The Belgians to the Front Part 15

"I don't understand that, Paul. I would rather see the whole country ruined than have it act so, but if we had made no resistance they could not have done things like this, could they?"

"No, perhaps not. But think a minute, Arthur. The French, then, would have come over the border on their side. The French and German armies would have met in Belgium, and neither would have considered our poor country. They would have fought in our fields, and seized our forts.

Each would have bombarded our cities, and neither would have been our friend. Now, as it is, we are suffering for France, and France and her ally, England, must take our part. Perhaps they will not be strong enough to save us at once, but they will be obliged to stand by us, for the sake of their own honor."

"Yes, that is true. We shall have friends, at least. Oh, Paul, I suppose it was right not to attack those Germans, but when that officer spoke so, I could have tried to kill him with my bare hands!"

"He is a bully, Arthur. I suppose there are officers like that in every army. But all the Germans are not like him. You must remember that there are some, at least, like Colonel Schmidt who gave us our freedom after we had been caught. He was kind to us, and he would have been courteous here, had he been in the place of this lieutenant."

Now, when the Uhlans had gone, the people began to come out of their houses again. News of the demand that had been made upon Hannay spread rapidly, and after a little while there was a great deal of bustle and confusion as efforts were made to obtain what was required. The maire came to Paul and asked him what the Germans would do if the things were not provided.

"I don't know," said Paul. "And I think it would be better not to find out, if you can possibly get them. Have them ready, and then when the new force comes, see if the commander is not more reasonable than the officer who was here. But it is better to take no chances. And he said that they would pay."

"Yes, that is so," said the distracted little man. "Eh? Well, I suppose we had better do as you say. Our lives and our homes are worth more than the food to us."

But there were sullen, angry looks among the villagers as they went about their preparations. There seemed to be a revulsion of feeling in favor of the plan of resistance of Raymond, the butcher, and there were scowls for Paul, who had spoiled that plan.

"I think there is nothing more that we can do here," said Paul to Arthur. "Let's go on. It's just as important as ever for us to get somewhere where the information we have can be of use. Everything I see makes me more and more certain that the princ.i.p.al German attack will be delivered in this direction. And I am not sure that that is generally known yet. I heard officers in Liege, when we were waiting to see General Leman, say that the French were planning a great movement from Belfort, that they thought the Germans were likely to make a powerful attack from Alsace and Lorraine. If so, their information is wrong."

"But they must know by this time that the Germans are coming through Belgium instead, in great force, I should think."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. They may think it is a feint. It might be, too. You see, they are throwing out their cavalry. We saw a dozen Uhlans, but there must be two or three thousand dozen of them. They are like a great human screen, thrown in front of the army. A screen with eyes. They hide what is going on behind them from the enemy, but they themselves can see plainly."

"But even if it is true, I should think it might work both ways, Paul.

If the French advance from Belfort, and the main body of the Germans is in this quarter, won't the French in Alsace win very easily?"

"Perhaps, just at the beginning. But this is the great danger. If the Germans could advance on this line without meeting any great resistance, they would be able to swing around and get in the rear of a French army that had crossed the border into Alsace, but the French army could not come into a position to threaten the rear or the communications of the Germans. There might be a great disaster. And just because it was believed that Germany would find the road through Belgium the quickest and the easiest for an invasion of France, some French and Belgian officers believed that if war came, Germany would only make a threat through Belgium, and would start her real attack on some other line."

"Well, we ought to give the information, whether it will be of any great use or not. It isn't for us to think about that."

"You're right there, Arthur! Let's slip away quietly. We have done these people here a great service, but they don't quite understand, and I think that instead of being grateful they're almost ready to be suspicious. Perhaps they think we were really trying to help the Germans."

So they slipped out of the village. If any of the villagers of Hannay noticed, they said nothing. They had enough to keep them busy and to occupy their minds, as well. They were learning that this war, of which they knew so little, was affecting them almost as much as if they were actually fighting.

Outside of Hannay, as they moved along toward the north the ground rose gradually, and the road brought them, in less than a mile, to the top of a hill that gave them an excellent view of the surrounding countryside. From Liege there still came the thunder of the big guns, but from other directions they gathered evidence that the fortress was no longer guarding the country. It was still holding out, and was undoubtedly keeping a great many Germans busy. But more Germans had swept around it, and the evidences of their activities were plain.

On all sides smoke was rising, marking burned farmhouses, even whole villages that for one reason or another had been given to the flames.

They could see now the smoking ruins of the village whence the refugees who had really caused them to stop in Hannay had come, a scene of desolation that looked all the worse for the bright sunlight in which it was bathed. That same sunlight, too was reflected ever and again on tiny points of steel.

"Uhlans--the sun shines on their lance heads," explained Paul. He looked gloomily at the scene. "Ah, they will have to pay! Perhaps an enemy will cross the Rhine and carry fire and sword into their lands, too. I hope so--for the sake of the poor, homeless ones."

"But you said it was wrong for them to defend themselves--that the Germans had the right to do like that!" said Arthur, wonderingly.

"I said it was wrong for them to give the Germans an excuse to destroy their homes and kill their men," said Paul. "Wrong only because it is useless."

The descending road turned just below the crest of the hill on which they stood. And suddenly a bugle sounded, startlingly near. The two scouts had been so occupied in watching the country for miles about that they had given no heed to what might be going on close by. And so now while they stood in amazement and dismay, German soldiers began to appear over the hilltop, and in a moment they were surrounded by hundreds of the men whose uniforms were so familiar. It was a battalion of German infantry, and in a minute more they had been seized, and were being escorted to the rear, where in a few moments a burly major, plainly a soldier of the old school, and the commander of the battalion, questioned them.

They told their story plainly and truthfully, though they omitted, of course, all the incidents of the adventurous period between their discovery of the spy Ridder and their first capture.

"We are only doing what Colonel Schmidt told us to do, sir," said Paul.

"We explained to him that we would try to reach Brussels, and after we got to Huy, we were compelled to come this way."

The major nodded.

"Pfadfinder, hein?" he said. This, as both Paul and Arthur knew, was what the Boy Scouts were called in Germany, just as in France and Belgium they were called Eclaireurs Francais or Eclaireurs Belges, as the case might be. "You can go no further this way. We shall take you to Hannay, and there you will have to stay for a time. No civilians are allowed at this time to leave their own villages. The whole country beyond here is a battleground, for we shall soon be in touch with the enemy on the way to Brussels. Still, you shall be safe enough. I have a boy of my own, who is a Pfadfinder with a troop in Eisenach."

CHAPTER XV

THE BUTCHER'S WIFE

Major Kellner was walking.

"I am saddle weary," he explained. "So I am walking for a time for a rest and a change, while they lead my horse. Walk with me, you young ones."

They found that Major Kellner, gruff as he was, was really an officer of the same kindly type as Colonel Schmidt, whom it seemed he knew very well.

"If Colonel Schmidt was satisfied to let you go, it is well," he said.

"Now tell me what you have seen."

There was not much, of course, that they could tell him. He was not trying, it seemed, to extract military information from them, but wanted to know how the Belgian people felt about the war.

"We have nothing against your people," he said. "It is the stupid government that has caused all this trouble. Had King Albert submitted to the inevitable, his country would not have suffered. We do not wish to be harsh with the people."

"Then why are you burning their farmhouses and their villages everywhere?" asked Arthur, boldly. "Standing on the hilltop, we could see the smoke on all sides."

Major Kellner laughed.

"It is kind sometimes to be cruel," he said. "We have a great work to do, and whoever stands in our way must suffer. We want the Belgians to understand that if they do not oppose us, except with their armies, they will be spared. But we must make an example of those who fire at us treacherously, or who keep guns and other weapons after we have ordered them to be given up. If we are severe with those who have refused to heed the warning that we have given, it is so that the others will pay more attention. It is better to burn a few villages than to destroy your beautiful city of Brussels, is it not?"

"But why do either?" parried Arthur then.

"Because the lives of our soldiers must be guarded against the skulking murderers who hide behind a window and shoot when there is no chance for our men to reply. Our men take their lives in their hands when they go to war, and if they die on the field of battle, they die willingly because they know that it is for the Fatherland. So we must preserve them for that glorious death."

Arthur was silent. He was not convinced, but he felt that it would do no good to argue, and Paul, moreover, had managed to look at him, so that he understood that his chum and leader wanted him to be quiet.

When they came near to Hannay Major Kellner mounted his horse again, since he had to maintain his dignity when he was entering a captured place, however small it might be. He spurred his horse on and took his place at the head of the battalion.

"Now we're in a nice fix, aren't we?" said Arthur, disgustedly. "We're further from our own army than ever! Likely to stay, too!"

"I hope that we shall be able to get away from here soon, Arthur. I don't believe they'll hold us very long. And we're really in luck, I suppose. If there are German troops all around, others would have held us up, if we hadn't come on this detachment, and we've had proof for ourselves that all the officers wouldn't treat us as well as Major Kellner. Suppose it was that young lieutenant of Uhlans who had caught us?"

Arthur made a grimace.

"Ugh!" he said. "Yes, that's true! Or a detachment that had that man Ridder along! You're right, Paul. We might be a great deal worse off than we are! But I'll tell you one thing. When we come back into Hannay with the Germans, there will be a lot of people there who are sure that we have been in league with them from the beginning."

"I hope not," said Paul, looking troubled. "But I'm afraid you're right. They can't understand, of course. I don't blame them for feeling as they do. But it's rather hard, when I was only trying to do what would be best for them. And I believe we did save them from having a very bad time there. You see, these people have a couple of guns along. They're not very big, and they wouldn't make very much impression on a fortified place, but if they were turned on a defenseless village like Hannay, they would destroy it in a very few minutes."