The Day of Wrath Part 22

Maertz took her literally.

"I'll be glad when we're in the open country again, mademoiselle," he said. "I don't like this forest. One can't guess what may be hiding round the corner."

Yet they stopped that night at Braine le Comte, and crossed Enghien next day without incident. It is a pity that such a glorious ramble should be described so baldly. In happier times, when Robert Louis Stevenson took that blithe journey through the Cevennes with a donkey, a similar excursion produced a book which will be read when the German madness has long been relegated to a detested oblivion. But Uhlan pickets and "square-head" sentries supply wretched sign-posts in a land of romance, and the wanderers were now in a region where each kilometre had to be surveyed with caution.

Maertz owned an aunt in every village, and careful inquiry had, of course, located one of these numerous relatives in Lierde, a hamlet on the Grammont-Gand road. Oudenarde was strongly held by the enemy, but the roads leading to Gand were the scene of magnificent exploits by the armoured cars of the Belgian army. Certain Belgian motorists had become national heroes during the past fortnight. An innkeeper in Grammont told with bated breath how one famous driver, helped by a machine-gun crew, was accounting for scores of marauding cavalrymen. "The English and French are beaten, but our fellows are holding them," he said with a fine air. "When you boys get through you'll enjoy life. My nephew, who used to be a great _cha.s.seur_, says there is no sport like chasing mounted Boches."

This frank recognition of Dalroy as one of the innumerable young Belgians then engaged in crossing the enemy's lines in order to serve with their brothers was an unwitting compliment to a student who had picked up the colloquial phrases and Walloon words in Maertz's uncouth speech. A man who looked like an unkempt peasant should speak like one, and Dalroy was an apt scholar. He never trod on doubtful ground.

Strangers regarded him as a taciturn person, solely because of this linguistic restraint. Maertz made nearly all inquiries, and never erred in selecting an informant. The truth was that German spies were rare in this district. They were common as crows in the cities, and on the frontiers of Belgium and France, but rural Brabant harboured few, and that simple fact accounts for the comparatively slow progress of the invaders as they neared the coast.

It was at a place called Oombergen, midway between Oudenarde and Alost, that the fugitives met the Death's-Head Hussars. And with that ill-omened crew came the great adventure.

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 Vise, 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 s.p.a.cious 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 pa.s.sed 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, _Fraulein_--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 coa.r.s.ely, 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 Leontine 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 s.p.a.ce 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 fict.i.tious 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 st.u.r.dy 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 h.e.l.l 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 Liege 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.

"_Gnadiges Fraulein_," 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 att.i.tude a.s.sumed 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.