A Friend in Need
"Half a mo'! What's that? Looks like a regular haystack," grunted
Stuart, as he dropped from the train and stood in the fairway, one hand
held out in front of him, and a ponderous finger pointing into the
darkness.
"What's what? Oh, that!--that! Yes, it looks like a haystack,"
admitted Jules, following the direction of his indicating finger.
"On wheels! A hay-load on a truck," suggested Henri, peering into the
gloom, and seeing the ghostly outline of twenty or more trucks which
stood upon the rails in a siding quite close to them. "A truck of hay,
Stuart--hay!"
"Or straw," growled the huge Englishman. "Well, what of it? What's it
matter to us if it's straw or hay, or any sort of thing? What's
anything matter, so long as it don't help us?"
He was in quite an irritable mood, and his voice sounded as though he
were ready to quarrel with anyone on the smallest pretext. It was
therefore with an exclamation of impatience that he realized that
Henri, with quick impulsiveness, had gripped him by the arm and was
shaking him eagerly.
"What's--what's up then?" he demanded peevishly; and then, looking in
the direction in which the Frenchman was now pointing, grumbled loudly:
"Still on about that hay or straw? You're wasting time, Henri."
"Idiot!" the impulsive Frenchman told him. "Haven't you heard of
Germans hiding up in a hayrick--hiding as spies? It's a chance; let's
take it. Get your knife ready."
When they had crossed the tracks and reached the line of trucks it was
indeed to find that an opportunity for further escape was right before
them. For here were half a dozen trucks stacked high with hay, and
each covered with a tarpaulin. To cast off one end of the tarpaulin,
to burrow a hole in the hay, to tread their way into the stacks, and to
hack a space sufficient to accommodate their bodies was no great
difficulty, and though, in the midst of their work, the train started,
it made the job all the easier; for then, throwing discretion to the
wind, they tossed what hay was superabundant overboard, and, having by
that means obtained a cosy little nook in one of the stacks, put the
tarpaulin back into position, and, sleepy now after their labours, and
content that they were securely hidden, fell fast asleep, careless of
the direction in which they might be travelling. And two days later,
having in the meanwhile been lucky enough to obtain some food and water
at a siding into which the trucks were shunted, they heard the brakes
grind, and felt the train come to a gradual standstill.
"We shall have to get clear of this," said Henri. "Lucky it's
night-time again. I wonder where we are?"
"Still in Germany, I suppose," said Stuart, as he peered from
underneath the tarpaulin.
"No; Belgium," declared Jules of a sudden. "Look over
there--it's--it's Louvain."
There, painted above the station building near which the trucks were
halted, was the word, in large letters--Louvain.
"Louvain!" said Stuart, a bitter note in his voice; "where those brutes
butchered the Belgians; where they burned the town and the library, and
murdered women and children. Louvain! Just fancy! Still, it's
Belgium, and that's nearer to England."
"And to France!" whispered Henri, a note of excitement in his
voice--"and to France, Stuart! Let's get out and see what will happen."
Dropping from the truck, they presently found themselves in the streets
of Louvain, with ruined and broken remnants of houses on either side of
them, with a cowed population stepping sadly through the deserted
streets, and with packs of arrogant German soldiers patrolling the
town. In happier days both Jules and Henri had been at this place, had
admired this Belgian city of learning, had known some of its
professors--now dead or scattered, many of them having found a home in
England--and had never imagined in those days that such a dreadful
change could have been brought about in this once famous city of
learning. Yet what changes had been wrought by the war which the
Kaiser and his people had sought, and which had now deluged Europe!
What a tale of treachery and suffering; what a tale of furious
fighting, of gallant deeds, of death, of victory, of wounds, had been
wrought by those months of war which had elapsed since that eventful
day when Henri and Jules discovered themselves in Berlin, the centre of
a hissing, furious crowd, and were hurried to that camp of misery at
Ruhleben! He who ventures to give a full narrative of the deeds done
during those months, of the varying fortunes of the combatants, of the
warfare waged by land and sea and in the air, would needs have a task
far, far beyond him, seeing that every day has been so full of
incidents of surpassing importance to the world that a mere summary of
them would be an undertaking. Yet to realize the situation, as it was
at the moment when Henri and his two friends clambered from the truck
in which they had escaped from the heart of Germany, and dropped to the
ground in the heart of Louvain; to understand the changes which had
occurred during those weary months of waiting at Ruhleben, it becomes a
matter of necessity at this stage to glance, if only briefly, at the
major events which had happened.
We have said already that, at the moment when Germany had thrown down
the gauntlet to France and Russia, Belgium was at peace with the world,
and Britain also. And the tale does not need to be repeated of how
Germany, one of the Powers which had sworn to preserve the sanctity of
Belgium, which had, indeed, signed a declaration to that effect and
sealed it in the sight of others, now tore up that sacred treaty, and
hurled her legions into Belgium. No need even to do more than remind
the reader of how Belgian troops held up the advance of these
treacherous foes, smote them severely, caused them terrible losses, and
then, overwhelmed by numbers, were swept back, leaving the citizens in
the hands of ruthless men, who murdered and butchered them, who
perpetrated unmentionable horrors in the fair cities of King Albert,
and burned thousands of houses and public buildings to the ground.
Everyone must know, too, how that vile act of the Kaiser brought Great
Britain into the conflict; how a British Expeditionary Force sailed
promptly for France, and arrived in the neighbourhood of Mons only just
in time to take its place beside the French armies then at death's
grips with the main forces of the Kaiser's armies, who, having burst
their way through Belgium, now invaded France. That historic retreat
towards Paris, and the swaggering triumphal march of the Germans, were
followed by a striking blow against the Teutons, who were driven back
across the Marne, hurled out of central and northern France, till but a
strip of the country remained to them.
Meanwhile thousands of British soldiers were flocking in, shoulder to
shoulder, ready for the fray; while French forces were being mobilized.
A line--thin enough in all conscience, desperately thin--was stretched
from the eastern frontier of France across its northern provinces, to
the very tip of Belgium at Ypres, and so across it to the sea. This
line of men who burrowed their way in trenches--a force of less than
one man to the yard--was yet a force of heroes. Unprepared though they
were, unsupported, without a doubt because there were as yet no new
armies to support them, without reliefs for the very same reason, and
therefore dependent entirely upon themselves, they stemmed the German
tide. Hopelessly outnumbered, they yet held their ground, and, though
deluged by shells and faced by an enemy superbly equipped and prepared
with the latest machinery of war, held him back, causing enormous
losses in his ranks, and barring his way onward. The tale of the First
Battle of Ypres is a tale of splendour, of heroic British action--the
tale of how those few divisions--war-worn, hardened divisions by
now--barred the road to Calais, and smashed the power of the Prussian
Guards, troops hitherto considered invincible.
There is no need to recall those other battles, the almost daily
exchange of shots along the trench-line, though for the information of
our readers it may be just as well to enumerate some of the more
important. From the sea, in the neighbourhood of Nieuport, the line of
trenches ran in a southerly direction across the flats of Belgium and
Flanders in front of Ypres, and down towards Arras. Thence, curling
towards the east, and skirting the River Aisne and the famous city of
Reims--where the vandals who had destroyed Louvain and many another
city had long since wrecked the Cathedral, famous throughout the
world--their line swept on over hill and dale, and hollow and furrow,
across chalky plains and wooded heights and forest country to
Verdun--that famous city which for centuries has been a stronghold. An
ancient city, girdled at the outbreak of this gigantic war by a ring of
fortresses of modern construction, in which a complete battery of guns
was mounted; forts, let it be added, strategically placed, which could
sweep the country in all directions. Then, turning sharply round
Verdun, the line cut its way through muddy plains, through heights once
more, through miles of country, till it reached the Swiss frontier.
All along that line, fighting continued, here bursting out into a
violent conflict, simmering down elsewhere, and at times subsiding
altogether. Yet never were the trenches without a sinister line of
crouching men, whether British, Belgian, or French, and ever was there
another sinister, remorseless gang holding the German trenches opposite.
Round about the city of Reims there had raged at times most furious
fighting. In the Vosges, French riflemen and Germans contended for the
mastery without cessation; while in the Woevre, before St. Mihiel, at
Arras, in a thousand places, were desperate conflicts, in which the
line swayed, trenches were captured and recaptured, men died, and the
Kaiser's troops frantically struggled to break their way through the
cordon stretched before them. Along the British line the battle of
Neuve Chapelle gave opportunity to many a young soldier, and proved to
the Germans that British and Indians could fight heroically together.
Then the Second Battle of Ypres took place, a conflict more furious
than any that had gone before it, in which, making their preparations
secretly, throwing to the winds all thoughts of humanity, acting in
that ruthless, treacherous manner which one now associates as a natural
course with the Germans, the Kaiser and his staff deluged the French
and British lines--where they joined--with asphyxiating gas, which
choked hundreds. And yet, in spite of this diabolical manoeuvre, in
spite of the unpreparedness of the French and British, and though the
Algerian troops of the French, scared by the gas as by the mutterings
of a wizard, gave way and fell back, leaving a gap in the line, yet the
enemy failed to gain their object. For the 1st Canadian Division flung
itself across the gap and held on like heroes, fought with desperate
bravery indeed, and wrought for the people of the British Empire, and
for their brothers and sisters in Canada, a tale which, so long as the
British nation exists, will never be forgotten--never beaten.
There is little to add to this tale of warfare on the Western Front.
Failing in her shock tactics, and in spite of the treacherous use of
gas, and occupied for the moment in strenuous and successful efforts to
drive back the Russian hosts which had marched across Poland into
Galicia, and even into eastern Prussia, Germany abstained from further
efforts on the Western Front, hoping, no doubt, to carry out, even at
the eleventh hour, the plan so carefully formulated before the war
commenced, upon which her future greatness was to be established. It
has ever been the maxim of a great commander to divide his enemies, to
split them into two parts, and drive them asunder; and, having placed
them in that position, to hold the one firmly with as small a garrison
as possible, and then, taking every man he could spare, to fling
himself upon the other force and annihilate it. It is a common-sense
procedure, for then there is opportunity to gather one's force together
again, to take a second breath, and to repeat with the other half of
the enemy force the same manoeuvre. The Germans are no wiser, no
swifter, no better, indeed, than are our own or the French peoples. If
they are superior in any sort of way it is certainly only in their
craft and cunning, in their methodical and painstaking attention to
detail, and in their ruthless disregard of all laws and customs when
considering their own future. Thus, seeing that Russia and France are
so widely separated, there was nothing extraordinarily deep in the
plans of the Kaiser's Staff when it was proposed to crush France in the
first few weeks of the war, to trample out her spirit, and then, having
secured her in their toils, to race back to Russia, and, counting on
the fact that she would still be in a state of hopeless confusion, to
deal her such blows as would stun her. Yet, with all their cunning,
with all their preparation, the Germans' plans had miscarried from the
moment of their invasion of Belgium--which had seemed to promise such
rewards that it was worth even the risk it foreshadowed of bringing
Britain into the conflict. For the Belgians had thrown out the
Kaiser's plans, had delayed the onrush of the Germans, had given France
time to get her men together, and had allowed Britain to send a force
to aid them. The blow failed; France, reeling under it, struggling
beneath it, indeed, held her ground, recovered her strength, even
advanced, and now, with Britain to aid her, formed a barrier to further
progress. Not the heaviest blows, no amount of asphyxiating gas
availed, even the hordes flung upon that line dashed themselves to
pieces. It stood strong as ever, while Russia was rising in her
strength and threatening Austria.
But the Tsar's forces were known to be short of arms and
ammunition--facts reported by the German spies in Russia. Here was
another chance. Why not reverse the proceeding, take advantage of
Russia's shortage of ammunition, and smash her before she grew
stronger, thus ridding Germany of a powerful enemy? Then, having in
the meanwhile held the Western line with as thin a garrison as
possible, and planted machine-guns at short intervals along it, the
Teuton hosts could be gathered together, even the maimed put in amongst
them, and a mighty force thrown again upon the Western line which
should certainly crush it. That manoeuvre, so diligently thought out
by the German Staff, was put into execution promptly; and, with massed
guns, with a host of men, the Russian armies were assailed, and, thanks
to their shortage of guns and ammunition, were driven backward, were
forced to cross Poland, until they reached a line stretching from the
Gulf of Riga to the Pinsk marshes, and so southward.
It was indeed an amazing advance on the part of Germany and Austria,
and a great success; yet, at the same time, a great failure, seeing
that it failed of achieving its one and only object, which was the
crushing of the Tsar's forces. Not once had the Russian line been
broken, not once had it been demoralized even; it was there, still in
front of the Germans and Austrians, undismayed, gathering strength
daily, gathering guns and munitions, and all that it had suffered was
loss of territory, and of numbers easily made good from the heart of
Russia.
And still the Western line became stronger as the months went by, as
Britain called her sons from every corner of the Globe, and as
Kitchener's Army grew and grew in numbers. A foretaste of what might
be expected was given to Germany when, in September, 1915, the French
attacked in the Champagne area, and the British burst their way across
the lines at Loos and Hulluch. Harassed by the knowledge that Russia
was arming rapidly, and had millions of men to fill the gaps in her
ranks, bewildered by the amazing and growing strength of the British,
hemmed in by sea on almost every side, and seeing her own strength
diminishing, Germany found herself in a situation little short of
desperate. She must do something, and that quickly--something to smash
these enemies. Already she had brought Turkey into the conflict on her
side, and now she burst her way through Serbia with the aid of the
treacherous Bulgarians. Yet it profited her nothing. For the real
conflict and the real issue lay on the Western Front, where that line
stretched through France and Belgium. It was there, and nowhere else,
that the _coup de grace_ would be given to either of the combatants;
and, clinging to the old idea as a drowning man clings to a straw--the
idea of defeating their enemies in detail--the Kaiser and his Staff
once more set to work to prepare a blow which should crush the French
offensive and defensive, and break for themselves a way to Paris.
Their eyes were fastened on Verdun, that point from which the long
French line had pivoted during the great retreat at the commencement of
the war, where grizzly cement forts circled the old town, a place
famous for its strength, upon which the eyes of the world were likely
to be attracted.
We have no space at this moment to tell of the many reasons for
choosing Verdun for an attack--for doubtless there were many--yet the
mention of one alone will be sufficient. The place was considered
impregnable; its forts and guns had given to it a sinister reputation.
Let German armies burst their way over the French lines at Verdun, and
capture the ancient city and the fortresses, and the world would be
impressed. Neutrals, although irritated by German frightfulness and
overbearing action, on hearing of Verdun would shiver and cease to
obstruct the Teuton. Let Roumania, tottering on the brink of war, but
get the tidings, and she would no longer think of joining Britain and
her allies. Add to these considerations the strategical value of a
break of the French line at any point, with prisoners captured, and a
huge wedge thrown into the gap, which would widen out so that the road
to the sea would be barred no longer, and one sees sufficient reason
for this new German plan which aimed at Verdun.
Even as Henri and Jules and the hefty Stuart tripped their way from the
siding in Louvain, to which they had dropped from the truck which had
brought them from the heart of Germany, the Kaiser's generals were in
council before Verdun. Trains were hurrying troops in that direction,
while under shelter of the trees--for the neighbourhood is generously
wooded--guns of huge dimensions were already in position, and others
more movable were being massed, till hundreds and hundreds were ready
to pour shot and shell upon the French defences. In every hollow, in
every fold of the ground, under the trees, behind every sort of cover,
German hosts were secretly collected, getting ready for that moment,
now almost at hand, when the War Lord would launch his legions. In
fact, Germany was to attempt on the Western Front, and against the
French, precisely what she had attempted against the Russians with some
degree of success, but yet without attaining her ambitions. She had
aimed to crush Russia once for all, and, as we have said, had pushed
the Tsar's legions back towards the heart of Russia. Yet the line of
Muscovite soldiers was still unbroken, still undaunted, and still faced
the soldiers of Germany and Austria. And on the west, Britain was
getting stronger and stronger as the days went by, and becoming a
greater menace. Yet, if the French could be smashed at any point,
there might yet be time for the Kaiser's troops to defeat the British,
when unsupported by their French ally, and afterwards to turn again
towards Russia. The enormous prestige to be gained by the capture of
Verdun would enhance Germany's chances, and a surprise attack might,
and probably would, the Kaiser's General Staff considered, result in a
triumph which would change Germany's fortunes.
But a few words with reference to Verdun itself, and we can return to
Henri and his friends, now in Louvain. We have said already that the
old city of Verdun, perched beside the River Meuse, in a gorgeously
wooded country, and with the heights of the river-side lying between it
and the enemy, was encircled by forts, which, prior to the war, gave to
the city the reputation of impregnability. But the forts of Liege, in
Belgium, had borne that selfsame reputation, and yet, when the Kaiser's
forces treacherously invaded that country, and were held up at Liege,
the huge guns prepared before-hand for this conflict shattered its
forts--masses of steel and concrete--like so much paper, and later
crushed the concrete defences of Maubeuge. Without a doubt, the same
fate would be meted out to the forts at Verdun, were the French to rely
upon them. But France is a nation of brilliant soldiers. Realizing at
once that what was an impregnable fort in former days is now hardly
better than an incubus--a mere house of cards, something utterly
unreliable--she poured her forces out beyond those forts, dug her
trenches on the eastern and northern slopes of the heights of the
Meuse, and surrounded Verdun and its encircling forts with a network of
trenches, covered by an artillery force, supplemented by guns which
were at once removed from the forts. Indeed, she no longer relied upon
Verdun as a fortress; it was merely one point in that long four hundred
miles of trenches stretching across the country, no more vulnerable
than any other point, and, one may add, no more impregnable. And down
below those trenches, under cover of the woods, for weeks past, while
Henri and his friends were languishing in Ruhleben, the Germans had
been concentrating a mighty army, had been concentrating guns,
equipment, and every other detail necessary for a gigantic attack, for
the surprise offensive which they had planned to level at General
Joffre and his forces.
"Louvain, and what next?" asked Henri aloud, as the three stepped
gingerly along the pavements of the ruined city. "What next? How to
get out of Belgium into France?"
"Or into England?" added Stuart.
"Or into Holland? That's where numbers of people manage to go when
escaping the Germans," said Jules thoughtfully. "I've heard it said
that there are Belgian patriots still in the cities of Belgium who make
it their business to assist refugees. But that's where the difficulty
comes in; how are we to meet such persons?"
There came a startled exclamation just at that moment, as the speaker
cannoned into someone in the darkness--a small, broad figure of a man,
who, rebounding from Jules, would have fallen but for the hand which
that young fellow stretched out instantly. And perhaps it was just as
natural that he should have apologized at once, and in the confusion of
the moment in the French language.
"Pardon, monsieur," he said, whereat Henri's jaw dropped suddenly,
while Stuart growled.
"And pardon me, monsieur," came the ready answer; "it was my fault.
But--but--surely--surely, not German. You are--you----"
"One moment," said Henri, his wits hard at work; "who are you,
monsieur?"
"I?--I? A Belgian patriot, monsieur; and you, though the darkness
hides you, you are a Frenchman of Paris."
It was useless to dissemble longer, and, after all, there seemed little
doubt but that the short, squat individual before them was certainly no
German. Taking his courage, therefore, in both hands, Henri at once
admitted that he and Jules were Frenchmen, and Stuart English.
"Monsieur," he said, "we throw ourselves upon your kindness. You are a
Belgian patriot, you say, while we are refugees from Ruhleben. Assist
us, help us to get away, for we are in the midst of enemies."
There was a short pause after that, while each one of the four peered
hard into the darkness, the little man staring at Stuart's huge figure,
and at the smaller proportions of Jules and Henri; while those three
young fellows regarded the Belgian intently, indeed almost fearfully.
"Come this way, messieurs; follow me. Walk some ten paces behind me,
and have no fear, for have I not said that I am a Belgian patriot? You
wish to get to your own countries, eh? To fight this brutal Kaiser and
his people? Bien! Follow, and I will lend you assistance."