The Girl Philippa

CHAPTER XXVIII

Philippa, curled up in the punt, had fashioned for herself a chaplet of river lilies. The white blossoms wreathing the black velvet bonnet à quartiers, and a huge bouquet of the lovely flowers which she carried in her hand gave a bridal aspect to the affair, heightened presently when she began to festoon the gunwales with lilies and scented rushes from the sedge, as they slipped along inshore to avoid the stronger current of midstream.

The air vibrated and hummed with the unbroken rolling of the bombardment; there was not a cloud in the calm sky; no birds sang and few, except the darting swallows of the Récollette, were on the wing at all; but everywhere dragon flies glittered, level-winged, poised in mid-air, or darted and hovered among the reeds with a faint, fairy-like clash of gauzy wings.

The sound of the cannonade grew so much more distinct as they drew near the environs of Ausone that, to Warner, the increase in volume and the jar of concussion seemed scarcely due alone to their approach. Rather it appeared as though the distant reverberations were very gradually rolling toward them; and before they had poled within sight of the outskirts of the town Warner said to Philippa:

"It sounds to me as though the whole business were miles nearer than the mere distance we have come. And that is not an encouraging suggestion, either."

"Could it be the wind which is carrying it toward us?"

"There is very little wind in those tree tops up there." He shrugged, poled ahead, not apprehensive, yet conscious that Philippa had no business in a town from the vicinity of which such ominous sounds could be heard so distinctly.

Few people were moving on the Ausone road, merely a belated group or two trudging southward. Except for a distant cavalry patrol riding slowly along the quarry road across the river, the country appeared to be empty of military movement. As they advanced upstream, one fact became apparent; the fugitives who had passed through Saïs that morning had not come from the scattered hamlets and cottages along the Récollette. They could see women washing linen along the river banks and hanging out the wash on clotheslines. Old men and children fished tranquilly from the sterns of skiffs pulled up among the rushes; cattle stood knee-deep in the limpid stream under the fringe of trees; a farmer who had cut his wheat and barley had already begun threshing. It was evident that the exodus from the north was not, so far, affecting Ausone.

When their punt glided past the great willow tree where the Impasse d'Alcyon terminated at the river bank, Warner, swinging his pole level, pointed in silence and looked at Philippa. She smiled interrogatively in response.

"That's where Halkett and I landed when we came to find you," he said.

Then she comprehended and the smile faded from her lips.

Around the bend lay the tree-shaded lawn of the Café Biribi. They gazed at it fixedly and in silence, as they shot swiftly past. There was no sign of life there; the beds of cannas and geraniums lay all ablaze in the sun; the windows of the building were closed, the blinds lowered; every gayly-painted rowboat had been pulled up on the landing and turned keel upward. A solitary swan sailed along close inshore, probing the shallows with his brilliant scarlet beak.

Then, as they left the deserted scene of their first meeting, and as the pretty stone bridge of the Place d'Ausone came into sight beyond, spanning the river in a single, silver-grey arch, Warner looked up along the steep and mossy quay wall, and saw, above him, a line sentinel, fully equipped, lounging on the parapet, watching them. Two others paced the bridge.

"Halte là! Au large!" called out the sentinel. "The Pont d'Ausone is mined."

Leaning on his pole and holding the punt against the current, Warner called out:

"Is it permitted to land, soldier?"

"It is not forbidden," replied the soldier. "But you must not approach the bridge any nearer. There are wires under water."

"I have business in Ausone at the Boule d'Argent!" explained Warner. "Is it all right for us to go there?"

"If you remain there with Madame over night you must inscribe yourself with the police and stay indoors after nine without lights," replied the sentinel. It was evident that he took the chaplet of river lilies for a bridal wreath, and that the young bride's beauty dazzled him. He was very young, and he blushed when Philippa looked up laughingly and thanked him as she put off her white chaplet.

Warner tied the skiff to a rusty ring; Philippa sprang ashore; and they mounted the stone steps, arm in arm together. As they passed the sentinel she drew a lily from her bouquet.

"Bonne chance, soldier of France!" she murmured, dropping the white blossom into his sunburnt hand; and clasping Warner's arm she passed lightly on into the square, hugging her bouquet to her breast.

The aspect of the town, from the quay wall above, seemed to have changed very little. Except on fête days the Place d'Ausone, or market square, was never animated. A few people moved about it now, as usual; a few men sat sipping their bitters on the terrace of the Café Biribi; children played under the trees by the river wall; old women knitted; a few aged anglers, forbidden the bridge, dozed on the quay parapets, while their brilliant scarlet quills trailed in the pools below.

True, there were no idle soldiers to be seen strolling in couples or dawdling on benches. A patrol of chasseurs à cheval, in their pale blue jackets and black "tresses," walked their wiry horses across the square. Also, near the horse fountain, three anti-aircraft guns stood in the sunshine, their lean muzzles tilted high, the cannoniers lying on their blankets around them, and a single sentinel on guard, pacing the Place with his piece shouldered. At the further end of the rue d'Auros, where it enters the boulevard by the Church of Sainte Cassilda, cavalry were moving; and more sky artillery was visible in front of the church plaza. Otherwise the presence of troops was not noticeable in Ausone town.

Nor were Philippa and Warner particularly noticed or remarked, the girl's provincial costume being a familiar sight in the region from Saïs to Dreslin. In fact, Warner's knickers and Norfolk excited the only attention, and every now and then some man passing, and taking him for English, lifted his hat in cordial salutation to a comrade of an allied nation.

But for all the absence of animation and excitement in the Ausone streets, the deepening thunder of the cannonade began to preoccupy Warner; and finally he inquired what it signified of a passing line soldier, who stopped courteously and saluted.

"C'est le fort d'Ausone qui donne, Monsieur," he explained, bowing slightly to Philippa as he spoke.

"What!" exclaimed Warner. "Is the Ausone fort firing?"

"Since two hours, Monsieur. It would appear that affairs are warming up out there."

"What does that mean?"

"Dame– they must see something to fire at," replied the soldier, laughing. "As for us here in the town, we know nothing. We others – we never know anything that happens until it is happening to us."

"From the Château at Saïs," said Warner, "one can see three towns on fire in the north."

"It is more than we soldiers can see from here, Monsieur. Yet we know it must be so, because people from Isly, from Rosales, from Dreslin, have been passing through from the north. They must have passed through Saïs."

"Thousands," nodded Warner.

The soldier saluted; Warner lifted his cap, and he and Philippa entered the Boule d'Argent, where, in a little, lace-curtained dining-room to the left, they seated themselves by the street window and ordered tea and sugar-buns.

The gérant, who knew Warner, came up and made a most serious and elaborate bow to Philippa and to the American.

"Ah, Monsieur Warner!" he said. "Voyez-vous the Bosches have begun at last! But, God willing, it shall not be 1870 again!"

"It won't be; don't worry, François. The Republic knows how to confront what is coming!"

"Yes. I hope we have learned something. All Frenchmen will do what is possible. As for me, I expect that my class will be called. I shall do my best, Monsieur Warner… It is a great happiness to know that the English are with us. We must stand by those poor Belgians. Have you heard the news, Monsieur?"

"Nothing since noon."

"Ah! The Bosches are ruining everything with their artillery. Liége, Namur, are crumbling; Louvain has been swept by shells. The great cupola forts are in ruins; everything is on fire; they are shooting the people in their houses, in the streets – the dead lie everywhere – women, children, in the ditches, in the fields, on the highroads. Ah, Monsieur Warner, c'est triste, allez!"

"Where did you hear such things, François?"

"It is already common talk. The noon bulletins of the Petit Journal confirm it. They say that our fort is shelling the Uhlans of Guillaume now. They say that the forest of Ausone crawls with them."

A waiter brought their tea; the gérant bowed himself out and sent a porter to the lumber room to collect and cord up Warner's canvases.

While Philippa poured their tea, the cups began to rattle in the saucers, and the windows shivered and trembled in the increasing thunder. Twice his cup slopped over; and he was just lifting it to his lips when suddenly the very floor seemed to jump under them and a tremendous shock rocked the room.

"A big gun in the fort," said Warner, coolly forcing a smile. "I think, Philippa, as soon as you have finished – "

A terrific salvo cut him short. Somewhere he could hear a crashing avalanche of broken glass, prolonged into a tinkling cascade; then came a second's silence, then another splitting roar from the end of the street.

The waiter came in hurriedly, very pale.

"An aëroplane, Monsieur! They are firing at it from the boulevard – "

His words were obliterated in the rush and clatter of horses outside.

Dragoons were galloping up the stony rue d'Auros, squadron on squadron, and behind them rattled three high-angle guns harnessed to teams driven by dragoons.

"Attention there!" shouted an officer, reining in and halting a peloton of horsemen. "Fire at will from your saddles!"

Warner sprang to the window; the street and the market square was full of halted cavalry firing skyward. They had several high-angle guns there too; the ear-splitting detonations became continuous; and all the time the solid earth was shaking under terrible detonations from the fort's cupolas, where the big cannon were concealed.

From everywhere came the treble clink and tinkle of broken glass; people in the hotel were running to the windows and running away from them; the building itself seemed to sway slightly; dust hung in the air, greying everything.

Warner drew Philippa to him and said calmly, but close to her ear:

"The thing to do is to get out of this at the first opportunity. I had no idea that anything would happen as near – "

His voice was blotted out in a loud report, shouts, a woman screaming, the rumble and tumbling roar of bricks. Another shattering report almost deafened him; the air was filled with whizzing, whining noises; the entire front of a shop diagonally across the street caved in with a crystalline crash of glass, and the cornice above it lurched outward, swayed, crumpled, and descended in a pouring avalanche of bricks and mortar.

Somebody in the hotel lobby shouted:

"An aëroplane is directly over us. They are dropping bombs!"

"Go to the cellar!" cried another.

An officer of gendarmerie came in, followed by a trooper.

"Stay where you are!" he said. "It's safer."

Another explosion sounded, but farther away this time.

"Their Taube is steering toward the fort," continued the same quiet-voiced officer who had spoken. "Don't go out into the streets!"

The uproar in the square had become terrific; high-angle guns poured streams of fire into the sky; dragoons sitting their restless horses fired upward from their saddles; an engine escorted by brass-helmeted pompiers arrived and a stream of water was turned on the debris of the shop across the street, where already pale flames flickered and played over the dusty ruins.

"Somebody has been killed," whispered Philippa in Warner's ear.

He nodded, watching the Red Cross bearers as they hastened up with their stretchers, where the firemen were uncovering something from beneath the heap of smoking debris.

A staff officer, attended by a hussar lancer, and followed by two mounted gendarmes, rode into the street just as the dragoons, forming to whistle signal in column of fours, rode out of the street at a gallop.

There came another clatter of hoofs; an open carriage escorted by six gendarmes-à-cheval rolled through the rue d'Auros. In it was a white-haired gentleman wearing a top hat and a tri-colored sash.

"The mayor," nodded Warner, as carriage and escort passed rapidly in the direction of the Hôtel de Ville.

The sky-guns had ceased firing, now; three of them were limbered up and dragged away toward the Boulevard d'Athos by dragoons. More Red Cross brassards appeared in the street, more stretchers. Two double-decked motor ambulances drew up; others, following, continued on toward the Place and the railroad station. Then three grey military automobiles full of officers came whizzing through the rue d'Auros with terrific blasts of warning; and sped on, succeeded by others filled with infantry soldiers, until a steady stream of motor cars of every description was rushing past the windows, omnibus motors, trucks, hotel busses, furniture vans, private cars, of every make and varying capacities, all loaded with red-capped fantassins and bristling with rifles.

Warner opened the window and leaned far out, one arm around Philippa.

Eastward, on the Plaza Sainte Cassilda, masses of lancer cavalry were defiling at a trot, dragoons, hussars, and chasseurs-à-cheval, and the rue d'Auros was filled with onrushing motor cars as far as he could see. Westward, parallel with the stream of automobiles, field artillery was crossing the Place d'Ausone, battery after battery, the drivers whipping and spurring in their saddles, the horses breaking from trot to gallop.

"Something unexpectedly serious is happening," said Warner, trying to make his voice audible in the din from the fort. "Look into those alleys and lanes and cross streets! Do you see the people hurrying out of their houses? I must have been crazy to bring you here!"

"I can't hear you, Jim – " Her lips formed the words; he pointed across the street into the alleyways and mews; she nodded comprehension.

"Until these automobiles pass we can't cross – can't get across!" He found himself almost shouting; and he emphasized his meaning with pantomime and gesticulation.

She nodded, undisturbed. Now and then, when soldiers in automobiles looked up at them, she tossed white flowers from her bouquet into the tonneau and nodded a gay response to the quick salutes. One lily remained; she drew it through the laces that held her scarlet and black bodice, then, resting her hand on Warner's shoulder, looked gravely down at the rushing column underneath.

The tremendous concussions from the fort had loosened plaster and broken window glass everywhere in the hotel; a smarting mist drifted through the open window; the room behind them was obscured as by a fog, and every shock from the guns added to the thickening dust veil.

The gérant, François, ghastly pale but polite, came presently to inform Warner by signs that a chimney had fallen in on the lumber room and that at present it was not possible for the porter to enter and find the canvases stored there.

Warner understood, catching a word or two here and there, and shrugged his indifference to what might become of his sketches.

"All I want," he shouted into the gérant's ear, "is to get this young lady out of Ausone!"

François nodded, pointed toward the cross streets which were now swarming with people preparing for flight. There came a sudden lull in the cannonade, and almost at the same time the last motor filled with soldiers sped through the street below.

Instantly the street, now occupied only by firemen and Red Cross soldiers, was filled with citizens. Groups formed, surged hither and thither, mingled with other groups and became a swaying crowd. Already hand-carts and wheelbarrows appeared, piled with bedding and household furniture; the open carriage of the mayor repassed, was halted, and the aged magistrate stood up and addressed the people; but Warner could not make out what he was saying, and in a moment or two the carriage continued toward the Boulevard d'Athos, escorted by gendarmes.

"It's plain enough that the Germans are pretty close," said Warner carelessly. "If you're ready, Philippa, I think we'd better get back to Saïs."

"And your beautiful pictures! Oh, Jim, I can't bear to have them left here – "

"Which do you imagine I consider the more valuable, Philippa, you or those daubs of mine? Come, dear; let's clear out if we can before that fort begins to converse again with Germans."

He paid his reckoning at the desk, where patron, gerant, caissière, and staff had gathered in calm consultation concerning eventualities. Nobody seemed excited; everybody was polite, even smiling; servants were already busy with dusters, brooms, and pans; the porter carried down luggage for departing guests.

"Monsieur Warner, are you leaving us?" inquired François smilingly. "Perhaps it is better; they say that the Germans are now in range of the fort. Saïs is likely to be more peaceful than Ausone tonight. If the Bosches don't bombard us, I think your pictures will be quite safe with us."

He bowed them to the door; Philippa, clinging to Warner's arm, went out into the stony street, which was now crowded with hurrying people, all preparing for flight.

As they set foot on the pavement, a frightful detonation shook the town, another, another; and on the heels of the thunderous shock the first German shell fell in Ausone, plunged through the roof and exploded in the transept of the Church of Sainte Cassilda, blowing the altar and choir stalls to dust and splinters.

Before Philippa and Warner could make their way to the river, three more shells came plunging into the town, one exploding with a deafening din in the empty market, another stripping a shop open from roof to basement and literally disemboweling it, and a third blowing up the eastern end of the rue d'Auros, where its whistling fragments tore right and left through a huddled group of women and children.

Then, as they ran toward the quay, the soldiers on guard there came hastening toward them, warning them back. For a few moments the Place d'Ausone streamed with terrified people in confused and purposeless flight, forced back from the river by line soldiers who kept shouting something which Warner could not understand.

But in another moment he understood, for the old stone bridge across the Récollette split in two, vomiting great masses of stone into the air, and the earth rocked with the roar of dynamite.

Half stunned, balked, hesitating, Warner stood in the market place with his arm around Philippa, looking about him for a chance; while shell after shell fell into the town, and the racket of their detonations resounded from the railroad station to the boulevard.

"The river," he said; "it's the best way out of this, I think!"

She nodded, clasped his arm, and they started once more toward the quay.

Below the parapet their punt, still tied fast, lay tossing and rocking on the agitated river. Down the stone stairs they ran; Philippa sprang on board, and the next moment Warner cast off and drove the punt swiftly out into the current of midstream.

Then, directly ahead of them, parallel to the Impasse d'Alcyon, a shell fell with the whistling screech of a steamer's siren; there came a deadened roar; a geyser of water and gravel rose in mid-river, hurling rocks, planks from the landing, and splintered rowboats in every direction.

Great limbs from the willow trees hurtled earthward, a muddy maelstrom of foam whirled their punt, caught it on a comb of seething water, flung it from wave to wave.