Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: "THE SERGEANT OF HENRI'S PLATOON, ONE ARM DANGLING
HELPLESS BY HIS SIDE, STRETCHED OUT A BRAWNY HAND AND GRIPPED OUR
HERO'S" (missing from book)]
With Joffre at Verdun
A Story of the Western Front
BY
LT.-COL. F. S. BRERETON
Author of "With French at the Front"
"Under French's Command"
"With Our Russian Allies"
&c.
_Illustrated by Arch. Webb_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
1916
BY LT.-COLONEL BRERETON
With the Allies to the Rhine: A Story of the Finish of the War.
With Allenby in Palestine: A Story of the latest Crusade.
Under Foch's Command: A Tale of the Americans in France.
The Armoured-Car Scouts: The Campaign in the Caucasus.
On the Road to Bagdad: A Story of the British Expeditionary
Force in Mesopotamia.
From the Nile to the Tigris: Campaigning from Western Egypt
to Mesopotamia.
Under Haig in Flanders: A Story of Vimy, Messines, and Ypres.
With Joffre at Verdun: A Story of the Western Front.
On the Field of Waterloo.
With Wellington in Spain: A Story of the Peninsula.
Kidnapped by Moors: A Story of Morocco.
The Hero of Panama: A Tale of the Great Canal.
The Great Aeroplane: A Thrilling Tale of Adventure.
A Hero of Sedan: A Tale of the Franco-Prussian War.
Roger the Bold: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico.
At Grips with the Turk: A Story of the Dardanelles Campaign.
The Great Airship.
A Sturdy Young Canadian.
A Boy of the Dominion: A Tale of Canadian Immigration.
Under the Chinese Dragon: A Tale of Mongolia.
With Roberts to Candahar: Third Afghan War.
A Hero of Lucknow: A Tale of the Indian Mutiny.
Under French's Command: A Story of the Western Front from
Neuve Chapelle to Loos.
With French at the Front: A Story of the Great European War
down to the Battle of the Aisne.
John Bargreave's Gold: A Search for Sunken Treasure.
Tom Stapleton, the Boy Scout.
A Soldier of Japan: A Tale of the Russo-Japanese War.
A Knight of St. John: A Tale of the Siege of Malta.
Foes of the Red Cockade: The French Revolution.
One of the Fighting Scouts: Guerrilla War in South Africa.
The Dragon of Pekin: A Story of the Boxer Revolt.
A Gallant Grenadier: A Story of the Crimean War.
LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, LTD., 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
Contents
CHAP.
I. THE CAMP AT RUHLEBEN
II. HENRI AND JULES AND STUART
III. THE ROAD TO FREEDOM
IV. THE HEART OF GERMANY
V. ELUDING THE PURSUERS
VI. CHANGING THEIR DIRECTION
VII. A FRIEND IN NEED
VIII. THE VERDUN SALIENT
IX. A TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT
X. THE THIN LINE OF HEROES
XI. FALLING BACK
XII. A RECONNOITRING-PARTY
XIII. DOUAUMONT FORTRESS
XIV. FRENCHMEN AND BRANDENBURGERS
XV. RATS IN A TRAP
XVI. A FIGHT TO A FINISH
XVII. CHARGE OF THE GALLANT BRETONS
XVIII. A SINISTER GERMAN
XIX. HEROIC "POILUS"
Illustrations
"THE SERGEANT OF HENRI'S PLATOON, ONE ARM
DANGLING HELPLESS BY HIS SIDE, STRETCHED OUT A
BRAWNY HAND AND GRIPPED OUR HERO'S"
(missing from book) _Frontispiece_
"A BIG BURLY MAN, A NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER
OF THE STAFF AT RUHLEBEN, BARRED HENRI'S PROGRESS"
(missing from book)
"A TERRIFIC CONCUSSION SENT HIS BOWL FLYING AND
THE YOUNG SOLDIER HIMSELF ROLLING FROM THE BANK"
"THEY SAW A GERMAN SOLDIER ACTUALLY DRINKING
FROM THE STREAM WITHIN A FEW YARDS OF THEM
"THAT BEARDED VETERAN, LEANING OVER THE
SWAYING WALL, MADE HAVOC AMONG THE GERMANS
WITH HIS BAYONET"
"THE GRENADE LANDED WITHIN A FOOT OF THE FIRE
ABOUT WHICH THE MEN HAD BEEN SEATED"
MAP OF VERDUN SALIENT DURING OPERATIONS ON
21ST FEBRUARY, 1916
MAP OF VERDUN SALIENT AFTER FOUR MONTHS OF
CONTINUOUS FIGHTING
WITH JOFFRE AT VERDUN
CHAPTER I
The Camp at Ruhleben
You'd have said, if you had glanced casually at Henri de Farquissaire,
that he was British--British from the well-trimmed head of hair beneath
his light-grey Homberg hat to the most elegant socks and tan shoes
which adorned his feet. His walk was British, his stride the active,
elastic, athletic stride of one of our young fellows; and the poise of
his head, the erectness of his lithe figure, a symbol of what one is
accustomed to in Britons wherever they are met. That one gathered from
a mere casual glance; though a second glance--a more penetrating one,
we will say, one with a trifle more curiosity thrown into it--would
have discovered other points still bearing out the same assumption as
to Henri's nationality, and leaving hardly a suspicion that in point of
fact he was French--as French as they make them.
For, putting aside the fact that this young gentleman was dressed in
clothes unmistakably British, tailored, in fact, in the heart of
fashionable London, his features, as well as his figure and his method
of progress, pointed to a British origin. Not, let us add, that there
is need to make comparisons between the appearance of young men of
France and those of our country, nor need to exploit the one against
the other. That there are essential differences between the two
nationalities all will admit--differences accentuated, no doubt, in the
great majority of cases by dress, by manner, and by environment.
But Henri--what nationality could he have belonged to other than
British--with those rosy cheeks, that fresh complexion, and that little
perky moustache which adorned his upper lip? His "How do you do?" in
the purest English as he met a companion in the street was as devoid of
accent as would have been that of a habitue of London. There was
nothing exaggerated about his method of raising his hat to a lady whom
he passed, no gesticulations, no active nervous movements of his hands,
and none of that shrugging of the shoulders which, public opinion has
it, is so eminently characteristic of our Gallic neighbours. And yet
the young man was French.
Striding down one of Berlin's main streets in that summer of 1914, now
so historic, he was chatting amiably with his chum, Jules Epain, a
resident, like himself, of Berlin.
"So it's war, eh?" he asked his chum in French.
"War?"
There was silence for a little while, and then from Jules: "And we are
here, in Berlin, the Kaiser's city!"
"Just so!" from Henri; "and, Jules, my boy, the sooner we take steps to
move along the better. I have taken tickets for England already, and
don't forget we are English."
There again, without a doubt, the appearance of Henri's friend would
assist the suggestion which he had just mentioned. English? Yes, if
Henri looked a British subject, and indeed spoke and behaved
essentially as one of our people, then Jules, too, was not behind him.
Perhaps more elegant, of darker features, spruce, neat, and
well-groomed like his chum, he too had the distinguished air, that
quiet and unassuming demeanour which stamp the Englishman throughout
the world.
"You've the tickets, eh?" he asked Henri as they strode along. "For
England too?"
"For England. And a tremendous job it was to get them. You see,
Germany has declared war on France and Russia, and to attempt to return
to France would have been out of the question. It had to be England,
or Holland, or some such place, and England's quite good enough for me
if I can get there."
"Bah!" Someone exploded near them; a huge, stout, helmeted individual
gave vent to an exclamation of disgust, anger, hatred. The man
spluttered as he suddenly pounced upon the two and ordered them to halt
abruptly.
"So, French canaille!"
This huge Berlin constable positively foamed as he looked down upon the
two young fellows, positively gnashed his teeth as he clenched his
fists and regarded them angrily. In his super-arrogance this huge
bully towered over the couple, and treated them to a stare, a derisive,
angry, contemptuous inspection, which humbled them exceedingly.
Indeed, Henri and Jules might have been simply noxious animals, mere
beetles to be trodden underfoot, so contemptuous was this bullying
constable of them.
"Bah! So, French at large, and not yet imprisoned! You are arrested."
"But arrested? But we're not soldiers," Henri told him in the best of
German; "and in any case you will allow us to go to our lodging and get
our baggage?"
Allow them to go to their lodgings! Permit any sort of privilege! Did
any German since the commencement of this war allow any sort of a
kindly sentiment to guide his actions when dealing with so-called
enemies? The constable exploded, and, opening his heavily moustached
mouth, roared an order at them.
"You will come with me at once! Hi, you! My Fritz! You will assist
me, lest these men make an attack upon my person."
He called to his help a constable even bigger than himself, stouter by
far, a man who looked as though he had lived on the fat of the earth,
and had derived intense enjoyment from it. One would have imagined
from his proportions, from the beefiness of his face, from his girth,
that this second individual might have proved--as is the case with so
many men of size--of a genial and gentle disposition. Yet Henri and
Jules knew well enough that no such thing was to be expected; indeed,
to speak only the truth, the people of Berlin knew this Fritz as a
sardonic, brutal, overbearing individual. He bore down upon the trio
like a huge, overgrown bull, and, making no bones of the matter, seized
Henri in a grip from which there was no escaping.
"Get on with you to the station. A spy, eh?" he asked the cheerful
constable who had called for his assistance.
"Who knows?" the man grunted. "But it's more than likely, for all
Frenchmen in these parts are spies. Drag him along, while I see to
this other whipper-snapper."
They were followed by a growing crowd of citizens of Berlin, a curious
crowd which ran beside the two mountains of the law, so as to get a
clear view of the prisoners, a crowd composed of elderly, white-bearded
gentlemen, of middle-aged ladies of almost aristocratic appearance, and
of youths and young girls, and gutter urchins--people who, you would
have thought, once they had obtained a view of the captives and
ascertained the reason for their arrest, would have been satisfied to
leave the matter and to go on their way forgetting the subject.
Perhaps in other days that crowd might have so behaved itself, and
might have vanished long before the constables and their captives had
reached the station; but crowds in the city of Berlin of other days,
and the mob as it was in the latter part of July and the early days of
August of 1914, were essentially and unmistakably different. War had
been declared by the Fatherland, that war expected by the nation,
eagerly awaited by all Teutons, longed for, oh how much and how
eagerly, by all the subjects of the Kaiser! And now that it had come,
now that the Emperor had thrown down the gauntlet before France and
Russia, you would have imagined that the people of Berlin would have
been overjoyed, would have been delighted, too happy and too contented
to be angry. And yet, it so happened that there was disappointment,
anger, rage, in the hearts of almost all these Germans. True, they had
obtained, after all those years of training, a declaration for which
they had so eagerly waited. France was in their power, conquered
already, they told themselves, for was she not utterly unprepared for
war? And as for Russia, Russia the Colossus, the steam-roller,
inefficiency reigned in her ranks, and she, too, in her turn, would be
most unquestionably conquered.
Then what, what had occurred to make this Berlin crowd--the swarm of
people who hurried along the streets elsewhere, the mobs which gathered
in front of embassies--so violent, so intensely hostile to France, so
suspicious of the presence of spies, so furiously disappointed and
angry?
"Spies! British spies!" a young man in the ranks of that crowd
bellowed, catching a full view of Jules and Henri; "spies from the King
of England! Kill them!"
And the mob took up the shout: "British! Down with Britain!"
Was that then the explanation of the hatred, of the intense animosity,
shown by these people? Was that then the reason why these two Berlin
constables, for one of them at least knew Jules and Henri to be
French--why they too should grit their teeth, should scowl and mutter
at the name of Britain? Yes, indeed, that was the reason why all the
subjects of the Kaiser, deliriously happy but a few hours ago, were now
snarling with anger, less contented with what was occurring, furiously
indignant at something beyond their conception. For within half an
hour of Henri's successful purchase of tickets, which were to take
himself and his chum to safety in England, there had come news of
importance from London. Already German troops had invaded Belgium, had
fired upon the people, were engaged with King Albert's soldiers, and
Britain--that arrogant Britain, ever an eyesore and a thorn in the
flesh for Germans--had protested, had declared her detestation of that
Germanic act, and her decision to oppose it. Indeed, she had answered
the deeds of the Kaiser and his soldiers by declaring war, by
announcing her determination to fight the Germans, and her decision to
support France and Belgium and Russia to her utmost.
That, then, was the reason why that mob, gathering weight at every
moment, howled with rage when, seeing Jules and Henri so distinctly
British in appearance, they recalled to their minds the engrossing fact
that all Britons were now their enemies.
"Hang them to the nearest lamp-post! Strangle the spies!" they
bellowed; "why take them to the police station?"
In his excessive zeal to deal a blow for his country, with an extremity
of valour which he would hardly have displayed had Jules and Henri been
free to defend themselves, one youth, possessed of coal-black, flashing
eyes, of raven locks, and of pallid and bloated features, darted in
between the two constables and struck a blow at Jules which, if it had
taken effect, would most decidedly have damaged his personal appearance.
"Himmel! But not that!" shouted the stoutest of the constables.
"What! You would strike and damage a prisoner of ours who may be
valuable to the authorities! You would!"
In a moment he had gripped the scabbard of his sword, and, swinging it
round, dealt this malefactor a blow across the head which stretched him
on the pavement. Then, jostling their prisoners between them, hurrying
them on, and smiling triumphantly at the crowd still massed around
them, encouraging them almost to repeat the attempt of that young
fellow so drastically punished, and so to torture their prisoners, and
yet keeping the most valiant of these angry individuals at arm's
length, the two men of law dragged Jules and Henri swiftly onwards.
And at last the doors of the police station closed behind them, leaving
outside a great mass of men and women, of gutter-snipes, and of every
sort and class of individual--a mob which howled like hungry wolves as
the prisoners were lost to sight to them.
Inside that station Jules and Henri at once underwent a most thorough
and rigorous search.
"Ha! Tickets for England! Then you were bound for that country? And
letters from France, from Paris--suspicious!"
It was useless to point out to these police officials that it was
natural enough for two Frenchmen caught in Berlin at a time of
declaration of war between Germany and their own people to attempt to
reach some other place; and hopeless to draw their attention to the
fact that, being French, letters from France in their possession were
to be expected, while the contents alone could prove whether Jules and
Henri were of necessity suspects.
We need hardly follow the course of events after the capture of these
two unfortunate, if lively, young fellows. They were clapped into
prison as a natural course, into a dark, noisome cell, which would have
been but indifferent accommodation for some malefactor. They were
half-starved, bullied, browbeaten, and even beaten by their jailers,
they were threatened with death as spies--though there was not an atom
of evidence against them--and, finally, after many months of anguish,
of short commons, of brutal treatment, they found themselves interned
in Ruhleben race-course, to which so many unfortunate civilians were
sent, there to mope and fret and rot while the war was in progress.
"And here we'll stay, I suppose," grumbled Henri, when some weeks had
passed, and they had, as it were, settled down to the routine of camp
life in Ruhleben, and had become inured--as far as young men of active
dispositions and healthy appetites can become inured, to the scantily
short rations with which the Germans supplied them. "It's awfully hard
luck to be prisoners in a place like this when our people are fighting."
"Awfully hard," Jules echoed despondently, for he was not gifted with
quite the allowance of high spirits possessed of Henri.
"But it needn't necessarily last for ever, this imprisonment," his
friend told him; and perhaps he had said the same a hundred times
already. "Little news comes to us in this hole, but yet tales have
reached us of men who have escaped, who have got out of Germany and
have joined their French regiments."
Yes, there had been news of such escapes, and no doubt there would be
others; and perhaps even Henri and Jules might themselves contrive to
get out of their predicament. Yet, how? Look round the camp and see
those rolls of barbed wire which encircled them, see the armed sentries
who moved along their beats, and the jailers and men appointed to watch
and spy amongst the prisoners, who strode here and there, hectoring the
weak, browbeating the strong, and fawning, perhaps, upon those
fortunate enough to be possessed of a store of money. Bitterly did the
two young fellows regret the chances which had brought them to Berlin,
and had found them there at the outbreak of war; for, indeed, it was
but a chance which had taken them to the Kaiser's city.
Let us explain how it happened that these two young men were of such
distinctly British appearance. After all, there was nothing
extraordinary about that fact, nothing particularly unusual, for in
Paris, for years past, there has been a sufficiency of British tailors
to turn out every young man after the latest British fashion. But it
was more than clothes in the case of these two young men, more than
mere dress, that made them so conspicuously British; it was
environment, in fact, training and education; it was the result of the
intuition of their parents.
"France is all right, my boy," Monsieur de Farquissaire had told Henri
when he was quite a lad, "France is a splendid country, and, if you are
but like your fellows when you reach man's age, neither you nor I will
have anything to complain of. But there is good in other
nationalities, and there is great advantage to one among our people who
both speaks the language, say, of England, and, better even than that,
understands her people and has inside knowledge of them. So you will
go to an English university once you have left your school in Paris."
As a matter of strict fact, Henri had left his school in Paris when
only fifteen years of age, and had crossed the Channel to become one of
the inmates of a public school famous throughout Great Britain. It was
there that he had learned to speak like a native, and, better still, it
was there that he had learned, unconsciously, quite easily in fact, to
behave just as did his fellows, to speak as they did, quietly, without
undue or exaggerated action, to play their games, to understand and
practise their codes of honour; and so faithful and diligent a student
was he, so heartily did he enter into the work and games of that public
school, that, when in due course he went to a university, he was
mistaken, just as he had been at the moment of the opening of this
story, for a British subject, an essentially insular individual.
As for Jules, when one has described the appearance and the
life-history, though only a short one so far, of the energetic Henri,
one has practically described that of his companion. For Jules and
Henri were born next-door to one another, were chums from their
earliest boyhood, and, thanks to the intimate friendship of their
parents, had the same course marked out for them. Jules, then,
followed Henri to that public school in England, followed him to the
university, was like him in his fancy for British ways and British
customs, and followed him yet again, indeed went in his company, on
that journey to Berlin which immersed them in this misfortune.
And there they were, interned in Ruhleben, impounded, corralled if you
like, separated from their countrymen by ghastly fences of barbed wire,
and by a nation composed of men and women who, almost without
exception, would, if they were to discover them outside their prison,
most eagerly tear them to pieces.
"But it's got to be done!" Jules said, as he and Henri sat outside the
stable, the wooden hovel, indeed, in which they lived, in which they
bedded down at night in stalls once occupied by horses, and now merely
strewed with straw, cruelly cold and unfit for human habitation.
"And the sooner we set about it the better. We'll have to harden our
hearts," said Henri, looking very determined and attempting to twist
the ends of his miniature moustache; "we'll have to save our food for
the journey."
Jules shivered. He wasn't a greedy young man, nor could his appetite
be described as unusually large, but he was hungry. Hungry then, at
the moment when Henri spoke of saving rations, hungry at night, hungry
when he had had his food, hungry always. He was like every member of
the unfortunate crowd now inhabiting the race-course at Ruhleben, he
was short of food--for the Germans were the harshest of captors. And
how could a man save sufficient from a mere crust of bread? How could
he put away from rations, already and for so long insufficient, even a
crumb _per diem_ to carry him on during some coming journey?
"Yes, it's got to be done," said Henri, with determination; "and,
what's more, we shall have to save money. We are getting a little
already: I had a few marks sent through from Paris only last week,
while we have both got a few notes tucked away in our clothing. But
it's not money, however, which will help us; not even food. It will be
our wits, which will have to be brisk, I can tell you."
Looking about them as they sat near their hovel, both knew that the
words were abundantly true, for where was there a loophole in those
barbed-wire fences? Where was there an opportunity to break out of
this prison? Yet the chance came, came unexpectedly, came after some
weeks of waiting and despondency, came at a moment, in fact, when it
found Jules and Henri almost unready, unprepared to seize a golden
opportunity.