Kitabı oku: «The Day of Wrath: A Story of 1914», sayfa 12
CHAPTER XII
AT THE GATES OF DEATH
Had Dalroy followed his own plans, supported as they were by the well-meant advice tendered by the farmer of the Meuse valley, he might have led his companions through the final barrier without incurring any risk at all comparable with the hair’s-breadth escapes of Visé, Argenteau, Andenne, and Huy.
But the weather broke. Rain fell in torrents, and Irene’s presence was a real deterrent to spending a night in a ditch or lurking in the depths of a wood till dawn. Maertz, too, jubilant in the certainty that the Belgian outposts were hardly six miles distant, advocated the bold policy of a daylight march. Still, there was no excuse for Dalroy, who knew that patrols in an enemy’s country are content to stand fast by night, and scout during the day. Unluckily, Irene was eager as their Belgian friend to rush the last stage. She was infected by the prevalent spirit of the people. Throughout the whole of September these valiant folk in the real Flanders held the Germans rather cheap. They did not realise that outpost affairs are not battles – that a cavalry screen, as its very name implies, is actually of more value in cloaking movements of armies in rear than in reconnoitring.
Be that as it may, in the late afternoon of 5th September the three were hurrying past some lounging troopers who had taken shelter from the pouring rain in the spacious doorway of a ruined barn, when one man called to them, “Hi! where are you off to?”
They pretended not to hear, whereupon a bullet passed through Dalroy’s smock between arm and ribs.
It was useless to think of bolting from cavalry. They turned at once, hoping that a bold front might serve. This occurred a mile or more from Oombergen. Maertz had “an aunt” in Oosterzeele, the next village, and said so.
“If she’s anything like you, you’re welcome to her; but let’s have a look at your cousin,” grinned the German, striding forward, carbine in hand, and grasping Irene by the shoulder.
“You stop here, Fräulein– or, is it Frau?” he said, with a vilely suggestive leer. “Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. If one of these pig-heads is your husband we can soon make you a widow.”
Now to Irene every German soldier was a boor, with a boor’s vices and limitations. The man, a corporal, spoke and acted coarsely, using the argot of the barrack-room, and she was far too frightened to see in his satyr-like features a certain intellectuality. So, in her distress, she blundered twice.
“Leave me alone!” she said shrilly, trying in voice and manner to copy Léontine Joos.
“Now don’t be coy, pretty one,” chuckled the trooper, beginning to urge her forcibly in the direction of the barn.
Dalroy and Jan Maertz had remained stock-still when the hussar came up. Suddenly the Belgian sheered off, and ran like a hare into the dense wood surrounding the small cleared space in which stood the barn. The building had evidently been meant to house stock only. There was no dwelling attached. It had served, too, as a rallying-point during some recent scrimmage. The outer walls were chipped with bullets; the doors had been torn off and burnt; it was typical of Belgium under German rule – a husk given fictitious life by the conqueror’s horses and men.
Irene had seen Jan make off, while Dalroy lurched slowly nearer. She could not hear the fierce whisper which bade their sturdy ally bolt for the trees, and, if he got away, implore a strong Belgian patrol to come to the rescue. But she knew that some daring expedient had been devised on the spur of the moment, and gathered all her resources for an effort to gain time.
The corporal heard Jan break into a run. Letting go the girl, he swung on his heel and raised the carbine.
Dalroy had foreseen that this might happen. With a calm courage that was superb because of its apparent lack of thought, he had placed himself in the direct line of fire. Standing with his hands in his pockets and laughing loudly, he first glanced over his shoulder at the vanishing Maertz, and then guffawed into the hussar’s face.
“He’s done a bunk!” he cried cheerfully. “You said he might go, Herr Unteroffizier, so he hopped it without even saying ‘Auf wieder sehn.’”
Meanwhile, as he was steadily masking the German’s aim, he might have been shot without warning. But the ready comment baffled the other for a few precious seconds, and the men in the barn helped unconsciously by chaffing their comrade.
“You’ve got your hands full with the girl, Franz,” said one.
“What’s she like?” bawled another. “I can only see a pair of slim ankles and a dirty face.”
“That’s all you will see, Georg,” said Franz, believing that a scared Belgian peasant had merely bolted in panic. “This little bit is mine by the laws of war. – Here, you,” he added, surveying Dalroy quite amicably, “be off to your aunt! You’ll probably be shot at Oosterzeele; but that’s your affair, not mine.”
“You don’t know my aunt,” said Dalroy. “I’d sooner face a regiment of soldiers than stand her tongue if I go home without her niece.”
If he hoped to placate this swaggering scoundrel by a display of good-humour he failed lamentably. An ugly glint shone in the man’s eyes, and he handled the carbine again threateningly.
“To hell with you and your aunt!” he snarled. “Perhaps you don’t know it, you Flemish fool, but you’re a German now and must obey orders. Cut after your pal before I count three, or I’ll put daylight through you! One, two – ”
Then the hapless Irene committed a second and fatal error, though it was pardonable in the frenzy of a tragic dilemma, since the next moment might see her lover ruthlessly murdered. To lump all German soldiers into one category was a bad mistake; it was far worse to change her accent from the crude speech of the province of Liège to the high-sounding periods of Berlin society.
“How dare you threaten unoffending people in this way?” she almost screamed. “I demand that you send for an officer, and I ask the other men of your regiment to bear witness we have done nothing whatsoever to warrant your brutal behaviour.”
The hussar stood as though he, and not Dalroy, had been silenced by a bullet. He listened to the girl’s outburst with an expression of blank amazement, which soon gave place to a sinister smile.
“Gnädiges Fräulein,” he answered, springing to “attention,” and affecting a conscience-stricken tone, “I cry your pardon. But is it not your own fault? Why should such a charming young lady masquerade as a Belgian peasant?”
On hearing the man speak as a well-educated Berliner, Irene became deathly white under the tan and grime of so many days and nights of exposure. She nearly fainted, and might have fallen had not Dalroy caught her. Even then, when their position was all but hopeless, he made one last attempt to throw dust in the crafty eyes which were now piercing both Irene and himself with the baneful glare of a tiger about to spring.
“My cousin has been a governess in Berlin,” he said deferentially. “She isn’t afraid of soldiers as a rule, but you have nearly frightened her to death.”
Their captor still examined them in a way that chilled even the Englishman’s dauntless heart. He was summing them up, much as a detective might scan the features of a pair of half-recognised criminals to whom he could not altogether allot their proper places in the Rogues’ Gallery.
“You see, she’s ill,” urged Dalroy. “Mayn’t we go? My aunt keeps a decent cellar. I’ll come back with some good wine.”
Never relaxing that glowering scrutiny, the corporal shouted suddenly, “Come here, Georg!”
The man thus hailed by name strode forward. With him came three others, Irene’s fluent German and the parade attitude assumed by Franz having aroused their curiosity.
“You used to have a good memory for descriptions of ‘wanteds,’ Georg. Can you recall the names and appearance of the English captain and the girl there was such a fuss about at Argenteau a month ago?”
Georg, a strongly-built, rather jovial-looking Hanoverian, grinned.
“Better than leaving things to guess-work, I have it in my pocket,” he said. “I copied it at the Kommandantur. A thousand marks are worth a pencilled note, my boy. Halves, if these are they!”
Dalroy knew then that he, and possibly Irene, were doomed. A struggle was impossible. Franz’s reference to Oosterzeele being in German occupation forbade the least hope of succour by a Belgian force. There was a hundred to one chance that Irene’s life might be spared, and he resolved to take it. It was pitiful to feel the girl trembling, and he gave her arm an encouraging squeeze.
Georg was fumbling in the breast of his tunic, when he seemed to realise that it was raining heavily.
“Why the devil stand out here if we’re going to hold a court of inquiry?” he cried. Evidently, the iron discipline of the German army was somewhat relaxed in the Death’s-Head Hussars.
“Go to the barn,” commanded Franz. “And, mind, you pig of an Englishman, no talking till you’re spoken to!”
Dalroy wondered why the man allowed him to assist Irene; but such passing thoughts were as straws in a whirlwind. He bent his wits to the one problem. He was lost. Could he save her? Heaven alone would decide. A poor mortal might only pray for guidance as to the right course.
Inside the tumbledown barn the light was bad, so the prisoners were halted in the doorway, and a score of troopers gathered around. They were not, on the whole, a ruffianly set. Every man bore the stamp of a trained soldier; the device of a skull and cross-bones worked in white braid on their hussar caps gave them an imposing and martial aspect.
“Here you are!” announced the burly Georg, producing a frayed sheet of paper. “Let’s see – there’s six of ’em. Henri Joos, miller, aged sixty-five, five feet three inches. Elizabeth Joos, his wife, aged forty-five. Léontine Joos, daughter, aged nineteen, plump, good-looking, black eyes and hair, clear complexion, red cheeks. Jan Maertz, carter, aged twenty-six, height five feet eight inches, a Walloon, strongly built. Arthur Dalroy, captain in British army, about six feet in height, of athletic physique, blue eyes, brown hair, very good teeth, regular features. An English girl, name unknown, aged about twenty, very good-looking, and of elegant appearance and carriage. Eyes believed brown, and hair dark brown. Fairly tall and slight, but well-formed. These latter (the English) speak German and French. The girl, in particular, uses good German fluently.”
“Click!” ejaculated Franz, imitating the snapping of a pair of handcuffs. “Shave that fellow, and rig out the lady in her ordinary togs, and you’ve got them to the dots on the i’s. Who are the first two for patrol?”
A couple of men answered.
“Sorry, boys,” went on Franz briskly, “but you must hoof it to Oosterzeele, and lay Jan Maertz by the heels. You saw him, I suppose? You may even pick him up on the road. If you do, bring him back here. – Georg, ride into Oombergen, show an officer that extract from the Argenteau notice, and get hold of a transport. These prisoners are of the utmost importance.”
Irene, who lost no syllable of this direful investigation, had recovered her self-control. She turned to Dalroy. Her eyes were shining with the light which, in a woman, could have only one meaning.
“Forgive me, dear!” she murmured. “I fear I am to blame. I was selfish. I might have saved you– ”
“No, no, none of that!” interrupted the corporal. “You go inside, Fräulein. You can sit on a broken ladder near the door. The horses won’t hurt you. – As for you, Mr. Captain, you’re a slippery fellow, so we’ll hobble you.”
Dalroy knew it was useless to do other than fall in with the orders given. He did not try to answer Irene, but merely looked at her and smiled. Was ever smile more eloquent? It was at once a message of undying love and farewell. Possibly, he might never see her again. But the bitterness of approaching death, enhanced as it was by the knowledge that he should not have allowed himself to drift blindly into this open net, was assuaged in one vital particular. The woman he loved was absolutely safe now from a set of licentious brutes. She might be given life and liberty. When brought before some responsible military court he would tell the plain truth, suppressing only such facts as would tend to incriminate their good friends in Verviers and Huy. Not even a board of German officers could find the girl guilty of killing Busch and his companions, and this, he imagined, was the active cause of the hue and cry raised by the authorities. How determined the hunt had been was shown by the changed demeanour of the corporal. The man was almost oppressed by the magnitude of the capture. Dalroy was convinced that it was not the monetary reward which affected him. Probably this young non-commissioned officer saw certain promotion ahead, and that, to a German, is an all-sufficing inducement.
The prisoner’s hands were tied behind his back, and the same rope was adjusted around waist and ankles in such wise that movement was limited to moderately short steps. But Herr Franz did not hurt him needlessly. Rather was he bent on taking care of him. Throwing a cavalry cloak over the Englishman’s shoulders, he said, “You can squat against the wall and keep out of the rain, if you wish.”
Dalroy obeyed without a word. He felt inexplicably weary. In that unhappy hour body and soul alike were crushed. But the cloud lifted soon. His spirit was the spirit of the immortals; it raised itself out of the slough of despond.
The day was closing in rapidly; lowering clouds and steady rain conspired to rob the sun of some part of his prerogatives. At seven o’clock it would be dark, whereas the almanac fixed the close of day at eight. It was then about half-past six.
Resolutely casting off the torpor which had benumbed his brain after parting from the woman he loved, Dalroy looked about him. The hussars, some twenty all told, reduced now to seventeen, since the messengers had ridden off without delay, were gathered in a knot around the corporal. Some of their horses were tethered in the barn, others were picketed outside.
Scraps of talk reached him.
“This will be a plume in your cap, Franz.”
“A thousand marks, picked up in a filthy hole like this! Almächtig!”
“What are they? Spies?”
“Didn’t you hear? They stabbed Major Busch with a stable fork. Jolly old Busch – one of the best!”
“And bayoneted two officers of the Westphalian commissariat, wounding a third.”
“The devil! Was there a fight?”
“Some of the fellows said Busch and the others must have been drunk.”
“Quite likely. I was drunk every day then.”
A burst of laughter.
“Lucky dog!”
“Ach, was! what’s the good of having been drunk so long ago? There isn’t a bottle of wine now within five miles.”
“Tell us then, Herr Kaporal, do we remain here till dawn?”
Dalroy grew faintly interested. It was absurd to harbour the slightest expectation of Jan Maertz bringing succour, but one might at least analyse the position, though the only visible road led straight to a firing-party.
“Those were our orders,” answered Franz. “Things may be altered now. You fellows haven’t grasped the real value of this cop. It wasn’t stated on the notice, but somebody of much more importance than any ordinary officer was interested in the girl being caught – she far more than the man.”
“Well, well! Tastes differ! A peasant like that!”
“You silly ass, she’s no peasant. That’s the worst of living in a suburb. You acquire no standard of comparison.”
These men were Berliners, and were amused by a sly dig at some locality which, like Koepenick, offered a butt for German humour.
“Hello! isn’t that a car?” said one.
There was silence. The thrumming of a powerful automobile could be heard through the patter of the rain.
“Attention!” growled Franz. A few troopers went to the picketed horses. The others lined up. A closed motor-car arrived. Its brilliant head-lights proclaimed the certain fact that the presence of Belgian troops in that locality was not feared. Dalroy recognised this at once, and forthwith dismissed from his mind the last shred of hope.
The chauffeur was a soldier. By his side sat the usual armed escort. Georg galloped up. Oombergen was only a mile and a half distant, and the road through the wood was in such a condition that the car was compelled to travel slowly.
A cloaked staff-officer alighted. The hussars stood stiff as so many ramrods. The new-comer took their salute punctiliously, but his tone in addressing the corporal was far from gracious.
“What’s this unlikely tale you’ve sent in to headquarters?” he demanded harshly.
“I don’t think I’m mistaken, Herr Hauptmann,” was the answer. “I’ve got that English captain and the lady wanted at Visé. They’ve practically admitted it.”
“Where are they?”
“The man is sitting there against the wall. The lady is in the barn. – Stand up, prisoner!”
Franz snatched away the cloak. Dalroy rose to his feet. He was smiling at the ruthlessness of Fate. He was still smiling when Captain von Halwig, of the Prussian Imperial Guard, flashed an electric torch in his face. It was unnecessary, perhaps, to render thus easy the task of recognition. But what did it matter? That lynx of a corporal was sure of his ground, and would refuse to be gainsaid even by a staff-officer and a Guardsman.
Von Halwig’s astonishment seemed to choke back any display of wrath.
“Then it is really you?” he said quietly in English.
“Yes,” replied Dalroy.
The torch was switched off. Dalroy’s eyes were momentarily blinded by the glare, but he heard an ugly chuckle.
“Where is the female prisoner?” said Von Halwig, with a formality that was as perplexing as his subdued manner.
“Here, Herr Hauptmann.”
The two entered the barn. So far as Dalroy could judge, no word was spoken. The torch flared again, remained lighted a full half-minute, and was extinguished.
Von Halwig reappeared, seemed to ponder matters, and turned to the corporal.
“Put the woman in my car,” he said. “Fall in your men, and be ready to escort me back to the village. You’ve done a good day’s work, corporal.”
“Two men have gone in pursuit of Jan Maertz, sir.”
“Never mind. They’ll have sense enough to come on to headquarters if they catch him. How is this Englishman secured?”
The jubilant Franz explained.
“Mount him on one of your horses. The trooper can squeeze in in front of the car. Has the female prisoner a dagger or a pistol?”
“I have not searched her, Herr Hauptmann.”
“Make sure, but offer no violence or discourtesy. No, leave this fellow here at present. I want a few words with him in private. Assemble your men around the car, and take the woman there now.”
Irene was led out. She paused in the doorway, and the corporal thought she did not know what she was wanted for.
“You are to be conveyed in the automobile, Fräulein,” he said.
But she was looking for Dalroy in the gloom. Before anyone could interfere, she ran and threw her arms around him, kissing him on the lips.
“Good-bye, my dear one!” she wailed in a heart-broken way. “We may not meet again on this earth, but I am yours to all eternity.”
“With these words in my ears I shall die happy,” said Dalroy. Her embrace thrilled him with a strange ecstasy, yet the pain of that parting was worse than death. Were ever lovers’ vows plighted in such conditions in the history of this gray old world?
Franz seized the girl’s arm. She knew it would be undignified to resist. Kissing Dalroy again, she whispered a last choking farewell, and suffered her guide to take her where he willed. She walked with stumbling feet. Her eyes were dimmed with tears; but, sustained by the pride of her race, she refused to sob, and bit her lower lip in dauntless resolve not to yield.
The rain was beating down now in heavy gusts. Von Halwig, if he had no concern for the comfort of the troopers, had a good deal for his own.
“Damn the weather!” he grunted. “Come into the bar. You can walk, I suppose?”
He turned on the torch, which was controlled by a sliding button, and saw how the prisoner was secured. Then he flashed the light into the interior of the barn. It was a ramshackle place at the best, and looked peculiarly forlorn after the rummaging it had undergone since the fight, a recent picket having evidently torn down stalls and mangers to provide materials for a fire. Part of a long sloping ladder had been consumed for that purpose, so that an open trap-door in the boarded floor of an upper storey was inaccessible. The barn itself was unusually lofty, running to a height of twenty feet or more. There were no windows. Some rats, tempted out already by the oats spilled from the horses’ nose-bags, scuttled away from the light. Through the trap-door the noise of the rain pounding on a shingle roof came with a curious hollowness.
Von Halwig did not extinguish the lamp, but tucked it under his left arm. He lighted a cigarette. With each movement of his body the beam of light shifted. Now it played on the wall, against which Dalroy leaned, because the cramped state of his arms was already becoming irksome; now it shone through the doorway, forming a sort of luminous blur in the rain, now it dwelt on the Englishman, standing there in his worn blouse, baggy breeches, and sabots, an old flannel shirt open at the neck, and a month’s growth of beard on cheeks and chin. The hat which Irene made fun of had been tilted at a rakish angle when the corporal removed the cloak. Certainly he was changed in essentials since he and the Guardsman last met face to face on the platform at Aix-la-Chapelle.
But the eyes were unalterable. They were still resolute, and strangely calm, because he had nerved himself not to flinch before this strutting popinjay.
“You wonder why I have brought you in here, eh?” began Von Halwig, in English.
“Perhaps to gloat over me,” was the quiet reply.
“No. Is it necessary? At Aix I was excited. The Day had come. The Day of which we Germans have dreamed for many a year. I am young, but I have already won promotion. I belong to an irresistible army. War steadies a man. But when we reach Oombergen you will be paraded before a crusty old General, and even I, Von Halwig of the staff, and a friend of the Emperor, may not converse with a spy and a murderer. So we shall have a little chat now. What say you?”
“It all depends what you wish to talk about.”
“About you and her ladyship, of course.”
“May I ask whom you mean by ‘her ladyship’?”
“Isn’t that correct English?”
“It can be, if applied to a lady of title. But when used with reference presumably to a young lady who is a governess, it sounds like clumsy sarcasm.”
“Governess the devil! With whom, then, have you been roaming Belgium?”
“Miss Irene Beresford, of course.”
“You’re not a fool, Captain Dalroy. Do you honestly tell me you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“That the girl you brought from Berlin is Lady Irene Beresford, daughter of the Earl of Glastonbury.”
There was a moment of intense silence. In some ways it was immaterial to Dalroy what social position had been filled by the woman he loved. But, in others, the discovery that Irene was actually the aristocrat she looked was a very vital and serious thing. It made clear the meaning of certain references to distinguished people, both in Germany and in England, which had puzzled him at times. Transcending all else in importance, it might even safeguard her from German malevolence, since the Teuton pays an absurd homage to mere rank.
“I did not know,” he said, and his voice was not so thoroughly under control as he desired.
Von Halwig laughed loudly. “Almächtig!” he spluttered, “our smart corporal of hussars seems to have spoiled a romance. What a pity! You’ll be shot before midnight, my gallant captain, but the lady will be sent to Berlin with the utmost care. Even I, who have an educated taste in the female line, daren’t wink at her. Has she never told you why she bolted in such a hurry?”
“No.”
“Never hinted that a royal prince was wild about her?”
“No.”
“Well, you have my word for it. Himmel! women are queer.”
“She has suffered much to escape from your royal prince.”
“She’ll be returned to him now, slightly soiled, but nearly as good as new.”
“I wish my hands were not tied.”
“Oh, no heroics, please. We have no time for nonsense of that sort. Is the light irritating you? I’ll put it here.”
Von Halwig stooped, and placed the torch on the broken ladder. Its radiance illumined an oval of the rough, square stones with which the barn was paved. Thenceforth, the vivid glare remained stationary. The two men, facing each other at a distance of about six feet, were in shadow. They could see each other quite well, however, in the dim borrowed light, and the Guardsman flicked the ash from his cigarette.
“You’re English, I’m German,” he said. “We represent the positive and negative poles of thought. If it hurts your feelings that I should speak of Lady Irene, let’s forget her. What I really want to ask you is this – why has England been so mad as to fight Germany?”
