CHAPTER III
THE CAPTIVE KAISER
When, on the night of that first bombardment, Horace Monroe struckacross the fields to take the river path homewards, the boy's spiritthrilled with a keen eagerness for the future. To his very finger-tipshe seemed to be a-quiver with life. Action and the clacking blare ofthe cannonade heightened his sensations.
Death had come near to him but it had not made him afraid, rather ithad given him a sense of exultation. He was still partly deaf from theshock of the shell-burst and to his memory was continually returningthe scene of Deschamps lying on the Embourg road, the blood tricklingfrom his forehead.
"It's hard luck for Deschamps, though," he muttered to himself, "to beput out of everything, without even having seen the fighting!"
This, the fact that his chum had been debarred from participation inthe Great War which seemed to be bursting over his head, loomed up toHorace as far more lamentable than the wreck of his chum's life and theruin of his ambitions to be an artist.
The footpath by the river, as the master had premised, was wellprotected. The Ourthe ran swiftly at the bottom of a wooded gully andthe path closely followed the windings of the stream. The shells,Horace thought, would scarcely reach him there. The boy's mind,however, was not running on personal danger, but he was reviewing thetangled skein of circumstances which the master had explained to him asforming the cause of the war.
Ah!
From far away came a sound like the crushing of tissue-paper, whichrapidly deepened and angered into a high droning hum suggestive of ahurricane of flying hornets.
A shell!
Facing it alone was a very different matter from when he had been withthe master. In a flash the boy realized the value of companionship inperil.
Choking suddenly in panic and with a prickling sense all over his bodyas though the blood had gone to sleep and would not run in his veins,Horace threw himself down on the soft ground. The shell seemed to becoming straight for where he lay. The air quivered like a violin-stringacross which a demon-bow was drawn. One--two seconds passed, eachapparently an hour long.
Then--a flash!
The shell had fallen on the other side of the river.
A frantic desire urged Horace to leap to his feet and run on, but hislegs refused to obey.
"My legs are cowards," said Horace, half aloud, "but I'm not. I'm goingto get up."
Yet he lay there, and lay there for some time. It was fear, and herecognized it, but the cool, moist earth of the forest was verywelcome. His forehead was hot and he rested it against the mulch of thefallen leaves.
Another shell buzzed in the distance.
Again the soft swish, again the loud hum and again the deafening crash,this time within the little valley of the river itself. Stones andearth flew in every direction. The boy could hear them snitch throughthe trees. He flattened himself closer to the ground.
With a certain tranquillity he watched the cloud of dust settling,not sure whether his inward quietness was the regaining of control or acertain numbness of the senses. Gradually he realized that it was theformer. This was the fourth shell which had struck quite near him andhe was still unhurt.
_French Official Photograph._
THE MODERN OGRE OF THE FOREST.
Mammoth French howitzer, well camouflaged in a dense wood.]
A strange sense of safety took possession of the boy. If four shellshad missed him, why not forty, why not four hundred?
With that thought, the strange fiber of life which welds will andmuscle into action resumed its course, like a wire when electriccontact is made, and Horace, ere he was aware, leaped to his feet andfound himself walking along the path again.
Where the shell had struck, he stopped. The hole was twenty feetacross. Dust was still sifting through the trees and the tearingradius of the steel splinters could be traced in the riven and mangledbranches overhead.
Then, in his new spirit of confidence, Horace laughed aloud.
"How could I be killed now?" he said aloud. "I've got those messages todeliver. A chap can't stop to think about himself when he's got a jobto do!"
Although he did not realize it, the lad had passed his baptism of fire,had learned the first great lesson of the battlefield--that only thosethings happen which are fated.
He broke into a smooth, easy run. The cloud lifted from his thoughts,the weakness from his body. A wonderful lightness and ease possessedhim, a joy, an exaltation. Life took on new values. He had fought outhis battle with himself, by himself, alone in the woods by the river,his teacher a high-explosive shell.
Again he heard the soft swish in the air, but, this time, the sound hada different character. Horace paused before throwing himself on theground for safety, for the sound did not grow louder. It came nearer,however, rustling like the flutter of great wings.
Certainly it could not be a shell.
Nearer and nearer came the uncertain fluttering sound until itwas directly overhead, and Horace, looking up, saw two amber eyesglittering in the fast-falling dark.
The pinions of the creature beat hard but with quick irregular strokeswhich failed to sustain the body, and down, down it came, strikingground heavily almost at the boy's feet.
The instinct of the chase welled up in the lad and he stretched out ahand to seize, but the bird sprang upwards from the ground, dealt him ablow in the face with its powerful wing and threw him headlong. At thesame time, it cluttered away through the bushes.
Thoroughly roused, now, Horace dived into the undergrowth after thebird. The huge creature turned and faced him, with a vicious croak.
A flash from one of the guns of Fort Embourg lighted up the scene.
Boy and bird faced each other, and, when he saw his opponent, the lad'spulse beat quick and high.
It was an eagle, a black eagle from the forest of Germany!
Was it a symbol? Was this a personification of the ravening invader?
He, Horace, had seen the first boy victim of the war; he, Horace, wouldmake the first prisoner. He set his determination to the task.
The baleful amber eyes followed the boy as he maneuvered round inthe deepening dark. Horace feared for his face, for he knew that theeagle's method of attack would be an endeavor to peck his eyes out. Inthe faint light that remained, the bird's wings gave it the advantage,even though the fluttering fall suggested injury.
The boy slipped off his coat.
Advancing imperceptibly, inch by inch, until he felt that he waswithin reach, suddenly Horace threw himself forward, holding his coatoutstretched before him as he fell with all his weight on the eagle.
The rending beak and talons of the savage bird entangled in theyielding cloth. Horace, dragged over the ground by his captive'sstruggles, felt blindly with his hands until he grasped the creature'sneck.
"I meant to strangle it, then and there," said Horace, when telling thestory afterwards, "but when I got hold of the neck, I found I couldn'tchoke it because of the layers of cloth. All my squeezing didn't seemto do any good. Then I thought that it might be more fun if I broughthim in alive, but it was a tussle!"
The struggle lasted long and, before the bird was mastered, its talonshad scored the boy's thigh. None the less, he succeeded in pinning thefierce beak and talons into the coat and tying the sleeves together insuch wise that the bird was tightly nipped. Thus triumphant, he set outwith his capture. It was not long until he reached the Tilff road andturned off towards his home.
The flickering light from the flaming streaks of the guns of FortEmbourg gave the outlines of the village houses a queer look ofunreality and Horace received a sudden shock.
How long was it--how many days, how many weeks--since he had passed bythe school in that walk to Liege in the twilight? Not, surely not thesame day, only three hours before! Three hours! Yes, three hours ofexperience, more than three years of untroubled boyhood life.
He had gone out of Beaufays seeking, as a matter of excitement, tosee something of the war. He returned, one who had
been under fire,a bearer of war tidings, ready to fight for Belgium. He had learned,besides, the soldier's fatalism which keeps him from flinching becauseof the belief that he will not be shot as long as he has his work to do.
From the task of notifying the parents of Deschamps he shrank.
If only his father were there! Horace was proud of his father,regarding him as the ideal of what he would like to be himself. It wasone of his greatest sorrows that his father spent only half his timein Belgium, where he represented the interests of certain Americanmanufacturers. He was expected back on the first of September, but thatwas nearly a month away.
On his way through the village, Horace met Croquier, the hunchback. Hetold his news.
"And what's queer about the bird," he said, "is that it seems to haveone wing shorter than the other."
Croquier stopped dead.
"Is it the left wing?"
Horace thought for a moment.
"Yes," he answered, "I think it is."
"Show!"
Cautiously the boy loosened his grip, and, in the light from the guns,displayed his prize.
The eyes of the hunchback burned. He caught the lad eagerly by the arm.
"But you must tell Mme. Maubin at once!" he cried. "At once!"
"Why?" protested Horace, hanging back.
"She must know. She is the wise woman!" the other spluttered in hisexcitement. "She sees unseen things. She hears the voices of thefuture! Come! Come quickly!"
He half-led, half-dragged the boy on.
The hunchback's excitement was infectious. Besides, Horace rememberedthat he had a message to give.
The master's wife was standing a step or two from the door of herhouse. The window was open and the lamplight, shining through, fell onher spare figure. Few people were asleep in Beaufays that first nightthat red-eyed War stalked abroad.
"I hear footsteps that bear a message," she said, peering into thedarkness as they approached.
"It is I, Madame, Horace Monroe," the boy answered.
"You carry news of disaster and triumph on your shoulders," shedeclaimed, "disaster that has been, triumph that is to come."
"I--I don't know, Madame," the boy replied, hesitatingly, surprised anda little afraid of this oracular form of address.
"Show her your capture!" ejaculated the hunchback, in a hard fiercewhisper.
Horace stepped forward into the oblong of light shed by the lampshining through the open window.
The woman advanced swiftly and looked down at the bird, which, pinnedunder the boy's arm, snapped at her viciously.
She looked long and movelessly.
"The Eagle of Germany!" she said at last, "hungry and exhausted,vanquished and a captive in Belgium."
"The left wing is withered," put in Croquier, but she did not seem tohear.
"Your news?" she asked, not turning to the boy but staring fixedly atthe eagle, which glared at her evilly.
"M. Maubin is safe, Madame," the boy began, with a blunt desire to givegood news first.
"Yes," she said, "as yet. But he will not return."
Horace jumped at this repetition of the master's prophecy.
"Deschamps--"
"I warned them that the lad would suffer. He is dead?"
"No, Madame, but he was struck by a splinter of shell, and--" the wordsstuck in his throat.
"Yes?" she queried, gently.
"The doctor says he will be totally blind, Madame!"
The bird croaked harshly, as though with a laugh of evil satisfaction.It never took its eyes from the woman nor did she relax her gaze uponthe bird.
"So," she said, "he is blind, my husband has gone to his death, andyou, an American, return safe, bearing a captive."
The woman's figure stiffened, as though in a trance.
The hunchback clenched the boy's arm in a grip so powerful that he haddifficulty in repressing a cry.
"Listen to every word," warned Croquier.
Even the bird ceased struggling against his bonds, only the rumble ofthe cannonade and the irregular crashes of the replying guns rippingapart the stillness.
"It is much," the woman said at last, in a faraway voice, "for theFates to show on the first day of the war. Look you," she continued,"the signs are clear.
"Our own dear Belgium will suffer, will suffer so terribly that formany years to come she will grope among the nations as one that hasbeen blinded, but not as one that has lost courage or is mortally hurt.France will suffer, even unto death, but her spirit will be undefeatedto the last. Germany shall come fluttering down to ruin only whena young America throws herself upon a famished and half-exhaustedGermany."
Croquier listened with arrested breath. To him, every word of theprophecy was a gospel.
"Then America will come to the aid of Belgium, Madame?" the boyqueried, eagerly.
The woman did not reply. She tottered back and rested her hand heavilyupon the window-sill, as though her strength were spent.
Horace moved restlessly, with a certain disquieting fear of thesupernatural, although his heedless American nature disregardedsuperstition. Could it be true that one might look into the future?
The woman spoke again.
"Croquier," she said, "you are a Frenchman. Take you the captive Kaiserwith his withered pinion. See that it does not escape. You understand?It must never escape. Look you! Never!"
"Never!" said the hunchback, in a deep solemn voice that registered avow.
Horace hesitated. A boyish pride held him back. The bird was his prize.He wanted to show his captive to the school, and, perhaps, brag alittle of his exploit. Suppose Croquier should let the bird escape!Then he remembered the hunchback's phenomenal strength and felt amomentary shame at his own desire to boast.
"You may not keep the bird, American boy," said the woman, "it is notfor you. To win, but not keep, so runs the future."
"Give me the bird!" The hunchback's voice was rasping and authoritative.
Horace turned and held out the eagle.
The hunchback took it in his iron grip, catching the boy's hand withit. The clench was like a vise.
"You've my hand!" the boy cried out.
The grip relaxed. Horace withdrew his fingers. They were bruised asthough he had been caught in a closing door.
"You'll kill the bird," said Horace, "if you grip it that way."
"I shall not kill the bird," boomed the hunchback. His tones becamesinister, "And it shall not escape!"
There was a gripping prescience in the scene: in the figure of themaster's wife, all in black, standing by the window, the light justcatching the side of her chalk-white face; in the twisted shoulderand large head of the powerful hunchback; in the evil glitter of theeagle's amber eyes which, despite the change of owners, had not waveredfrom their intent malevolence upon the woman's face; in the overtonesof sullen wrath vibrating from the cannonade.
The silence became unendurable and Horace, uncomfortable in thetension, blundered into the breaking of it.
"Madame," he hazarded, "about Deschamps?"
She turned her head slightly to listen.
The boy had a sudden plan.
"If you could come with me to tell his folks?" he pleaded timidly.
The expression and manner of the master's wife changed on the instant.From the personification of vengeance, she turned to tenderness andsympathy.
"Dear lad," she said, at once, "it is a hard thing for you to do, is itnot? I will come at once. Shall I tell them, or will you?"
"If, Madame," begged Horace, "you could speak. I--I--" he broke off,with a lump in his throat. "You see, Madame, Deschamps and I werechums."
"I understand," she answered softly. "I will tell them, as gently asI can, and you will answer what they ask you. Is not that best?"
_Courtesy of "The Sphere."_
THE CHARGE IRRESISTIBLE.
Bengal lancers in the open warfare of the first few months driving theGermans before them like chaff before the wind.]
"Oh, Madame!"
His voice was full of thankfulness.
She sighed long and heavily.
"We shall soon grow accustomed to telling and hearing sad news inBelgium," she said. Then, turning to Croquier, she added, "You have thebird safe?"
"Safe as the grave!" boomed the hunchback in reply and disappeared intothe darkness.
The village street, usually so quiet at this hour, stirred feverishly.Lights glimmered in every house. One woman was kneeling at the foot ofthe great wooden cross which stood in the marketplace. Another came outfrom the church, weeping silently. Their husbands were in the army.
The boy's heart sank as he came up to the little house from which hehad started a few hours before with Deschamps and the master. He openedthe garden gate and Mme. Maubin entered. The click of the latch, asthe gate closed behind Horace, had been heard. The door opened andthe burly figure of Deschamps' father stood outlined. He welcomed themaster's wife with hearty hospitality. The woman said nothing, butentered the house. She went straight to the mother, who had risen toher feet and was standing by the table, a frightened look in her eyes.
"You are of Belgium, Madame?" the master's wife began.
The mother winced.
"But yes," she said.
"Then you will know how to be brave."
Mme. Deschamps' lips trembled.
"Is it my boy?" she asked anxiously, turning to Horace.
"He is not killed, Madame," said the boy, chokingly.
"He is hurt! He is dying!"
"No, Madame," Horace answered, "the doctor said that he would soon getwell. But--"
The master's wife intervened.
"Your son will need you now more than ever before," she said softly."He is not lost to you. He is closer to you."
The mother struggled for composure.
"He is crippled?"
"He is blind, Madame," said Horace.
She staggered back a step and steadied herself with a hand on the table.
"My boy! My boy! Blind!" she cried.
No one moved. The distant guns beat their menace more insistently intothe room.
"M. Maubin told me to say," added Horace, in a low voice, "that he bidyou remember that your son was Belgium's first boy hero."
"Where is he?" broke in the father.
"At Embourg, Monsieur, at the house of Dr. Mallorbes."
"I will go see him. Tell me exactly how it happened."
So Horace, overcoming his embarrassment in the sight of the mother'scourage, told the story of the bursting shell, of the splinter whichstruck the boy's forehead and of the removal to the doctor's house.Then he told of the surgeon's work and, finally, of the departure forLiege and his own return.
It was late before the boy had finished his story and he was beginningto drop with sleep. Moreover, he expected that all his adventures wouldhave to be recounted anew at home, where, possibly, his old maid auntwould have begun to grow nervous over his non-return.
Leaving Deschamps' house, relieved of the strain of telling his tale ofsorrow, Horace sank under a terrible fatigue. The sound of the gunsrapped at his brain and the night air was heavy with the pulsing ofevil destiny. He stumbled with weariness as he reached his own house,glad to find the place dark and his aunt asleep. Evidently, his returnwas not expected.
The boy's rest was troubled and disturbed by dreams of war. He wakenedin the morning, stiff and sore, wondering where he was and what hadhappened. The tumult of the shells bursting on Fort Embourg, a mileaway, brought all back to his remembrance. Besides, through the morninghaze, which bore promise of a sultry day, a vicious drumming which hadnot been audible the night before betrayed itself to the lad's instinctas rifle-fire. He got up and dressed hurriedly.
His aunt was already seated at breakfast and was surprised at seeingthe boy, for she had not heard her nephew's entrance the night before.Though eager to get out into the village and learn the news, Horacewas compelled to tell the night's doings in detail, but his aunt wasutterly unable to realize the significance of the breaking-out of war.Having lived nearly all her life in the United States, she was unableto grasp the serious importance of European alliances. Moreover, shepossessed to the full a certain American love of words and Horacecould not make her see that the time for speechmaking had gone by.Being, herself, always ready to bluff a little, she suspected the samein every one else. The guns, thundering near by, did not disturb herconfidence a whit.
"Of course they'll fire a few rifles and shoot off some guns," shesaid, "that's always done for effect. But the governments will gettogether and fix it up; you'll see."
The boy groaned inwardly at this slack belief in the policy of "fixingthings up" which he knew so well, but he replied, earnestly,
"I don't think so, Aunt Abigail, from what the master told us. Hethinks it's going to be a big war, like the kind you read about inhistory."
"Nonsense," retorted the old maid, sententiously. "The world has gotmuch too civilized for people to go around killing each other. Finishyour breakfast!"
Horace knew that there was little likelihood of changing the ideas ofAunt Abigail. Though kindly and generous at heart, in spite of herbrusque ways, she belonged to that class of Americans which is honestlyconvinced that everything in the New World is progressive and soundand that everything in the Old World is backward and decaying.
"Did you say that the schoolmaster had gone to the war?" she asked.
"Yes, Aunt."
The old maid sniffed.
"More fool he," she said crisply; "he's old enough not to get romantic.What's going to be done with the school?"
"That's all been arranged," the boy replied, without explainingfurther, for he knew that his aunt would regard the master's action as"high-falutin and romantic."
"Well, you'd better get ready," she said sharply, "though I don't seehow you can do much study with all the noise those forts are making. Ishould have thought they'd have had sense enough to build them fartheraway from where folks live."
"Aunt," said Horace, "suppose the Germans should take Beaufays?"
"Well, what about it?"
"If they burn the houses and steal everything and kill everybody and--"
"Get along with your foolishness," his aunt replied. "I've known plentyof Germans. They weren't much different from any other kind of humansI ever saw. Burn and steal and murder? What next! Get on to school,Horace, or you'll be late."
The boy put on his cap and left the house.
The air was heavy with the smell of powder, drifting from thenot-distant bombardment. Groups of villagers and peasants loiteredaimlessly about the streets. Work was at a standstill. One of the oldmen called him.
"Was it you who caught the eagle?" he asked.
"Yes," Horace answered, "I caught him."
The old peasant chuckled with toothless gums.
"Perched on a pole he is," he said, "and we'll have the Kaiser himselfthere, presently."
"Where is the bird?" asked the boy.
"In front of the inn. Croquier's got it. He won't take his eyes off it."
A few steps brought Horace to the _estaminet_ and there, blinking inthe strong August sunlight, perched the eagle that he had captured thenight before. During the night an excessively strong cage had been madeof twisted strips of wrought iron. It would have resisted an elephant'sstrength. Welded into the top of the cage was a ring and to this ringwas fastened a steel chain. The end was clamped around Croquier'swrist.
So much, at least, ensured that the bird would not escape, but therewas a surer sign still, for Horace, looking on the hunchback'sface, saw the face of a man who had been transfigured. The savagepetulance, born of misfortune, had been replaced by an equally savagedetermination, born of confidence and trust. It did not need two looksto see that the man would be cut in pieces before he would betray histrust. He spoke as soon as the lad approached.
"I have been wondering," he said, "how you, with your little strength,managed to capture this bird. Bird! It is an evil spirit. I have neverseen a bird so strong,
and I know what is strength. Twice, last night,it tried to escape."
"How?" asked the boy.
"When I left you, I went home, put it in a huge cage of twisted wickerand closed my eyes, to see what would happen. I kept my fingers crookedfor action, though. I did not close my eyes for more than ten seconds.There was a cracking sound and when I opened my eyes, the cage was atangle of splinters and the bird was preening its wings to fly."
"But it can't fly!"
"I'm not so sure of that," the hunchback answered, "but it had nochance, my fingers were round its throat in a second. I had hard workto hold it and I am three, yes, ten times as strong as you.
"Then I put it in a wire frame in which a badger had once been kept.Its amber eyes glared, but it made no resistance. Again I closed myeyes, to tempt it, and when I opened them again, beak and talon hadriven the frame apart and the body was rasping through. I grappledit again. It pecked at me, almost reaching my eyes, but my hands arestrong, and it could not get away."
He looked down at his hands with a touch of pride.
"There's not another man in the village could have done it," he said.
"I believe that," said Horace, whose hand was still sore and bruisedfrom the grip of the day before. "What did you do then?"
"I went to my brother, the blacksmith.
"'Pierre!' I said to him, 'get up! Get up at once and light the fire inyour forge. We have a demon to cage.'
"'Are the Germans here?' he asked.
"'Come at once,' I said, 'you are needed.'
"So, when he came out, I showed him the bird and told him the words ofthe master's wife.
"'What do you want me to do?' he asked.
"'Make me a cage of bands of twisted iron,' I said, 'which would defythe beak and talon of Jupiter's eagle that wields the thunderbolts, andfinish it before daybreak.'
"So, all the long night through, I sat there in the forge, while thefetters were being made to hold this evil thing a prisoner. There is nobolt or screw in the cage, every bar is welded on the other, save forone intricate opening. Just before daylight it was done.
"'Good,' said I, 'now come with me to the cure, Pierre, and we willspeak to him.'"
"To the cure?" queried Horace, "why?"
"That was what my brother asked," the hunchback answered, "but to thechurch we went. The cure was there already, praying at the altar,though it was yet more than an hour before the service.
"'Bless me this cage, Monsieur le Cure,' I said to him, 'it has beenmade to hold an evil spirit, a demon, a German demon.'
"The cure looked at the eagle and crossed himself.
"'It is ill to traffic with demons, Croquier,' he said to me, 'but Ihave never heard of anything made by God or man which was the worse fora blessing. Give me the cage and I will bless it before the altar, asyou ask.'
"He blessed the cage and gave it back to me. I got ready to put thebird in it. There followed such a fight as I have never seen. Into thewicker cage the bird had gone willingly enough, I had put it into thewire frame without difficulty, but when I tried to put it into the cagethat the good priest had blessed, a thousand furies entered the bird'sblack heart and he fought with beak and claw as though he were inspiredby fiends. It took the three of us, the cure, my brother, and myself--"
"The cure helped you?" interrupted the boy, in surprise.
"He said it was the business of a churchman to fight demons, whetherin the spirit or in feathers," the hunchback answered, his hard facesoftening into a smile. "Together we forced it into the cage. There itis now and there it stays. My brother has riveted the door."
Horace looked at the bird.
"It certainly is curious," he said, "especially with that crippledleft wing. It does seem symbolic of the crippled left arm of theKaiser.[7] Perhaps it may be a prophecy. Perhaps Mme. Maubin's wordsmay come true. Perhaps America may have to join in the war!"
The hunchback nodded portentously.
"Her words will come true," he said. "I don't know what she will sayover the fact that the cure had to help us cage the bird. Will it turninto a Holy War?"
This was beyond Horace, but, just as he was about to answer, the "lastbell" pealed from the little school building down the street.
Croquier started.
"But I saw the schoolmaster going to Liege!" he cried. "The boy hasforgotten!"
"He hasn't forgotten," answered Horace; "I'll tell you about it afterschool," and dashed across the street lest he should be late.
The boys filed in quietly, with a profound solemnity. It is not easyto touch a boy's honor to the depth, but when it is reached, andespecially when no adult is present, it is a force more sensitive andmore ruthless than that of any man or woman. Which fact the master knew.
When the bell had stopped ringing, there was a moment's hesitation, forthe masterless boys knew scarcely how to begin. Horace, rising in hisseat, told the school the master's message and spoke of the blinding ofDeschamps. A deft word led the boys to a voluntary resumption of theirclass-work.
One lad, less responsive to the spirit of boy-honor, whispered to hisneighbor.
A roar of anger burst over the school and the culprit slunk intohis book. It is not good to awake the primitive and rude justice ofself-governing boys.
In spite of the distracting influence of the continuous bombardment,the morning passed without incident. Some of the boys wandered in theirattention and many shuffled restlessly, but the sense that each onewas on honor kept them in hand and the school dismissed itself at theregular hour, proud of its own accomplishment of self-control.
That evening Horace found his aunt in defiant mood.
"While you were at school to-day," she said, "the mayor came to tellme to go away, either to Brussels or Antwerp, where, perhaps, I couldescape to America."
"And what did you say, Aunt Abigail?" the boy asked anxiously.
The old maid tossed back her head.
"I told them that the little finger of the American minister inBrussels was stronger than Germany a dozen times over. I told him thatthe United States wasn't looking for trouble, but was perfectly willingto whip any one when necessary. I said we could whip our weight inwild-cats, and we can.
"Then he had the nerve to talk the way you talked this morning. He saidthat the Germans would commit all sorts of horrible atrocities if theybroke through Liege. I told him that just as I didn't think the Germanswere fools enough to fight with Americans, so I didn't think they werebrutes enough to fight against women and children."
"What did the mayor say to that?" queried the boy, regretting that hehad not heard the discussion.
"He didn't tell me I was a fool, but I could see he thought I was, andI didn't tell him he was a fool, but he could see I thought he was, sothe matter stopped at that."
"But, Aunt Abigail," said Horace, puzzled between the truth in themaster's words and the grain of truth in his aunt's ideas, "suppose thearmy runs amuck and the officers can't control it?"
"Then it isn't much of an army," she snapped back. "I hear a lot oftalk about discipline. If the officers can't keep the men from turninginto savages, the way you and the mayor think they will, then it's timea war came along for somebody to beat sense into their heads. Not thatthat has anything to do with it. I told your father I'd be here when hecame back, and it'll take more than a fight between two of these littleEuropean countries--which we could tuck into the State of Texas withoutnoticing it--to make me break my word."
Horace realized the ignorant narrowness of his aunt's position. He hadoften deplored the arrogant Americanism which estranged her foreignfriends. It hurt him, sometimes, when his schoolfellows made fun ofAmerica's boastfulness and bluff, for he knew that many of theircriticisms were just. At the same time, he knew, too, that there weremany things in America wherein his country was superior to Europe. And,while he raged inwardly at his aunt's prejudices, he could not butadmire her pluck.
"Lots of people are leaving to-night," he ventured.
"I know. I've been h
elping them to pack. Some of them have gone withnothing more than the clothes they stood in, others wanted to carrytheir house, yes, their gardens, too, I reckon, on their backs. Suchweeping and making a to-do I never saw. I'm not criticizing any one,understand, only--I stay. Do you want to go?"
"No," said Horace, "I stay, too."
"Good thing," she said, tartly; "I'd hate to see any nephew of mineshow a yellow streak."
Horace spent a large part of that night in helping householders whohad decided to flee from the German advance, every one having beenwarned by the mayor. Hardly any one slept that night in Beaufays. Upto midnight and after, the roads were thronged with the people of thelittle village, escaping for their lives. Every horse in the villageor on the farms around was hitched to the largest vehicle that itcould draw, while many walked, carrying their goods. It was the firstinstallment of that host of misery which, for the next month, crowdedBelgium from Liege to the sea. All night the bombardment grew heavierand heavier, and, toward morning, heavy cannonading to the west toldthat the fort of Boncelles was being attacked. Beaufays, lying justoutside the line of defense, as yet had seen no other evidence of thebattle than the drifting clouds of smoke by day and the flashes of fireby night.
Breakfast-time came on the morning of August 6 in the little villageof Beaufays, the last breakfast its citizens would eat under their ownflag for many a weary year. Horace was just finishing his meal when abugle-call rent the air, followed by the clattering of horses' hoofs.He jumped up and went to the door.
"Aunt! Aunt! The Germans!" he called.
A party of Uhlans, lances raised, magnificently mounted and lookingsoldierly, every inch of them, scouted in advance. The officer incommand summoned the mayor of the village and informed him that thevillage was in German hands. He ordered that every door be left openso that the houses might be searched for arms. The mayor had noalternative but to comply.
A short distance behind the cavalry came a company of cyclists andthen the ground shook under the short slow tread of the infantry,swinging along the Verviers road.
Horace stood at the cottage door watching what was, at that time, oneof the most perfect examples of human organization that the world hadseen--the march of the German invading army. These troops had not seenaction. As yet, they were not a fighting army, they were advancing intothe plains of Belgium, to take up the forward charge when the fallof the Liege forts would enable the establishment of a sound line ofcommunication.
In these marching men, there was no hint of parade. These troops wereprepared for war. They swung along by tens, by hundreds, by thousands,by tens of thousands, grimly organized and made for slaughter. Theeye reeled with the steady onward motion, the brain dizzied with theponderous human force of it all. These were not a part of Von Emmich'sadvance divisions, which were busily engaged in the effort to reduceLiege, but divisions of the great army under General Von Kluck. Though,probably, less than a division passed Beaufays, to Horace it seemedthat all the soldiers in the world were in iron-gray uniforms andpouring through the village street in front of him.
_Courtesy of "The Sketch."_
A MAMMOTH GERMAN WAR CAR.
The terror of the road, armored with 6-inch Krupp steel, shell-proof,carrying 120 men and two 4.7-inch quick-firers; speed 25 miles perhour.]
Rank by rank, company by company, regiment by regiment, weapons ofdeath at their sides, messages of death in their cartridge belts,thoughts of death in their hearts, they passed, all dressed in theearthly iron-gray which betokened that the death they gave they wouldhave to face and that it were well to be as protectively concealed aspossible.
Rank by rank, company by company, regiment by regiment, the sunglinting on their field equipment, the sun burning the frames alreadywearied by the march from garrisons in Germany, the sun waiting to turnthe slain bodies of those marching men to sights of which a soldiereven fears to dream, years after the war is over.
By tens, by thousands, by tens of thousands they came. The details oforganization were incredible. Waiting for each column to pass were menwith buckets of drinking water into which the men dipped their aluminumcups. Temporary field post-offices were established so that messagescould be gathered as the armies passed and forwarded back to Germany.Here and there men passed out handfuls of biscuits and prunes.
The infantry strode through in heavy marching order, many of them lameand footsore, heads and beards shaved under the spiked helmets, bearingthe look of bestial stolidity which is the inseparable result of thedeliberately brutalizing German discipline.
Two trucks passed by with cobblers at work on the march. When asoldier's shoes wore out on the road, he dropped out of rank, mountedthe running board of the cobbler's truck until he received back hisfoot-gear, mended.
Machine-gun companies accompanied the infantry, sprinkled with a fewquick-firers of 2.6-inch caliber, easy to man-handle in action, firing15 shots a minute. Secondary batteries of this arm also accompanied theheavy artillery.
Behind the infantry came the field artillery, in which, at this time,the German Army was weaker than the armies of the other powers.The field gun was the .96NA, corresponding closely to the British15-pounder which had been discarded, save for the Territorial Army. Itcould not be compared to the famous French "Soixante-Quinze," the mostmarvelous of all field-guns, with a 2.9-inch (75 mm.) caliber and themost mobile weapon known.[8]
On the other hand, the light field howitzers of 4.1-inch caliberand the heavier field howitzers of 5.9-inch caliber were far inadvance of those of any other army. They were modern, formidable andadmirably handled. This 5.9-inch howitzer shared with the French"Soixante-Quinze" the dubious honor of being the most death-dealingweapon of the war.
Following upon the light artillery came the heavy artillery, with8.4- and 11-inch howitzers. Parts of a heavy siege train followed.Behind that, again, came the ammunition and provision columns, heavyhorses attached to sections of pontoons for bridges, huge motor plowsfor excavating trenches, field hospitals, field motor repair shops,field forges and field kitchens of every sort. Behind these, again,came motor busses for the officers of the staff, whom Horace could seestudying their road maps within, and high-powered automobiles for themilitary commanders. The stamping of the tens of thousands of feet, ofthe horses' hoofs, the grinding of the wheels, and the pounding of thecaterpillar treads filled the air with a cloud of dust through whichthe army marched as though it had lungs of steel.
A small detachment, by prearranged orders, was detailed to search andoccupy the village. Few resisted, but the spirit of Belgium was to findat least one exemplar.
At the door to her house stood Mme. Maubin. A soldier entered thehouse, went up-stairs, pulled things into general confusion, and left.Swiftly the woman reached from the outside through the open window,struck a match and set the fluttering window-curtains ablaze. Inseconds the flames blazed up and threatened the house.
The officer in command sharply ordered his men to put out the fire,then turned to the master's wife.
"Why did you do that?" he asked.
"Because the house was defiled by a German foot," she answered.
The officer ground his teeth and turned away. Not for a few days yetdid the Hun want to show his hand. Germany wanted first to seize thetelegraph lines and means of communication before slipping the leash onthe brute instincts of mankind.
"I suppose they'll want to search this house," Aunt Abigail remarkedwhen the army had passed and the news was spread abroad that asearch-party had been left behind to take possession of the village.
"Why, of course, Aunt, they're sure to," the boy replied.
"Well, they won't!"
She pointed to the Stars and Stripes which she had hung out over herdoor.
"I'm going to lock my door," she announced, "and never mind aboutany of their old regulations or military rules. If any German triesto break in under Old Glory, he'll be sorry he started. We've lickedEngland twice and we'd lick Germany just as easy."
Several times since h
is aunt had come to keep house after his mother'sdeath three years before, Horace had disputed this highly inaccuratehistorical reference, but always uselessly. He let the point pass by.
"They may respect the flag," he said, "but suppose they don't?"
The old maid faced him.
"There's been a power of soldiers gone by this morning, hasn't there?"she retorted. "Well, if the whole lot of them were drawn up in frontof my house and they all shouted together 'Open the door!' I wouldn'topen it. So there!"
Horace laughed admiringly. Decidedly his aunt had grit. The passage ofthe German Army had not shaken her nerve a scrap.
"Well, Aunt," he said, "if that's the way you feel about it, there's noneed for me to stay. I've got to go to school."
"If you take care of yourself as well as I can take care of myself,there'll be no trouble," quoth she, and went back to wash her breakfastdishes as nonchalantly as though a detachment of men were not searchingcottage after cottage.
When, a little later, there came a knock at the door, she went andlooked out. The officer spoke to her in French.
Aunt Abigail, who, in the three years that she had been in the country,had only learned enough French to do her marketing, answered,
"Talk English!"
"Are you English?" the officer demanded in that tongue, a look of hateon his face.
"Is that an English flag?" she replied testily.
"We have come to search the house," said the officer and strodeforward.
"Search nothing!" declared Aunt Abigail. "This is an American house!"and she slammed the door in his face.
There was a heated conference outside between the German officer andthe mayor, but the result was that the search-party passed on. Thetelegraph lines were not yet closed and Germany was still trying tokeep the friendship of the United States.
Meantime, school had opened with but few boys present, for almost halfof the boys had fled with their families, and many of those remaininghad been kept at home by their frightened parents. As the morning woreon, however, a few of the boys came straggling in. Jacques Oopsdiel,the bell-ringer, the youngest boy in the school, was one of those whohad remained. The lads struggled hard to keep discipline under thestrong spirit of the placard on the master's chair, but the excitementof the morning had been too great and little work was done.
Suddenly, an ominous figure darkened the wide-open door.
"What is this--a school?" the officer of the search-party asked, inGerman.
"Yes," answered Horace, taking the lead, as head boy, now thatDeschamps was no longer there, but answering in French.
"Where is your schoolmaster?"
"At Liege."
Horace ached to add that he was probably aiding in the defense of theforts but thought that such a statement might bring vengeance on theschool, and so he desisted.
"But where is the schoolmaster who is teaching you now?"
"In his chair!" replied Horace, a trifle defiantly.
The officer strode in, followed by six of his men. He clanked up to thechair and read the word on the placard. With a German oath he tore itoff, threw it on the floor and ground it under his heel. Then he pickedup a piece of chalk and wrote heavily on the blackboard the word:
DEUTSCHLAND
"There," he said. "That is your master now!"
Jacques Oopsdiel, the little lad, who was known throughout the villagefor his obstinate Holland ways, slipped off his chair. Without a wordto any one, in absolute disregard of the German officer and the sixsoldiers, he took the sponge and erased the offending word.
"M. Maubin said before he went away," he declared in his high-pitchedchildish voice, "that no one was to write on the blackboard without hispermission."
In the astonished silence that followed he returned to his seat.
The officer growled audibly, but he was only empowered to search forarms and had received strict instructions not to allow any violence tothe civilian population until the invasion was actually accomplished.So, swearing vengeance on the school in general and on Jacques inparticular, he did not order the child slain on the spot--as he wouldhave done had it been a week later--but smothered his wrath and walkedout.
The placard, showing the nail-marks of the invader's heel, was replacedon the master's chair, but it was out of the question to expect thatthe school could settle down to work after such intrusion. Jacqueswas the hero of the hour, and Horace, though he feared trouble wouldresult, said nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of his fellows.
The next day witnessed the deepening of the hate between the invadersand the villagers. The story of the "captive Kaiser" had been spreadabroad and, wherever the Germans went, the prophecy was dinned intotheir ears. Wherever they went, jeers and allusions greeted them, foras yet the people of Beaufays did not realize what malice the Germansbrooded. The erection of a field hospital not far from the borders ofthe village increased the friction, for there the Germans saw theirwounded being brought in such countless numbers that they could notbe accommodated. The wounded were billeted in many of the houses ofthe village and such of the men and women as remained in Beaufays wereordered about like slaves.
Each succeeding day the cloud fell blacker. German surgeons andhospital orderlies strode here and there with kick and curse. Steel wasdrawn several times. And still, everywhere, the story of the "captiveKaiser" percolated, yet, though every house was searched over and overagain, no trace of the crippled eagle could be found. Each day therestraint upon the soldiers grew slacker and deeds grew more reckless.The inn-keeper, who had asked for payment of wine drunk by an officer,was answered by a swordslash across his face. As yet no murder hadbeen done, but savagery lurked in eye and lip.
One morning, a proclamation was posted on the village walls. It read:
The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having declared their peaceful intentions, have made a surprise attack on our troops.
It is with my consent that the Commander-in-chief has ordered the whole town to be burned and that about one hundred people have been shot.
I bring this fact to the knowledge of the City of Liege, so that citizens of Liege may realize the fate with which they are menaced if they adopt a similar attitude.
The General Commanding in Chief VON BUELOW.
From that morning on, terror ruled. Human wolves, emboldened byofficial permission, wrought whatever crime they would in Beaufays.The Germans, checked before Liege and held up to the world's scornby a handful of Belgian soldiers, took their vengeance on women andchildren, on the aged and on babies alike.
Aunt Abigail, though doubting the evidence of her senses, was compelledto admit that the hysteria of blood had changed the bodies inside thoseiron-gray uniforms and made them something other than human beings. Itwas the were-wolf come again.
"These are not men," she said, to Horace, one dreadful night, "they aremaddened machines marked with the Mark of the Beast."
On Saturday, August 15, the eastern forts fell and the troops whichhad been billeted in Beaufays received orders that they were to marchwestward the next day, but, before they left, they were given fullliberty to ravage the village as they would.
The orgy of devastation began. The soldiers racked and pillaged everyhouse, seizing every valuable article they could find and committingacts so vile that they cannot be told. They came, at last, to the houseof Mme. Maubin. Remembering her defiance, the officer in command, incruel jest, bade his men leave the house unpillaged and as they drewback in surprise at this unexpected mercy, he added,
"But she wished her house burned down!"
His men grinned comprehension.
With the special incendiary fuses and bags of compressed powderofficially served out to the German soldiers for their work of"frightfulness," they set fire to the house, men with fixed bayonetsbeing stationed at the door to drive the master's wife back into theflames should she try to escape.
Horace heard
the cries of the woman, as she was being burned alive,and, boy though he was, vowed to avenge her.
The horrors of the day continued under a sky like blue-hot steel.The heat was terrific and rendered hotter by the flaming houses ofthe village. The wild delirium of license gleamed in the eyes of thesoldiers. The school was among the buildings set on fire. It was theofficer's poor revenge.
Late in the afternoon, darting out from some hiding-place, probablychased by the flames, suddenly the hunchback shot across the streetcarrying the black eagle which had been sought so long. At the sight ofthe iron cage a shout of rage went up. The officer would have orderedhis men to fire, but the superstition that this might be regarded as anevil omen seized him. The "captive Kaiser" must be rescued, not killed.
"After him, men!" he cried.
The soldiers, most of them drunk and all of them blind with blood andfire, raced after the hunchback.
Into the open door of the church the fugitive turned--and disappeared.
The soldiers stormed in after him in a transport of fury andexpectation, but the church was empty save for the figure of the curestanding at the altar. They searched for the hunchback, but he wasnowhere to be seen. They threatened the cure, but he made no answer.
Then a corporal, avarice overcoming revenge, seeing a gold cross on thechurch wall above the pulpit, rushed up the pulpit steps and laid handon it.
A "click" resounded through the church.
The cure said, quietly,
"The first man who robs the Church, dies, and dies with the sin on hishead."
The words rolled down in German--the first German words ever spokenfrom those altar steps.
A peal of thunder crashed overhead and the soldiers paused as theygazed at the dimly-lit figure of the priest, standing in the chancel,in full vestments but--strange contrast--with a pistol in his hand.
The moment passed and then the corporal, with a rude oath, laid bothhands on the cross and tore it from the wall.
There came a quick report and a cry.
While one might count five, the corporal stood erect, holding thecross, then slowly his body sank, collapsed, crumpled in a heap and hefell huddled down the pulpit steps--dead.
A howl of rage answered the shot and a dozen men rushed forward andleaped over the altar rail. The cure made no resistance and a bayonetthrust through his shoulder pinned him to the ground.
"Why did you shoot?" cried the officer, stamping his foot angrily.
The cure looked up calmly.
"Shall a man be less a patriot for his Church than for his country?" heasked, simply.
"Drag him out!" came the order.
In the market place, a few steps from the church, stood the greatwooden cross. They dragged the cure there and set him against it,binding his hands.
Jacques Oopsdiel, who was one of the acolytes of the church, saw thecure, with the blood flowing over his white vestments, and ran forwardto him with a cry, throwing his arms about him.
A non-commissioned officer caught hold of the lad and tried to pull himfrom the priest.
The boy turned like a flash and put his teeth into the soldier's hand.
There was a glint of steel and a bayonet passed through the child'sbody. He fell at the feet of the priest.
Overhead, the sky grew darker.
The firing party took up its position.
"Fire!"
The villagers, such as dared to listen, heard the crackle of thevolley, but, before the sound died away, a vivid flash threw the sceneinto fierce relief, accompanied by a crash as though the vaults ofheaven had been smitten asunder.
In that one second's glare, those who watched saw the German officerleap upwards, writhing, and then fall, struck by the thunderbolt.
The thunder pealed on and rolled into the distance, as the figure ofthe cure, which had remained for a moment supported by the cross, felldead beside the moaning figure of the little acolyte.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] This happened in Alouville, on Dec. 11, 1914. The German eaglewith a deformed left wing fluttered down in an exhausted state intothe hands of a French gamekeeper. It was widely heralded as an omen ofvictory.
[8] Later (in 1915) the Germans added a 3.9-inch and a 5.1-inchfield-gun, with ranges of 6 and 8 miles respectively.