He heard them chewing with loud, contented smacks. He was so hungry, he felt as if he were breaking apart in the middle. Yet he lay quiet, being doubtful how far he could trust them. They were Belgian, it was true, and the Belgians in general had shown a heroic patriotism which not all the blandishments nor the rigor of the conquerors had been able to diminish. But there are traitors in any nation. The girls might have German lovers.
Soon, indeed, a pair of German soldiers approached and greeted them like old friends. Dick was glad then that he had not betrayed himself. The soldiers talked in halting Flemish, answered by shrieks of laughter and some crackling words that sounded like hot stuff. Concealing their baskets beneath the hay, the women arose. Arm in arm with the Germans, they sauntered off.
Only one of the bulging baskets had been devoured. The other was untouched. It nestled in the mound almost against Dick’s nose. Black bread and cheese. Hardboiled eggs. Big, shiny green apples. Even a pint bottle of wine. How that cheese smelled! Dick drew a deep breath that carried the whiff of it clear down to his stomach.
I bet if you stuck a fuse in it, you would blow the whole damned castle clean off its roots, he thought. Yee-how! I’d rather be married to that cheese than to the Queen of England.
He could resist the temptation no longer. He extracted a slice of black bread and brushed it across that cheese. The two fat wenches would never miss it. One bite, and the whole basket had met its Waterloo, cheese and all. He couldn’t control himself after that. He didn’t let up on the good work till he had washed down the last egg yolk with the last lees of the musty old wine.
He lay like a bloated hippopotamus, unable to move for a while. That wine was loaded with dynamite and the spirit of ’76. It went rolling through him like the Mississippi and plastered the hair on his head. He felt the urge to give a war whoop and climb up out of that hay pile. He figured there wouldn’t be any trouble in whipping the whole Hun army now. The only reason he failed to jump out with a yell and begin a one-man march toward Berlin was that his tongue was paralyzed and he was too stuffed to even wiggle.
“Maybe they’ll think the field mice have eaten it,” he prayed, surveying the emptied basket dizzily.
By and by, the big woman with yellow braids returned. She retrieved her basket without a word and went away again. But there was a quiet smile on her big, healthy face.
Dick understood then that the meal had been arranged by K-13. So K-13 was not working entirely alone!
* * * * *
In the afternoon, the dogs came on, keen, fierce, wise animals trained to war. Smarter than many men, they were. They padded down the edge of the field in a pack, black as wolves, with silent snouts to the ground. They were no foolish yapping foxhounds. They were man-hunters and man-killers. They went about their business without commotion.
As yet, they had been able to pick up no scent at all. His trail from the guardhouse through the cedar wood had grown stale, and was crossed by too many other trails. Beneath the fringes of the damp hay, he watched them padding past down a hedge row, under guard of half a dozen soldiers, von Reuter himself urging them on, sharp and eager. They were to windward of the field. They did not get the scent.
“Reicht an! Bekommt ihn, Schurken! Smell him out! Get him, you rascals!”
Von Reuter’s faint, clear voice came barking over the distance. A whip like a blacksnake was in his hand. He was not goosestepping now, but moving with the quick, undulating lightness of an Indian. Von Reuter also, like his wild, lean dogs, was a man-hunter and a man-killer.
The dogs moved with the discipline of a drilled military machine. They were headed for the marshes of the Meser River. Von Reuter was not wasting time with the hayfields, reported as already thoroughly searched.
“Tamtam! Vielchen! Schnüffelt ihn aus!”
Suddenly, one of the dogs, younger and less trained than his veteran-companions, broke away from the formation. With a hoarse bark, he raced down the field in pursuit of a fat gray hare. The terrified hare skittered upright on its long hind legs, doing for a moment a bewildered dance. Then, straight as a streak, it leaped for Dick’s hay mound, and the yellow dog after it, nose to tail.
“Tamtam! Halt an! Zurück zur Spur! Back to your trail, Tamtam!”
Dick chewed a grass blade grimly as he watched the murderous race approaching him. The fat gray hare laid back its ears. It was hopping for its life.
“Go and find yourself a hole of your own, you first cousin to a mule!” Dick muttered.
The hare came at him like a batted ball. With one last, terrific leap, it vaulted into the hay beside him. He felt the rapid stammering of its heart as it nestled against his face, its hind legs convulsively kicking.
The yelling dog, racing up, changed its cry to a hoarser note. It slackened pace. It curled its upper lip as it came growling onward, dragging its belly over the ground.
All over now but the shooting, Dick thought.
Calmly he selected another grass blade to chew on. Von Reuter came racing down the wind toward the creeping dog. His hand was on his Luger.
“Hündin Söhn!”
He gripped the snarling dog by the collar. His leather lash flickered through the air. The dog was only a puppy, but if it should live to be an old, old dog, it would never forget the beating it received that day.
The German military system did not tolerate disobedience from man nor dog. Half dead, von Reuter dragged it by the collar back toward the waiting pack by the hedgerow.
“Vorwärts! Reicht an! Bekommt den Engländer, Schurken!”
They moved at a trot on toward the Meser.
Dick Fahnestock, watching them go, was glad that the young Prussian lieutenant was not so smart as his dog.
* * * * *
All the latter afternoon, the thunder of cannon far away drummed and rumbled in the ground. All the afternoon, camions loaded with green-clad soldiers rolled through dust clouds down the roads from Oldemonde. Fresh and battle-eager, the 7th Corps, the great Invincibles, the picked shock troops that were the hammerhead of von Falkenhayn’s right flank, moved down toward the Somme.
Rumble-rumble-rumble in the ground. Faint, yet unmistakable, like the stirring of an earthquake deep in the core of the world. The great guns were opening up against Hill 439, masking the great infantry surprise assault to be delivered that night against Laraine Wood, thirty miles to the west. With the dropping of the sun, the constant cannonading grew heavier.
Hay dust sifted down into Dick’s eyes and throat. He lay in a furnace.
My God, they must be throwing the whole Krupp factory, including the adding machine, he thought.
He had never known a cannonading like that before.
Fritz is getting peevish, he thought. Wham! There went Bertha’s grand piano!
Still, the dusty camions went rumbling by in an endless flood. The 7th Corps in six divisions, the 2nd Pomeranians, the 38th Poseners, the 17th Saxons, the 11th and 21st Silesians, and a mixed division from Berlin that included the famous Brandenburg Guards—these last wearing proudly the nickname of the Ignorants, because it was said that they knew how to die, but did not know how to surrender nor retreat—eighty thousand men of them, shock troops all of them, the flower of the German Army, fresh from four weeks of rest, splendidly equipped, mustered to full strength with veteran replacements from the Russian front, they went rolling down that hot day in July ’16, to drive the wedge that would cut straight to Paris, and roll up the British line from the Somme to the North Sea.
Eighty thousand men of them, the great Invincibles, the Butcher’s pride, the hammerhead of the Army of the West. And they had never been defeated. They had never retreated save on that one day when von Kluck turned back from the Marne. Eighty thousand battle-eager veterans of them, they went rolling down, and rolling down, to thrust straight through Major-General Sir Keith Cothaven at Laraine Wood, and roll on to Paris and the sea.
Durch Hunderttausend zuckt es schnell,
Und aller Augen blitzen he
ll . . . .
Hurrah! By God, they were singing and yelling! To hear ’em, you’d think they had just captured Foch by the whiskers. They were full of schnapps and limburger. Snatches of their voices came floating over the sunny fields, above the pfut-pfutting of the camions and the barking of the officers, who—God knows why—always have to bark.
Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles,
Über alles in dem Welt! . . . .
That was a band rolling by, sitting in shirt sleeves on a loaded camion, red-faced, balloon-cheeked, tootling on the tuba and the clarinet.
Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles,
It went lurching down the road. The wind instruments died. But the bass drum went thudding on.
A bugle blew.
“Squad, attention! . . .”
“. . . Home by Christmas, Fritz!”
“. . . English swine! Believe me, I’m goin’ to polish this old pig-sticker . . . .”
“Gewekr—Auf!”
“Auf Wiedersehn, sweet Marie! . . .”
The camions snorted and lurched down the dusty road.
“Hurrah!”
“Attention, men! . . .”
“Hoch! Hoch! Hurrah!”
All afternoon, and into the darkness, they would go rolling down, and rolling down, those eighty thousand men, those great Invincibles, laughing and singing and yelling, or silently polishing their bayonets. But they did not know, nor did von Schmee know, nor did Dick Fahnestock know, nor did any living soul north of the Somme except only K-13 know, that they were rolling down to death.
For down in the muddy bottomlands of Laraine Wood, Major-General Sir Keith Cothaven of the King’s Own Scots, “The Prettiest Lady From Hell,” as he was known, lying with three divisions of Yeomen and the King’s Own, of Bantams and the Black Watch, was waiting for that 7th Corps, the Invincibles, as a tiger waits for a bull. Behind him, the great guns from forty miles of front were massed to open up, with all their ranges set. And throughout fifteen square miles of the muddy wood itself was a perfect thistle patch of wire and machine guns, of field pieces set to rake the flanks, of mines wired to blow up half an acre at a time. Before the night was done, down there in the bottomlands, hell would begin to cook.
God rest the great Invincibles! They were soldiers and brave men. They fought for the faith that was in them. They died like flies. They died like tigers. They went down into that hell’s kitchen in mass formation, without preliminary bombardment, unsupported by barrage. They went down at a goosestep in parade rank, carrying their regimental colors, the flags from Posen, Pomerania, Silesia, Brandenburg and Saxony, together with the colors of that German Empire which is dead. It is said ten bands were playing for them. And the great guns opened up on them, the field guns caught them on the flank, in the white light of shrapnel and star shells, the machine guns mowed them down by companies, and the ground beneath their feet blew up. Yet, regiment after regiment, they kept on. They fell and, dying, they crawled on. They broke through the first line trenches. They were the great Invincibles. They died like fiends. They died like men. They walked on their dead, and died.
When the hour was ripe, Major-General Sir Keith Cothaven, the Prettiest Lady, uncorked a counter attack of his very terrible Bantams, his Yeomen and his King’s Own Scots. They went through the Invincibles with cold steel, and they were rather nasty about it, too. For it is probable that they didn’t like the great Invincibles.
History says that, of the more than seventy regiments of von Schmee’s corps which went into the fight at Laraine Wood, there were four of which no single man came back. Those four were the regiments of the Brandenburg Guards, who did not know how to surrender nor retreat, though they showed that they knew how to die.
The battle of Laraine Wood is forgotten. There have been greater battles. Even von Schmee, who sent the Invincibles to that slaughter, is forgotten. There have been more terrible generals. But it is hoped the Invincibles are not forgotten, for there have been no braver men. In many a little Berlin flat, in many an East Prussian farmhouse, no doubt to this day you may see hanging on the parlor wall a flag-draped picture of some big, smiling man, or some boy with solemn eyes in the uniform of the 7th Corps. And perhaps there is an Iron Cross with a ribbon draped over the picture frame.
“My man,” the hausfrau will explain to you, sobbing quietly at the ache of memory. “My man—my son—my father—my husband. He used to be a baker—a potato farmer—a bookkeeper. Always a good provider, and very kind to me. He died in battle with the Invincibles. His captain wrote me that he was brave. He was a hero. See, he earned the Iron Cross.”
It was a dreadful day, that blazing July day. It was a dolorous year, that year of damned ’16. They were brave and fierce and terrible men who went rolling down and rolling down, shouting and singing and laughing in the dusty camions. They did not know, nor did von Schmee know, nor did any soul within all Hunland know except only K-13, the hell’s kitchen they would soon be cooking in.
But K-13 knew very well. For it had been K-13 who substituted forged reports in the safe of von Schmee, causing von Schmee to change his battle plans and divert his thrust from Hill 439 to the trap of the Laraine.
And K-13, watching those rolling camions all the afternoon, smiled a little sadly. The work of Intelligence must go on. K-13, cleverest and boldest of all the English, knew the need of it. He knew his own peril, too. He was in the midst of enemies both ruthless and watchful. Each hour of the day that he walked abroad, each hour of the night that he lay abed, death was beside him, cheek to cheek.
Yet K-13, though neither a sentimentalist nor a softling, though having in himself a great deal of ruthlessness when it was needed, watched those jubilant men rolling down to their stupendous slaughter with a smile that had some pity in it. War is war. Some men must live, some men die. But we can feel a little sorry about it.
K-13 shrugged. For him, the game was almost up. He was aware that two of the keenest operatives of the Nachrichtenamt, working at Oldemonde, already suspected him. They were hard after him. It was only a matter of hours now, perhaps only of minutes. At any instant, the tap on his shoulder—
“You are caught, English spy!”
When the Butcher got him, his death would not be easy.
K-13 lit a cigarette. He must flee now, and soon. But he could not desert Big Dick Fahnestock, whatever the price.
Several times during the day, he strolled in the direction of the hayfield, keeping his glance on anything except the sixth mound from the south end, where he had directed Dick to hide. Each time that he approached, he smelled a mouse. Or rather, several mice. In the cedar wood. Along the hedgerows. Down where the peasant women were working with sweeping scythes.
He was being watched all the time.
Therefore, K-13 walked lightly, and smiled often, and smoked many cigarettes, and took care not to make one false step.
He must be patient.
All afternoon, the camions went rolling down. And, hours at a time, K- 13 stood beside von Schmee himself in the tonneau of a car drawn up before Oldemonde’s gates, while von Schmee took the salute from the Invincible’s regiments.
“The General!”
Hurrah! Helmets lifted high on the points of flashing bayonets, a forest of steel spears beneath the sun.
“Attention! Present—arms!”
Hurrah!
Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,
Über alles in dem Welt! . . .
The bands tootled. Dust clouds rolled. Sweat poured in rivers from the innocent, round, beer-fed faces of the musicians.
“The General!”
Hurrah!
“Eyes—right! Rifle—salute!”
Hurrah!
Von Schmee nodded with little twinkling eyes.
“Splendid brigade there, Kleinhals. They are—?”
“The Brandenburg Guards, Excellency! They call themselves the Ignorants. It is said that they do not know how to surrender nor retreat, though they know how
to die.”
“Very good.”
Motors snorted. Officers barked. A runaway, riderless horse went galloping down past battalion after battalion. Peasant girls, leaving their work in the fields, sat on fences beside the road, waving and shouting. Tattered regimental stands of war-stained silk passed by—the flags of the 2nd Pomeranians, the 38th Poseners, the 17th Saxons, the 11th and 21st Silesians, and the mixed Jigsaw Division from central Prussia, which included the four regiments of the Brandenburg Guards.
Von Schmee turned suddenly to Oberleutnant Ritter von Reuter behind him, with sharp eyes.
“The Brandenburg Guards are your brigade, is it not so, Herr von Reuter?”
“Yes, Excellency,” replied von Reuter imperturbably “Platoon commander, Company D, the 339th. I fought with them twenty months. Liege to the Marne, the Aisne, Ypres, Hill 219, Schlacht von St. Mihiel, Arras. Wounded and captured by the enemy at the Road of Ladies, I made my escape.”
“After being reported dead in action?”
“I believe so, Excellency.”
“Did I not make some promise that I would give you the opportunity of rejoining your regiment soon, Herr von Reuter?”
“Yes, excellency. If I do not succeed discovering—”
He glanced at Vrow Alys Dervanter’s corn-colored hair as she sat beside the general. The fair Dutch lady was fanning her bosom with a silk fan, entranced by the spectacle of so many handsome young men rolling by. Von Reuter leaned over and spoke in a lowered voice to the general’s ear.
“I will have K-13 for you before midnight!”
“Very good,” said the general.
Secret Operative K-13 Page 9
