THE PEASANT-WOMAN AT CORVIGNY
Three weeks before, on hearing that war was declared, Paul had felt
rising within him the immediate resolution to get killed at all costs.
The tragedy of his life, the horror of his marriage with a woman whom he
still loved in his heart, the certainty which he had acquired at the
Château d'Ornequin: all this had affected him to such a degree that he
came to look upon death as a boon. To him, war represented, from the
first and without the least demur, death. However much he might admire
the solemnly impressive and magnificently consoling events of those
first few weeks--the perfect order of the mobilization, the enthusiasm
of the soldiers, the wonderful unity that prevailed in France, the
awakening of the souls of the nation--none of these great spectacles
attracted his attention. Deep down within himself he had determined that
he would perform acts of such kind that not even the most improbable
hazard could succeed in saving him.
Thus he thought that he had found the desired occasion on the first day.
To overmaster the spy whose presence he suspected in the church steeple
and then to penetrate to the very heart of the enemy's lines, in order
to signal the position, meant going to certain death. He went bravely.
And, as he had a very clear sense of his mission, he fulfilled it with
as much prudence as courage. He was ready to die, but to die after
succeeding. And he found a strange unexpected joy in the act itself as
well as in the success that attended it.
The discovery of the dagger employed by the spy made a great impression
on him. What connection did it establish between this man and the one
who had tried to stab him? What was the connection between these two and
the Comtesse d'Andeville, who had died sixteen years ago? And how, by
what invisible links, were they all three related to that same work of
treachery and spying of which Paul had surprised so many instances?
But Élisabeth's letter, above all, came upon him as a very violent blow.
She was over there, amidst the bullets and the shells, the hot fighting
around the château, the madness and the fury of the victors, the
burning, the shooting, the torturing and atrocities! She was there, she
so young and beautiful, almost alone, with no one to defend her! And she
was there because he, Paul, had not had the grit to go back to her and
see her once more and take her away with him!
These thoughts produced in Paul fits of depression from which he would
suddenly awaken to thrust himself in the path of some danger, pursuing
his mad enterprises to the end, come what might, with a quiet courage
and a fierce obstinacy that filled his comrades with both surprise and
admiration. And from that time onward he seemed to be seeking not so
much death as the unspeakable ecstasy which a man feels in defying it.
Then came the 6th of September, the day of the unheard-of miracle when
our great general-in-chief, addressing his armies in words that will
never perish, at last ordered them to fling themselves upon the enemy.
The gallantly-borne but cruel retreat came to an end. Exhausted,
breathless, fighting against odds for days, with no time for sleep, with
no time to eat, marching only by force of prodigious efforts of which
they were not even conscious, unable to say why they did not lie down in
the road-side ditches to await death, such were the men who received the
word of command:
"Halt! About face! And now have at the enemy!"
And they faced about. Those dying men recovered their strength. From the
humblest to the most illustrious, each summoned up his will and fought
as though the safety of France depended upon him alone. There were as
many glorious heroes as there were soldiers. They were asked to conquer
or die. They conquered.
Paul shone in the front rank of the fearless. He himself knew that what
he did and what he endured, what he tried to do and what he succeeded in
doing surpassed the limits of reality. On the 6th and the 7th and the
8th and again from the 11th to the 13th, despite his excessive fatigue,
despite the deprivations of sleep and food which it seemed impossible
for the human frame to resist, he had no other sensation than that of
advancing and again advancing--and always advancing. Whether in sunshine
or in shade, whether on the banks of the Marne or on the woody slopes of
the Argonne, whether north or east, when his division was sent to
reinforce the troops on the frontier, whether lying flat and creeping
along in the plowed fields or on his feet and charging with the bayonet,
he was always going forward and each step was a delivery and each step
was a conquest.
Each step also increased the hatred in his heart. Oh, how right his
father had been to loathe those people! Paul now saw them at work. On
every side were stupid devastation and unreasoning destruction, on every
side arson, pillage and death, hostages shot, women murdered, bestially,
for the love of the thing. Churches, country-houses, mansions of the
rich and cabins of the poor: nothing remained. The very ruins had been
razed to the ground, the very corpses tortured.
O the delight of defeating such an enemy! Though reduced to half its
full strength, Paul's regiment, released like a pack of hounds, never
ceased biting at the wild beast which it was hunting. The quarry seemed
more vicious and formidable the nearer it approached to the frontier;
and our men kept rushing at it in the mad hope of giving it the
death-stroke.
One day Paul read on a sign-post at a cross-roads:
Corvigny, 14 Kil.
Ornequin, 31 Kil. 400.
The Frontier, 33 Kil. 200.
Corvigny! Ornequin! A thrill passed through his frame when he saw those
unexpected words. As a rule, absorbed as he was by the heat of the
conflict and by his private cares, he paid little attention to the names
of the places which he passed; and he learnt them only by chance. And
now suddenly he was within so short a distance of the Château
d'Ornequin! "Corvigny, 14 kilometers:" less than nine miles! . . . Were
the French troops making for Corvigny, for the little fortified place
which the Germans had taken by assault and taken under such strange
conditions?
That day, they had been fighting since daylight against an enemy whose
resistance seemed to grow slacker and slacker. Paul, at the head of a
squad of men, was sent to the village of Bléville with orders to enter
it if the enemy had retired, but go no farther. And it was just beyond
the last houses of the village that he saw the sign-post.
At the time, he was not quite easy in his mind. A Taube had flown over
the country a few minutes before. There was the possibility of an
ambush.
"Let's go back to the village," he said. "We'll barricade ourselves
while we wait."
But there was a sudden noise behind a wooded hill that interrupted the
road in the Corvigny direction, a noise that became more and more
definite, until Paul recognized the powerful throb of a motor, doubtless
a motor carrying a quick-firing gun.
"Crouch down in the ditch," he cried to his men. "Hide yourselves in the
haystacks. Fix bayonets. And don't move any of you!"
He had realized the danger of that motor's passing through the village,
plunging in the midst of his company, scattering panic and then making
off by some other way.
He quickly climbed the split trunk of an old oak and took up his
position in the branches a few feet above the road.
The motor soon came in sight. It was, as he expected, an armored car,
but one of the old pattern, which allowed the helmets and heads of the
men to show above the steel plating.
It came along at a smart pace, ready to dart forward in case of alarm.
The men were stooping with bent backs. Paul counted half-a-dozen of
them. The barrels of two Maxim guns projected beyond the car.
He put his rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the driver, a fat
Teuton with a scarlet face that seemed dyed with blood. Then, when the
moment came, he calmly fired.
"Charge, lads!" he cried, as he scrambled down from his tree.
But it was not even necessary to take the car by storm. The driver,
struck in the chest, had had the presence of mind to apply the brakes
and pull up. Seeing themselves surrounded, the Germans threw up their
hands:
"_Kamerad! Kamerad!_"
And one of them, flinging down his arms, leapt from the motor and came
running up to Paul:
"An Alsatian, sergeant, an Alsatian from Strasburg! Ah, sergeant, many's
the day that I've been waiting for this moment!"
While his men were taking the prisoners to the village, Paul hurriedly
questioned the Alsatian:
"Where has the car come from?"
"Corvigny."
"Any of your people there?"
"Very few. A rearguard of two hundred and fifty Badeners at the most."
"And in the forts?"
"About the same number. They didn't think it necessary to mend the
turrets and now they've been taken unprepared. They're hesitating
whether to try and make a stand or to fall back on the frontier; and
that's why we were sent to reconnoiter."
"So we can go ahead?"
"Yes, but at once, else they will receive powerful reinforcements, two
divisions."
"When?"
"To-morrow. They're to cross the frontier, to-morrow, about the middle
of the day."
"By Jove! There's no time to be lost!" said Paul.
While examining the guns and having the prisoners disarmed and searched,
Paul was considering the best measures to take, when one of his men, who
had stayed behind in the village, came and told him of the arrival of a
French detachment, with a lieutenant in command.
Paul hastened to tell the officer what had happened. Events called for
immediate action. He offered to go on a scouting expedition in the
captured motor.
"Very well," said the officer. "I'll occupy the village and arrange to
have the division informed as soon as possible."
The car made off in the direction of Corvigny, with eight men packed
inside. Two of them, placed in charge of the quick-firing guns, studied
the mechanism. The Alsatian stood up, so as to show his helmet and
uniform clearly, and scanned the horizon on every side.
All this was decided upon and done in the space of a few minutes,
without discussion and without delaying over the details of the
undertaking.
"We must trust to luck," said Paul, taking his seat at the wheel. "Are
you ready to see the job through, boys?"
"Yes; and further," said a voice which he recognized, just behind him.
It was Bernard d'Andeville, Élisabeth's brother. Bernard belonged to the
9th company; and Paul had succeeded in avoiding him, since their first
meeting, or at least in not speaking to him. But he knew that the
youngster was fighting well.
"Ah, so you're there?" he said.
"In the flesh," said Bernard. "I came along with my lieutenant; and,
when I saw you getting into the motor and taking any one who turned up,
you can imagine how I jumped at the chance!" And he added, in a more
embarrassed tone, "The chance of doing a good stroke of work, under your
orders, and the chance of talking to you, Paul . . . for I've been
unlucky so far. . . . I even thought that . . . that you were not as
well-disposed to me as I hoped. . . ."
"Nonsense," said Paul. "Only I was bothered. . . ."
"You mean, about Élisabeth?"
"Yes."
"I see. All the same, that doesn't explain why there was something
between us, a sort of constraint . . ."
At that moment, the Alsatian exclaimed:
"Lie low there! . . . Uhlans ahead! . . ."
A patrol came trotting down a cross-road, turning the corner of a wood.
He shouted to them, as the car passed:
"Clear out, Kameraden! Fast as you can! The French are coming!"
Paul took advantage of the incident not to answer his brother-in-law. He
had forced the pace; and the motor was now thundering along, scaling
the hills and shooting down them like a meteor.
The enemy detachments became more numerous. The Alsatian called out to
them or else by means of signs incited them to beat an immediate
retreat.
"It's the funniest thing to see," he said, laughing. "They're all
galloping behind us like mad." And he added, "I warn you, sergeant, that
at this rate we shall dash right into Corvigny. Is that what you want to
do?"
"No," replied Paul, "we'll stop when the town's in sight."
"And, if we're surrounded?"
"By whom? In any case, these bands of fugitives won't be able to oppose
our return."
Bernard d'Andeville spoke:
"Paul," he said, "I don't believe you're thinking of returning."
"You're quite right. Are you afraid?"
"Oh, what an ugly word!"
But presently Paul went on, in a gentler voice:
"I'm sorry you came, Bernard."
"Is the danger greater for me than for you and the others?"
"No."
"Then do me the honor not to be sorry."
Still standing up and leaning over the sergeant, the Alsatian pointed
with his hand:
"That spire straight ahead, behind the trees, is Corvigny. I calculate
that, by slanting up the hills on the left, we ought to be able to see
what's happening in the town."
"We shall see much better by going inside," Paul remarked. "Only it's a
big risk . . . especially for you, Alsatian. If they take you prisoner,
they'll shoot you. Shall I put you down this side of Corvigny?"
"You haven't studied my face, sergeant."
The road was now running parallel with the railway. Soon, the first
houses of the outskirts came in sight. A few soldiers appeared.
"Not a word to these," Paul ordered. "It won't do to startle them . . .
or they'll take us from behind at the critical moment."
He recognized the station and saw that it was strongly held. Spiked
helmets were coming and going along the avenues that led to the town.
"Forward!" cried Paul. "If there's any large body of troops, it can only
be in the square. Are the guns ready? And the rifles? See to mine for
me, Bernard. And, at the first signal, independent fire!"
The motor rushed at full speed into the square. As he expected, there
were about a hundred men there, all massed in front of the church-steps,
near their stacked rifles. The church was a mere heap of ruins; and
almost all the houses in the square had been leveled to the ground by
the bombardment.
The officers, standing on one side, cheered and waved their hands on
seeing the motor which they had sent out to reconnoiter and whose return
they seemed to be expecting before making their decision about the
defense of the town. There were a good many of them, their number no
doubt including some communication officers. A general stood a head and
shoulders above the rest. A number of cars were waiting some little
distance away.
The street was paved with cobble-stones and there was no raised pavement
between it and the square. Paul followed it; but, when he was within
twenty yards of the officers, he gave a violent turn of the wheel and
the terrible machine made straight for the group, knocking them down and
running over them, slanted off slightly, so as to take the stacks of
rifles, and then plunged like an irresistible mass right into the middle
of the detachment, spreading death as it went, amid a mad, hustling
flight and yells of pain and terror.
"Independent fire!" cried Paul, stopping the car.
And the firing began from this impregnable blockhouse, which had
suddenly sprung up in the center of the square, accompanied by the
sinister crackle of the two Maxim guns.
In five minutes, the square was strewn with killed and wounded men. The
general and several officers lay dead. The survivors took to their
heels.
Paul gave the order to cease fire and took the car to the top of the
avenue that led to the station. The troops from the station were
hastening up, attracted by the shooting. A few volleys from the guns
dispersed them.
Paul drove three times quickly round the square, to examine the
approaches. On every side the enemy was fleeing along the roads and
paths to the frontier. And on every hand the inhabitants of Corvigny
came out of their houses and gave vent to their delight.
"Pick up and see to the wounded," Paul ordered. "And send for the
bell-ringer, or some one who understands about the bells. It's urgent!"
An aged sacristan appeared.
"The tocsin, old man, the tocsin for all you're worth! And, when you're
tired, have some one to take your place! The tocsin, without stopping
for a second!"
This was the signal which Paul had agreed upon with the French
lieutenant, to announce to the division that the enterprise had
succeeded and that the troops were to advance.
It was two o'clock. At five, the staff and a brigade had taken
possession of Corvigny and our seventy-fives were firing a few shells.
By ten o'clock in the evening, the rest of the division having come up
meantime, the Germans had been driven out of the Grand Jonas and the
Petit Jonas and were concentrating before the frontier. It was decided
to dislodge them at daybreak.
"Paul," said Bernard to his brother-in-law, at the evening roll-call, "I
have something to tell you, something that puzzles me, a very queer
thing: you'll judge for yourself. Just now, I was walking down one of
the streets near the church when a woman spoke to me. I couldn't make
out her face or her dress at first, because it was almost dark, but she
seemed to be a peasant-woman from the sound of her wooden shoes on the
cobbles. 'Young man,' she said--and her way of expressing herself
surprised me a little in a peasant-woman--'Young man, you may be able to
tell me something I want to know.' I said I was at her service and she
began, 'It's like this: I live in a little village close by. I heard
just now that your army corps was here. So I came, because I wanted to
see a soldier who belonged to it, only I don't know the number of his
regiment. I believe he has been transferred, because I never get a
letter from him; and I dare say he has not had mine. Oh, if you only
happened to know him! He's such a good lad, such a gallant fellow.' I
asked her to tell me his name; and she answered, 'Delroze, Corporal Paul
Delroze.'"
"What!" cried Paul. "Did she want me?"
"Yes, Paul, and the coincidence struck me as so curious that I just gave
her the number of your regiment and your company, without telling her
that we were related. 'Good,' she said. 'And is the regiment at
Corvigny?' I said it had just arrived. 'And do you know Paul Delroze?'
'Only by name,' I answered. I can't tell you why I answered like that,
or why I continued the conversation so as not to let her guess my
surprise: 'He has been promoted to sergeant,' I said, 'and mentioned in
dispatches. That's how I come to have heard his name. Shall I find out
where he is and take you to him?' 'Not yet,' she said, 'not yet. I
should be too much upset.'"
"What on earth did she mean?"
"I can't imagine. It struck me as more and more suspicious. Here was a
woman looking for you eagerly and yet putting off the chance of seeing
you. I asked her if she was very much interested in you and she said
yes, that you were her son."
"Her son!"
"Up to then I am certain that she did not suspect for a second that I
was cross-examining her. But my astonishment was so great that she drew
back into the shadow, as though to put herself on the defensive. I
slipped my hand into my pocket, pulled out my little electric lamp, went
up to her, pressed the spring and flung the light full in her face. She
seemed disconcerted and stood for a moment without moving. Then she
quickly lowered a scarf which she wore over her head and, with a
strength which I should never have believed, struck me on the arm and
made me drop my lamp. Then came a second of absolute silence. I couldn't
make out where she was: whether in front of me, or on the right or the
left. There was no sound to tell me if she was there still or not. But I
understood presently, when, after picking up my lamp and switching on
the light again, I saw her two wooden shoes on the ground. She had
stepped out of them and run away on her stocking-feet. I hunted for her,
but couldn't find her. She had disappeared."
Paul had listened to his brother-in-law's story with increasing
attention.
"Then you saw her face?" he asked.
"Oh, quite distinctly! A strong face, with black hair and eyebrows and a
look of great wickedness. . . . Her clothes were those of a
peasant-woman, but too clean and too carefully put on: I felt somehow
that they were a disguise."
"About what age was she?"
"Forty."
"Would you know her again?"
"Without a moment's hesitation."
"What was the color of the scarf you mentioned?"
"Black."
"How was it fastened? In a knot?"
"No, with a brooch."
"A cameo?"
"Yes, a large cameo set in gold. How did you know that?"
Paul was silent for some time and then said:
"I will show you to-morrow, in one of the rooms at Ornequin, a portrait
which should bear a striking resemblance to the woman who spoke to you,
the sort of resemblance that exists between two sisters perhaps . . . or
. . . or . . ." He took his brother-in-law by the arm and, leading him
along, continued, "Listen to me, Bernard. There are terrible things
around us, in the present and the past, things that affect my life and
Élisabeth's . . . and yours as well. Therefore, I am struggling in the
midst of a hideous obscurity in which enemies whom I do not know have
for twenty years been pursuing a scheme which I am quite unable to
understand. In the beginning of the struggle, my father died, the victim
of a murder. To-day it is I that am being threatened. My marriage with
your sister is shattered and nothing can bring us together again, just
as nothing will ever again allow you and me to be on those terms of
friendship and confidence which we had the right to hope for. Don't ask
me any questions, Bernard, and don't try to find out any more. One day,
perhaps--and I do not wish that day ever to arrive--you will know why I
begged for your silence."