Part 22 (1/2)
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 vanis.h.i.+ng 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.