A Sinister German
What a sight that 20th French Corps--those noble Bretons--would have
presented had it been daylight when they leapt from their trenches and
advanced in one stupendous rush upon the captured fort of Douaumont!
Filled with elan, determined to throw the invader backward, stung by
the loss of trenches which had been French but a little while before,
and eager beyond all words to bring assistance to that gallant yet
sadly-thinned line which had staved off the Kaiser's hordes, this 20th
Corps--the first of the reserves which General Petain had been able to
rush to the scene of action--hurled itself impetuously at the Germans.
Star-shells burst into flame overhead, showing dashing _poilus_,
flickered from the tips of bayonets and lit up the smoke from exploding
shells, where a canopy of it hung about the devoted heads of that
gallant corps. In the darkness, in the fitful light cast by those
shells, now and again augmented by the flashing beams of an electric
search-light, a desperate hand-to-hand conflict took place.
The line of Bretons was halted for a few moments as it met the Germans,
it wavered, perhaps, here and there just a trifle, and then it swept on
as a flood sweeps down a road, washing the debris of the 6th Brigade of
the Brandenburg Corps before it, submerging hundreds, and trampling not
a few into the mud and into the pit-holes and craters dug everywhere by
German shells.
"They come! A counter-attack! Prepare to receive the enemy!"
It was Max, that snappy little German officer, who gave the command and
called his men about him.
"Man every loophole! And hold on at whatever cost! You--you are fit
to fight," he suddenly snapped, turning upon one of the wounded
wretches who had suffered from that explosion caused by the bomb tossed
by Henri. "You are skulking, my friend. Up! Seize a rifle! Get to
your loophole!"
The man staggered. His eyes were bloodshot, his clothing torn and
tattered after the explosion, with one arm swinging loose in its
sleeve. He looked at this peremptory officer in dazed fashion.
Indeed, like Henri and Jules, he had been more than half stunned, and
his wits were still wool-gathering.
"Seize a rifle! Go to a loophole, eh?" he ejaculated.
"Fool! Yes! Fight--fight for your life; fight for your Fatherland!"
Max shouted at him. "Here--here's a rifle," he went on, tearing one
from beneath the body of a fallen soldier, and handing it to him. "Now
off with you, at once!"
"At once? Fight at once?" the man stammered, while those who watched,
even in that fitful light--for the fire built by the officer in the far
corner was still burning--noticed that a dribble of blood was oozing
from the corner of his lips, "but, sir----" he began.
"No 'buts'!" bellowed Max at him; "to your duty!"
The man gripped weakly at the rifle, turned obediently to carry out the
order, and then, staggering a pace or two, fell full length on the
floor.
"Bah! A bad choice then! Well, one makes mistakes," Max said, a grim
smile on his face. "But you," he called, selecting another individual
seated on the ground, his back resting against the wall--a man whose
pallid face told that he was suffering--"you get up and go about your
duty."
As if determined that there should be no error and no backsliding, no
hesitation in this case, he applied his boot to the unfortunate
individual, and drove him from his position. "Now, you, and you, and
you! About your business! Get to your duty!"
Henri and Jules came in for his attentions, for they had crept away
from that hideous row of dead, and both gaped at him for a while in
open-mouthed amazement, wondering, indeed, whether they were
discovered, wondering in a half-bewildered sort of way what they ought
to do. For still Henri's ears buzzed, and still his brain reeled; not
so much from the explosion--for the wall separating the hall from the
corridor outside had sheltered him not a little, but reeling from the
effects of his tumble downstairs and the mad melee which had taken
place there. As for Jules, the fellow was quite light-headed, for the
bomb had sent him backward against the wall with a crash, and he too
had taken his share in that desperate fight at the top of the stairway.
He began to giggle, which was a way Jules had, and Max, happening to
catch sight of him at the moment, and stung to fury by such mirth on
the part of one of his men, by such a sign of insubordination, smote
him across the face, little realizing that the one he struck was the
same man, that very prisoner, whom he had struck not so long before,
and whom he would willingly have executed.
"Come along!" Henri managed to whisper to his chum. "Better to be
taken for Germans than to be discovered in our disguises. Let's get
hold of rifles and take our post at some loophole. Those were French
shouts we heard, and it may be that we shall have an opportunity of
joining our people."
"And in any case one needn't fire into our fellows," responded Jules,
his face still smarting from the blow that Max had dealt him. "But
listen, Henri; if I get a chance I'll kill that fellow. Better still,
if I get a chance I'll capture the brute, and carry him back to our
lines, where he can be tried for offering violence to prisoners.
Crikey! How wobbly a fellow feels! My feet are too big and too clumsy
for anything."
It was a sorry band which obeyed the peremptory order of the bullying
German. Men staggered across the littered floor of that hall, steering
their way between fallen blocks of masonry and wounded men damaged by
the explosion of Henri's making. Passing through the exit, they
clambered over the bodies of the fallen Germans who lay thickly at the
foot of the stairway, and across the bodies, too, of many a gallant
Frenchman. Then, directed by the bullying Max, they climbed the
stairway or went along the gallery, and presently were manning the
embrasures through which the guns of the fortress of Douaumont--when it
was indeed a fortress--commanded the surrounding country. Flashes
could be seen through those embrasures--flashes close at hand, and
others farther distant--while the air was torn and rent by the crash of
distant guns, by the detonation of exploding shells, and by the sharp
snap and rattle of musketry. There were yells, too--shouts of terror
from the Brandenburgers, now being driven back towards the fortress,
and the bellows of excited and triumphant men wresting ground from them.
"Keep an eye round you," Henri told Jules, for the two were posted at
one embrasure, and no one else was in the chamber. "What's to prevent
a fellow lowering himself from this point and joining our fellows? A
rope is what is wanted, but it's a plaguey thing to find in such a
place and at such a moment. Hold on here, Jules, while I go
skirmishing."
Staggering away from his comrade, Henri reached the head of the
stairway and clambered down it, leaning against the side wall with both
hands, for his feet were terribly uncertain. Then, reaching the
gallery below, he turned along it, and in a little while, was within
easy reach of the hall in which he and Jules had been lying, when
suddenly the noise outside increased. There was a rush of steps
somewhere near at hand, a crashing explosion as a bomb was thrown
through an embrasure somewhere beyond him, and then a torrent of
figures poured into the place--a torrent of gesticulating, shouting
Frenchmen, of gallant Bretons, who had won their way to the western
edge of the fortress. Lamps appeared, and flaring torches too were
brought in by the soldiers, who at once proceeded to search that part
of Douaumont.
In a dream, as it were, shaken by what he had gone through, and
overcome somewhat by the sight and sound of friends, Henri had tumbled
to the floor again, as he heard an officer give vent to a sharp order.
"Drive the fellows on before you as far as you can," he shouted, "then
build up barricades across every corridor and gallery, and hold them
off till we can get more men in here and drive them out of the fortress
altogether. Bomb them, mes enfants! Blow them out of the place!
Douaumont belongs to France, and not to the Kaiser."
Yes, in a dream, Henri heard the words, and tried to raise his shaken
figure, tried his utmost to join them; and in a dream, too, he watched
the Bretons as they moved rapidly about and obeyed those orders. It
was perhaps a quarter of an hour later, perhaps only a few minutes, but
more likely half an hour after their first appearance, that, still in
the same hazy sort of way, still somewhat in dreamland, his head
whirling and his ears singing, Henri became aware of a strange fact, a
fact, however, which hardly struck him as peculiar at that moment, that
a man not far from him--one of those corpses stretched in the gallery
and illuminated by a torch thrust into a crevice of the masonry not far
away--was moving, was lifting his head craftily, was creeping along
over other bodies, and was peering round corners and watching the
Bretons.
"Strange!" thought Henri. "What on earth can the fellow be doing?
And--Christopher! He's not a Frenchman!"
That indeed was a peculiar thing; and, still in the same dazed sort of
way, Henri watched and wondered.
"Not a Frenchman," he was telling himself, "then a German, and I don't
know--yes, I do believe I know--the figure. Small, eh? Dressed in
field-grey, yet not the usual sort of uniform. Who is he? What is the
fellow? Well, I never!"
In ordinary times Henri would have made up his mind in an instant,
would have acted promptly, and would have taken in the situation
without a moment's hesitation. But now, what with that horrible
feeling of nausea which assailed him, what with his miserable brain,
which reeled and buzzed and whirled, making vision almost impossible
and hearing almost out of the question, he could not, try as he would,
collect his scattered wits. Indeed, he had no energy left with which
to make any sort of an effort; he just gaped, smiled, and certainly
grimaced at that crawling figure. He knew he was an enemy, knew that
the man he watched boded no good to his comrades, and knew also that
the fellow represented some subtle form of danger. Yet he could not
move, could do no more than gape and grin and grimace, and could not
properly realize the meaning of the situation. Then suddenly he
started, for another crawling figure came from behind him, and a hand
gripped his hand sharply.
"You, Henri! You here! And did not return! Why, you're sick! You're
half stunned still!"
It was Jules, who, finding that his chum did not return, had descended
to the gallery to find him, and, coming upon him stretched there
amongst the dead, noticed, with the help of a flickering torch, that
Henri's head hung, that perspiration dropped from his forehead, and
that his face was deadly white and pallid. Yet his coming seemed
suddenly to rouse Henri; for the latter's drooping eyelids opened
widely at once, a frown crossed his forehead, and in a moment he had
seized Jules's hand, and, tugging it, indicated that he was to lie down
beside him.
"S--s--h!"
"What's up?" demanded Jules hoarsely.
"Down!" whispered Henri; for at that moment the figure he had been
watching, and which had stretched itself flat like one of the dead,
doubtless because a Frenchman was approaching, had now begun to rise
stealthily. "Look!" he whispered, pointing, and then watched Jules's
face as the latter fixed his eyes upon that figure.
Henri noticed at once--and it was remarkable how his wits were
assembling now that Jules had stimulated them--that Jules's eyes
started, that an intent look came into them promptly, while something
approaching a scowl gathered on his features.
"That man!" he heard him exclaim, and then watched as his friend
flopped down amongst the dead and lay as close as possible. Then
together the two watched as that German crept on still farther. A
minute later and he had turned where the gallery swept round the corner
of the fort abruptly and proceeded in another direction. Following
promptly, creeping across the bodies of the fallen, or finding their
way between them when they could--for it was not exactly nice to kneel
upon the forms of men who, to whatever side they had belonged, had died
fighting--Henri and Jules too turned that corner, only to find
themselves now in almost complete darkness, with no light to guide
them, with not a sound to tell them of the whereabouts of that sinister
German, and nothing to indicate his presence.
"Stop! Let's wait and listen."
Henri's hand went out and gripped Jules's sleeve, while the two came to
a halt at once, sitting up on their haunches, as it were, and peered
into the darkness and listened--peered till Henri's bloodshot eyes
positively ached, until tears of weakness dribbled down his face and
splashed on to the pavement. As for his head, it throbbed as if a
giant hammer were within it, and some demon were rattling the interior
of his skull and were dancing a tattoo upon his ear-drums.
"Bah!" He felt that old nausea, and felt horribly giddy, and was
forced to stretch his hands forward and lean upon them to support his
weight, while everything went round and round, and, strangely enough,
instead of darkness surrounding him, a thousand flashes appeared before
his eyes. Jules coughed. With all his light-heartedness he was an
observant and wonderfully sympathetic fellow, particularly where Henri
was concerned, and now had double reason for showing him attention.
Putting his arm round Henri's waist, he supported him for a while.
"Pull yourself together, Henri," he said, "for we've got to go on in a
little while and trap that beggar. What's he up to? Some dirty game,
you may be sure. For he's a German, don't forget, and don't forget,
either, what Stuart would have said----"
"Stuart!" gurgled Henri, trying to laugh. "That good fellow! Stuart?"
"A splendid beggar!" agreed Jules. "He'd have said, bluntly enough,
that every German was a dirty beggar, wouldn't he?"
Henri chortled. Somehow or other Jules had a wonderful way of stirring
up his old friend, of "bucking him up", to use a slang expression; and
now, just the mention of the gallant Stuart, that very breezy, hefty
Englishman, fixed Henri's wandering thoughts for a moment on a far more
pleasant subject, and seemed to help to steady his reeling brain, and
first set him giggling and then laughing merrily.
"You'll think I'm an old woman," he told Jules at last, shaking himself
like a dog.
"Indeed! Like an old woman? Well, now, old women don't usually fight
terrific combats at the top of a stone stairway, and finally tumble
headlong down that same stairway locked in the arms of a German.
Polite old women don't do their utmost to strangle the subjects of the
Kaiser; now do they, Henri? And, besides--of course this is only a
very small matter--such old women as you have mentioned don't, when
they've got a chance to escape the notice of such sinister gentlemen as
we have been associating with lately--I mean that Max beggar and his
Brandenburg fellows, who would shoot a helpless prisoner--such old
bodies don't as a rule, mind you, get hold of a bomb and sling it
amongst them.
"It was fine--fine!" Jules told his chum, stretching out a hand and
gripping Henri's energetically.
"Oh, rot!" Henri contrived to stutter. He was getting quite indignant
now. "What utter nonsense you are talking! As if any old woman would
fight a German!"
"Just so! That's why I retorted when you asked me if, or rather
suggested that, I thought that you were one."
"Look here!" began Henri, quite nettled, and becoming increasingly
impatient, whereat Jules grinned. Indeed, it was his turn to be
amused, for intuitively in the darkness he had guessed at Henri's
condition; and knowing already how shaken he was, how nearly on the
verge of unconsciousness, he had racked his brain for some method which
might revive him. Stimulants, water, food, things of that sort, were
out of the question; words alone could be employed, and somehow the
clever Jules had contrived to pick the proper subject. The mention of
Stuart, then, had helped to revive his friend; and now mention of
Henri's gallantry had made the owner of that name quite indignant.
"Utter rot!" shouted Henri again; "as if slinging a bomb was dangerous;
and as if----"
"There's one thing you can't deny," said Jules; "it saved my life, as
it was designed to do, and I've not forgotten. But how d'you feel?
Better, eh? Don't forget that we've lost sight of that German."
As if Henri had ever forgotten it since he had seen the lithe, cunning
figure of the Brandenburger creeping in front of him. True, in that
curious state in which he had been--a state bordering on
unconsciousness--he had hardly been able to appreciate at times the
significance of the German's presence; but now he had wakened fully to
its importance.
"Jingo," he told Jules as they squatted there in the darkness, "we must
find the beggar! He's armed, without a doubt; and, worse than all,
he's behind our fellows, for they've gone forward into the fort.
What's to prevent him shooting 'em in the back? What's to prevent him
carrying on any sort of vileness? We've got to follow at once, and, by
hook or by crook, we've got to capture or kill the beggar."
"Whichever you like--either will suit me," Jules responded; "and in any
case, if he's caught, it'll come to the same thing. Once we've marched
him back behind our lines, and handed him over as a prisoner, he'll be
shot, my boy. We can prove that he would have deliberately shot a
prisoner; so it seems to me that, if we meet the gentleman, the best
thing will be to end the matter promptly. But we've got to find him
first, and perhaps he'll have something to say when it comes to a
question of shooting."
Max, that sinister Brandenburger officer, was indeed likely enough to
have a considerable amount to say in the question of his own disposal.
Knowing the class of man he was--his fearlessness, for that seemed to
be his one virtue; his frightfulness, for bullying and terrible deeds
seemed to be the characteristic of every subject of the Kaiser--it was
likely enough that this fellow would do anything to outwit the
Frenchmen, and, if he could, would shatter the fort and bring it down
upon his own head rather than see the French victorious.
"Stop! Wait a moment! I heard something move! Come on!" said Jules
suddenly.
And together, creeping on hands and knees, the two went forward along
that gallery in search of the German.