Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Michaud came up in the darkness. “The shepherd, Jean Pascal, and Schultz, and the men of Yslemont are out there yet. Nothing I say affects them. They say that they need another Uhlan to bleed. Imbeciles!”

  “Won’t they obey you?”

  “No, by God! The two sheep dogs of Jean are there, grave and wise as two big-eared devils squatting. And the half-crazed lad is teaching them to track Uhlans — making them sniff the bloody schapskas like a hunter who trains pups with a dead hare!”

  He looked around at the dozen shadowy figures gathering in the carrefour; the star-light sparkled on guns and belts and slings, and here and there on the vizor of a casquette-de-chasse.

  “The Grey Wolves,” said Michaud, “can never find us in The Pulpit. If Monsieur is ready?”

  “Quite ready,” said Guild. And the shadowy file, led by Michaud, moved straight into the woods.

  CHAPTER XXII

  DRIVEN GAME

  The stars had faded; a watery grey light glimmered through the forest. Deer crossed the grassy carrefour by the shrine, picking a dainty way toward forest depths; rabbits hopped homeward through dew-drenched ferns and bracken; a cock-pheasant saluted the dawn; the last wild boar still lingered amid the beech mast, rooting, coughing, following the furrows that his bristly snout was making while his furry bat-like ears, cocked forward, remained on duty, and his tail wriggled pleasurably.

  The silent watchers aloft behind the rocky escarpement of The Pulpit, looking down through leafy branches to the carrefour, saw the last little roedeer trot past on his fastidious way; saw the last rabbit vanish in the warren; saw the lone boar lift his huge and shaggy head to listen with piggish suspicion, then turn and go, silent as some monstrous spectre.

  From under hazel bushes pheasants stepped out to ruffle and preen and peck pensively among the fallen leaves, awaiting the promise of the sun, their white collars gleamed below their gorgeous heads; the sombre splendour of their plumage made brilliant spots along the ride. Here and there a hen-pheasant crept modestly about the business of breakfast. A blue and rosy jay alighted near, sign that the forest peace promised to endure.

  After a long while far in the west the grey was touched with rose. Darrel, lying beside Guild, chin on his folded arms, stirred slightly.

  “Sunrise,” he said.

  Michaud, on the other side, reared himself on his hands and lay watching the west.

  “It is too early for the sun,” he said. “That is a fire.”

  Pinker, ruddier, redder grew the western sky. Silent, intent, forester, garde-de-chasse, charcoal burner, strained their keen eyes.

  Then a heavy sigh like a groan escaped Michaud.

  “The Lodge,” he said, hoarsely, under his breath. “Oh God, my master’s home.”

  All around among the rocks men were drawing deep breaths, muttering, restless; their eyes were fixed like the eyes of caged wild things.

  “The Grey Wolves,” growled an old garde— “Ah, the cowards — the dirty Prussian whelps! Ah! Look at that; my God! Marie adored, Virgin of Lesse; stand by us now!”

  Against the sky specks like tinsel twinkled; smoke became visible.

  “House, stables, granneries, quarters, garage, all are on fire,” said Michaud in a mechanical voice. His face was grey and without expression, his words accentless.

  The smoke appeared further north.

  “The cattle-barns and the hay-stacks,” he went on monotonously.... Beyond are the green-houses, runs, dove-cotes, and our little shop.... They are now afire... Everything is on fire. Lesse is burning, burning.... The stubble beyond is burning.... And beyond that the nursery acres — the seedlings and the — Marie adored, Virgin of Lesse, have pity on my little trees — my nurslings — my darlings — —”

  “Hark!” whispered Guild. Far away up the ride horses were coming at a heavy trot; and now the noise of wheels became audible. And now below them two German dragoons cantered into view, carbines poised; a waggon passed — a strange grey vehicle driven by a grey-clad soldier wearing a vizorless forage cap. It was piled with dead pigeons and chickens. Behind that another waggon followed, all splashed with blood, and in it swayed and jolted the carcasses of dead pigs freshly killed, lurching and slipping over the crimsoned straw. Behind galloped six Uhlans, their lances perpendicular in the buckets, the cords from their cloth-covered schapskas bellying behind.

  “Not a shot!” said Michaud in a perfectly distinct voice, pushing up the rifle of the old garde-de-chasse. “There is nothing to do now, nom de Dieu! — for the necks of our fowls are already wrung and the dead hogs are tasting their own boudin. Our affair is with the living pigs.”

  After a few moments more dragoons came, trotting their superb horses along the ride, alertly scanning the woods to right and left as they passed, their carbines at a ready.

  Waggons followed — hay waggons, carts loaded with potato sacks, straw, apples, bags of flour, even firewood and bundles of faggots — a dozen vehicles or more of every description.

  “Ours,” said Michaud in his emotionless tones. “What they could not take is burning yonder.”

  More grey dragoons closed the file of waggons, then a dozen Uhlans, who turned frequently in their saddles and kept looking back.

  “Scoundrels!” muttered the garde-de-chasse, laying his rifle level; but Michaud turned on him and struck up the weapon.

  “Thou!” he said coldly— “do thy duty when I tell thee, or I become angry.”

  Somebody said: “There are no more. We have not bled one single wolf!”

  “Look yonder,” whispered Guild.

  Out into the carrefour stepped briskly eight or ten German officers, smart and elegant and trim in their sea-grey uniforms and their spiked helmets shrouded with grey so that there was not a glitter from point to spur.

  A dozen non-commissioned officers followed, carrying two military rifles apiece.

  The officers looked curiously at the shrine of Our Lady of Lesse, and the sad-faced Virgin looked back at them out of her carven and sightless eyes.

  One by one the officers took posts at the four corners of the grassy clearing or on the steps of the shrine. They were laughing and conversing; some smoked; some inspected the rifles brought up by their non-com gun-bearers. The sun had not yet risen; the silvery smoke of the Silverwiltz marked its high waterfall below the gorge of the glen; fern fronds drooped wet to the wet dead leaves beneath, matted grasses glistened powdered with dew.

  In the still grey air of morning the smoke from the German officers’ pipes and cigars rose upward in straight thin bands; a jeweled bracelet on the wrist of an infantry major reflected light like a frost crystal.

  The officers ceased their careless conversation; one by one they became quiet, almost motionless where they had taken their several positions. Behind them, stiff and erect, the non-coms stood with the spare guns, rifles or fowling-pieces.

  An air of silent expectancy settled over the carrefour; officer and non-com were waiting for something.

  Michaud had already divined; Guild knew; so did Darrel. Every woodsman in The Pulpit knew. Some of them were trembling like leashed dogs.

  Then in the forest a sound became audible like a far halloo. Distant answers came through the woodland silence, from north, from south — then from west and east.

  Guild whispered to Darrel: “They are driving the forest! They have a regiment out to beat it!”

  The German officers at their stands no longer moved as much as a finger. Against the grey trees they were all but invisible.

  Suddenly out into the carrefour stepped a superb red stag, ears alert, beautiful head half turned at gaze. Instantly a rifle spoke; and the magnificent creature was down in the ride, scuffling, scrambling, only to fall and lie panting with its long neck lifted a little.

  Crack! The antlered head fell.

  Then out of the wood trotted three bewildered pigs — an old boar, a yearling on which the stripes were still visible, and a huge fierce sow. A ripple of rifle shots checked
them; the old boar stood swinging his great furry head right and left; the yearling was down, twitching; the sow ran, screaming horribly. Two shots followed; the old boar kneeled down very quietly like a trick-horse in a circus, still facing his enemies. He did not look as though he were dead.

  The yearling had ceased its twitching; the sow was down, too, a great lump of coarse black fur in the ditch.

  Then the rifles began again; a company of little roe deer whirled into the ride and went down or stumbled with delicate limbs dangling broken, or leaped to a height incredible in the agony of a death wound.

  Pell-mell after them galloped a whole herd of red deer; the German rifles rattled steadily. Now and then blasts from fowling-pieces dropped running or incoming pheasants, cock and hen alike; or crumpled up some twisting rabbit or knocked a great hare head over heels.

  Faster and faster came the terrified wild things, stag, roe, boar, and hare; steadily the German rifles cracked and rattled out death; thicker and swifter pelted the meteor flight of pheasants; birds of all sorts came driving headlong in their flight; big drab-tinted wood-pigeons, a wild duck or two, widgeon and mallard; now and then a woodcock fluttered past like some soft brown bat beating the air; now and then a coq-de-la-bruyere, planing on huge bowed wings above collapsed and fell heavily to the loose roar of the fowling-pieces.

  Crippled, mutilated creatures were heaped along the ride; over them leaped their panic-stricken comrades only to stumble in the rifle-fire and lie struggling or inert.

  A veil of smoky haze made the carrefour greyer now, through which at intervals a dying stag lifted its long neck from the shambles about him or some strong feathered thing beat its broken wings impotently upon the grass.

  Once a great boar charged, and was shot to pieces, spattering the steps of the shrine with blood. Once a wounded hare dragged its tortured body to the shrine, as though for sanctuary. A non-com swung it crashing against the granite cross.

  And now a more sinister thing occurred. Out from the forest, amid the stampeding game, reeled a man! His blue smock hung in ribbons; one bleeding fist grasped a rifle; the cartridges en bandoulière glittered.

  For a second he stood there, swaying, panting, bewildered in the smoke haze; then three non-coms fired at him at once.

  At that he straightened up, stood so for a second as though listening, then he took one uncertain step and pitched into a patch of briers on his face.

  Presently some German foot-soldiers appeared in the ride, moving cautiously, scanning every ditch, every hollow, every thicket, their rifles poised for a snap-shot. A roebuck floundered up and went off before them like the wind, unnoticed. Then one of the soldiers fired, and a boy jumped out from behind a hazel bush and started to run along the edge of the woods. He was followed by two sheep dogs.

  “Jean Pascal!” said Michaud calmly. “May God pardon him now.”

  As the little shepherd ran, the soldiers stood and fired at him, aiming carefully. They broke his leg as he passed the carrefour. The lad raised himself from the ground to a sitting position and was sobbing bitterly, when they shot him again. That time he fell over on his side, his hands still covering his dead and tear-wet face. His dogs trotted around him, nuzzling him and licking his hands. An officer shot them both.

  Schultz broke cover in a few moments, his rifle at his cheek; and, dropping to one knee in the ride, he coolly opened fire on the officers by the shrine. But he had time only for a single shot which jerked a spiked helmet from a cavalry major’s clipped head. Then they knocked him flat.

  As the herdsman lay gasping in the roadway with a bullet in his stomach, looking with dull and glazing eyes at the rifle flashes, three men from Yslemont — blackened, haggard, ragged creatures — burst out, fighting like wildcats with the beaters behind them.

  Two were bayoneted and clubbed to death in the briers; the last man ran like a crazed hare, doubling, dodging, twisting among the trees where the rifle hail filled the air with twigs and splinters and tattered leaves.

  After him lumbered a dozen foot-soldiers, clumping along in their hob-nailed ammunition boots. Then, high above on The Pulpit, Guild spoke sharply to Michaud, who gave a jerk to his white head and made a little gesture to the others behind him.

  “Now,” added Guild in a low voice.

  “Fire,” said Michaud calmly.

  The rocky glen roared with the volley. The foot-soldiers below halted in astonishment and looked up. One fell sideways against a tree; another dropped to his knees and remained motionless, the spike of his helmet buried deep in the soft earth.

  They were shouting down by the carrefour now; clear, mellow whistle signals sounded persistently. Horses were coming, too; the ride reverberated with their galloping. And all the while The Pulpit resounded with the rifle-fire of its little garrison, and soldiers were dropping along the carrefour and the ride.

  “The Pulpit resounded with the rifle-fire of its little garrison”

  “Pigs of Prussians!” shouted the old garde-de-chasse; “does a Belgian game-drive suit you now! Ah, scoundrels, bandits, sound the Mort on your imbecile whistles. For the swine of the North are dying fast!”

  “Be silent,” said Michaud coldly. “You tarnish your own courage!”

  Guild and Darrel had taken rifles; they stood firing down at the carrefour where the horses of the Uhlan advanced guard were plunging about in disorder under a confusion of lances and fluttering pennons.

  But the confusion lasted only a few moments; horsemen whirled their mounts and cleared out at full speed; the carrefour was empty of officers now; not a German was visible in the early sunshine, only the steady clatter of their rifle-fire continued to pelt the heights where bullets cracked and smacked on the rocks.

  “Enough,” said Michaud quietly. “It is time to leave. André, bring thou a bar to me.”

  A charcoal burner ran to the hole in the rocks and drew out a crowbar. Michaud took it, shoved it under the edge of the ledge, found a fulcrum, motioned the men back.

  Two other men threw their weight on the bar; the ledge lifted easily. Suddenly the entire parapet gave way, crashing like an avalanche into the glen below.

  “They shall need wings who follow us,” said the old man grimly. “Monsieur,” turning calmly to Guild, “if we cross the Dutch border unarmed, will they interne us?”

  “No, I think not.”

  “And from there we may be free to find our way to the colours?”

  “Yes.”

  “By sea?”

  “By land and sea to Dunkirk. I know of no easier or quicker way.”

  “Monsieur goes with us?”

  “First I must stop at Quellenheim.” He added, in a low voice: “By mistake my papers were sent there last night. Our King must see those papers.”

  “Bien,” said Michaud. “We bivouac near Quellenheim tonight — time for a crust, Monsieur, while you go to the house and return. Is it agreeable to Monsieur?”

  “Perfectly.” And, to Darrel: “Take your chance while it remains and join the Courlands when they leave Quellenheim. Will you promise?”

  “I’ll see,” said Darrel, carelessly tossing his rifle across his shoulder and stepping into the silent file of men which was already starting across the ridge.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  CANDLE LIGHT

  It was nearly eleven o’clock at night before they bivouacked without fires in the woods behind the Lodge at Quellenheim.

  The circuitous forest route had wearied the men; they threw themselves on the dead leaves and moss; some slept where they lay, others groped in sacks with toil-stiffened fingers searching for crusts, which they munched slowly, half asleep.

  Guild drew Darrel and Michaud aside.

  “To go by Luxembourg and Holland is too long and too uncertain,” he said. “If we could cross the railway beyond Trois Fontaines before daylight we should have a clear country before us to Antwerp.”

  It had been days since the household at Lesse had heard any war news, but Darrel recollected t
hat there had been rumours of a German drive toward Antwerp.

  Michaud nodded. “It is possible,” he said. “Brussels they may have taken; I don’t know; but Antwerp, never! I know, Monsieur; I served my time with the artillery in the Scheldt forts. No German army could pass the outer ring of fortresses; the country can be flooded. Also our King is there with his Guides and Lancers and Chasseurs-à-cheval; the entire army is there. No, Monsieur, Antwerp is open to us if you desire to take us there.”

  “I do,” said Guild. “It is the better way for all of us if the country still remains clear. It is better for us than to engage in a Chasse aux Uhlans. If I could lead a dozen sturdy recruits into Antwerp it would be worth while. And, except for the post at Trois Fontaines and the troops patrolling the railway, I can not see why the country is not open to us north of Liège.”

  “I know this country. It is my country,” said Michaud, “and troops or no troops I can take you across the railroad before daylight.” He shrugged his massive shoulders: “What is a Prussian patrol to a head forester?”

  “You believe you can do it?”

  “I pledge my honour, Monsieur.”

  Guild looked at Darrel: “I wish I knew whether there has been a drive toward Antwerp. If there has been it must have come from the sea by Ostend. But I do not believe Ostend has been taken.” He turned to Michaud: “If the country is clear, why could we not pick up more men en route? Why should we not recruit in every hamlet, every village?”

  “Mon Dieu, Monsieur, if there are hardy companions willing to go with the ragged men of the forest, well and good. Yet I could wish for at least one uniform among us. That represents authority and gives security.”

  Guild said thoughtfully: “I have an officer’s uniform of the Guides among my luggage.”

  “Lord!” exclaimed Darrel, “you brought it with you?”

  “There was to have been a regimental dinner in Brussels in September. I was asked last June, and they requested me to wear uniform. I had my uniform, so I packed it.”

  “Then it is there in your luggage at Quellenheim!”