CHARLEMAGNE'S RIDE
The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past twelve. Funny, how my
eyes kept coming back to that clock! There was a smell of warm gunpowder
in the room, and the autumn sunshine, struggling feebly through the
window, caught the blue edges of a little haze of smoke that hung lazily
in the air by the desk in the corner. How close the room was! And how
that clock face seemed to stare at me! I felt very sick....
Lord! What a draught! A gust of icy air was raging in my face. The room
was still swaying to and fro....
I was in the front seat of a car beside Francis, who was driving. We
were fairly flying along a broad and empty road, the tall poplars with
which it was lined scudding away into the vanishing landscape as we
whizzed by. The surface was terrible, and the car pitched this way and
that as we tore along. But Francis had her well in hand. He sat at the
wheel, very cool and deliberate and very grave, still in his officer's
uniform, and his eyes had a cold glint that told me he was keyed up to
top pitch.
We slackened speed a fraction to negotiate a turn off to the right down
a side road. We seemed to take that corner on two wheels. A thin church
spire protruded from the trees in the centre of the group of houses
which we were approaching so furiously. The village was all but
deserted: everybody seemed to be indoors at their midday meal, but
Francis slowed down and ran along the dirty street at a demure pace. The
village passed, he jammed down the accelerator and once more the car
sprang forward.
The country was flat as a pancake, but presently the fields fell away a
bit from the road with boulders and patches of gorse here and there. The
next moment we were slackening speed. We drew up by a rough track which
led off the road and vanished into a tangle of stunted trees and scrub
growing across the yellow face of a sand-pit.
Francis motioned me to get out, and then sprang to the ground himself,
leaving the engine throbbing. His face was grey and set.
"Stay here!" he whispered to me. "You've got your pistol? Good. If
anybody attempts to interfere with you, shoot!" He dashed into the
tangle and was swallowed up. I heard a whistle, and a whistle in answer,
and a minute later he appeared again helping Monica through the thick
undergrowth.
Monica looked as pretty as a picture in her dark green shooting suit
and her muffler. She was as excited as a child at its first play.
"A car!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Francis, I'll sit beside you!"
My brother glanced at his watch.
"Twenty to one!" he murmured. He had a hunted look on his face. Monica
saw it and it sobered her.
They got up in front, and I sat in the body of the car.
"Hang on to that!" said Francis, handing me over a leather case. I
recognized it at a glance. It was Clubfoot's dispatch-box. Francis was
thorough in everything.
Once more we dashed out along the desolate country roads. We saw hardly
a soul. Houses were few and far between and, save for an occasional
greybeard hoeing in the wet fields or an old woman hobbling along the
road, the countryside seemed dead. In the cold air the engine ran
splendidly, and Francis got every ounce of horse-power out of it.
On we rushed, the wind in our ears, the cold air in our faces, until we
found ourselves racing along an avenue of old trees that led straight as
an arrow right into the heart of the forest. It was as silent as the
grave: the air was dank and chill and the trees dripped sorrowfully into
the brimming ruts of the road.
We whizzed past many tracks leading into the depths of the forest, but
it was not until the car had eaten up some five kilometres of the main
road that Francis slowed to a halt. He consulted a map he pulled from
his pocket, then glanced at his watch with puckered brow.
"I had hoped to take the car into the forest," he said, "but the roads
are so soft we shan't get a yard. Still we can but try."
We went forward again, very slowly, to where a track ran off to the
left. It was badly ploughed up, and the ruts were fully a foot deep.
Monica and I got out to lighten the car, and Francis ran her in. But he
hadn't gone five yards before the car was bogged up to the axles.
"We'll have to leave it," he said, jumping out. "It's ten minutes to
two ... we haven't a second to lose."
He pulled a cloth cap from the pocket of his military overcoat, then
stripped off the coat, showing his ordinary clothes underneath, and very
shiny black field-boots up to his knees. He put his helmet in the
overcoat and made a roll of it, tucking it under his arm, and then
donned his cap.
"Now," he said, "We'll have to run for it, Monica, I'm afraid: we must
reach our cover while the light lasts or I shan't be able to find it and
it will be dark in these woods in about two hours from now. Are you
ready?"
We struck off the track into the forest. There was not much undergrowth,
and the trees were not planted very close, so our way was not impeded.
We jogged on over a carpet of wet leaves, stumbling over the roots of
the trees, tearing our clothes on the brambles, bringing down showers of
raindrops from the branches of pine or fir we brushed on our headlong
course. Now a squirrel bolted up his tree, now a rabbit frisked back
into his hole, now a soft-eyed deer crashed away into the bushes on our
approach. The place was so still that it gave me confidence. There was
not a trace of man now that we were away from the marks of his carts on
the tracks, and I began to feel, in the presence of the stately, silent
trees, that at last I was safe from the menace that had hung over me for
so long.
We rested frequently, breathless and panting, a hand to the side. Monica
was a marvel of endurance. Her boots were sopping, her skirt wet to the
waist, her face was scratched, and her hair was coming down, but she
never complained. Francis was seemingly tireless and was always the one
to lead the way when we started afresh.
It was heavy going, for at every step our feet sank deep in the leaves.
The forest was undulating with deep hollows and steep banks, which tried
us a good deal. It soon became evident that we could not keep up the
pace. Monica was tiring visibly, and I had had about enough; Francis,
too, seemed done up. We slackened to a walk. We were toiling painfully
up on of these steep banks when Francis, who was leading, held up his
hand.
"Charlemagne's Ride!" he whispered as we came up. We looked down from
the top of the bank and saw below us a broad forest glade, canopied by
the thick branches of the ancient trees that met overhead, and leading
up a slope, narrowing as it went, to a path that lost itself among the
shadows that were falling fast upon the forest.
Francis clambered down the bank and we followed. Twilight reigned below
in the glade under the lofty roof of branches and our feet rustled
softly as we trod the leaves underfoot. It was a ghostly place, and
Monica clutched my arm as we went quickly after Francis, who, striding
rapidly ahead, threatened to be swallowed up in the shadows of the
autumn evening. He led us up the slope and along the narrow path. A path
struck off it, and he took it. It led us into a thicker part of the
forest than we had yet struck, where there were great boulders
protruding from the dripping bushes, and brambles grew so thick that in
places they obscured the track.
The forest sloped up again, and in front of us was a steep bank, its
sides dotted with great rocks and a tangle of brambles and undergrowth.
Francis stooped between two boulders at the foot of the slope, then
turning and beckoning us to follow, disappeared. Monica went in after
him, and I came last. We were in a kind of narrow entrance, scooped out
of the earth between the rocks, and it led down to a broad chamber,
which had apparently been dug beneath some of the boulders, for,
stretching out my hand, I found the roof was rock and damp to the touch.
Francis and Monica were standing in this chamber as I came down.
Directly I entered I knew why they stood so still. A glimmer of light
came from the farther end of the cave and a strange sound, a sort of
strangled sobbing, reached our ears.
I crept forward in the dark in the direction of the light. My
outstretched hands came upon a low opening. I stooped and, crawling
round a rock, saw another chamber illuminated by a guttering candle
stuck by its wax to the earthen wall. On the floor a man was lying,
sobbing as though his heart would break. He was wearing some kind of
military great-coat with a yellow stripe running down the back.
"Pst!" I called to him, drawing my pistol from my pocket. As I did so,
Francis behind me touched my arm to let me know he was there.
"Pst!" I called again louder.
The man swung round on to his knees with a sudden, frightened spring.
When he saw my pistol, he jerked his hands above his head. Dirty and
unshaven, with the tears all wet on his face, he looked a woe-begone and
tragic figure.
"Kamerad! Kamerad!" he muttered stupidly at me. "Napoo! Kaput!
Englander!"
I gazed at the stranger, hardly able to believe my ears. That trench
jargon in this place!
"Are you English?" I asked him.
At the sound of my voice he stared about him wildly.
"Ay, I be English, zur," he replied with a strong West Country burr,
"God help me!" And, heedless of me and my pistol, he covered his face
with his hands and burst into a wild fit of sobbing again, rocking
himself to and fro in his grief.
"Go back to Monica!" I whispered to Francis. "I'll see to this fellow!"
I managed to pacify him presently. Habit is a tenacious ruler and,
grotesque figures though we were, the "zur" he had addressed to me
brought out the officer in me. I talked to him as I would have done to
one of my own men, and he quietened down at last and looked up at me.
He was only a lad--I could tell that by the clearness of his skin and
the brightness of his eyes--but his face was wan and wasted, and at the
first glance he looked like a man of forty. Under his great-coat, which
was German, he was clad in filthy rags which once had been a khaki
uniform, as the cut--and nothing else--revealed.
He told me his simple story in his soft Somersetshire accent, just the
plain tale of the fate that has overtaken thousands of our
fellow-countrymen since the war began. His name was Maggs, Sapper
Ebenezer Maggs, of the Royal Engineers, and he was captured near Mons in
August, 1914, when out laying a line with a party. With a long train of
British prisoners--"zum of 'em was terrible bad, zur, dying, as you
might say"--he had been marched off to a town and paraded to the railway
station through streets thronged with jeering German soldiery. In cattle
trucks, the fit, the wounded, the dying and the dead herded together,
without food or water, they had made their journey into Germany with
hostile mobs at every station, once the frontier was past, brutal men
and shrieking women, to whom not even the dying were sacred.
It was a terrible tale, that lost nothing of its horror from the simple,
unadorned style of this West Country farmer's son. He had been one of
the ragged, emaciated band of British prisoners of war who had shivered
through that first long winter in the starvation camp of Friedrichsfeld,
near Wesel. For two years he had endured the filthy food, the neglect,
the harsh treatment, then a resourceful Belgian friend, whom he called
John, in happier days a contraband runner on this very frontier, had
shown him a means to escape. Five days before they had left the camp and
separated, agreeing to meet at Charlemagne's Ride in the forest and try
to force the frontier together. "John" had never come. For twenty-four
hours Maggs had waited in vain, then his courage had forsaken him, and
he had crept to that hole in his grief.
I went and fetched Francis and Monica. Maggs shrunk back as they came
in.
"I bean't fit cumpany for no lady, zur," he whispered to me, "I be that
durty, fair crawling I be ... We couldn't keep clean nohow in that camp!"
All the good soldier's horror of dirt was in his voice.
"That's all right, Maggs," I answered soothingly, "she'll understand!"
We sat down on the floor in the light of Sapper Maggs' candle, and
Francis and I reviewed our situation. The cave we were in ... an old
Smuggler's _cache_ ... was where Francis had spent several days during
his different attempts to get across the frontier. The border line was
only about a quarter of a mile distant and ran right through the forest.
There was no live-wire fencing in the forest, such as the Germans have
erected along the frontier between Holland and Belgium. The frontier was
guarded by patrols. These patrols were posted four men to every two
hundred yards along the line through the forest, so that two men,
patrolling in pairs, covered a hundred yards apiece.
It was now half-past five in the evening. We both agreed that we should
certainly make the attempt to cross the frontier that night. Francis
nudged me, indicating the sapper with his eyes.
"Maggs," I said, "we are all in a bad way, but our case is more
desperate than yours. I shall not tell you more than this, that, if we
are caught, any of us three, we shall be shot, and anyone caught with us
will fare the same. If you will take my advice, you will leave us and
start off by yourself: the worst that can happen to you is to be sent
back to your camp. You will be punished for running away, but you won't
lose your life!"
Sapper Maggs shook his yellow head.
"I'll stay," he answered stolidly; "it's more cumfortable-like for us
four to 'old together, and it's a better protection for the lady. I
bean't afear'd of no Gers, I bean't! I'll go along o' yew officers and
the lady, if yew don't mind, zur!"
So it was settled, and we four agreed to unite forces. Before we set out
Francis wanted to go and reconnoitre. I thought he had done more than
his share that day, and said so. But Francis insisted.
"I know my way blindfold about the forest, old man" he said "it'll be
far safer for me than for you. I'll leave you the map and mark the
route you are to follow, so that you can find the way if anything
happens to me. If I'm not back by midnight, you ought certainly not to
wait any longer, but make the attempt by yourselves."
My brother handed me back the document and went over the route we were
to follow on the map. Then he deposited his bundle in the cave and
declared himself ready.
"And don't forget old Clubfoot's box," he said by way of a parting
injunction.
Monica took him out to the entrance of our refuge. She was dabbing her
eyes with her handkerchief when she returned. To divert her thoughts, I
questioned her about the events that had led to my rescue, and she told
me how, at Francis' request, she had got all the servants out of the
Castle on different pretexts. It was Francis who had got rid of the
soldiers remaining as a guard.
"You remember the Captain of Köpenick trick," she said. "Well, Francis
played it off on the sergeant and those six men. He slept at Cleves, had
himself trimmed up at the barber's, bought those field-boots he is
wearing, and stole that helmet and great-coat off the pegs in the
passage at Schmidt's Café, where the officers always go and drink beer
after morning parade. Then he drove out to the Castle--he knew that the
place would be deserted once the shoot had started--and told the
sergeant he had been sent from Goch to inspect the guard. I think he is
just splendid! He inspected the men and cursed everybody up and down,
and sent the sergeant out to the paddock with orders to drill them for
two hours. Francis was telling me all about it as we came along. He says
that if you can get hold of a uniform and hector a German enough, he
will never call your bluff. Can you beat it?"
The hours dragged wearily on. We had no food, and Maggs, who had eaten
the last of his provisions twenty-four hours before--the British soldier
is a bad hoarder--soon consumed the last of my cigarettes. It was past
ten o'clock when I heard a step outside. The next moment Francis came
in, white and breathless.
"They're beating the forest for us," he panted. "The place is full of
men. I had to crawl the whole way there and back, and I'm soaked to the
skin."
I pointed to Monica, who was fast asleep, and he lowered his voice.
"Des," he said, "I've hoped as long as I dared, but now I believe the
game's up. They're beating the forest in a great circle, soldiers and
police and customs men. If we set out at once we can reach the frontier
before they get here, but what's the use of that ... every patrol is on
the look-out for us ... the forest seems ablaze with torches."
"We must try it, Francis," I said. "We haven't a dog's chance if we
stay here!"
"I think you're right," he answered. "Well, here's the plan. There's a
deep ravine that runs clear across the frontier. I spent an hour in it.
They've built a plank bridge across the top just this side of the line,
and the patrol comes to the ravine about every three minutes. It is
practically impossible to get out of sight and sound along that ravine
in three minutes, but ..."
"Unless we could drar the patrol's attention away!" said Sapper Maggs.
But Francis ignored the interruption.
"... We can at least try it. Come on, we must be starting! Thank God,
there's no moon; it's as dark as the devil outside!"
We roused up Monica and groped our way out of the cave into the black
and dripping forest. Somewhere in the distance a faint glare reddened
the sky. From time to time I thought I heard a shout, but it sounded far
away.
We crawled stealthily forward, Francis in front, then Monica, Maggs and
I last. In a few minutes we were wet through, and our hands, blue and
dead with cold, were scratched and torn. Our progress was interminably
slow. Every few yards Francis raised his hand and we stopped.
At last we reached the gloomy glade where, as Francis had told us,
according to popular belief, the wraith of Charlemagne was still seen on
the night of St. Hubert's Day galloping along with his ghostly
followers of the chase. The rustling of leaves caught our ears;
instantly we all lay prone behind a bank.
A group of men came swinging along the glade. One of them was singing an
ancient German soldier song:
"Die Vöglein im Walde
Sie singen so schön
In der Heimat, in der Heimat,
Da gibt's ein Wiederseh'n."
"The relief patrol!" I whispered to Francis, as soon as they were past.
"The other lot they relieve will be back this way in a minute. We must
get across quickly." My brother stood erect, and tiptoed swiftly across
Charlemagne's Ride, and we followed.
We must have crawled for an hour before we came to the ravine. It was a
deep, narrow ditch with steep sides, full of undergrowth and brambles.
Now we could hear distinctly the voices of men all around us, as it
seemed, and to right and to left and in front we caught at intervals
glimpses of red flames through the trees. We could only proceed at a
snail's pace lest the continual rustle of our footsteps should betray
us. So each advanced a few paces in turn; then we all paused, and then
the next one went forward. We could no longer crawl; the undergrowth was
too thick for that; we had to go forward bent double.
We had progressed like this for fully half an hour when Francis, who
was in front as usual, beckoned us to lie down. We all lay motionless
among the brambles.
Then a voice somewhere above us said in German:
"And I'll have a man at the plank here, sergeant: he can watch the
ravine."
Another voice answered:
"Very good, Herr Leutnant, but in that case the patrols to right and
left need not cross the plank each time; they can turn when they come to
the ravine guard."
The voices died away in a murmur. I craned my neck aloft. It was so
dark, I could see nothing save the fretwork of branches against the
night sky. I whispered to Francis, who was just in front of me:
"Unless we make a dash for it now that man will hear us rustling along!"
Francis held up a finger. I heard a heavy footstep along the bank above
us.
"Too late!" my brother whispered back. "Do you hear the patrols?"
Footsteps crashing through the undergrowth resounded on the right and
left.
"Cold work!" said a voice.
"Bitter!" came the answer, just above our heads.
"Seen anything?"
"Nothing!"
The rustling began again on the right, and died away.
"They're closing in on the left!" Another voice this time.
"Heard anything, you?" from the voice above us.
"Not a thing!"
The rustling broke out once more on the left, and gradually became lost
in the distance.
Silence.
I felt a hot breath in my ear. Sapper Maggs stood by my side.
"There be a feller a-watching for us up there?" he whispered.
I nodded.
"If us could drar his 'tention away, yew could slip by, next time the
patrols is past, couldn't 'ee?"
Again I nodded.
"It'd be worse for yew than for me, supposin' yew'd be ca-art, that's
what t'other officer said, warn't it?"
And once more I nodded.
The hot whisper came again.
"I'll drar 'un off for ee, zur, nex' time the patrols pass. When I
holler, yew and the others, yew run. Thirty-one forty-three Sapper
Maggs, R.E., from Chewton Mendip ... that's me... maybe yew'll let us
have a bit o' writing to the camp."
I stretched out my hand in the darkness to stop him. He had gone.
I leant forward and whispered to Francis:
"When you hear a shout, we make a dash for it!"
I felt him look at me in surprise--it was too dark to see his face.
"Right!" he whispered back.
Now to the left we heard voices shouting and saw torches gleaming red
among the trees. To right and rear answering shouts resounded.
Again the patrols met at the plank above our heads, and again their
departing footsteps rustled in the leaves.
The murmur of voices grew nearer. We could faintly smell the burning
resin of the torches.
Then a wild yell rent the forest. The voice above us shouted "Halt!" but
the echo was lost in the deafening report of a rifle.
Francis caught Monica by the wrist and dragged her forward. We went
plunging and crashing through the tangle of the ravine. We heard a
second shot and a third, commands were shouted, the red glare deepened
in the sky....
Monica collapsed quite suddenly at my feet. She never uttered a sound,
but fell prone, her face as white as paper. Without a word we picked her
up between us and went on, stumbling, gasping, coughing, our clothes
rent and torn, the blood oozing from the deep scratches on our faces and
hands.
At length our strength gave out. We laid Monica down in the ravine and
drew the under growth over her, then we crawled in under the brambles
exhausted, beat.
Dawn was streaking the sky with lemon when a dog jumped sniffing down
into our hiding-place. Francis and Monica were asleep.
A man stood at the top of the ravine looking down on us. He carried a
gun over his shoulder.
"Have you had an accident?" he said kindly.
He spoke in Dutch.