Where the Souls of Men are Calling Part 19

"Then your mother may not be dead," he suggested hopefully.

"But yes, Monsieur. I watched them for a great way along the road--there are no trees now, and I could see. Several times she fell; the last time a soldier raised his gun twice, and twice brought it down.

Oh, I wanted to help her then, but they laughed and held me!"

Jeb was growing beside himself at these unheard-of barbarities, but he managed to ask gently:

"Why are you not in the cellar now?--listen!"

The sound of iron striking stone again reached him. She understood, and answered quietly:

"It is where they dig, Monsieur. They have been doing it since sundown; and it was their coming and going through the cellars that made me bring the children here, in fear of them."

"But where are the children?" he asked, for no sound had come from the corner she had left.

"There are three, Monsieur, in the dark behind me. Two live, but they do not know me any more. They are so young," she said apologetically, "that the things they have seen quite put out their minds--but they obey me, very nicely."

"Merciful G.o.d," he gasped.

"The other," her voice resumed its tone of dull despair, "was killed but a little while ago by the man who looked in. Monsieur, we were very hungry and frightened, and she was crying; but I tried--oh, how I tried--to comfort her! Then in anger he came, and--and stuck her with the long knife on his gun. Oh, Monsieur," she whispered, clinging to him in a new terror, "I was glad for the darkness!"

A sob, arising from the very depths of Jeb's soul, burst from his lips.

Scalding tears of rage and anguish streamed down his cheeks; and these must have touched her upturned face, for she raised a thin hand and patted him, whispering:

"You are very kind, Monsieur, to weep for her."

"My poor little child," he moaned, "my poor little child! Oh, what a plight they've left you in!--with only the dead, and worse than dead!"

The moon had cleared by now, bathing the ruined hamlet with a silvery sheen, although the place which sheltered them remained in darkness.

But through a rift in the broken wall stole one narrow beam of light, and he moved slightly to let this fall upon her face--then just in time caught himself, else he would have given a cry of pain and fury.

Her eyes, horrified and shadowed by the cruelties she had witnessed, were turned to him; great, dark, hollow eyes which seemed to be looking directly through him to some confusion of thoughts beyond. Her face was pinched and blue with lack of nourishment, the skin stretched tightly over cheek bones which seemed about to push through; her lips were wax-like, dry and cracked, and her ears were almost transparent. But even more appalling than any of these was the utter despair, the absence of hope or desire of life, that had changed the bloom of youth to the decay of age. She might have been the wan ghost of a shrivelled old woman lying in his arms, instead of young flesh and blood!

This martyred child, who should be sleeping happily amidst dreams of dolls and play--what was the ghastly thing into which she had been made? The father, who with horse and plowshare should be summoned by the morning c.o.c.k to yielding fields--where was that servant of the vineyard?

The mother, who should be planning for the harvest which her capable hands would convert into winter comforts--what of her? A wee tot, whose sobbing should have been stilled by tender arms--did she understand the caress of steel? And the other two, whose minds had been snapped by horrors and privations--did their locked-in souls realize these things to be the result of military necessity?--or a nation's degeneracy!

Yet what could he expect from a people whose idol in philosophy, their pampered Nietschke, teaches and writes: "Morality is a symptom of decadence! There is no right other than that of theft, usurpation and violence!" It is in his book for all to read! What hope of an army, or hope of mercy from it, whose Kaiser confesses himself to be a liar or a lunatic by proclaiming: "The spirit of G.o.d has descended upon Me because I am the German Emperor! I am the instrument of the Most High. I am His sword, His representative on earth. Woe and death to those who oppose My will! Death to the infidel who denies My mission! Let all the enemies of the German nation perish. G.o.d demands their destruction--G.o.d, who by My mouth summons you to carry out His decrees!"[3]

[Footnote 3: From the Kaiser's proclamation to his army, Sept. 13, 1914.]

As Jeb recalled these utterances, their blasphemy made him cringe. He wrapped the little broken body tighter in his arms. Was she, then, what she was by a loving G.o.d's decree? He kissed her hair and groaned in righteous anger. Did that Outcast Emperor dare call himself the representative of G.o.d on earth, and thereupon urge his menials to do evil for the sake of evil, destroy for destruction's sake, pillage for the b.e.s.t.i.a.l love of it, outrage the life, honor and liberty of the helpless, leaving a wide trail that everywhere led to the most loathsome crimes?--did "the spirit of G.o.d descend upon" this vampire, and call him "chosen"?

Jeb found himself trembling in every muscle as a deep rage at these blasphemies spread throughout his frame. As tropic storms strike languid forests, swaying, threshing, rending trees this way and that, so a mighty rush of fury swept him. Slowly at first, then faster, the almost forgotten taper flame of manliness that flickered on the altar of his inmost being leaped higher, until it blazed as a consuming fire. The eyes of his soul were open; the strength of his soul grasped the sword of Humanity to strike for this child, and the thousands like her, whose injury was irreparable, who had been blasted, d.a.m.ned, by the ego-mania of accursed hypocrites!

"Oh, little one," he whispered to her fiercely, "if all the boys back home could see the things you've shown me, they'd break their necks getting over here to smash that upstart German power!"

For a moment he bowed his head, as though in prayer. The far-off rumbling of cannon, sublimely rising from the distant horizon, might have been a deep-toned organ sending its hymn of victory through the vaulted s.p.a.ce; and, while he listened, the little hand was raised again to touch his cheek, as the weak voice murmured:

"Monsieur, I feel better since you came."

"I must get you away," he kissed her quickly. "Now listen well, and answer well, for everything depends on what you know!"

The indomitable spirit of France which kept these people alive through hardships and outrages that will never be written, bounded through her veins and warmed them. He felt her body snuggle more confidingly, as if to a.s.sure him that he would not be disappointed in her share of this new partnership.

After careful questioning he learned enough to open his eyes. The French lines had indeed pa.s.sed northward, leaving this ruined hamlet in its wake. But for several months prior to yesterday's engagement the Germans had been working on gigantic subterranean operations, beginning at the levels of the cellar floors and penetrating downward until the entire village sub-area had been converted into a kind of catacomb. Here a great number of machine-guns were stored with quant.i.ties of ammunition, and a garrison put in charge which numbered upwards of two thousand men.

A machine-gun regiment, he mentally noted. These had fought when the French came but, instead of retreating, ducked into the sub-cellars and closed the openings which had been artfully contrived to escape notice.

When the French pa.s.sed, thinking the enemy had been driven before them, the Boche quietly emerged after nightfall and slipped away in several directions, taking many guns and spades and boxes of ammunition.

Jeb felt that he now understood the mystery of that digging party back on the plain, as also the nearer sounds. They were units of this garrison--and there must be many others like them scattered about--fortifying for a particular counter attack tomorrow when, with a line of machine-gun sections operating in the Allied rear, defeat might be turned to victory. It was an audacious scheme, thus to burrow while a victorious army pa.s.sed over them, and then come up out of the ground and strike again!

"How far is it to the place they're digging here?" he asked.

"Just there, beyond this wall--but a little ways," she pointed in the direction from which the sentry had come.

"How many are there?"

"I could not say, Monsieur; but few, a.s.suredly, as I saw quite as many as I thought were in the ground, and more, slip away after dark with the guns and spades and boxes."

"Then wait very quietly till I come back," he lifted her from his lap, but she clung desperately and would have cried had he not promised to return safely.

She let him go then and he crawled away, pa.s.sing just outside the door to see if the street were clear. Skirting the torn walls and keeping in the heavier shadows, creeping over piles of rubble as silently as a rat, he came at last to a point which overlooked the hole where men toiled, wearily, though in desperate haste. The sentry paced back and forth within a hundred feet of him, sometimes speaking in monosyllables to his comrades below.

At highest tension Jeb waited, until he felt not only sure of their strength but reasonably certain that no others remained in the lower strata of catacombs; because they rested at frequent intervals, implying a state of exhaustion, and this, in turn, indicated an absence of relief shifts. Fifteen men in all were there, besides the sentry. On the street level their rifles had been stacked. The hole--a machine-gun redoubt--in which they dug was about five feet deep; the sides were steep; the only weapons near at hand were picks and spades.

Tingling with excitement, he stole carefully back to the ruined door and entered, bringing with him a stout club picked from the debris. The girl's arms flew about him at once, and the wan voice whispered tremulously:

"Oh, Monsieur, if you had not come!"

"But I did come," he took her again upon his lap, seeming in a much better humor than when he had gone out. "We're about to get away, little one; are you big enough to do just what I say?"

There was a look of reproach in her eyes which he could not, of course, have seen, but he felt her arms tighten.

"Everything," she whispered. "Can Monsieur carry the little sisters?"

"Monsieur can, but he isn't going to," he muttered fiercely. "They'll have two-legged horses to ride, and so will you. Now, I'm going over by the door, and when I get there I want you to give a loud cry."

"Oh, Monsieur," she trembled, "he will come and--and----"

"I want him to come, but he won't do any more than that. We're going to take those men and punish them for a lot of things they've done."

"Capture them, Monsieur?--by Monsieur's own self?"

"By Monsieur's own self," he gave her a squeeze, then sat her back upon the ground. "Now, when I get close to the door, cry!--then you may close your eyes until I say look; but don't cry again, whatever happens."

Picking up the club he took a position in the deepest shadow and waited.

Spartan little soldier that she was, she now sent a wail into the night that would have brought a dozen sentries; then, as before, everything was silent. Also, as before, hurried, angry steps soon were heard; yet this time, as the sentry pa.s.sed close outside the rear wall, he talked.

Jeb at first thought that it might be the mumbling of an enraged man, but he took a tighter grip upon his club when another voice laughed a reply.

The two Germans turned the angle of the side wall, stumbling over loose stones and uttering words that scarcely needed translation. A patch of moonlight fell athwart the sill, and Jeb watched this, knowing it would tell better than his ears when the crucial time had come. The men were just outside now, and the breathing of one became audible--a workman, doubtless, following to see what would happen. Then a shadow fell across the spot of light, and slowly a bayonet glided within two feet of Jeb's face--the bayonet that might yet be warm from having dried a child's tears! After it came the sentry, stooping as he entered, while his companion, who chortled with a kind of insane glee, pressed closely at his heels.