Princess Mary's Gift Book Part 17

"War no doubt inspires n.o.ble actions and brings out great qualities in men from whom you expected nothing. But there is another side to it which becomes apparent, not at once, but after a few months of campaigning. Your nerves get overstrained, fatigue and danger tell their tale. You lose your manners, sometimes you degenerate into a brute. I happen to know. Thirty years have pa.s.sed since the siege of Paris, yet even to-day there is no part of my life which I regret so much as the hours between eleven and twelve o'clock of Christmas night in the year 'seventy. I will tell you about it if you like, although the story may make us late for the opera."

"It will not matter if we are a little late," said his hostess, the Baroness Hammerstein, and her guests agreed with her.

"It is permitted to smoke?" asked the Colonel. For a moment the flame of a match lit up and exaggerated the hollows and the lines upon his lean, rugged face. Then, drawing in his chair to the table, he told his story.

I was a lieutenant of the fifth company of the second battalion of the 103rd Regiment, which belonged to the 23rd Infantry Division. It is as well to be exact. That division was part of the 12th Army Corps under the Crown Prince of Saxony, and in the month of December formed the south-eastern segment of our circle about Paris. On Christmas night I happened to be on duty at a forepost in advance of Noisy-le-Grand. The Centigrade thermometer was down to twelve degrees below zero, and our little wooden hut with the sloping roof, which served us at once as kitchen, mess-room, and dormitory, seemed to us all a comfortable shelter. Outside its door the country glimmered away into darkness, a great white silent plain of snow. Inside, the camp-bedsteads were neatly ranged along the wall where the roof was lowest. A long table covered with a white cloth--for we were luxurious on Christmas night--occupied the middle of the floor; in a corner stood a fine big barrel of Bavarian beer which had arrived that morning as a Christmas present from my mother at Leipzig. We were none of us anxious to turn out into the bitter cold, I can tell you. But we were not colonels in those days, and while the Hauptmann was proposing my mother's health the door was thrust open and an orderly m.u.f.fled up to the eyes stood on the threshold at the salute.

"The Herr Oberst wishes to see the Herr Lieutenant von Altrock," said he, and before I had time even to grumble he turned on his heels and marched away.

I took down my great-coat, drew the cape over my head, and went out of the hut. There was no wind, nor was the snow falling, but the cold was terrible, and to me who had come straight from the noise of my companions the night seemed unnaturally still. I plodded away through the darkness. Behind me in the hut the Hauptmann struck up a song, and the words came to me quite clearly and very plaintively across the snow:

Ich hatte einen Kamaraden Einen besseren findest du nicht.

I wondered whether in the morning, like that comrade, I should be a man to be mentioned in the past tense. For more than once a sentinel had been found frozen dead at his post, and I foresaw a long night's work before me. My Colonel had acquired a habit of choosing me for special services, and indeed to his kindness in this respect I owed my commission.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I found him sitting at a little table drawn close to the fire in a bare, dimly-lighted room. A lamp stood on the table, and he was peering at a crumpled sc.r.a.p of paper and smoothing out its creases. So engrossed was he, indeed, in his scrutiny that it was some minutes before he raised his head and saw me waiting for his commands.

"Lieutenant von Altrock," he said, "you must ride to Raincy."

Raincy was only five miles distant, as the crow flies. Yes, but the French had made a sortie on the 21st, they had pushed back our lines, and they now held Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche between Raincy and Noisy-le-Grand. I should have to make a circuit; my five miles became ten. I did not like the prospect at all. I liked it still less when the Colonel added:

"You must be careful. More than one German soldier has of late been killed upon that road. There are _francs-tireurs_ about. And you _must_ reach Raincy."

It was a verbal message which he gave me, and I was to deliver it in person to the commandant of the battery at Raincy.

"There is a horse ready for you at the stables," said the Colonel, and with a nod he turned again to his sc.r.a.p of paper. I saluted and walked to the door. As my hand was on the k.n.o.b he called me back.

"What do you make of it?" he asked, holding the paper out to me. "It was picked out of the Marne in a sealed wine-bottle."

I took the paper, and saw that a single sentence was written upon it in a round and laborious hand with the words misspelt. The meaning of the sentence seemed simple enough. It was apparently a message from a M.

Bonnet to his son in the Mobiles at Paris, and it stated that the big black cat had had five kittens.

"What do you make of it?" repeated the Colonel.

"Why, that M. Bonnet's black cat has kittens," said I.

I handed the paper back. The Colonel looked at it again, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed.

"Well, after all, perhaps it does mean no more than that," said he.

But for the Colonel's suspicions I should not have given another thought to that misspelt scrawl. M. Bonnet was probably some little peasant engrossed in domestic affairs, who thought that no message could be more consoling to his son locked up in Paris than this great news about the black cat.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The wildest rumours were flying about our camp at that time, as I think will always happen when you have a large body of men living under a great strain of cold and privation and peril. They perplexed the seasoned officers and they were readily swallowed by the youngsters, of whom I was one. Now, this sc.r.a.p of paper happened to fit in with the rumour which most of all exercised our imaginations.

It was known that in spite of all our precautions news was continually leaking into Paris which we did not think it good for the Parisians to have. On that very Christmas Day they already knew that General Faidherbe, at Pont Noyelles, had repulsed a portion of our first army under General Manteuffel. How did they know? We were not satisfied that pigeons and balloons completely explained the mystery. No, we believed that the news pa.s.sed somewhere through our lines on the south-east of Paris--news in cipher which was pa.s.sed on and on to a house close to our lines, whence, as occasion served, it was carried into Paris.

That was the rumour. There may have been truth in it, or it may have been entirely false. But, at all events, it had just the necessary element of fancy to appeal to the imagination of a very young man, and as I walked to the stables and mounted the horse which the Colonel had lent me, I kept wondering whether this message, so simple in appearance, had travelled so, and was covering its last stage between the undiscovered chateau and Paris in the sealed wine-bottle. I tried to make out what the black cat stood for in the cipher, and whose ident.i.ty was concealed under the pseudonym of M. Bonnet. So I rode down the slope of Noisy-le-Grand.

But at the bottom of the slope these speculations pa.s.sed entirely from my mind. In front, hidden away in the darkness, lay the dangers of Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche. German soldiers had ridden along this path and had not returned; the _francs-tireurs_ were abroad. Yet I must reach Raincy. Moreover, in my own mind, I was equally convinced that I must return. I saw the little beds against the wall of the hut under the sloping roof. I rode warily, determined to sleep in one of them that night, determined to keep my life if it could be kept.

I crossed the Marne and turned off the road into a forest path. Ville Evrart with its French garrison lay now upon my left behind the screen of trees. Fortunately there was no moon that night and a mist hung in the air. The snow, too, deadened the sound of my horse's hoofs. But I rode, nevertheless, very gently and with every sense alert. Each moment I expected the challenge of a sentinel in French.

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I came to the end of the wood and rode on to Chesnay. Here the country was more open, and I had pa.s.sed Ville Evrart. But I did not feel any greater security. I was possessed with a sort of rage to get my business done and live--yes, at all costs _live_. A mile beyond Chesnay I came to cross-roads, and within the angle which the two roads made a little cabin stood upon a plot of gra.s.s. I was in doubt which road to take. The cabin was all dark, and riding up to the door I hammered upon it with the b.u.t.t of my pistol. It was not immediately opened. There must indeed have been some delay, since the inmates were evidently in bed. But I was not in any mood to show consideration. I wanted to get on--to get on and live. A little window was within my reach. I dashed the b.u.t.t of the pistol violently through the gla.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Will that waken you, eh?" I cried, and almost before I had finished I heard a shuffling footstep in the pa.s.sage and the door was opened. A poor old peasant-woman, crippled with rheumatism, stood in the doorway shading a lighted candle with a gnarled, trembling hand. In her haste to obey she had merely thrown a petticoat over the shoulders of her nightdress, and there she stood with bare feet, shivering in the cold, an old bent woman of eighty, and apologised.

"I am sorry, monsieur," she said meekly. "But I cannot move as quickly as I could when I was young. How can I serve monsieur?"

Not a word of reproach about her broken window. You would think that the hardest man must have felt some remorse. I merely broke in upon her apologies with a rough demand for information.

"The road upon your right leads to Ch.e.l.les, monsieur," she answered.

"That upon your left to Raincy."

I rode off without another word. It is not a pretty description which I am giving to you, but it is a true one. That is my regret, it is a true one. I forgot that old peasant-woman the moment I had pa.s.sed the cabin.

I thought only of the long avenues of trees which stretched across that flat country, and which could hide whole companies of _francs-tireurs_.

I strained my eyes forwards. I listened for the sound of voices. But the first voice which I heard spoke in my own tongue.

It was the voice of a sentry on the outposts of Raincy, and I could have climbed down from my saddle and hugged him to my heart. Instead, I sat impa.s.sively in my saddle and gave him the countersign. I was conducted to the quarters of the commandant of artillery and I delivered my message.

"You have come quickly," he said. "What road did you take?"

"That of Chesnay and Gagny."

The commandant looked queerly at me.

"Did you?" said he. "You are lucky. You will return by Montfermeil and Ch.e.l.les, Lieutenant von Altrock, and I will send an escort with you.

Apparently we are better informed at Raincy than you at Noisy-le-Grand."

"I knew there was danger, sir," I replied.

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A regiment of dragoons was quartered at Raincy, and from it two privates and a corporal were given me for escort. In the company of these men I started back by the longer road in the rear of our lines. And it was a quarter to ten when I started. For I noticed the time of a clock in the commandant's quarters. I should think that it must have taken three-quarters of an hour to reach Montfermeil, for the snow was deep here and the mist very thick. Beyond Montfermeil, however, we came to higher ground; there were fewer drifts of snow, and the night began to clear, so that we made better going. We were now, of course, behind our lines, and the only risk we ran was that a few peasants armed with rifles from a battlefield or a small band of _francs-tireurs_ might be lurking on the chance of picking off a straggler. But that risk was not very great now that there were four of us. I rode therefore with an easier mind, and the first thing which entered my thoughts was--what do you think? The old peasant-woman's cabin with the broken window? Not a bit of it. No, it was M. Bonnet's black cat. Had M. Bonnet's cat five kittens? Or was that intended to inform the people in Paris how many companies of recruits had joined one of the French armies still in the field--say, General Faidherbe's, at Bapaume, and so to keep up their spirits and prolong the siege? I was still puzzling over this problem when in a most solitary place I came suddenly upon a chateau with lighted windows. This was the Chateau Villetaneuse. I reined in my horse and stopped. My escort halted behind me. It was, after all, an astonishing sight. There were many chateaux about Paris then, as there are now, but not one that I had ever come across was inhabited by more than a caretaker. The owners had long since fled. Breached walls, trampled gardens, gaping roofs, and silence and desertion--that is what we meant when we spoke of a chateau near Paris in those days. But here was one with lighted windows on the first and second stories staring out calmly on the snow as though never a Prussian soldier had crossed the Rhine. A thick clump of trees sheltered it behind, and it faced the eastern side of the long ridge of Mont Guichet, along the foot of which I rode--the side farthest from Paris. From the spot where I and my escort had halted an open park stretched level to the door. The house had, no doubt, a very homelike look on that cold night. It should have spoken to me, no doubt, of the well-ordered family life and the gentle occupations of women. But I was thinking of M. Bonnet's black cat. Was this solitary chateau the undiscovered last station on the underground road through which the news pa.s.sed into Paris? If not, why was it still inhabited? Why did the lights blaze out upon the snow so late?

[Ill.u.s.tration: She stood and swung the lantern slowly from side to side.

_Painted for Princess Mary's Gift Book by W. B. Wollen, R.I._]