THE WINE SHOP
In the wine shop, when they came to it, they found none of the men of
Hannay. The German soldiers, off duty for a little while, had taken
possession of the place, and the sound of their singing, which could be
heard as soon as one came within a hundred yards of the place, showed
that they were happy. The two scouts looked in as they passed the
window. They saw the invaders there, looking less like soldiers than
they had imagined German troops ever could look. A few of the men were
resting their feet, having taken off their heavy hobnailed boots, and
were sitting in their woolen socks. Some were playing cards; nearly
all were smoking.
"It's safe enough," said Paul. "If we can find that back entrance, I
think we can get into the cellar. The worst of it is that they may
have a guard there."
It was Arthur who found the entrance to the cellar. He led the way
down the stone steps, and they found themselves in a whitewashed vault,
scrupulously clean, as are practically all Belgian houses from garret
to cellar. There was a lantern, too, shedding a dim but most welcome
light on the place, with its rows of casks and hogsheads.
"That's a piece of luck, that lantern," said Paul. "Only it shows
something we'll have to look out for--that we may have a visitor any
moment. Look over there, Arthur. There's a little space behind that
row of barrels. If anyone comes we can hide there."
But Arthur had another idea. Before Paul could stop him, he sprang
lightly up the stairs that led to the room above, whence the sound of
the German soldiers came very plainly. He fumbled for a moment at the
door before he returned.
"I thought I might find that," he said. "I've shot a bolt on the door.
That will hold anyone who tries to come down for a few moments at
least, and it will give us time to get out the way we came. We may
wish to escape, you see."
"Good!" said Paul. "All right! Now let's try to find those guns."
But of guns or weapons of any sort they could find no trace. They
looked behind all the barrels and casks and under every possible hiding
place. They lifted some of the barrels, though to do so was a
considerable task, and the result was the same.
"Perhaps they have chosen some other hiding place or else the woman did
not really know, and only suspected," suggested Arthur.
But that explanation did not satisfy Paul. And in a moment he had an
inspiration. At once he began trying to tip back the great hogsheads
at one side of the vault. The third yielded easily, and he immediately
pried off its top.
"Aha, here we are!" he said. "Look, Arthur! I noticed that some of
these were empty, but I thought anything like a gun would rattle around
inside. But do you see what they did? They have the guns here, but
they're packed in with rags and sacking, so they can't move and make a
noise."
"That was clever!" said Arthur. "I suppose they expected the Germans
to make a search."
He drew out a gun, a shotgun with a sawed off barrel. The shortening
of the barrel served a double purpose. It made it possible for the gun
to be hidden in the barrel, and it made of it, also, at close range, a
far more dangerous and formidable weapon than it had been in its
original form.
"What are we to do with them? Where shall we hide them?"
"Nowhere. We shall put them back," said Paul. "When we have finished
with them, that is. Here, let me show you!"
He took the sawed off shotgun, opened the breech, and in a moment had
hopelessly shattered the firing mechanism.
"There, do you see? They'll find their guns--but they'll have trouble
in firing them! That's better than taking them away, because it's so
much safer."
"Oh, I should say so!"
They were busy for five minutes getting out the guns, of which there
were only a dozen all told, breaking them and then putting them back.
They left the place as they found it, and the guns themselves,
moreover, would not immediately give up the secret of how they had been
treated.
"I wonder if we can't find the ammunition?" said Paul, when they had
finished their work with the guns. "Then we could really finish the
job."
But the search for that proved vain. Though they looked everywhere
they came upon no hidden store of bullets or powder. Nor had Paul
really hoped that they would.
"They'd carry that with them, naturally," he said. "Well, it doesn't
make much difference. We--"
On the word there was a noise outside. They stopped, listening. Down
the steps by which they had entered came footsteps, and they first saw
heavy boots and then a pair of stout legs come into the range of the
lantern. For a moment they were rooted to the spot, and in that moment
the rest of the descending figure came into view, and they saw that it
was Raymond. In the same moment he saw them, and cried out sharply,
fear and anger mingled in his voice. That ended the spell that had
held them still. Arthur started a rush toward the newcomer, but Paul
caught his arm.
"No! Upstairs!" he cried.
As he spoke, he seized the lantern from the hook where it hung, and
swung it around, extinguishing the feeble flame at once. And then, as
Raymond with a roar of rage started toward them, he flung the lantern
straight at him. A cry of pain told him that his aim had been true,
even in the darkness, and then he leaped up the stairs after Arthur,
who was already fumbling at the bolt. In a moment they were through
the door and had burst into the midst of the astonished soldiers in the
taproom above.
For just a moment their sudden appearance caused excitement and
confusion among the soldiers, who must have imagined that this was a
surprise attack. But then some of the men, who had seen them talking
with Major Kellner earlier in the day, recognized them and a shout of
laughter went up.
"It is only those boys!" cried one soldier. "Here, you young ones, you
must stay to supper, now that you have come!"
He seized Paul and forced him into a chair, while another did as much
for Arthur.
"Come, landlord, your best for our guests!" cried half a dozen of the
soldiers.
Marcel, the landlord, who evidently knew only too well what his cellar
contained beside wine and beer, was staring at them with a white,
panic-stricken gaze. But he turned to obey, none the less; he was in
deadly fear, it was plain, of the boyish soldiers. They might be
willing to jest now, but he knew that they were the same men who fought
like devils, and if reports were true (which they were not!) cut off
the hands of women and children.
He brought food, and one of the soldiers handed Paul a glass of wine.
"Now, then!" cried the German. "You shall drink a toast to the good
Kaiser Wilhelm, who is now King of Belgium as well as of Prussia, and
who will eat the first course of his Christmas dinner in Paris and fly
to London in a Zeppelin for the second! Skoal!"
"Ja! Ja wohl! A toast to the Kaiser by the young Belgian!" cried some
of the others.
Paul got up, the glass held firmly in his hand. His cheeks were
blazing.
"I will give you a toast!" he cried. "To Kaiser Wilhelm! May he eat
his Christmas dinner in Saint Helena, with the ghost of Napoleon to
keep him company! And may King Albert and King George and the Czar and
the president of France enjoy a dinner that shall be served to them in
the palace of Potsdam!"
And then he flung down the glass, so that it was shattered on the stone
floor, and the red wine ran over the white flags.
"And so say I and every other good Belgian!" echoed Arthur.
For a moment there was a stunned silence in the room. The German
soldiers, aghast at such daring, stared with open mouths and wide eyes.
And then there was an angry murmur, spreading from one man to another,
as the enormity of Paul's daring sank in.
"He has insulted the Kaiser! He has dared to be disrespectful toward
our Emperor! He has refused to drink to his health!"
"Do what you like!" cried Paul, thoroughly aroused now, as Arthur had
seen him roused only once or twice before, and utterly indifferent to
what might happen to him. "I am not afraid of you! Come, stop us if
you like!"
And then while the angry muttering continued, and each of the German
soldiers seemed to wait for one of the others to make the first move,
Paul and Arthur, side by side, without looking to right or left, walked
out of the place and into the open air of the single street of Hannay.
For a moment, after they passed outside, they heard nothing, though
they had expected to be pursued and brought back. And then suddenly
from behind them there came the last sound they could have expected or
hoped to hear--a tremendous roar of laughter! Paul's courage in
defying them had won the admiration of the German soldiers at last.
Brave men are nearly always ready to pay a tribute to bravery in others.
But if they had escaped from one danger, they had still to face another
and one that might be even greater, as they well knew. For Raymond,
the butcher, had seen them in the cellar. No doubt he knew by this
time what had happened to his guns, and he would certainly know who was
to blame for their condition. He would be more certain than ever that
they were traitors to Belgium, since he was too stupid to understand
how well the scouts had served him, and it was sure that he and his
cronies of the civic guard would make some attempt to secure revenge.
Indeed, even as they came into the street, Paul saw a lurking figure
across the way, that moved as they did.
"Don't look around," he whispered to Arthur. "But I think that Raymond
is watching us from the other side of the street. We must be careful."
And then, suddenly, without the slightest warning, a whistling sound
that both scouts knew well after their experience during the shelling
of the German battery near their old home, was heard overhead. It was
followed in a few seconds by a terrific explosion. But fortunately the
explosion was at some distance. The shell, for it was a shell that
they had heard, burst outside of the village and did no damage.
But it created a tremendous effect, none the less. At once the German
officers came running from the doctor's house where they were
quartered, and, as more shells burst nearby, bugles sounded, and the
German soldiers came running to the centre of the village, gathering
rapidly from the houses where they had been enjoying their brief
respite from war. Sentries and all were called in, and within three
minutes the troops were off, at the double quick, going in the
direction whence they had come to enter the village of Hannay.
And now the comparative silence of the night, that had been broken
before then only by the dull and intermittent thunder of the guns
around Liege, was shattered in a thousand ways. Heavy firing by
infantry rifles, as well as by field guns, came from the north. It was
plain that Belgian or French troops must have been advancing with great
rapidity to interfere with the German raid on the country between Liege
and Brussels. Flashes of fire marked the bursting shells less than a
mile away, and occasional spurts of flame showed where the German guns
were replying to the sudden attack. In a moment Hannay was deserted by
the Germans. And before the villagers, led by Raymond, had collected
their scattered wits, Paul had seen the chance of escape.
"Come on!" he cried, to Arthur.
They ran as fast as they could after the Germans.