Part 12 (1/2)
Lieutenant Karl von Halwig's comparison erred only in its sheer inadequacy. The communications officer's responsibility was great. He had failed to control his underlings. He was blind and deaf to their excesses. What matter how they treated the wretched Belgians if the road was kept clear? It was nothing to him that an old woman should be murdered and a girl outraged so long as he kept his squad intact.
”So now you know all about it, monsieur,” concluded Maertz. ”When I met you in the ravine I thought you were escaping, and let out at you. G.o.d be praised, you got the better of me!”
”Was the staff officer's name Von Halwig?” inquired Dalroy.
”Name of a pipe, that's it, monsieur! I heard him tell it to the other pig, but couldn't recall it.”
”And when were you to meet him?”
”He had to report to some general at Argenteau, but reckoned to reach the mill about nine o'clock.”
”Oh, father dear, let us all be going!” pleaded Leontine.
”One more word, and I have finished,” put in Dalroy. He turned again to Maertz. ”What did you mean by saying a little while ago that the frontier is closed?”
”The lieutenant--Von Halwig, is it?--sent some Uhlans to the major of a regiment guarding the line opposite Holland. He wrote a message, but I know what was in it because he told the other officer. 'They're making for the frontier,' he said, 'and if they haven't slipped through already we'll catch them now without fail. They mustn't get away this time if we have to arrest and examine every ---- Belgian in this part of the country.'”
”Ho! ho!” piped Joos, who had listened intently to Jan's recital, ”why didn't you tell us that sooner, animal? What chance, then, have I and madame and Leontine of dodging the rascals?”
”_Caput!_” cried Maertz, scratching his head, ”that settles it! I never thought of that!”
”Oh, look!” whispered Leontine. ”They're searching the mill!”
So earnest and vital was the talk that none of the others had chanced to look down the ravine. They saw now that lights were moving in the upper rooms of the mill. Either Von Halwig had arrived before time, or some messenger had tried to find the commissariat officers, and had raised an alarm.
Joos took charge straight away, like the masterful old fellow that he was. ”This locality isn't good for our health,” he said. ”The night is young yet, but we must leg it to a safer place before we begin planning.
Leave nothing behind. We may need all that food.--Come, Lise,” and he grabbed his wife's arm, ”you and I will lead the way to the Argenteau wood. The devil himself can't track me once I get there.--Trust me, monsieur, I'll pull you through. That lout, Jan Maertz, is all muscle and no brain. What Leontine sees in him I can't guess.”
For the time being, Dalroy believed that the miller might prove a resourceful guide. Before deciding the course he personally would pursue it was absolutely essential that he should learn the lay of the land and weigh the probabilities of success or failure attached to such alternatives as were suggested.
”We had better go with our friends,” he said to Irene. ”They know the country, and I must have time for consideration before striking out a line of my own.”
”I think it would be fatal to separate,” she agreed. ”When all is said and done, what can they hope to accomplish without your help?”
Joos's voice came to them in eager if subdued accents. He was telling his wife how accounts were squared with Busch. ”I stuck him with the fork,” he chortled, ”and he squealed like a pig!”
CHAPTER VII
THE WOODMAN'S HUT
The miller was cunning as a fox. He argued, subtly enough, that if a man just arrived from Argenteau was the first to discover the dead Prussians, the neighbourhood of Argenteau itself might be the last to undergo close search for the ”criminals” who had dared punish these demi-G.o.ds. Following a cattle-path through a series of fields, he entered a country lane about a mile from Vise. It was a narrow, deep-rutted, winding way--a shallow trench cut into the soil by many generations of pack animals and heavy carts. The long interregnum between the solid pavement of Rome and the broken rubble of Macadam covered Europe with a network of such roads. An unchecked growth of briars, brambles, and every species of prolific weed made this particular track an ideal hiding-place.
Gathering the party under the two irregular lines of pollard oaks which marked the otherwise hardly discernible hedgerows, Joos explained that, at a point nearly half-a-mile distant, the lane joined the main road which winds along the right bank of the Meuse.
”That is our only real difficulty--the crossing of the road,” he said.
”It is sure to be full of Germans; but if we watch our chance we should contrive to scurry from one side to the other without being seen.”