HILL 132
What a ride it was! And how gay Paul Delroze felt! He was at last
attaining his object; and this time it was not one of those hazardous
enterprises which so often end in cruel disappointment, but the logical
outcome and reward of his efforts. He was beyond the reach of the least
shade of anxiety. There are victories--and his recent victory over the
Emperor was one of them--which involve the disappearance of every
obstacle. Élisabeth was at Hildensheim Castle and he was on his way to
the castle and nothing would stop him.
He seemed to recognize by the daylight features in the landscape which
had been hidden from him by the darkness of the night before: a hamlet
here, a village there, a river which he had skirted. He saw the string
of little road-side woods, and he saw the ditch by which he had fought
with Karl the spy.
It took hardly more than another hour to reach the hill which was topped
by the feudal fortress of Hildensheim. It was surrounded by a wide moat,
spanned by a draw-bridge. A suspicious porter made his appearance, but
a few words from the officer caused the doors to be flung open.
Two footmen hurried down from the castle and, in reply to Paul's
question, said that the French lady was walking near the pond. He asked
the way and said to the officer:
"I shall go alone. We shall start very soon."
It had been raining. A pale winter sun, stealing through the heavy
clouds, lit up the lawns and shrubberies. Paul went along a row of
hot-houses and climbed an artificial rockery whence trickled the thin
stream of a waterfall which formed a large pool set in a frame of dark
fir trees and alive with swans and wild duck.
At the end of the pool was a terrace adorned with statues and stone
benches. And there he saw Élisabeth.
Paul underwent an indescribable emotion. He had not spoken to his wife
since the outbreak of war. Since that day, Élisabeth had suffered the
most horrible trials and had suffered them for the simple reason that
she wished to appear in her husband's eyes as a blameless wife, the
daughter of a blameless mother.
And now he was about to meet her again at a time when none of the
accusations which he had brought against the Comtesse Hermine could be
rebuffed and when Élisabeth herself had roused Paul to such a pitch of
indignation by her presence at Prince Conrad's supper-party! . . .
But how long ago it all seemed! And how little it mattered! Prince
Conrad's blackguardism, the Comtesse Hermine's crimes, the ties of
relationship that might unite the two women, all the struggles which
Paul had passed through, all his anguish, all his rebelliousness, all
his loathing, were but so many insignificant details, now that he saw at
twenty paces from him his unhappy darling whom he loved so well. He no
longer thought of the tears which she had shed and saw nothing but her
wasted figure, shivering in the wintry wind.
He walked towards her. His steps grated on the gravel path; and
Élisabeth turned round.
She did not make a single gesture. He understood, from the expression of
her face, that she did not see him, really, that she looked upon him as
a phantom rising from the mists of dreams and that this phantom must
often float before her deluded eyes.
She even smiled at him a little, such a sad smile that Paul clasped his
hands and was nearly falling on his knees:
"Élisabeth. . . . Élisabeth," he stammered.
Then she drew herself up and put her hand to her heart and turned even
paler than she had been the evening before, seated between Prince Conrad
and Comtesse Hermine. The image was emerging from the realm of mist; the
reality grew plainer before her eyes and in her brain. This time she saw
Paul!
He ran towards her, for she seemed on the point of falling. But she
recovered herself, put out her hands to make him stay where he was and
looked at him with an effort as though she would have penetrated to the
very depths of his soul to read his thoughts.
Paul, trembling with love from head to foot, did not stir. She murmured:
"Ah, I see that you love me . . . that you have never ceased to love me!
. . . I am sure of it now . . ."
She kept her arms outstretched, however, as though against an obstacle,
and he himself did not attempt to come closer. All their life and all
their happiness lay in their eyes; and, while her gaze wildly
encountered his, she went on:
"They told me that you were a prisoner. Is it true, then? Oh, how I have
implored them to take me to you! How low I have stooped! I have even had
to sit down to table with them and laugh at their jokes and wear jewels
and pearl necklaces which he has forced upon me. All this in order to
see you! . . . And they kept on promising. And then, at length, they
brought me here last night and I thought that they had tricked me once
more . . . or else that it was a fresh trap . . . or that they had at
last made up their minds to kill me. . . . And now here you are, here
you are, Paul, my own darling! . . ."
She took his face in her two hands and, suddenly, in a voice of despair:
"But you are not going just yet? You will stay till to-morrow, surely?
They can't take you from me like that, after a few minutes? You're
staying, are you not? Oh, Paul, all my courage is gone . . . don't leave
me! . . ."
She was greatly surprised to see him smile:
"What's the matter? Why, my dearest, how happy you look!"
He began to laugh and this time, drawing her to him with a masterful air
that admitted of no denial, he kissed her hair and her forehead and her
cheeks and her lips; and he said:
"I am laughing because there is nothing to do but to laugh and kiss you.
I am laughing also because I have been imagining so many silly things.
Yes, just think, at that supper last night, I saw you from a distance
. . . and I suffered agonies: I accused you of I don't know what. . . .
Oh, what a fool I was!"
She could not understand his gaiety; and she said again:
"How happy you are! How can you be so happy?"
"There is no reason why I should not be," said Paul, still laughing.
"Come, look at things as they are: you and I are meeting after
unheard-of misfortunes. We are together; nothing can separate us; and
you wouldn't have me be glad?"
"Do you mean to say that nothing can separate us?" she asked, in a voice
quivering with anxiety.
"Why, of course! Is that so strange?"
"You are staying with me? Are we to live here?"
"No, not that! What an idea! You're going to pack up your things at
express speed and we shall be off."
"Where to?"
"Where to? To France, of course. When you think of it, that's the only
country where one's really comfortable."
And, when she stared at him in amazement, he said:
"Come, let's hurry. The car's waiting; and I promised Bernard--yes, your
brother Bernard--that we should be with him to-night. . . . Are you
ready? But why that astounded look? Do you want to have things explained
to you? But, my very dearest, it will take hours and hours to explain
everything that's happened to yourself and me. You've turned the head of
an imperial prince . . . and then you were shot . . . and then . . . and
then . . . Oh, what does it all matter? Must I force you to come away
with me?"
All at once she understood that he was speaking seriously; and, without
taking her eyes from him, she asked:
"Is it true? Are we free?"
"Absolutely free."
"We're going back to France?"
"Immediately."
"We have nothing more to fear?"
"Nothing."
The tension from which she was suffering suddenly relaxed. She in her
turn began to laugh, yielding to one of those fits of uncontrollable
mirth which find vent in every sort of childish nonsense. She could have
sung, she could have danced for sheer joy. And yet the tears flowed down
her cheeks. And she stammered:
"Free! . . . it's all over! . . . Have I been through much? . . . Not at
all! . . . Oh, you know that I had been shot? Well, I assure you, it
wasn't so bad as all that. . . . I will tell you about it and lots of
other things. . . . And you must tell me, too. . . . But how did you
manage? You must be cleverer than the cleverest, cleverer than the
unspeakable Conrad, cleverer than the Emperor! Oh, dear, how funny it
is, how funny! . . ."
She broke off and, seizing him forcibly by the arm, said:
"Let us go, darling. It's madness to remain another second. These people
are capable of anything. They look upon no promise as binding. They are
scoundrels, criminals. Let's go. . . . Let's go. . . ."
They went away.
Their journey was uneventful. In the evening, they reached the lines on
the front, facing Èbrecourt.
The officer on duty, who had full powers, had a reflector lit and
himself, after ordering a white flag to be displayed, took Élisabeth and
Paul to the French officer who came forward.
The officer telephoned to the rear. A motor car was sent; and, at nine
o'clock, Paul and Élisabeth pulled up at the gates of Ornequin and Paul
asked to have Bernard sent for. He met him half-way:
"Is that you, Bernard?" he said. "Listen to me and don't let us waste a
minute. I have brought back Élisabeth. Yes, she's here, in the car. We
are off to Corvigny and you're coming with us. While I go for my bag and
yours, you give instructions to have Prince Conrad closely watched. He's
safe, isn't he?"
"Yes."
"Then hurry. I want to get at the woman whom you saw last night as she
was entering the tunnel. Now that she's in France, we'll hunt her down."
"Don't you think, Paul, that we should be more likely to find her tracks
by ourselves going back into the tunnel and searching the place where it
opens at Corvigny?"
"We can't afford the time. We have arrived at a phase of the struggle
that demands the utmost haste."
"But, Paul, the struggle is over, now that Élisabeth is saved."
"The struggle will never be over as long as that woman lives."
"Well, but who is she?"
Paul did not answer.
At ten o'clock they all three alighted outside the station at Corvigny.
There were no more trains. Everybody was asleep. Paul refused to be put
off, went to the military guard, woke up the adjutant, sent for the
station-master, sent for the booking-clerk and, after a minute inquiry,
succeeded in establishing the fact that on that same Monday morning a
woman supplied with a pass in the name of Mme. Antonin had taken a
ticket for Château-Thierry. She was the only woman traveling alone. She
was wearing a Red Cross uniform. Her description corresponded at all
points with that of the Comtesse Hermine.
"It's certainly she," said Paul, when they had taken their rooms for the
night at the hotel near the station. "There's no doubt about it. It's
the only way she could go from Corvigny. And it's the way that we shall
go to-morrow morning, at the same time that she did. I hope that she
will not have time to carry out the scheme that has brought her to
France. In any case, this is a great opportunity; and we must make the
most of it."
"But who is the woman?" Bernard asked again.
"Who is she? Ask Élisabeth to tell you. We have an hour left in which to
discuss certain details and then we must go to bed. We need rest, all
three of us."
They started on the Tuesday morning. Paul's confidence was unshaken.
Though he knew nothing of the Comtesse Hermine's intentions, he felt
sure that he was on the right road. And, in fact, they were told several
times that a Red Cross nurse, traveling first-class and alone, had
passed through the same stations on the day before.
They got out at Château-Thierry late in the afternoon. Paul made his
inquiries. On the previous evening, the nurse had driven away in a Red
Cross motor car which was waiting at the station. This car, according to
the papers carried by the driver, belonged to one of the ambulances
working to the rear of Soissons; but the exact position of the ambulance
was not known.
This was near enough for Paul, however. Soissons was in the battle line.
"Let's go to Soissons," he said.
The order signed by the commander-in-chief which he had on him gave him
full power to requisition a motor car and to enter the fighting zone.
They reached Soissons at dinner-time.
The outskirts, ruined by the bombardment, were deserted. The town itself
seemed abandoned for the greater part. But as they came nearer to the
center a certain animation prevailed in the streets. Companies of
soldiers passed at a quick pace. Guns and ammunition wagons trotted by.
In the hotel to which they went on the Grande Place, a hotel containing
a number of officers, there was general excitement, with much coming and
going and even a little disorder.
Paul and Bernard asked the reason. They were told that, for some days
past, we had been successfully attacking the slopes opposite Soissons,
on the other side of the Aisne. Two days before, some battalions of
light infantry and African troops had taken Hill 132 by assault. On the
following day, we held the positions which we had won and carried the
trenches on the Dent de Crouy. Then, in the course of the Monday night
at a time when the enemy was delivering a violent counter-attack, a
curious thing happened. The Aisne, which was swollen as the result of
the heavy rains, overflowed its banks and carried away all the bridges
at Villeneuve and Soissons.
The rise of the Aisne was natural enough; but, high though the river
was, it did not explain the destruction of the bridges; and this
destruction, coinciding with the German counter-attack and apparently
due to suspect reasons which had not yet been cleared up, had
complicated the position of the French troops by making the dispatch of
reinforcements almost impossible. Our men had held the hill all day, but
with difficulty and with great losses. At this moment, a part of the
artillery was being moved back to the right bank of the Aisne.
Paul and Bernard did not hesitate in their minds for a second. In all
this they recognized the Comtesse Hermine's handiwork. The destruction
of the bridges, the German attacks, those two incidents which happened
on the very night of her arrival were, beyond a doubt, the outcome of a
plan conceived by her, the execution of which had been prepared for the
time when the rains were bound to swell the river and proved the
collaboration existing between the countess and the enemy's staff.
Besides, Paul remembered the sentences which she had exchanged with Karl
the spy outside the door of Prince Conrad's villa:
"I am going to France . . . everything is ready. The weather is in our
favor; and the staff have told me. . . . So I shall be there to-morrow
evening; and it will only need a touch of the thumb. . . ."
She had given that touch of the thumb. All the bridges had been tampered
with by Karl or by men in his pay and had now broken down.
"It's she, obviously enough," said Bernard. "And, if it is, why look so
anxious? You ought to be glad, on the contrary, because we are now
positively certain of laying hold of her."
"Yes, but shall we do so in time? When she spoke to Karl, she uttered
another threat which struck me as much more serious. As I told you, she
said, 'Luck is turning against us. If I succeed, it will be the end of
the run on the black.' And, when the spy asked her if she had the
Emperor's consent, she answered that it was unnecessary and that this
was one of the undertakings which one doesn't talk about. You
understand, Bernard, it's not a question of the German attack or the
destruction of the bridges: that is honest warfare and the Emperor knows
all about it. No, it's a question of something different, which is
intended to coincide with other events and give them their full
significance. The woman can't think that an advance of half a mile or a
mile is an incident capable of ending what she calls the run on the
black. Then what is at the back of it all? I don't know; and that
accounts for my anxiety."
Paul spent the whole of that evening and the whole of the next day,
Wednesday the 13th, in making prolonged searches in the streets of the
town or along the banks of the Aisne. He had placed himself in
communication with the military authorities. Officers and men took part
in his investigations. They went over several houses and questioned a
number of the inhabitants.
Bernard offered to go with him; but Paul persisted in refusing:
"No. It is true, the woman doesn't know you; but she must not see your
sister. I am asking you therefore to stay with Élisabeth, to keep her
from going out and to watch over her without a moment's intermission,
for we have to do with the most terrible enemy imaginable."
The brother and sister therefore passed the long hours of that day with
their faces glued to the window-panes. Paul came back at intervals to
snatch a meal. He was quivering with hope.
"She's here," he said. "She must have left those who were with her in
the motor car, dropped her nurse's disguise and is now hiding in some
hole, like a spider behind its web. I can see her, telephone in hand,
giving her orders to a whole band of people, who have taken to earth
like herself and made themselves invisible like her. But I am beginning
to perceive her plan and I have one advantage over her, which is that
she believes herself in safety. She does not know that her accomplice,
Karl, is dead. She does not know of Élisabeth's release. She does not
know of our presence here. I've got her, the loathsome beast, I've got
her."
The news of the battle, meanwhile, was not improving. The retreating
movement on the left bank continued. At Crouy, the severity of their
losses and the depth of the mud stopped the rush of the Moroccan troops.
A hurriedly-constructed pontoon bridge went drifting down-stream.
When Paul made his next appearance, at six o'clock in the evening, there
were a few drops of blood on his sleeve. Élisabeth took alarm.
"It's nothing," he said, with a laugh. "A scratch; I don't know how I
got it."
"But your hand; look at your hand. You're bleeding!"
"No, it's not my blood. Don't be frightened. Everything's all right."
Bernard said:
"You know the commander-in-chief came to Soissons this morning."
"Yes, so it seems. All the better. I should like to make him a present
of the spy and her gang. It would be a handsome gift."
He went away for another hour and then came back and had dinner.
"You look as though you were sure of things now," said Bernard.
"One can never be sure of anything. That woman is the very devil."
"But you know where she's hiding?"
"Yes."
"And what are you waiting for?"
"I'm waiting for nine o'clock. I shall take a rest till then. Wake me up
at a little before nine."
The guns never ceased booming in the distant darkness. Sometimes a shell
would fall on the town with a great crash. Troops passed in every
direction. Then there would be brief intervals of silence, in which the
sounds of war seemed to hang in suspense; and it was those minutes which
perhaps were most formidable and significant.
Paul woke of himself. He said to his wife and Bernard:
"You know, you're coming, too. It will be rough work, Élisabeth, very
rough work. Are you certain that you're equal to it?"
"Oh, Paul . . . But you yourself are looking so pale."
"Yes," he said, "it's the excitement. Not because of what is going to
happen. But, in spite of all my precautions, I shall be afraid until the
last moment that the adversary will escape. A single act of
carelessness, a stroke of ill-luck that gives the alarm . . . and I
shall have to begin all over again. . . . Never mind about your
revolver, Bernard."
"What!" cried Bernard. "Isn't there going to be any fighting in this
expedition of yours?"
Paul did not reply. According to his custom, he expressed himself during
or after action. Bernard took his revolver.
The last stroke of nine sounded as they crossed the Grande Place, amid a
darkness stabbed here and there by a thin ray of light issuing from a
closed shop. A group of soldiers were massed in the forecourt of the
cathedral, whose shadowy bulk they felt looming overhead.
Paul flashed the light from an electric lamp upon them and asked the one
in command:
"Any news, sergeant?"
"No, sir. No one has entered the house and no one has gone out."
The sergeant gave a low whistle. In the middle of the street, two men
emerged from the surrounding gloom and approached the group.
"Any sound in the house?"
"No, sergeant."
"Any light behind the shutters?"
"No, sergeant."
Then Paul marched ahead and, while the others, in obedience to his
instructions, followed him without making the least noise, he stepped on
resolutely, like a belated wayfarer making for home.
They stopped at a narrow-fronted house, the ground-floor of which was
hardly distinguishable in the darkness of the night. Three steps led to
the door. Paul gave four sharp taps and, at the same time, took a key
from his pocket and opened the door.
He switched on his electric lamp again in the passage and, while his
companions continued as silent as before, turned to a mirror which rose
straight from the flagged floor. He gave four little taps on the mirror
and then pushed it, pressing one side of it. It masked the aperture of a
staircase which led to the basement; and Paul sent the light of his
lantern down the well.
This appeared to be a signal, the third signal agreed upon, for a voice
from below, a woman's voice, but hoarse and rasping in its tones, asked:
"Is that you, Daddy Walter?"
The moment had come to act. Without answering, Paul rushed down the
stairs, taking four steps at a time. He reached the bottom just as a
massive door was closing, almost barring his access to the cellar.
He gave a strong push and entered.
The Comtesse Hermine was there, in the semi-darkness, motionless,
hesitating what to do.
Then suddenly she ran to the other end of the cellar, seized a revolver
on the table, turned round and fired.
The hammer clicked, but there was no report.
She repeated the action three times; and the result, was three times the
same.
"It's no use going on," said Paul, with a laugh. "The charge has been
removed."
The countess uttered a cry of rage, opened the drawer of the table and,
taking another revolver, pulled the trigger four times, without
producing a sound.
"You may as well drop it," laughed Paul. "This one has been emptied,
too; and so has the one in the other drawer: so have all the firearms in
the house, for that matter."
Then, when she stared at him in amazement, without understanding, dazed
by her own helplessness, he bowed and introduced himself, just in two
words, which meant so much:
"Paul Delroze."