Part 19 (1/2)

”What's that?” demanded the big German abruptly. ”See, Max, he is defying you, this fellow. And you say that he drew you out of the earth and threw you back, almost shaking the teeth out of your head?

Unbelievable! Yet, if it is true, why, no Brandenburger will sit still under such an insult.”

The jeering laughter of this giant, the covert smiles and the outspoken remarks of other German officers, sent the blood flaring again to Max's cheeks. He scowled, first at one and then at others of his comrades; and, turning once more to the prisoner, and catching at that moment a gleam of defiance from his eyes, struck out again with one hand and almost floored the unfortunate and helpless Jules.

”That to commence with,” he told him, ”and then to finish the matter.

I don't forget, mind you, the blow that you landed on my body in that forest the other night. No, believe me, I, Max, forget nothing of that sort. Then I would have had you shot out of hand, though the occasion was not convenient; but now there is no reason why the execution should not be carried out. You are an escaped prisoner of war; you have a.s.saulted a German officer in the execution of his duty; and here you are, captured, defying the captors of the Fort of Douaumont. March him to the far end of the hall, and call out half a dozen of those guzzling fellows to shoot him.”

The armed sentry, who had stood by all this while, taking but little notice of the scene, looking tired and bored and as if he longed to join his comrades, pulled himself together, and, shouldering his rifle, gave a husky order.

”Over there!” he called. ”Stand up against the wall! Sergeant Huefer, the officer requires a shooting-party.”

The selfsame Sergeant Huefer, at that moment engaged in finis.h.i.+ng a hasty meal, looked round and scowled; and then, seeing the snappy little German officer, called Max, looking at him, stood up promptly.

”A shooting-party, sir?” he asked.

”A shooting-party,” came the abrupt answer. ”Draw them up in front of those two prisoners.”

”Two!” exclaimed the big German officer, who with the others was watching the scene.

”Yes, two,” snapped Max, swinging round upon him, ready to vent his anger on any one of them.

”But wait! Not two; one only--the escaped prisoner of war, who struck you.”

The big German and this snappy little fellow, Max, stared at one another, the former looking urbane and jovial and unconcerned, whilst Max was trembling with rage. He could have kicked this big German who ventured to obstruct him, and who seemed about to thwart his purpose.

Yet Max was a careful individual, who had indeed worked his way upwards in the German army, and obtained slow if certain promotion, by constant observation of the regulations. The shooting of captured Frenchmen was one thing--a common enough thing no doubt--but disobedience, defiance of a senior officer, was an altogether different matter, and this big, hulking German happened to be Max's senior by a very slender margin.

So slender, indeed, that the position was almost doubtful. Indeed, at that moment neither Max nor this big German could say which of the two was the senior in rank, and ent.i.tled to command this party, though it happened that the bigger of the two was not a Brandenburger, but belonging to some other corps, who had by chance fallen in with the party told off to attack the fort of Douaumont, and so found himself amidst its captors. For a moment, then, the two regarded one another, Max flaming with anger, defiant, on the point of abruptly ordering this hulking individual to mind his own business. And then that sense of discretion which had helped him in the past came to his a.s.sistance, and he forced a smile--an unwilling smile--while his eyes flashed a vengeful glance at his opponent.

”Then you object?” he asked sharply. ”Well, then, let it be one--the prisoner of war. We will shoot him, and get it over quickly.

Sergeant, march the firing-party forward, I will give the word to shoot.”

Still shaken, his head swimming yet after that struggle on the stairway, his bloodshot eyes fixed upon the figures of Jules, of the officers, and of Sergeant Huefer and the party of men he was now parading, Henri never felt more helpless in all his life before. He felt pinned to the spot, incapable of action; and, indeed, common sense--what little of it he still possessed after the blow which had rendered him unconscious--told him that action of any sort was useless.

Yet, could he see a friend, an old chum, a comrade as dear to him as any brother, shot down in cold blood in front of these leering men?

Could he watch him put up as a target, to be butchered by these unfeeling Germans? No. The thought that Jules's fate hung heavily in the balance, that some desperate action on his part might bring him a.s.sistance, spurred Henri to movement, and, rising to his knees, he groped his way towards the entrance to the hall wherein the firing-party were then a.s.sembling. As he crawled across the bodies then littering the gallery along which the tiny railway ran, and crossed the foot of the stairway, his hand lit upon a rifle, which he seized instantly and raised to his shoulder. Then he dropped it again, for the movement was too much for him, and, stumbling forward, fell on his face, his head swimming once more, his brain in a whirl, and his pulses beating in his ears till he was deafened. It was just at the moment when Sergeant Huefer, undisturbed by the task allotted to him, in fact, eager to finish off the prisoner and get back to his meal, gave a short, sharp order and set his firing-squad in motion, that Henri's outstretched fingers came into contact with another object--a round, cylindrical object attached to a short stick, a hand-grenade, one of those bombs which had helped to blow in the barricade which he and his gallant _poilus_ had erected at the top of the stairway.

With an effort he pulled himself together, and, gripping the stick, felt for the safety-pin, removal of which would allow explosion of the grenade once it came into contact with any body. Then, rising to his knees, and unsteadily to his feet, he stretched out his left hand to the wall, while with his right he swung the hand-grenade backwards and forwards. By then the firing-party had been halted in front of Jules, who, head in air and arms folded, stood against the far wall.

”Load!” he heard the command ring out and echo down the gallery.

”Present!”

Up went the rifles to the shoulders.

Henri gave a sharp jerk to the handle of the grenade as he loosened his hold of it, and sent it flying forward into the hall, where it landed a moment later--landed, indeed, within a foot of the fire which the men had built in the centre of this big place, and about which they had been seated. There followed a blinding flash, a thundering detonation, and then shouts and shrieks and groans, and clouds of dust and falling debris. An instant later, Henri had fallen backward into the gallery, and lay, much as he had lain before, among the bodies of those who had taken part in the fight on the stairway.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THE GRENADE LANDED WITHIN A FOOT OF THE FIRE ABOUT WHICH THE MEN HAD BEEN SEATED”]

CHAPTER XVII