That flight proved indeed a hideous nightmare.
Throughout those hot, stifling hours of oppressive darkness, the
Baroness de Neuville--as homeless as those hundreds of poor people on
the roads, even though wife of a millionaire--wandered on, Aimee taking
her arm tenderly. On, and still on they went, along the straight, open
road which, leaving the Meuse, led over the hills to the straggling
little whitewashed village of Winenne, which they at last reached.
There they joined a hustling crowd of terror-stricken fugitives of all
classes, sad-eyed men, frightened women, and wondering children, some
stern, some crying bitterly, but all carrying bundles, or pushing
wheelbarrows or perambulators containing all they had saved from their
lowly homes. From Winenne, the Baroness and her daughter, after
trudging on with the crowd for some distance, left the high road and
took a by-way, which Aimee knew by motoring frequently over it, led due
south across the hill, for ten miles or so, to Bourseigne, where lived
the Baronne's brother, a large landed proprietor. In his house they had
decided to seek protection. The red flush of dawn had given place to
the light of day ere they came in sight of the little place, lying deep
in its hollow, but as they looked eagerly upon "The Chateau"--as the
long, white, old-fashioned house was termed--their spirits fell, for it
was roofless, and its grim, blackened walls, alas! told their own tale.
A peasant on the road told them the story.
Three days ago the Germans had arrived and occupied the place, which was
only three miles from the French frontier. Monsieur Hannaerts, the
seigneur of the place, had been arrested as hostage for the good
behaviour of the village, but, because a half-witted youth had
discharged a toy-pistol at a German soldier, the unhappy gentleman had
been bound to a telegraph pole at the roadside, and shot in the presence
of the villagers.
An hour later the British, under General Sir John French, who had
arrived at Charleroi and had extended their line towards Mezieres, began
to shell the village, with the result that it had been partially
destroyed, the Chateau, which had been the enemy's headquarters,
suffering most severely.
The tide of war, however, had now passed by, and when the two weary,
footsore women entered the village, they found life proceeding almost as
usual. Those who had not been killed had returned to their wrecked and
shattered homes, and were full of stories of the fierce brutality of the
invader, which the gallant "Anglais" in khaki had so swiftly driven out.
Naturally, much distressed at the news of her brother's murder, the
Baronne entered the place with fixed, terror-stricken eyes, that same
set expression of woe and hopelessness which was seen everywhere in
Belgium, now that the gallant little kingdom had fallen beneath the fire
and sword of a relentless barbarian.
On every hand great holes showed in the walls, torn open by the British
shells, many houses were completely demolished, and in some places only
rubble heaps remained to show the site where houses had stood. In
others, walls stood gaunt and blackened where the fire had gutted them,
causing roofs and windows to fall in.
Wandering pigs were grunting in the long street, and big-eyed little
children, now that the roar of war had ceased, were playing merrily
among the ruins and finding all sorts of oddments half burned in the
debris. One, evidently a humourist, had put on the spiked helmet of a
dead German, and was striking comic attitudes, to the delight of his
playfellows. His head being completely buried in the canvas-covered
helmet, he presented a most ludicrous appearance.
"Let us find M'sieur Labarre, mother," suggested Aimee, for she knew the
place well, as they had often been her uncle's guests at the now ruined
chateau.
"Yes," murmured the Baronne. "I feel so very faint, dear, that I really
can go no farther?" And, indeed, the poor woman, refined and cultured,
having tramped all through that terrible night in her thin shoes, and
having been challenged so constantly by soldiers in the darkness--each
challenge being a fright lest it be that of the enemy--she was entirely
exhausted and unnerved.
Labarre was a farmer, who held some land belonging to Aimee's unde, and
it was not long before they entered his modest house--a long, ugly,
grey-slated place surrounded by haystacks and outhouses.
Labarre, a stout, ruddy-faced man, of middle age, in a blue linen
blouse, typical of the Walloon farmer, welcomed the poor ladies warmly
and in great surprise, and soon they were in the hands of his stout
wife, Elise, and were drinking cups of hot _bouillon_, for, in the farms
of the Ardennes, the stock-pot is usually simmering upon the fire.
The long, old-fashioned room, with its heavy beams, its stone-paving,
its row of copper cooking-utensils shining in the sun, and its wide
chimney and wooden chairs was, indeed, a haven of rest after the terrors
of that night.
And while they drank the _bouillon_, the fat farmer lifted his hands as
he told them the story of the German occupation.
"Ah! Baronne! It was terrible--very terrible," he cried in his Walloon
dialect. "Those pigs of Germans came here, took all the corn I had,
smashed my piano and thieved two of my horses. But the brave English
drove them out. We fled when the English shells began to fall, but,
fortunately, not one did any damage to our house, though the big barn
was set on fire with two haystacks, and destroyed."
Having remained under the farmer's hospitable roof for a day, Aimee, who
had now completely recovered, resolved to leave her mother in Madame
Labarre's charge, and endeavour to reach Dinant where, it was said, the
telephone with Brussels had been repaired. By that means she could, she
hoped, communicate with her father, and ascertain what they should do.
The British soldiers in khaki were now in possession of Bourseigne, and
that communication was open from Dinant to Brussels, Aimee had learnt
from a lieutenant of the Gloucesters, a good-looking young fellow named
Dick Fortescue, whom she had met in the little Place having some trouble
with the Walloon language in a purchase of fodder he was making, and had
offered to interpret.
What Fortescue had told her caused her to decide, therefore, two hours
later, there being no trains nor any conveyance available, she set out
alone, a slim, pathetic little figure in dusty black, wearing a black
shawl borrowed from the farmer's wife, and turned her face westward
along that white road so familiar to her, a highway which ran over green
hills and along deep valleys, and which was the main road over which the
lumbering, old-fashioned post _diligences_, with their jingling bells,
still passed, in peace time, between Sedan and Dinant.
With her face to the deep glow of the sunset she trudged forward, her
thoughts reverting, as they always did, to Edmond--her Edmond!
"Where is he?" she murmured, as her white, hard-set lips moved. "What
can have happened to him?"
Was he lying still and dead--buried perhaps in a nameless grave--or was
he still fighting valiantly in defence of his country and his King?
If he were, he would, wherever he might be, still be thinking of her.
Of that she was confident, for they loved each other with a firm,
all-absorbing and eternal love, a love that could never be shaken, and
that could never die.
The light of the fading day darkened into the blood-red afterglow, and
before her there rose the lowering clouds of night, as alone and
unprotected she still bent forward, with sixteen miles to cover ere she
reached the narrow, cobbled streets of Dinant. Ten miles away on her
left stood Severac, now, alas! but a smouldering ruin, and over in that
direction she could hear the distant booming of heavy guns, for that
evening the British, acquitting themselves so bravely, were fighting Von
Kluck all along the line from Mons, through Charleroi, to near Mezieres.
They were stemming the German invasion, and while the flower of the
German Army was being hurled against them, they swept them off even
though the Kaiser, in his insane arrogance, had issued as his "Imperial
command" that General French's "contemptible little army" should be
crushed out of existence.
In her torn and dusty black gown, and patent leather shoes, worn badly
down by the long tramp from Severac, Aimee, though weary and footsore,
did not lose heart. She was gratified that her mother was in a place of
safety, and now, if she could only communicate with her father, they
would, no doubt, be able to get to Ostend, and perhaps over to England.
So she went forward with the distant rumble of artillery ever in her
ears, while as darkness fell, she turned aside to notice a fierce red
glare in the sky far away across the Meuse, in the direction of
Phillipeville. Over there another town had no doubt been given to the
flames.
At the village of Malvoisin she met several thousands of refugees coming
towards France, raising clouds of suffocating dust. They were peasants
driven by the enemy out of the peaceful valley of the winding Ourthe,
and were hoping to find shelter across the frontier in France. Now and
then there passed clattering squadrons of Belgian cavalry, the little
yellow tassels hanging gaily from the front of their caps, while ever
and anon there lumbered past, in the dim light, great grey-painted
siege-guns, long trains of ammunition-wagons, Red Cross
motor-ambulances, and endless lines of transports of all sorts.
Squads of infantry marched gaily to martial airs, or the men sang the
latest popular songs of the _cafe-chantant_, while there also passed
several machine-guns drawn by their dog-teams.
Presently Aimee joined three tearful, homeless women, one of whom
trundled an old rickety perambulator filled with her household goods.
They had come from Rossignol, forty miles distant, which had been sacked
and burned by a Uhlan patrol, and they described to her the terrible
scene. Therefore, in company, the trio pushed forward until at length
they entered a long dark street of shattered houses, which Aimee
recognised, to her amazement, as that of Anseremme. Yes! There was the
little Hotel Beau Sejour where she and Edmond had spent so many sunny
hours in secret together, but alas! its walls were now gaunt and
roofless. It had been gutted by fire, while the pleasant little
_terrasse_ beside the river was heaped with the debris of fallen walls.
She sighed as she passed the place which held for her so many fond
memories, and again pressed forward with blistered feet, on past that
great high split rock, through which the road runs beside the river,
known as the Roche Bayard, until at length she found herself in the long
dark street of half-ruined houses that led straight into the little
Place at Dinant.
Arrived there, she halted aghast. The long bridge had fallen, a wreck,
into the river, and there were signs everywhere of the ruthless
bombardment a week before, when happily the Germans had been driven out
and had retired. But at that hour, about half-past ten o'clock, the
place was as silent as the grave. Everywhere was ruin and desolation,
while in the air was still the pungent odour of burnt wood, the woodwork
of houses set on fire by the German shells.
There being neither gas nor electricity, an oil lamp had been hung upon
a nail on a wall, and it was near this that the girl was standing. She
was well known in Dinant as daughter of the Baron who held the
purse-strings of Belgium, and, with her mother, frequently came to the
little town in their car.
She stood hesitating as to whom she should ask a favour and allow her to
telephone to Brussels, when she was suddenly startled by a familiar
voice behind her, and holding her breath, she faced the man who had
addressed her.
It was a Belgian soldier.
It was Edmond Valentin!