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Paul hastened to tell the officer what had happened. Events called for immediate action. He offered to go on a scouting expedition in the captured motor.
"Very well," said the officer. "I'll occupy the village and arrange to have the division informed as soon as possible."
The car made off in the direction of Corvigny, with eight men packed inside. Two of them, placed in charge of the quick-firing guns, studied the mechanism. The Alsatian stood up, so as to show his helmet and uniform clearly, and scanned the horizon on every side.
All this was decided upon and done in the space of a few minutes, without discussion and without delaying over the details of the undertaking.
"We must trust to luck," said Paul, taking his seat at the wheel. "Are you ready to see the job through, boys?"
"Yes; and further," said a voice which he recognized, just behind him.
It was Bernard d'Andeville, Élisabeth's brother. Bernard belonged to the 9th company; and Paul had succeeded in avoiding him, since their first meeting, or at least in not speaking to him. But he knew that the youngster was fighting well.
"Ah, so you're there?" he said.
"In the flesh," said Bernard. "I came along with my lieutenant; and, when I saw you getting into the motor and taking any one who turned up, you can imagine how I jumped at the chance!" And he added, in a more embarrassed tone, "The chance of doing a good stroke of work, under your orders, and the chance of talking to you, Paul.. for I've been unlucky so far… I even thought that.. that you were not as well-disposed to me as I hoped.."
"Nonsense," said Paul. "Only I was bothered.."
"You mean, about Élisabeth?"
"Yes."
"I see. All the same, that doesn't explain why there was something between us, a sort of constraint."
At that moment, the Alsatian exclaimed:
"Lie low there!.. Uhlans ahead!."
A patrol came trotting down a cross-road, turning the corner of a wood. He shouted to them, as the car passed:
"Clear out, Kameraden! Fast as you can! The French are coming!"
Paul took advantage of the incident not to answer his brother-in-law. He had forced the pace; and the motor was now thundering along, scaling the hills and shooting down them like a meteor.
The enemy detachments became more numerous. The Alsatian called out to them or else by means of signs incited them to beat an immediate retreat.
"It's the funniest thing to see," he said, laughing. "They're all galloping behind us like mad." And he added, "I warn you, sergeant, that at this rate we shall dash right into Corvigny. Is that what you want to do?"
"No," replied Paul, "we'll stop when the town's in sight."
"And, if we're surrounded?"
"By whom? In any case, these bands of fugitives won't be able to oppose our return."
Bernard d'Andeville spoke:
"Paul," he said, "I don't believe you're thinking of returning."
"You're quite right. Are you afraid?"
"Oh, what an ugly word!"
But presently Paul went on, in a gentler voice:
"I'm sorry you came, Bernard."
"Is the danger greater for me than for you and the others?"
"No."
"Then do me the honor not to be sorry."
Still standing up and leaning over the sergeant, the Alsatian pointed with his hand:
"That spire straight ahead, behind the trees, is Corvigny. I calculate that, by slanting up the hills on the left, we ought to be able to see what's happening in the town."
"We shall see much better by going inside," Paul remarked. "Only it's a big risk.. especially for you, Alsatian. If they take you prisoner, they'll shoot you. Shall I put you down this side of Corvigny?"
"You haven't studied my face, sergeant."
The road was now running parallel with the railway. Soon, the first houses of the outskirts came in sight. A few soldiers appeared.
"Not a word to these," Paul ordered. "It won't do to startle them.. or they'll take us from behind at the critical moment."
He recognized the station and saw that it was strongly held. Spiked helmets were coming and going along the avenues that led to the town.
"Forward!" cried Paul. "If there's any large body of troops, it can only be in the square. Are the guns ready? And the rifles? See to mine for me, Bernard. And, at the first signal, independent fire!"
The motor rushed at full speed into the square. As he expected, there were about a hundred men there, all massed in front of the church-steps, near their stacked rifles. The church was a mere heap of ruins; and almost all the houses in the square had been leveled to the ground by the bombardment.
The officers, standing on one side, cheered and waved their hands on seeing the motor which they had sent out to reconnoiter and whose return they seemed to be expecting before making their decision about the defense of the town. There were a good many of them, their number no doubt including some communication officers. A general stood a head and shoulders above the rest. A number of cars were waiting some little distance away.
The street was paved with cobble-stones and there was no raised pavement between it and the square. Paul followed it; but, when he was within twenty yards of the officers, he gave a violent turn of the wheel and the terrible machine made straight for the group, knocking them down and running over them, slanted off slightly, so as to take the stacks of rifles, and then plunged like an irresistible mass right into the middle of the detachment, spreading death as it went, amid a mad, hustling flight and yells of pain and terror.
"Independent fire!" cried Paul, stopping the car.
And the firing began from this impregnable blockhouse, which had suddenly sprung up in the center of the square, accompanied by the sinister crackle of the two Maxim guns.
In five minutes, the square was strewn with killed and wounded men. The general and several officers lay dead. The survivors took to their heels.
Paul gave the order to cease fire and took the car to the top of the avenue that led to the station. The troops from the station were hastening up, attracted by the shooting. A few volleys from the guns dispersed them.
Paul drove three times quickly round the square, to examine the approaches. On every side the enemy was fleeing along the roads and paths to the frontier. And on every hand the inhabitants of Corvigny came out of their houses and gave vent to their delight.
"Pick up and see to the wounded," Paul ordered. "And send for the bell-ringer, or some one who understands about the bells. It's urgent!"
An aged sacristan appeared.
"The tocsin, old man, the tocsin for all you're worth! And, when you're tired, have some one to take your place! The tocsin, without stopping for a second!"
This was the signal which Paul had agreed upon with the French lieutenant, to announce to the division that the enterprise had succeeded and that the troops were to advance.
It was two o'clock. At five, the staff and a brigade had taken possession of Corvigny and our seventy-fives were firing a few shells. By ten o'clock in the evening, the rest of the division having come up meantime, the Germans had been driven out of the Grand Jonas and the Petit Jonas and were concentrating before the frontier. It was decided to dislodge them at daybreak.
"Paul," said Bernard to his brother-in-law, at the evening roll-call, "I have something to tell you, something that puzzles me, a very queer thing: you'll judge for yourself. Just now, I was walking down one of the streets near the church when a woman spoke to me. I couldn't make out her face or her dress at first, because it was almost dark, but she seemed to be a peasant-woman from the sound of her wooden shoes on the cobbles. 'Young man,' she said – and her way of expressing herself surprised me a little in a peasant-woman – 'Young man, you may be able to tell me something I want to know.' I said I was at her service and she began, 'It's like this: I live in a little village close by. I heard just now that your army corps was here. So I came, because I wanted to see a soldier who belonged to it, only I don't know the number of his regiment. I believe he has been transferred, because I never get a letter from him; and I dare say he has not had mine. Oh, if you only happened to know him! He's such a good lad, such a gallant fellow.' I asked her to tell me his name; and she answered, 'Delroze, Corporal Paul Delroze.'"
"What!" cried Paul. "Did she want me?"
"Yes, Paul, and the coincidence struck me as so curious that I just gave her the number of your regiment and your company, without telling her that we were related. 'Good,' she said. 'And is the regiment at Corvigny?' I said it had just arrived. 'And do you know Paul Delroze?' 'Only by name,' I answered. I can't tell you why I answered like that, or why I continued the conversation so as not to let her guess my surprise: 'He has been promoted to sergeant,' I said, 'and mentioned in dispatches. That's how I come to have heard his name. Shall I find out where he is and take you to him?' 'Not yet,' she said, 'not yet. I should be too much upset.'"
"What on earth did she mean?"
"I can't imagine. It struck me as more and more suspicious. Here was a woman looking for you eagerly and yet putting off the chance of seeing you. I asked her if she was very much interested in you and she said yes, that you were her son."
"Her son!"
"Up to then I am certain that she did not suspect for a second that I was cross-examining her. But my astonishment was so great that she drew back into the shadow, as though to put herself on the defensive. I slipped my hand into my pocket, pulled out my little electric lamp, went up to her, pressed the spring and flung the light full in her face. She seemed disconcerted and stood for a moment without moving. Then she quickly lowered a scarf which she wore over her head and, with a strength which I should never have believed, struck me on the arm and made me drop my lamp. Then came a second of absolute silence. I couldn't make out where she was: whether in front of me, or on the right or the left. There was no sound to tell me if she was there still or not. But I understood presently, when, after picking up my lamp and switching on the light again, I saw her two wooden shoes on the ground. She had stepped out of them and run away on her stocking-feet. I hunted for her, but couldn't find her. She had disappeared."
Paul had listened to his brother-in-law's story with increasing attention.
"Then you saw her face?" he asked.
"Oh, quite distinctly! A strong face, with black hair and eyebrows and a look of great wickedness… Her clothes were those of a peasant-woman, but too clean and too carefully put on: I felt somehow that they were a disguise."
"About what age was she?"
"Forty."
"Would you know her again?"
"Without a moment's hesitation."
"What was the color of the scarf you mentioned?"
"Black."
"How was it fastened? In a knot?"
"No, with a brooch."
"A cameo?"
"Yes, a large cameo set in gold. How did you know that?"
Paul was silent for some time and then said:
"I will show you to-morrow, in one of the rooms at Ornequin, a portrait which should bear a striking resemblance to the woman who spoke to you, the sort of resemblance that exists between two sisters perhaps.. or.. or." He took his brother-in-law by the arm and, leading him along, continued, "Listen to me, Bernard. There are terrible things around us, in the present and the past, things that affect my life and Élisabeth's.. and yours as well. Therefore, I am struggling in the midst of a hideous obscurity in which enemies whom I do not know have for twenty years been pursuing a scheme which I am quite unable to understand. In the beginning of the struggle, my father died, the victim of a murder. To-day it is I that am being threatened. My marriage with your sister is shattered and nothing can bring us together again, just as nothing will ever again allow you and me to be on those terms of friendship and confidence which we had the right to hope for. Don't ask me any questions, Bernard, and don't try to find out any more. One day, perhaps – and I do not wish that day ever to arrive – you will know why I begged for your silence."
CHAPTER VI
WHAT PAUL SAW AT ORNEQUIN
Paul Delroze was awakened at dawn by the bugle-call. And, in the artillery duel that now began, he at once recognized the sharp, dry voice of the seventy-fives and the hoarse bark of the German seventy-sevens.
"Are you coming, Paul?" Bernard called from his room. "Coffee is served downstairs."
The brothers-in-law had found two little bedrooms over a publican's shop. While they both did credit to a substantial breakfast, Paul told Bernard the particulars of the occupation of Corvigny and Ornequin which he had gathered on the evening before:
"On Wednesday, the nineteenth of August, Corvigny, to the great satisfaction of the inhabitants, still thought that it would be spared the horrors of war. There was fighting in Alsace and outside Nancy, there was fighting in Belgium; but it looked as if the German thrust were neglecting the route of invasion offered by the valley of the Liseron. The fact is that this road is a narrow one and apparently of secondary importance. At Corvigny, a French brigade was busily pushing forward the defense-works. The Grand Jonas and the Petit Jonas were ready under their concrete cupolas. Our fellows were waiting."
"And at Ornequin?" asked Bernard.
"At Ornequin, we had a company of light infantry. The officers put up at the house. This company, supported by a detachment of dragoons, patrolled the frontier day and night. In case of alarm, the orders were to inform the forts at once and to retreat fighting. The evening of Wednesday was absolutely quiet. A dozen dragoons had galloped over the frontier till they were in sight of the little German town of Èbrecourt. There was not a movement of troops to be seen on that side, nor on the railway-line that ends at Èbrecourt. The night also was peaceful. Not a shot was fired. It is fully proved that at two o'clock in the morning not a single German soldier had crossed the frontier. Well, at two o'clock exactly, a violent explosion was heard, followed by four others at close intervals. These explosions were due to the bursting of five four-twenty shells which demolished straightway the three cupolas of the Grand Jonas and the two cupolas of the Petit Jonas."
"What do you mean? Corvigny is fifteen miles from the frontier; and the four-twenties don't carry as far as that!"
"That didn't prevent six more shells falling at Corvigny, all on the church or in the square. And these six shells fell twenty minutes later, that is to say, at the time when it was to be presumed that the alarm would have been given and that the Corvigny garrison would have assembled in the square. This was just what had happened; and you can imagine the carnage that resulted."
"I agree; but, once more, the frontier was fifteen miles away. That distance must have given our troops time to form up again and to prepare for the attacks foretold by the bombardment. They had at least three or four hours before them."
"They hadn't fifteen minutes. The bombardment was not over before the assault began. Assault isn't the word: our troops, those at Corvigny as well as those which hastened up from the two forts, were decimated and routed, surrounded by the enemy, shot down or obliged to surrender, before it was possible to organize any sort of resistance. It all happened suddenly under the blinding glare of flash-lights erected no one knew where or how. And the catastrophe was immediate. You may take it that Corvigny was invested, attacked, captured and occupied by the enemy, all in ten minutes."
"But where did he come from? Where did he spring from?"
"Nobody knows."
"But the night-patrols on the frontier? The sentries? The company on duty at Ornequin?"
"Never heard of again. No one knows anything, not a word, not a rumor, about those three hundred men whose business it was to keep watch and to warn the others. You can reckon up the Corvigny garrison, with the soldiers who escaped and the dead whom the inhabitants identified and buried. But the three hundred light infantry of Ornequin disappeared without leaving the shadow of a trace behind them, not a fugitive, not a wounded man, not a corpse, nothing at all."
"It seems incredible. Whom did you talk to?"
"I saw ten people last night who, for a month, with no one to interfere with them except a few soldiers of the Landsturm placed in charge of Corvigny, have pursued a minute inquiry into all these problems, without establishing so much as a plausible theory. One thing alone is certain: the business was prepared long ago, down to the slightest detail. The exact range had been taken of the forts, the cupolas, the church and the square; and the siege-gun had been placed in position before and accurately laid so that the eleven shells should strike the eleven objects aimed at. That's all. The rest is mystery."
"And what about the château? And Élisabeth?"
Paul had risen from his seat. The bugles were sounding the morning roll-call. The gun-fire was twice as intense as before. They both started for the square; and Paul continued:
"Here, too, the mystery is bewildering and perhaps worse. One of the cross-roads that run through the fields between Corvigny and Ornequin has been made a boundary by the enemy which no one here had the right to overstep under pain of death."
"Then Élisabeth.. ?"
"I don't know, I know nothing more. And it's terrible, this shadow of death lying over everything, over every incident. It appears – I have not been able to find out where the rumor originated – that the village of Ornequin, near the château, no longer exists. It has been entirely destroyed, more than that, annihilated; and its four hundred inhabitants have been sent away into captivity. And then." Paul shuddered and, lowering his voice, went on, "And then.. what did they do at the château? You can see the house, you can still see it at a distance, with its walls and turrets standing. But what happened behind those walls? What has become of Élisabeth? For nearly four weeks she has been living in the midst of those brutes, poor thing, exposed to every outrage!."
The sun had hardly risen when they reached the square. Paul was sent for by his colonel, who gave him the heartiest congratulations of the general commanding the division and told him that his name had been submitted for the military cross and for a commission as second lieutenant and that he was to take command of his section from now.
"That's all," said the colonel, laughing. "Unless you have any further request to make."
"I have two, sir."
"Go ahead."
"First, that my brother-in-law here, Bernard d'Andeville, may be at once transferred to my section as corporal. He's deserved it."
"Very well. And next?"
"My second request is that presently, when we move towards the frontier, my section may be sent to the Château d'Ornequin, which is on the direct route."
"You mean that it is to take part in the attack on the château?"
"The attack?" echoed Paul, in alarm. "Why, the enemy is concentrated along the frontier, four miles from the château!"
"So it was believed, yesterday. In reality, the concentration took place at the Château d'Ornequin, an excellent defensive position where the enemy is hanging desperately while waiting for his reinforcements to come up. The best proof is that he's answering our fire. Look at that shell bursting over there.. and, farther off, that shrapnel.. two.. three of them. Those are the guns which located the batteries which we have set up on the surrounding hills and which are now peppering them like mad. They must have twenty guns there."
"Then, in that case," stammered Paul, tortured by a horrible thought, "in that case, that fire of our batteries is directed at."
"At them, of course. Our seventy-fives have been bombarding the Château d'Ornequin for the last hour."
Paul uttered an exclamation of horror:
"Do you mean to say, sir, that we're bombarding Ornequin?."
And Bernard d'Andeville, standing beside him, repeated, in an anguish-stricken voice:
"Bombarding Ornequin? Oh, how awful!"
The colonel asked, in surprise:
"Do you know the place? Perhaps it belongs to you? Is that so? And are any of your people there?"
"Yes, sir, my wife."
Paul was very pale. Though he made an effort to stand stock-still, in order to master his emotion, his hands trembled a little and his chin quivered.
On the Grand Jonas, three pieces of heavy artillery began thundering, three Rimailho guns, which had been hoisted into position by traction engines. And this, added to the stubborn work of the seventy-fives, assumed a terrible significance after Paul Delroze's words. The colonel and the group of officers around him kept silence. The situation was one of those in which the fatalities of war run riot in all their tragic horror, stronger than the forces of nature themselves and, like them, blind, unjust and implacable. There was nothing to be done. Not one of those men would have dreamt of asking for the gun-fire to cease or to slacken its activity. And Paul did not dream of it, either. He merely said:
"It looks as if the enemy's fire was slowing down. Perhaps they are retreating.."
Three shells bursting at the far end of the town, behind the church, belied this hope. The colonel shook his head:
"Retreating? Not yet. The place is too important to them; they are waiting for reinforcements and they won't give way until our regiments take part in the game.. which won't be long now."
In fact, the order to advance was brought to the colonel a few moments later. The regiment was to follow the road and deploy in the meadows on the right.
"Come along, gentlemen," he said to his officers. "Sergeant Delroze's section will march in front. His objective will be the Château d'Ornequin. There are two little short cuts. Take both of them."
"Very well, sir."
All Paul's sorrow and rage were intensified in a boundless need for action; when he marched off with his men, he felt an inexhaustible strength, felt capable of conquering the enemy's position all by himself. He moved from one to the other with the untiring hurry of a sheep-dog hustling his flock. He never ceased advising and encouraging his men:
"You're one of the plucky ones, old chap, I know, you're no shirker… Nor you either.. Only you think too much about your skin, you keep grumbling, when you ought to be cheerful… Who's downhearted, eh? There's a bit more collar-work to do and we're going to do it without looking behind us, what?"
Overhead, the shells followed their march in the air, whistling and moaning and exploding till they formed a sort of canopy of steel and grape-shot.
"Duck your heads! Lie down flat!" cried Paul.
He himself remained standing, indifferent to the flight of the enemy's shells. But with what terror he listened to our own, those coming from behind, from all the hills hard by, whizzing ahead of them to carry destruction and death. Where would this one fall? And that one, where would its murderous rain of bullets and splinters descend?
He was obsessed with the vision of his wife, wounded, dying, and kept on murmuring her name. For many days now, ever since the day when he learnt that Élisabeth had refused to leave the Château d'Ornequin, he could not think of her without a loving emotion that was never spoilt by any impulse of revolt, any movement of anger. He no longer mingled the detestable memories of the past with the charming reality of his love. When he thought of the hated mother, the image of the daughter no longer appeared before his mind. They were two creatures of a different race, having no connection one with the other. Élisabeth, full of courage, risking her life to obey a duty to which she attached a value greater than her life, acquired in Paul's eyes a singular dignity. She was indeed the woman whom he had loved and cherished, the woman whom he loved still.
Paul stopped. He had ventured with his men into an open piece of ground, probably marked down in advance, which the enemy was now peppering with shrapnel. A number of men were hit.
"Halt!" he cried. "Flat on your stomachs, all of you!"
He caught hold of Bernard:
"Lie down, kid, can't you? Why expose yourself unnecessarily?.. Stay there. Don't move."