THE TWO PRINCES
John sat with the other prisoners for more than two hours listening to
the thunder of the great battle or rather series of battles which were
afterwards classified under the general head the Battle of the Marne. He
was not a soldier, merely a civilian serving as a soldier, but he had
learned already to interpret many of the signs of combat. There was an
atmospheric feeling that registered on a sensitive mind the difference
between victory and defeat, and he was firm in the belief that as
yesterday had gone today was going. Certainly this great German army
which he believed to be in the center was not advancing, and something
of a character most menacing was happening to the wings of the German
force. He read it in the serious, preoccupied faces of the officers who
passed near. There was not a smile on the face of the youngest of them
all, but deepest anxiety was written alike on young and old.
John and Fleury sat together at the edge of the brook, and for a while
forgot their chagrin at not being on the battle line. The battle itself
which they could not see, but which they could hear, absorbed them so
thoroughly that they had no time to think of regrets.
John had thought that man's violence, his energy in destruction on the
first day could not be equalled, but it seemed to him now that the
second day surpassed the first. The cannon fire was distant, yet the
waves of air beat heavily upon them, and the earth shook without
ceasing. Wisps of smoke floated toward them and the air was tainted
again with the acrid smell of burned gunpowder.
"You're a mountaineer, Fleury, you told me," said Scott, "and you should
be able to judge how sound travels through gorges. I suppose you yodel,
of course?"
"Yodel, what's that?"
"To make a long singing cry on a peak which is supposed to reach to
somebody on another peak who sends back the same kind of a singing cry.
We have a general impression in America that European mountaineers don't
do much but stand in fancy costumes on crests and ridges and yodel to
one another."
"It may have been so once," said the young Savoyard, "but this is a bad
year for yodeling. The voice of the cannon carries so far that the voice
of man doesn't amount to much. But what sound did you want me to
interpret?"
"That of the cannon. Does its volume move eastward or westward? I should
think it's much like your mountain storms and you know how they travel
among the ridges."
"The comparison is just, but I can't yet tell any shifting of the
artillery fire. The wind brings the sound toward us, and if there's any
great advance or retreat I should be able to detect it. I should say
that as far as the second day is concerned nothing decisive has happened
yet."
"Do you know this country?"
"A little. My regiment marched through here about three weeks ago and we
made two camps not far from this spot. This is the wood of Sénouart, and
the brook here runs down to the river Marne."
"And we're not far from that river. Then we've pressed back the Germans
farther than I thought. It's strange that the German army here does not
move."
"It's waiting, and I fancy it doesn't know what to do. I've an idea that
our victory yesterday was greater than the French and British have
realized, but which the Germans, of course, understand. Why do they
leave us here, almost neglected, and why do their officers walk about,
looking so doubtful and anxious? I've heard that the Germans were
approaching Paris with five armies. It may be that we've cut off at
least one of those armies and that it's in mortal danger."
"It may be so. But have you thought, Fleury, of the extraordinary
difference between this morning and yesterday morning?"
"I have. In conditions they're worlds apart. Hark! Listen now, Scott, my
friend!"
He lay on the grass and put his ear to the ground, just as John had
often done. Listening intently for at least two minutes, he announced
with conviction that the cannonade was moving eastward.
"Which means that the Germans are withdrawing again?" said John.
"Undoubtedly," said Fleury, his face glowing.
They listened a quarter of an hour longer, and John himself was then
able to tell that the battle line was shifting. The Germans elsewhere
must have fallen back several miles, but the army about him did not yet
move. He caught a glimpse of the burly general walking back and forth in
the forest, his hands clasped behind him, and a frown on his broad,
fighting face. He would walk occasionally to a little telephone station,
improvised under the trees--John could see the wires stretching away
through the forest--and listen long and attentively. But when he put
down the receiver the same moody look was invariably on his face, and
John was convinced as much by his expression as by the sound of the guns
that affairs were not going well with the Germans.
Another long hour passed and the sun moved on toward noon, but a German
army of perhaps a quarter of a million men lay idle in the forest of
Sénouart, as John now called the whole region.
Presently the general walked down the line and John lost sight of him.
But Weber reappeared, coming from the other side of the hillock, and
John was glad to see him, since Fleury had gone back to attend to a
wounded friend.
"There doesn't seem to be as much action here as I expected," said
Weber, cheerfully, sitting down on the grass beside young Scott.
"But they're shaking the world there! and there!" said John, nodding to
right and to left.
"So they are. This is a most extraordinary reversal, Mr. Scott, and I
can't conceive how it was brought about. Some mysterious mind has made
and carried through a plan that was superbly Napoleonic. I'd give much
to know how it was done."
John shook his head.
"I know nothing of it," he said.
"But doubtless your friend Lannes does. What a wonderful thing it is to
carry through the heavens the dispatches which may move forward a
million armed men."
"I don't know anything about Lannes' dispatches."
"Nor do I, but I can make a close guess, just as you can. He's surely
hovering over the battle field today, and as I said last night he
certainly has some idea where you are, and sooner or later will come for
you."
John looked up, but again the heavens were bare and clear. Then he
looked down and saw walking near them a heavy, middle-aged, bearded man
to whom all the German officers paid great deference. The man's manner
was haughty and overbearing, and John understood at once that in the
monarchical sense he was a personage.
"Do you know the big fellow there?" he said to Weber. "Have you heard
anyone speak of him?"
"I saw him this morning, and one of the guards told us who he is. That
is Prince Karl of Auersperg. The house of Auersperg is one of the
oldest in Germany, much older than the Emperor's family, the
Hohenzollerns. I don't suppose the world contains any royal blood more
ancient than that of Prince Karl."
"Evidently he feels that it's so. I'm getting used to princes, but our
heavy friend there must be something of a specialist in the princely
line. I should judge from his manner that he is not only the oldest man
on earth, speaking in terms of blood, but the owner of the earth as
well."
"The Auerspergs have an immense pride."
"I can see it, but a lot of pride fell before Paris yesterday, and a lot
more is falling among these hills and forests today. There seems to be a
lot of difference between princes, the Arnheims and the Auerspergs, for
instance."
Then a sudden thought struck John. It had the vaguest sort of basis, but
it came home to him with all the power of conviction.
"I wonder if Prince Karl of Auersperg once owned a magnificent armored
automobile," he said.
Weber looked puzzled, and then his eyes lightened.
"Ah, I know what you mean!" he exclaimed. "The one in which we took that
flight with Carstairs the Englishman and Wharton the American. It
belonged to a prince, without doubt, yes. But no, it couldn't have been
Prince Karl of Auersperg who owned the machine."
"I'm not so sure. I've an intuition that it is he. Besides, he looks
like just the kind of prince from whom I'd like to take his best
automobile, also everything else good that he might happen to have. I
shall feel much disappointed if this proves not to be our prince."
"You Americans are such democrats."
"I don't go so far as to say a man is necessarily bad because of his
high rank, but as I reminded you a little while ago, there are princes
and princes. The ancient house of Auersperg as it walks up and down,
indicating its conviction of its own superiority to everything else on
earth, does not please me."
"The Uhlans are coming back!" exclaimed Weber in tones of excitement.
"And that's von Boehlen at their head! I'd know his figure as far as I
could see it! And they've had a brush, too! Look at the empty saddles
and the wounded men! As sure as we live they've run into the French
cavalry and then they've run out again!"
The Uhlans were returning at a gallop, and the German officers of high
rank were crowding forward to meet them. It was obvious to every one
that they had received a terrible handling, but John knew that von
Boehlen was not a man to come at a panicky gallop. Some powerful motive
must send him so fast.
He saw the Prussian captain spring from his horse and rush to a little
group composed of the general, the prince and several others of high
rank who had drawn closely together at his coming.
Von Boehlen was wounded slightly, but he stood erect as he saluted the
commander and talked with him briefly and rapidly. John's busy and
imaginative mind was at work at once with surmises, and he settled upon
one which he was sure must be the truth. The French advance in the
center was coming, and this German army also must soon go into action.
He was confirmed in his belief by a hurried order to the guards to go
eastward with the prisoners. As the captives, the wounded and the
unwounded, marched off through the forest of Sénouart they heard at a
distance, but behind them, the opening of a huge artillery fire. It was
so tremendous that they could feel the shaking of the earth as they
walked, and despite the hurrying of their guards they stopped at the
crest of a low ridge to look back.
They gazed across a wide valley toward high green hills, along which
they saw rapid and many flashes. John longed now for the glasses which
had been taken from him when he was captured, but he was quite sure that
the flashes were made by French guns. From a point perhaps a mile in
front of the prisoners masked German batteries were replying. Fleury
with his extraordinary power of judging sound was able to locate these
guns with some degree of approximation.
"Look! the aeroplanes!" said John, pointing toward the hills which he
now called to himself the French line.
Numerous dark shapes, forty or fifty at least, appeared in the sky and
hovered over the western edge of the wide, shallow basin. John was sure
that they were the French scouts of the blue, appearing almost in line
like troops on the ground, and his heart gave a great throb. No doubt
could be left now, that this German army was being attacked in force
and with the greatest violence. It followed then that the entire German
line was being assailed, and that the French victory was continuing its
advance. The Republic had rallied grandly and was hurling back the
Empire in the most magnificent manner.
All those emotions of joy and exultation that he had felt the day before
returned with increased force. In daily contact he liked Germans as well
as Frenchmen, but he thought that no punishment could ever be adequate
for the gigantic crimes of kings. Napoleon himself had been the champion
of democracy and freedom, until he became an emperor and his head
swelled so much with success that he thought of God and himself
together, just as the Kaiser was now thinking. It was a curious
inversion that the French who were fighting then to dominate Europe were
fighting now to prevent such a domination. But it was now a great French
republican nation remade and reinvigorated, as any one could see.
The guards hurried them on again. Another mile and they stopped once
more on the crest of a low hill, where it seemed that they would remain
some time, as the Germans were too busy with a vast battle to think much
about a few prisoners. It was evident that the whole army was engaged.
The old general, the other generals, the princes and perhaps dukes and
barons too, were in the thick of it. John's heart was filled with an
intense hatred of the very name of royalty. Kings and princes could be
good men personally, but as he saw its work upon the huge battle fields
of Europe he felt that the institution itself was the curse of the
earth.
"We shall win again today," said Fleury, rousing him from his
absorption. "Look across the fields, Scott, my friend, and see how those
great masses of infantry charging our army have been repulsed."
It was a far look, and at the distance the German brigades seemed to be
blended together, but the great gray mass was coming back slowly. He
forgot all about himself and his own fate in his desire to see every act
of the gigantic drama as it passed before him. He took no thought of
escape at present, nor did Fleury, who stood beside him. The fire of the
guns great and small had now blended into the usual steady thunder,
beneath which human voices could be heard.
"We don't have the forty-two centimeters, nor the great siege guns,"
said Fleury, "but the French field artillery is the best in the world.
It's undoubtedly holding back the German hosts and covering the French
advance."
"That's my opinion, too," said John. "I saw its wonderful work in the
retreat toward Paris. I think it saved the early French armies from
destruction."
The German army was made of stern material. Having planted its feet here
it refused to be driven back. Its cannon was a line of flaming
volcanoes, its cavalry charged again and again into the face of death,
and its infantry perished in masses, but the stern old general spared
nothing. Passing up and down the lines, listening at the telephone and
receiving the reports of air scouts and land scouts, he always hurled
in fresh troops at the critical points and Fritz and Karl and Wilhelm
and August, sober and honest men, went forward willingly, sometimes
singing and sometimes in silence, to die for a false and outworn system.
John as a prisoner had a better view than he would have had if with the
French army. In a country open now he could see a full mile to right and
left, where the German hosts marched again and again to attack, and
while the French troops were too far away for his eyes he beheld the
continuous flare of their fire, like a broad red ribbon across the whole
western horizon.
The passing of time was nothing to him. He forgot all about it in his
absorption. But the sun climbed on, afternoon came, and still the battle
at this point raged, the French unable to drive the Germans farther and
the Germans unable to stop the French attacks. John roused himself and
endeavored to dissociate the thunder on their flanks from that in front,
and, after long listening, he was able to make the separation, or at
least he thought so. He knew now that the struggle there was no less
fierce than the one before him.
The Kaiser himself must be present with one or the other of these
armies, and a man who had talked for more than twenty years of his
divine right, his shining armor, his invincible sword and his mailed
fist must be raging with the bitterness of death to find that he was
only a mortal like other mortals, and that simple French republicans
were defeating the War Lord, his Grand Army and the host of kings,
princes, dukes, barons, high-born, very high-born, and all the other
relics of medievalism. Dipped to the heel and beyond in the fountain of
democracy, John could not keep from feeling a fierce joy as he saw with
his own eyes the Germans fighting in the utmost desperation, not to take
Paris and destroy France, but to save themselves from destruction.
The afternoon, slow and bright, save for the battle, dragged on. Scott
and Fleury kept together. Weber appeared once more and spoke rather
despondently. He believed that the Germans would hold fast, and might
even resume the offensive toward Paris again, but Fleury shook his head.
"Today is like yesterday," he said.
"How can you tell?" asked Weber.
"Because the fire on both flanks is slowly moving eastward, that is, the
Germans there are yielding ground. My ears, trained to note such things,
tell me so. My friend, I am not mistaken."
He spoke gravely, without exultation, but John took fresh hope from his
words. Toward night the fire in their front died somewhat, and after
sunset it sank lower, but they still heard a prodigious volume of firing
on both flanks. John remembered then that they had eaten nothing since
morning, but when some of the prisoners who spoke German requested food
it was served to them.
Night came over what seemed to be a drawn battle at this point, and
after eating his brief supper John saw the automobiles and stretchers
bringing in the wounded. They passed him in thousands and thousands,
hurt in every conceivable manner. At first he could scarcely bear to
look at them, but it was astonishing how soon one hardened to such
sights.
The wounded were being carried to improvised hospitals in the rear, but
so far as John knew the dead were left on the field. The Germans with
their usual thorough system worked rapidly and smoothly, but he noticed
that the fires were but very few. There was but little light in the wood
of Sénouart or the hills beyond, and there was little, too, on the
ridges that marked the French position.
John kept near the edges of the space allotted to the prisoners, hoping
that he might again see von Arnheim. He had discovered early that the
Germans were unusually kind to Americans, and the fact that he had been
taken fighting against them did not prevent them from showing generous
treatment. The officer in charge of the guard even wanted to talk to him
about the war and prove to him how jealousy had caused the other nations
to set upon Germany. But John evaded him and continued to look for the
young prince who was serving as a mere lieutenant.
It was about an hour after dark when he caught his first glimpse of von
Arnheim, and he was really glad to see that he was not wounded.
"I've come to tell you, Mr. Scott," said von Arnheim, "that all of you
must march at once. You will cross the Marne, and then pass as prisoners
into Germany. You will be well treated there and I think you can
probably secure your release on condition that you return to your own
country and take no further part in the war."
John shook his head.
"I don't expect any harshness from the Germans," he said, "but I'm in
this war to stay, if the bullets and shells will let me. I warn you now
that I'm going to escape."
Von Arnheim laughed pleasantly.
"It's fair of you to give us warning of your intentions," he said, "but
I don't think you'll have much chance. You must get ready to start at
once."
"I take it," said John, "that our departure means the departure of the
German army also."
Von Arnheim opened his mouth to speak, but he closed it again suddenly.
"It's only a deduction of mine," said John.
Von Arnheim nodded in farewell and hurried away.
"Now I'm sure," said John to Fleury a few minutes later, "that this army
is going to withdraw."
"I think so too," said Fleury. "I can yet hear the fire of the cannon on
either flank and it has certainly moved to the east. In my opinion, my
friend, both German wings have been defeated, and this central army is
compelled to fall back because it's left without supports. But we'll
soon see. They can't hide from us the evidences of retreat."
The prisoners now marched in a long file in the moonlight across the
fields, and John soon recognized the proof that Fleury was right. The
German army was retreating. There were innumerable dull, rumbling
sounds, made by the cannon and motors of all kinds passing along the
roads, and at times also he heard the heavy tramp of scores of
thousands marching in a direction that did not lead to Paris.
John began to think now of Lannes. Would he come? Was Weber right when
he credited to him a knowledge near to omniscience? How was it possible
for him to pick out a friend in all that huge morass of battle! And yet
he had a wonderful, almost an unreasoning faith in Philip, and, as
always when he thought of him, he looked up at the heavens.
It was an average night, one in which large objects should be visible in
the skies, and he saw several aeroplanes almost over their heads, while
the rattle of a dirigible came from a point further toward the east.
The aeroplane was bound to be German, but as John looked he saw a sleek
shape darting high over them all and flying eastward. Intuition, or
perhaps it was something in the motion and shape of the machine, made
him believe it was the _Arrow_. It must be the _Arrow_! And Lannes must
be in it! High over the army and high over the German planes it darted
forward like a swallow and disappeared in a cloud of white mist. His
hair lifted a little, and a thrill ran down his spine.
He still looked up as he walked along, and there was the sleek shape
again! It had come back out of the white mist, and was circling over the
German planes, flying with the speed and certainty of an eagle. He saw
three of the German machines whirl about and begin to mount as if they
would examine the stranger. But the solitary plane began to rise again
in a series of dazzling circles. Up, up it went, as if it would
penetrate the last and thinnest layer of air, until it reached the dark
and empty void beyond.
The _Arrow_--he was sure it could be no other--was quickly lost in the
infinite heights, and then the German planes were lost, too, but they
soon came back, although the _Arrow_ did not. It had probably returned
to some point over the French line or had gone eastward beyond the
Germans.
John felt that he had again seen a sign. He remembered how he and Lannes
had drawn hope from omens when they were looking at the Arc de Triomphe,
and a similar hope sprang up now. Weber was right! Lannes would come to
his rescue. Some thought or impulse yet unknown would guide him.
Light clouds now drifted up from the southwest, and all the aeroplanes
were hidden, but the heavy murmur of the marching army went on. The
puffing and clashing of innumerable automobiles came from the roads
also, though John soon ceased to pay attention to them. As the hours
passed, he felt an increased weariness. He had sat still almost the
whole day, but the strain of the watching and waiting had been as great
as that of the walking now was. He wondered if the guards would ever let
them stop.
They waded another brook, passed through another wood and then they were
ordered to halt. The guards announced that they could sleep, as they
would go no farther that night. The men did not lie down. They fell, and
each lay where he fell, and in whatever position he had assumed when
falling.
John was conscious of hearing the order, of striking the grass full
length, and he knew nothing more until the next morning when he was
aroused by Fleury. He saw a whitish dawn with much mist floating over
the fields, and he believed that a large river, probably the Marne, must
be near.
As far as he could see the ground was covered with German soldiers. They
too had dropped at the command to stop, and had gone to sleep as they
were falling. The majority of them still slept.
"What is it, Fleury? Why did you wake me up?" asked John.
"The river Marne is close by, and I'm sure that the Germans are going to
retreat across it. I had an idea that possibly we might escape while
there's so much mist. They can't watch us very closely while they have
so much else to do, and doubtless they would care but little if some of
us did escape."
"We'll certainly look for the chance. Can you see any sign of the French
pursuit?"
"Not yet, but our people will surely follow. They're still at it already
on the flanks!"
The distant thunder of cannon came from both right and left.
"A third day of fighting is at hand," said Fleury.
"And it will be followed by a fourth."
"And a fifth."
"But we shall continue to drive the enemy away."
Both spoke with the utmost confidence. Having seen their armies
victorious for two days they had no doubt they would win again. All that
morning they listened to the sounds of combat, although they saw much
less than on the day before. The prisoners were in a little wood, where
they lay down at times, and then, restless and anxious, would stand on
tiptoe again, seeking to see at least a corner of the battle.
John and Fleury were standing near noon at the edge of the wood, when a
small body of Uhlans halted close by. Being not more than fifty in
number, John judged that they were scouts, and the foaming mouths of
their horses showing that they had been ridden hard, confirmed him in
the opinion. They were only fifty or sixty yards from him, and although
they were motionless for some time, their eager faces showed that they
were waiting for some movement.
It was pure chance, but John happened to be looking at a rather large
man who sat his horse easily, his gloved hand resting on his thigh. He
saw distinctly that his face was very ruddy and covered with beads of
perspiration. Then man and horse together fell to the ground as if
struck by a bolt of lightning. The man did not move at all, but the
horse kicked for a few moments and lay still.
There was a shout of mingled amazement and horror from the other Uhlans,
and it found its echo in John's own mind. He saw one of the men look up,
and he looked up also. A dark shape hovered overhead. Something small
and black, and then another and another fell from it and shot downward
into the group of Uhlans. A second man was hurled from his horse and lay
still upon the ground. Again John felt that thrill of horror and
amazement.
"What is it? What is it?" he cried.
"I think it's the steel arrow," said Fleury, pressing a little further
forward and standing on tiptoe. "As well as I can see, the first passed
entirely through the head of the man and then broke the backbone of the
horse beneath him."
John saw one of the Uhlans, who had dismounted, holding up a short,
heavy steel weapon, a dart rather than an arrow, its weight adjusted so
that it was sure to fall point downward. Coming from such a height John
did not wonder that it had pierced both horse and rider, and as he
looked another, falling near the Uhlan, struck deep into the earth.
"There goes the aeroplane that did it," said John to Fleury, pointing
upward.
It hovered a minute or two longer and flew swiftly back toward the
French lines, pursued vainly a portion of the distance by the German
Taubes.
"A new weapon of death," said Fleury. "The fighters move in the air,
under the water, on the earth, everywhere."
"The Uhlans are off again," said John. "Whatever their duty was the
steel arrows have sent them on it in a hurry."
"And we're about to move too. See, these batteries are limbering up
preparatory to a withdrawal."
Inside of fifteen minutes they were again marching eastward, though
slowly and with the roar of battle going on as fiercely behind them as
ever. John heard again from some of the talk of the guards that the
Germans had five armies along their whole line, but whether the one with
which he was now a prisoner was falling back with its whole force he
had no way of knowing. Both he and Fleury were sure the prisoners
themselves would soon cross the Marne, and that large detachments of the
enemy would go with them.
Thoughts of escape returned. Crossing a river in battle was a perilous
operation, entailing much confusion, and the chance might come at the
Marne. They could see too that the Germans were now being pressed
harder. The French shells were coming faster and with more deadly
precision. Now and then they exploded among the masses of German
infantry, and once or twice they struck close to the captives.
"It would be a pity to be killed by our own people," said Fleury.
"And at such a time as this," said John. "Do you know, Fleury, that my
greatest fear about getting killed is that then I wouldn't know how this
war is going to end?"
"I feel that way myself sometimes. Look, there's the Marne! See its
waters shining! It's the mark of the first great stage in the German
retreat."
"I wonder how we're going to cross. I suppose the bridges will be
crowded with artillery and men. It might pay the Germans just to let us
go."
"They won't do that. There's nothing in their rules about liberating
prisoners, and they wouldn't hear of such a thing, anyhow, trouble or no
trouble."
"I see some boats, and I fancy we'll cross on them. I wonder if we
couldn't make what we call in my country a get-away, while we're waiting
for the embarkation."
"If our gunners become much more accurate our get-away, as you call it,
will be into the next life."
Two huge shells had burst near, and, although none of the flying metal
struck them, their faces were stung by fine dirt. When John brushed the
dust out of his eyes he saw that he was right in his surmise about the
crossing in boats, but wrong about probable delays in embarkation. The
German machine even in retreat worked with neatness and dispatch. There
were three boats, and the first relay of prisoners, including John and
Fleury, was hurried into them. A bridge farther down the stream rumbled
heavily as the artillery crossed on it. But the French force was coming
closer and closer. A shell struck in the river sixty or eighty feet from
them and the water rose in a cataract. Some of the prisoners had been
put at the oars and they, like the Germans, showed eagerness to reach
the other side. John noted the landing, a narrow entrance between thick
clumps of willows, and he confessed to himself that he too would feel
better when they were on the farther bank.
The Marne is not a wide river, and a few powerful pulls at the oars sent
them near to the landing. But at that moment a shell whistled through
the air, plunged into the water and exploded practically beneath the
boat.
John was hurled upward in a gush of foam and water, and then, when he
dropped back, the Marne received him in its bosom.