It was in the days when the German armies had broken their way across
France, and when the shattered forces of the young Republic had been
swept away to the north of the Aisne and to the south of the Loire.
Three broad streams of armed men had rolled slowly but irresistibly from
the Rhine, now meandering to the north, now to the south, dividing,
coalescing, but all uniting to form one great lake round Paris. And
from this lake there welled out smaller streams--one to the north, one
southward, to Orleans, and a third westward to Normandy. Many a German
trooper saw the sea for the first time when he rode his horse girth-deep
into the waves at Dieppe.
Black and bitter were the thoughts of Frenchmen when they saw this weal
of dishonour slashed across the fair face of their country. They had
fought and they had been overborne. That swarming cavalry, those
countless footmen, the masterful guns--they had tried and tried to make
head against them. In battalions their invaders were not to be beaten,
but man to man, or ten to ten, they were their equals. A brave
Frenchman might still make a single German rue the day that he had left
his own bank of the Rhine. Thus, unchronicled amid the battles and the
sieges, there broke out another war, a war of individuals, with foul
murder upon the one side and brutal reprisal on the other.
Colonel von Gramm, of the 24th Posen Infantry, had suffered severely
during this new development. He commanded in the little Norman town of
Les Andelys, and his outposts stretched amid the hamlets and farmhouses
of the district round. No French force was within fifty miles of him,
and yet morning after morning he had to listen to a black report of
sentries found dead at their posts, or of foraging parties which had
never returned. Then the colonel would go forth in his wrath, and
farmsteadings would blaze and villages tremble; but next morning there
was still that same dismal tale to be told. Do what he might, he could
not shake off his invisible enemies. And yet it should not have been so
hard, for, from certain signs in common, in the plan and in the deed, it
was certain that all these outrages came from a single source.
Colonel von Gramm had tried violence, and it had failed. Gold might be
more successful. He published it abroad over the countryside that
500frs. would be paid for information. There was no response. Then
800frs. The peasants were incorruptible. Then, goaded on by a murdered
corporal, he rose to a thousand, and so bought the soul of Francois
Rejane, farm labourer, whose Norman avarice was a stronger passion than
his French hatred.
“You say that you know who did these crimes?” asked the Prussian
colonel, eyeing with loathing the blue-bloused, rat-faced creature
before him.
“Yes, colonel.”
“And it was--?”
“Those thousand francs, colonel--”
“Not a sou until your story has been tested. Come! Who is it who has
murdered my men?”
“It is Count Eustace of Chateau Noir.”
“You lie!” cried the colonel, angrily. “A gentleman and a nobleman
could not have done such crimes.”
The peasant shrugged his shoulders. “It is evident to me that you do
not know the count. It is this way, colonel. What I tell you is the
truth, and I am not afraid that you should test it. The Count of
Chateau Noir is a hard man, even at the best time he was a hard man.
But of late he has been terrible. It was his son’s death, you know.
His son was under Douay, and he was taken, and then in escaping from
Germany he met his death. It was the count’s only child, and indeed we
all think that it has driven him mad. With his peasants he follows the
German armies. I do not know how many he has killed, but it is he who
cut the cross upon the foreheads, for it is the badge of his house.”
It was true. The murdered sentries had each had a saltire cross slashed
across their brows, as by a hunting-knife. The colonel bent his stiff
back and ran his forefinger over the map which lay upon the table.
“The Chateau Noir is not more than four leagues,” he said.
“Three and a kilometre, colonel.”
“You know the place?”
“I used to work there.”
Colonel von Gramm rang the bell.
“Give this man food and detain him,” said he to the sergeant.
“Why detain me, colonel? I can tell you no more.”
“We shall need you as guide.”
“As guide? But the count? If I were to fall into his hands?
Ah, colonel--”
The Prussian commander waved him away. “Send Captain Baumgarten to me
at once,” said he.
The officer who answered the summons was a man of middle-age,
heavy-jawed, blue-eyed, with a curving yellow moustache, and a brick-red
face which turned to an ivory white where his helmet had sheltered it.
He was bald, with a shining, tightly stretched scalp, at the back of
which, as in a mirror, it was a favourite mess-joke of the subalterns to
trim their moustaches. As a soldier he was slow, but reliable and
brave. The colonel could trust him where a more dashing officer might
be in danger.
“You will proceed to Chateau Noir to-night, captain,” said he. “A guide
has been provided. You will arrest the count and bring him back.
If there is an attempt at rescue, shoot him at once.”
“How many men shall I take, colonel?”
“Well, we are surrounded by spies, and our only chance is to pounce upon
him before he knows that we are on the way. A large force will attract
attention. On the other hand, you must not risk being cut off.”
“I might march north, colonel, as if to join General Goeben. Then I
could turn down this road which I see upon your map, and get to Chateau
Noir before they could hear of us. In that case, with twenty men--”
“Very good, captain. I hope to see you with your prisoner to-morrow
morning.”
It was a cold December night when Captain Baumgarten marched out of Les
Andelys with his twenty Poseners, and took the main road to the north
west. Two miles out he turned suddenly down a narrow, deeply rutted
track, and made swiftly for his man. A thin, cold rain was falling,
swishing among the tall poplar trees and rustling in the fields on
either side. The captain walked first with Moser, a veteran sergeant,
beside him. The sergeant’s wrist was fastened to that of the French
peasant, and it had been whispered in his ear that in case of an
ambush the first bullet fired would be through his head. Behind them
the twenty infantrymen plodded along through the darkness with their
faces sunk to the rain, and their boots squeaking in the soft, wet clay.
They knew where they were going, and why, and the thought upheld them,
for they were bitter at the loss of their comrades. It was a cavalry
job, they knew, but the cavalry were all on with the advance, and,
besides, it was more fitting that the regiment should avenge its own
dead men.
It was nearly eight when they left Les Andelys. At half-past eleven
their guide stopped at a place where two high pillars, crowned with some
heraldic stonework, flanked a huge iron gate. The wall in which it had
been the opening had crumbled away, but the great gate still towered
above the brambles and weeds which had overgrown its base. The
Prussians made their way round it and advanced stealthily, under the
shadow of a tunnel of oak branches, up the long avenue, which was still
cumbered by the leaves of last autumn. At the top they halted and
reconnoitred.
The black chateau lay in front of them. The moon had shone out between
two rain-clouds, and threw the old house into silver and shadow. It was
shaped like an L, with a low arched door in front, and lines of small
windows like the open ports of a man-of-war. Above was a dark roof,
breaking at the corners into little round overhanging turrets, the whole
lying silent in the moonshine, with a drift of ragged clouds blackening
the heavens behind it. A single light gleamed in one of the lower
windows.
The captain whispered his orders to his men. Some were to creep to the
front door, some to the back. Some were to watch the east, and some the
west. He and the sergeant stole on tiptoe to the lighted window.
It was a small room into which they looked, very meanly furnished.
An elderly man, in the dress of a menial, was reading a tattered paper
by the light of a guttering candle. He leaned back in his wooden chair
with his feet upon a box, while a bottle of white wine stood with a
half-filled tumbler upon a stool beside him. The sergeant thrust his
needle-gun through the glass, and the man sprang to his feet with a
shriek.
“Silence, for your life! The house is surrounded, and you cannot
escape. Come round and open the door, or we will show you no mercy when
we come in.”
“For God’s sake, don’t shoot! I will open it! I will open it!”
He rushed from the room with his paper still crumpled up in his hand.
An instant later, with a groaning of old locks and a rasping of bars,
the low door swung open, and the Prussians poured into the stone-flagged
passage.
“Where is Count Eustace de Chateau Noir?”
“My master! He is out, sir.”
“Out at this time of night? Your life for a lie!”
“It is true, sir. He is out!”
“Where?”
“I do not know.”
“Doing what?”
“I cannot tell. No, it is no use your cocking your pistol, sir. You
may kill me, but you cannot make me tell you that which I do not know.”
“Is he often out at this hour?”
“Frequently.”
“And when does he come home?”
“Before daybreak.”
Captain Baumgarten rasped out a German oath. He had had his journey
for nothing, then. The man’s answers were only too likely to be true.
It was what he might have expected. But at least he would search the
house and make sure. Leaving a picket at the front door and another at
the back, the sergeant and he drove the trembling butler in front of
them--his shaking candle sending strange, flickering shadows over the
old tapestries and the low, oak-raftered ceilings. They searched the
whole house, from the huge stone-flagged kitchen below to the
dining-hall on the second floor, with its gallery for musicians, and
its panelling black with age, but nowhere was there a living creature.
Up above, in an attic, they found Marie, the elderly wife of the
butler; but the owner kept no other servants, and of his own presence
there was no trace.
It was long, however, before Captain Baumgarten had satisfied himself
upon the point. It was a difficult house to search. Thin stairs, which
only one man could ascend at a time, connected lines of tortuous
corridors. The walls were so thick that each room was cut off from its
neighbour. Huge fireplaces yawned in each, while the windows were 6ft.
deep in the wall. Captain Baumgarten stamped with his feet, tore down
curtains, and struck with the pommel of his sword. If there were secret
hiding-places, he was not fortunate enough to find them.
“I have an idea,” said he, at last, speaking in German to the sergeant.
“You will place a guard over this fellow, and make sure that he
communicates with no one.”
“Yes, captain.”
“And you will place four men in ambush at the front and at the back. It
is likely enough that about daybreak our bird may return to the nest.”
“And the others, captain?”
“Let them have their suppers in the kitchen. The fellow will serve you
with meat and wine. It is a wild night, and we shall be better here
than on the country road.”
“And yourself, captain?”
“I will take my supper up here in the dining-hall. The logs are laid
and we can light the fire. You will call me if there is any alarm.
What can you give me for supper--you?”
“Alas, monsieur, there was a time when I might have answered, ‘What you
wish!’ but now it is all that we can do to find a bottle of new claret
and a cold pullet.”
“That will do very well. Let a guard go about with him, sergeant, and
let him feel the end of a bayonet if he plays us any tricks.”
Captain Baumgarten was an old campaigner. In the Eastern provinces, and
before that in Bohemia, he had learned the art of quartering himself
upon the enemy. While the butler brought his supper he occupied himself
in making his preparations for a comfortable night. He lit the
candelabrum of ten candles upon the centre table. The fire was already
burning up, crackling merrily, and sending spurts of blue, pungent smoke
into the room. The captain walked to the window and looked out.
The moon had gone in again, and it was raining heavily. He could hear
the deep sough of the wind, and see the dark loom of the trees, all
swaying in the one direction. It was a sight which gave a zest to his
comfortable quarters, and to the cold fowl and the bottle of wine which
the butler had brought up for him. He was tired and hungry after his
long tramp, so he threw his sword, his helmet, and his revolver-belt
down upon a chair, and fell to eagerly upon his supper. Then, with his
glass of wine before him and his cigar between his lips, he tilted his
chair back and looked about him.
He sat within a small circle of brilliant light which gleamed upon his
silver shoulder-straps, and threw out his terra-cotta face, his heavy
eyebrows, and his yellow moustache. But outside that circle things were
vague and shadowy in the old dining-hall. Two sides were oak-panelled
and two were hung with faded tapestry, across which huntsmen and dogs
and stags were still dimly streaming. Above the fireplace were rows of
heraldic shields with the blazonings of the family and of its alliances,
the fatal saltire cross breaking out on each of them.
Four paintings of old seigneurs of Chateau Noir faced the fireplace, all
men with hawk noses and bold, high features, so like each other that
only the dress could distinguish the Crusader from the Cavalier of the
Fronde. Captain Baumgarten, heavy with his repast, lay back in his
chair looking up at them through the clouds of his tobacco smoke, and
pondering over the strange chance which had sent him, a man from the
Baltic coast, to eat his supper in the ancestral hall of these proud
Norman chieftains. But the fire was hot, and the captain’s eyes were
heavy. His chin sank slowly upon his chest, and the ten candles gleamed
upon the broad, white scalp.
Suddenly a slight noise brought him to his feet. For an instant it
seemed to his dazed senses that one of the pictures opposite had walked
from its frame. There, beside the table, and almost within arm’s length
of him, was standing a huge man, silent, motionless, with no sign of
life save his fierce-glinting eyes. He was black-haired, olive-skinned,
with a pointed tuft of black beard, and a great, fierce nose, towards
which all his features seemed to run. His cheeks were wrinkled like a
last year’s apple, but his sweep of shoulder, and bony, corded hands,
told of a strength which was unsapped by age. His arms were folded
across his arching chest, and his mouth was set in a fixed smile.
“Pray do not trouble yourself to look for your weapons,” he said, as the
Prussian cast a swift glance at the empty chair in which they had been
laid. “You have been, if you will allow me to say so, a little
indiscreet to make yourself so much at home in a house every wall of
which is honeycombed with secret passages. You will be amused to hear
that forty men were watching you at your supper. Ah! what then?”
Captain Baumgarten had taken a step forward with clenched fists.
The Frenchman held up the revolver which he grasped in his right hand,
while with the left he hurled the German back into his chair.
“Pray keep your seat,” said he. “You have no cause to trouble about
your men. They have already been provided for. It is astonishing with
these stone floors how little one can hear what goes on beneath.
You have been relieved of your command, and have now only to think of
yourself. May I ask what your name is?”
“I am Captain Baumgarten of the 24th Posen Regiment.”
“Your French is excellent, though you incline, like most of your
countrymen, to turn the ‘p’ into a ‘b.’ I have been amused to hear them
cry ‘_Avez bitie sur moi!_’ You know, doubtless, who it is who addresses
you.”
“The Count of Chateau Noir.”
“Precisely. It would have been a misfortune if you had visited my
chateau and I had been unable to have a word with you. I have had to do
with many German soldiers, but never with an officer before. I have
much to talk to you about.”
Captain Baumgarten sat still in his chair. Brave as he was, there was
something in this man’s manner which made his skin creep with
apprehension. His eyes glanced to right and to left, but his weapons
were gone, and in a struggle he saw that he was but a child to this
gigantic adversary. The count had picked up the claret bottle and held
it to the light.
“Tut! tut!” said he. “And was this the best that Pierre could do for
you? I am ashamed to look you in the face, Captain Baumgarten. We must
improve upon this.”
He blew a call upon a whistle which hung from his shooting-jacket.
The old manservant was in the room in an instant.
“Chambertin from bin 15!” he cried, and a minute later a grey bottle,
streaked with cobwebs, was carried in as a nurse bears an infant.
The count filled two glasses to the brim.
“Drink!” said he. “It is the very best in my cellars, and not to be
matched between Rouen and Paris. Drink, sir, and be happy! There are
cold joints below. There are two lobsters, fresh from Honfleur. Will
you not venture upon a second and more savoury supper?”
The German officer shook his head. He drained the glass, however, and
his host filled it once more, pressing him to give an order for this or
that dainty.
“There is nothing in my house which is not at your disposal. You have
but to say the word. Well, then, you will allow me to tell you a story
while you drink your wine. I have so longed to tell it to some
German officer. It is about my son, my only child, Eustace, who was
taken and died in escaping. It is a curious little story, and I think
that I can promise you that you will never forget it.
“You must know, then, that my boy was in the artillery--a fine young
fellow, Captain Baumgarten, and the pride of his mother. She died
within a week of the news of his death reaching us. It was brought by a
brother officer who was at his side throughout, and who escaped while my
lad died. I want to tell you all that he told me.
“Eustace was taken at Weissenburg on the 4th of August. The prisoners
were broken up into parties, and sent back into Germany by different
routes. Eustace was taken upon the 5th to a village called Lauterburg,
where he met with kindness from the German officer in command.
This good colonel had the hungry lad to supper, offered him the best he
had, opened a bottle of good wine, as I have tried to do for you, and
gave him a cigar from his own case. Might I entreat you to take one
from mine?”
The German again shook his head. His horror of his companion had
increased as he sat watching the lips that smiled and the eyes that
glared.
“The colonel, as I say, was good to my boy. But, unluckily, the
prisoners were moved next day across the Rhine into Ettlingen.
They were not equally fortunate there. The officer who guarded them was
a ruffian and a villain, Captain Baumgarten. He took a pleasure in
humiliating and ill-treating the brave men who had fallen into his
power. That night, upon my son answering fiercely back to some taunt of
his, he struck him in the eye, like this!”
The crash of the blow rang through the hall. The German’s face fell
forward, his hand up, and blood oozing through his fingers. The count
settled down in his chair once more.
“My boy was disfigured by the blow, and this villain made his appearance
the object of his jeers. By the way, you look a little comical yourself
at the present moment, captain, and your colonel would certainly say
that you had been getting into mischief. To continue, however, my boy’s
youth and his destitution--for his pockets were empty--moved the pity of
a kind-hearted major, and he advanced him ten Napoleons from his own
pocket without security of any kind. Into your hands, Captain
Baumgarten, I return these ten gold pieces, since I cannot learn the
name of the lender. I am grateful from my heart for this kindness shown
to my boy.
“The vile tyrant who commanded the escort accompanied the prisoners to
Durlack, and from there to Carlsruhe. He heaped every outrage upon my
lad, because the spirit of the Chateau Noirs would not stoop to turn
away his wrath by a feigned submission. Ay, this cowardly villain,
whose heart’s blood shall yet clot upon this hand, dared to strike my
son with his open hand, to kick him, to tear hairs from his moustache--
to use him thus--and thus--and thus!”
The German writhed and struggled. He was helpless in the hands of this
huge giant whose blows were raining upon him. When at last, blinded and
half-senseless, he staggered to his feet, it was only to be hurled back
again into the great oaken chair. He sobbed in his impotent anger and
shame.
“My boy was frequently moved to tears by the humiliation of his
position,” continued the count. “You will understand me when I say that
it is a bitter thing to be helpless in the hands of an insolent and
remorseless enemy. On arriving at Carlsruhe, however, his face, which
had been wounded by the brutality of his guard, was bound up by a young
Bavarian subaltern who was touched by his appearance. I regret to see
that your eye is bleeding so. Will you permit me to bind it with my
silk handkerchief?”
He leaned forward, but the German dashed his hand aside.
“I am in your power, you monster!” he cried; “I can endure your
brutalities, but not your hypocrisy.”
The count shrugged his shoulders.
“I am taking things in their order, just as they occurred,” said he.
“I was under vow to tell it to the first German officer with whom I
could talk _tete-a-tete_. Let me see, I had got as far as the young
Bavarian at Carlsruhe. I regret extremely that you will not permit me
to use such slight skill in surgery as I possess. At Carlsruhe, my lad
was shut up in the old caserne, where he remained for a fortnight.
The worst pang of his captivity was that some unmannerly curs in the
garrison would taunt him with his position as he sat by his window in
the evening. That reminds me, captain, that you are not quite situated
upon a bed of roses yourself, are you now? You came to trap a wolf, my
man, and now the beast has you down with his fangs in your throat.
A family man, too, I should judge, by that well-filled tunic. Well, a
widow the more will make little matter, and they do not usually remain
widows long. Get back into the chair, you dog!
“Well, to continue my story--at the end of a fortnight my son and his
friend escaped. I need not trouble you with the dangers which they ran,
or with the privations which they endured. Suffice it that to disguise
themselves they had to take the clothes of two peasants, whom they
waylaid in a wood. Hiding by day and travelling by night, they had got
as far into France as Remilly, and were within a mile--a single mile,
captain--of crossing the German lines when a patrol of Uhlans came right
upon them. Ah! it was hard, was it not, when they had come so far and
were so near to safety?” The count blew a double call upon his whistle,
and three hard-faced peasants entered the room.
“These must represent my Uhlans,” said he. “Well, then, the captain in
command, finding that these men were French soldiers in civilian dress
within the German lines, proceeded to hang them without trial or
ceremony. I think, Jean, that the centre beam is the strongest.”
The unfortunate soldier was dragged from his chair to where a noosed
rope had been flung over one of the huge oaken rafters which spanned the
room. The cord was slipped over his head, and he felt its harsh grip
round his throat. The three peasants seized the other end, and looked
to the count for his orders. The officer, pale, but firm, folded his
arms and stared defiantly at the man who tortured him.
“You are now face to face with death, and I perceive from your lips
that you are praying. My son was also face to face with death, and he
prayed, also. It happened that a general officer came up, and he heard
the lad praying for his mother, and it moved him so--he being himself
a father--that he ordered his Uhlans away, and he remained with his
aide-de-camp only, beside the condemned men. And when he heard all the
lad had to tell--that he was the only child of an old family, and that
his mother was in failing health--he threw off the rope as I throw off
this, and he kissed him on either cheek, as I kiss you, and he bade him
go, as I bid you go, and may every kind wish of that noble general,
though it could not stave off the fever which slew my son, descend now
upon your head.”
And so it was that Captain Baumgarten, disfigured, blinded, and
bleeding, staggered out into the wind and the rain of that wild
December dawn.