The Forest of Swords Part 17

"A prisoner, Captain," said von Arnheim, saluting respectfully.

Von Boehlen turned slowly, and a malicious light leaped in his eyes when he saw John on foot before him, and wholly in his power.

"And so," he said, "it's young Scott of the hotel in Dresden and of the wireless station, and you've come straight into my hands!"

The whimsical humor which sometimes seized John when he was in the most dangerous situation took hold of him again. It was not humor exactly, but it was the innate desire to make the best of a bad situation.

"I'm in your hands," he replied, "but I didn't walk willingly into 'em.

Your lieutenant, von Arnheim here, and his men brought me on the points of their lances. I'm quite willing to go away again."

Von Boehlen recognized the spirit in the reply and the malice departed from his own eyes. Yet he asked sternly:

"Why do you put on a French uniform and meddle in a quarrel not your own?"

"I've made it my own. I take the chances of war."

"To the rear with him, and put him with the other prisoners," said von Boehlen to von Arnheim, and the young Prussian and two Uhlans escorted him to the edge of the field where twenty or thirty French prisoners sat on the ground.

"I take it," said von Arnheim, "that you and our captain have met before."

"Yes, and the last time it was under circ.u.mstances that did not endear me to him."

"If it was in war it will not be to your harm. Captain von Boehlen is a stern but just man, and his conduct is strictly according to our military code. You will stay here with the other prisoners under guard.

I hope to see you again."

With these polite words the young officer rode back to his chief, and John's heart warmed to him because of his kindness. Then he sat down on the gra.s.s and looked at those who were prisoners with him. Most of them were wounded, but none seemed despondent. All were lying down, some propped on their elbows, and they were watching and listening with the closest attention. A half-dozen Germans, rifle in hand, stood near by.

John took his place on the gra.s.s by the side of a fair, slim young man who carried his left arm in a bandage.

"Englishman?" said the young man.

"No, American."

"But you have been fighting for us, as your uniform shows. What command?"

"General Vaugirard's, but I became separated from it earlier in the day."

"I've heard of him. Great, fat man, as cool as ice and as brave as a lion. A good general to serve under. My own name is Fleury, Albert Fleury. I was wounded and taken early this morning, and the others and I have been herded here ever since by the Germans. They will not tell us a word, but I notice they have not advanced."

"The German army is retreating everywhere. For this day, at least, we're victorious. Somebody has made a great plan and has carried it through.

The cavalry of the invader came within sight of Paris this morning, but they won't be able to see it tomorrow morning. Whisper it to the others.

We'll take the good news quietly. We won't let the guards see that we know."

The news was circulated in low tones and every one of the wounded forgot his wound. They spoke among themselves, but all the while the thunder of the hundred-mile battle went on with unremitting ferocity. John put his ear to the ground now, and the earth quivered incessantly like a ship shaken at sea by its machinery.

The day was now waning fast and he looked at the ma.s.s of Uhlans who stood arrayed in the open s.p.a.ce, as if they were awaiting an order.

Lieutenant von Arnheim rode back and ordered the guards to march on with them.

There was none too severely wounded to walk and they proceeded in a file through the fields, Uhlans on all sides, but the great ma.s.s behind them, where their commander, von Boehlen, himself rode.

The night was almost at hand. Twilight was already coming over the eastern hills, and one of the most momentous days in the story of man was drawing to a close. People often do not know the magnitude of an event until it has pa.s.sed long since and shows in perspective, but John felt to the full the result of the event, just as the old Greeks must have known at once what Salamis or Plataea meant to them. The hosts of the world's greatest military empire were turned back, and he had all the certainty of conviction that they would be driven farther on the next day.

The little band of prisoners who walked while their Prussian captors rode, were animated by feelings like those of John. It was the captured who exulted and the captors who were depressed, though neither expressed it in words, and the twilight was too deep now for faces to show either joy or sorrow.

John and Fleury walked side by side. They were near the same age. Fleury was an Alpinist from the high mountain region of Savoy and he had arrived so recently in the main theater of conflict that he knew little of what had been pa.s.sing. He and John talked in whispers and they spoke encouraging words to each other. Fleury listened in wonder to John's account of his flights with Lannes.

"It is marvelous to have looked down upon a battle a hundred miles long," he said. "Have you any idea where these Uhlans intend to take us?"

"I haven't. Doubtless they don't know themselves. The night is here now, and I imagine they'll stop somewhere soon."

The twilight died in the west as well as the east, and darkness came over the field of gigantic strife. But the earth continued to quiver with the thunder of artillery, and John felt the waves of air pulsing in his ears. Now and then searchlights burned in a white blaze across the hills. Fields, trees and houses would stand out for a moment, and then be gone absolutely.

John's vivid imagination turned the whole into a storm at night. The artillery was the thunder and the flare of the searchlights was the lightning. His mind created, for a little while, the illusion that the combat had pa.s.sed out of the hands of man and that nature was at work.

He and Fleury ceased to talk and he walked on, thinking little of his destination. He had no sense of weariness, nor of any physical need at all.

Von Arnheim rode up by his side and said:

"You'll not have to walk much further, Mr. Scott. A camp of ours is just beyond a brook, not more than a few hundred yards away, and the prisoners will stay there for the night. I'm sorry to find you among the French fighting against us. We Germans expected American sympathy.

There is so much German blood in the United States."

"But, as I told Captain von Boehlen, we're a republic, and we're democrats. In many of the big ideas there's a gulf between us and Germany so wide that it can never be bridged. This war has made clear the enormous difference."

Von Arnheim sighed.

"And yet, as a people, we like each other personally," he said.

"That's so, but as nations we diverge absolutely."

"Perhaps, I can't dispute it. But here is our camp. You'll be treated well. We Germans are not barbarians, as our enemies allege."

John saw fires burning in an ancient wood, through which a clear brook ran. The ground was carpeted with bodies, which at first he thought were those of dead men. But they were merely sleepers. German troops in thousands had dropped in their tracks. It was scarcely sleep, but something deeper, a stupor of exhaustion so utter, both mental and physical, that it was like the effect of anesthesia. They lay in every imaginable position, and they stretched away through the forest in scores of thousands.

John and Fleury saw their own place at once. Several hundred men in French uniforms were lying or sitting on the ground in a great group near the forest. A few slept, but the others, as well as John could see by the light of the fires, were wide awake.

The sight of the brook gave John a burning thirst, and making a sign to the German guard, who nodded, he knelt and drank. He did not care whether the water was pure or not, most likely it was not, with armies treading their way across it, but as it cut through the dust and grime of his mouth and throat he felt as if a new and more vigorous life were flowing into his veins. After drinking once, twice, and thrice, he sat down on the bank with Fleury, but in a minute or two young von Arnheim came for him.

"Our commander wishes to talk with you," he said.

"I'm honored," said John, "but conversation is not one of my strong points."

"The general will make the conversation," said von Arnheim, smiling. "It will be your duty, as he sees it, to answer questions."

John's liking for von Arnheim grew. He had seldom seen a finer young man. He was frank and open in manner, and bright blue eyes shone in a face that bore every sign of honesty. Official enemies he and von Arnheim were, but real enemies they never could be.

He divined that he would be subjected to a cross-examination, but he had no objection. Moreover, he wanted to see a German general of high degree. Von Arnheim led the way through the woods to a little glade, in which about a dozen officers stood. One of them, the oldest man present, who was obviously in command, stood nearest the fire, holding his helmet in his hand.

The general was past sixty, of medium height, but extremely broad and muscular. His head, bald save for a fringe of white hair, had been reddened by the sun, and his face, with its deep heavy lines and his corded neck, was red, too. He showed age but not weakness. His eyes, small, red and uncommonly keen, gazed from under a white bushy thatch.

He looked like a fierce old dragon to John.