Part 32 (1/2)
”There is some news for you,” remarked the Colonel. ”Yesterday our armies occupied Namur. The forts were helpless against our wonderful siege guns. Our Zeppelins have destroyed nearly the whole of Antwerp; our fleet has signally defeated the British in the North Sea. Your flags.h.i.+p, the _Iron Duke_, is sunk, together with seven Dreadnoughts.
Jellicoe is slain, and the rest of the English fleet is bottled up in the Forth. Your little army in Belgium is already on the retreat; it will be hopelessly smashed before it reaches Maubeuge. Our troops will be in Paris within a week--and then?”
The Colonel paused, expecting to see dismay painted on the faces of his listeners. Instead, Kenneth coolly raised his eyebrows.
”Indeed?” he drawled. ”Do you, Herr Colonel, really believe all that?”
Von Koenik suppressed a gesture of annoyance.
”Certainly,” he replied. ”It is in our official reports. If you possessed sufficient culture to be in a position to read and speak our language, you could see it with your own eyes. We are winning everywhere. Now, perhaps, to save further unpleasantness you will tell me the actual reason why you were in the Belgian service?”
”Merely our inclination to help in a just cause. We happened to be on the spot, the opportunity occurred, and we took it.”
The Colonel bit his lips. He was confident that the prisoners were actually persons of military importance, sent over to Belgium by the British Government, and possessing valuable information concerning the Allies' plan of campaign. He considered it well worth his while to cajole or threaten them into surrendering their secret, but, up to the present, he was forced to admit that his attempts had met with very little success.
Apart from the lax code of German military morals his procedure had been extremely irregular. The so-called trial was before an illegally const.i.tuted court. The proper authorities had not been informed of the Englishmen's arrest, trial, and sentence. Yet he considered that he was furthering the interests of the Kaiser and the German nation by wresting the secret of the object of the lads' presence in Belgium from them by the likeliest methods at his disposal.
Colonel von Koenik was on his way to take up a staff appointment at Verviers, a strategically important Belgian town on the German frontier, and a few miles from Liege, and on the direct railway line between that city and Aix-la-Chapelle. Here he could keep his prisoners in safety, relying upon the wearing-down tactics, backed by the threat of what would happen when the victorious Germans entered Paris, to compel the two Englishmen to surrender their supposed important secret.
It was not until after dark that same day that Kenneth and Rollo were conveyed in a closed carriage to the railway station at Louvain. Von Koenik was greatly anxious to conceal from them the stupendous amount of wanton damage done to the town. So far he succeeded; and, in partial ignorance of the fate of Louvain and the actual causes that led to its sack and destruction, the lads were escorted to a troop-train which was about to return to Aix, laden with wounded German soldiers whose fighting days were over.
For the next ten or twelve days Kenneth and Rollo existed in a state of rigorous captivity. They were placed in a small store-room of the commissariat department at Verviers. A sentry was posted without, but otherwise their privacy was not intruded upon except when a soldier brought their meals.
This man, a corporal of the Landwehr, was a grey-haired fellow nearly sixty years of age. A great portion of his life had been spent in England. Von Koenik had detailed him to attend upon the prisoners in order that he might communicate to them the progress of the victorious Germans towards Paris.
Max--for that was the corporal's name--was admirably adapted to the purpose. He could speak English with tolerable fluency; he implicitly believed all the stories that had been told him of the wide-world German success, and, believing, he retailed the information with such bland fidelity that at first his listeners had to think that he really was speaking the truth.
He was also genuinely attentive to his charges, and before long Kenneth and Rollo appreciated his visits although they did not welcome the news he brought.
”Ach, you English boys!” he would exclaim. They were always addressed as ”English boys” by Corporal Max, somewhat to their chagrin. ”Ach!
It has been a bad day for your little army. Much more bad than yesterday. To-day the remains of the English army, it has fled towards Paris. Our Taubes have almost nearly the city destroyed by bombs.”
The next day Max would appear with the tidings that General French was still running away. Vast numbers of English and French prisoners had been taken. The German losses had been insignificant.
This was followed by a lurid description of the retreat of the Allies across the Marne and then over the Aisne.
”Paris, too, is in panic. The French Government, it has run away to the south of France. And our navy, it is great. Yesterday a sea battle took place. The Admiral Jellicoe's flags.h.i.+p the _Iron Duke_ was sunk by our submarines----”
”Hold on!” exclaimed Kenneth. ”Colonel von Koenik told us that the _Iron Duke_ was sunk more than a fortnight ago.”
Max shrugged his shoulders.
”You English are so deceitful. Ach! They must have given to another s.h.i.+p the same name. Dover is in flames, and London bombarded has been by our Zeppelins. Ireland is revolted, and the Irish have proclaimed our Kaiser as King----”
”Steady, Max!” exclaimed Rollo expostulatingly.
”But it is so,” protested the corporal.
The next day Max's report was one of indefinite progress. During the three following he made no mention of the brilliant feats of German arms. Kenneth rallied him on this point.
”How far are the Germans from Paris to-day, Max?”