous crater had been torn in the permanent way.
Beyond that the line was blocked by great piles of tangled wreckage
which must have weighed hundreds of tons--Krupp guns and gun mountings,
twisted almost out of all recognition, masses of machinery ruined beyond
redemption, and engines, wagons, rails, and sleepers piled high in
inextricable confusion. Many hours, if not days, of unremitting toil
would be needed before the line could be reopened for traffic. Thus the
main lines of communication of the Germans were severed and a heavy blow
struck for the cause of the Allies.
On the trunk of a tree, at the top of the cutting close by, a notice was
fixed: "In reprisal for the burning of an innocent village above
Bastogne."