At the Sign of the Sword: A Story of Love and War in Belgium

Chapter Twelve.
The Fugitives

That flight proved indeed a hideous nightmare.

Throughout those hot, stifling hours of oppressive darkness, the Baroness de Neuville – as homeless as those hundreds of poor people on the roads, even though wife of a millionaire – wandered on, Aimée taking her arm tenderly. On, and still on they went, along the straight, open road which, leaving the Meuse, led over the hills to the straggling little whitewashed village of Winenne, which they at last reached.

There they joined a hustling crowd of terror-stricken fugitives of all classes, sad-eyed men, frightened women, and wondering children, some stern, some crying bitterly, but all carrying bundles, or pushing wheelbarrows or perambulators containing all they had saved from their lowly homes. From Winenne, the Baroness and her daughter, after trudging on with the crowd for some distance, left the high road and took a by-way, which Aimée knew by motoring frequently over it, led due south across the hill, for ten miles or so, to Bourseigne, where lived the Baronne’s brother, a large landed proprietor. In his house they had decided to seek protection. The red flush of dawn had given place to the light of day ere they came in sight of the little place, lying deep in its hollow, but as they looked eagerly upon “The Château” – as the long, white, old-fashioned house was termed – their spirits fell, for it was roofless, and its grim, blackened walls, alas! told their own tale.

A peasant on the road told them the story.

Three days ago the Germans had arrived and occupied the place, which was only three miles from the French frontier. Monsieur Hannaerts, the seigneur of the place, had been arrested as hostage for the good behaviour of the village, but, because a half-witted youth had discharged a toy-pistol at a German soldier, the unhappy gentleman had been bound to a telegraph pole at the roadside, and shot in the presence of the villagers.

An hour later the British, under General Sir John French, who had arrived at Charleroi and had extended their line towards Mézieres, began to shell the village, with the result that it had been partially destroyed, the Château, which had been the enemy’s headquarters, suffering most severely.

The tide of war, however, had now passed by, and when the two weary, footsore women entered the village, they found life proceeding almost as usual. Those who had not been killed had returned to their wrecked and shattered homes, and were full of stories of the fierce brutality of the invader, which the gallant “Anglais” in khaki had so swiftly driven out.

Naturally, much distressed at the news of her brother’s murder, the Baronne entered the place with fixed, terror-stricken eyes, that same set expression of woe and hopelessness which was seen everywhere in Belgium, now that the gallant little kingdom had fallen beneath the fire and sword of a relentless barbarian.

On every hand great holes showed in the walls, torn open by the British shells, many houses were completely demolished, and in some places only rubble heaps remained to show the site where houses had stood. In others, walls stood gaunt and blackened where the fire had gutted them, causing roofs and windows to fall in.

Wandering pigs were grunting in the long street, and big-eyed little children, now that the roar of war had ceased, were playing merrily among the ruins and finding all sorts of oddments half burned in the débris. One, evidently a humourist, had put on the spiked helmet of a dead German, and was striking comic attitudes, to the delight of his playfellows. His head being completely buried in the canvas-covered helmet, he presented a most ludicrous appearance.

“Let us find M’sieur Labarre, mother,” suggested Aimée, for she knew the place well, as they had often been her uncle’s guests at the now ruined château.

“Yes,” murmured the Baronne. “I feel so very faint, dear, that I really can go no farther?” And, indeed, the poor woman, refined and cultured, having tramped all through that terrible night in her thin shoes, and having been challenged so constantly by soldiers in the darkness – each challenge being a fright lest it be that of the enemy – she was entirely exhausted and unnerved.

Labarre was a farmer, who held some land belonging to Aimée’s unde, and it was not long before they entered his modest house – a long, ugly, grey-slated place surrounded by haystacks and outhouses.

Labarre, a stout, ruddy-faced man, of middle age, in a blue linen blouse, typical of the Walloon farmer, welcomed the poor ladies warmly and in great surprise, and soon they were in the hands of his stout wife, Elise, and were drinking cups of hot bouillon, for, in the farms of the Ardennes, the stock-pot is usually simmering upon the fire.

The long, old-fashioned room, with its heavy beams, its stone-paving, its row of copper cooking-utensils shining in the sun, and its wide chimney and wooden chairs was, indeed, a haven of rest after the terrors of that night.

And while they drank the bouillon, the fat farmer lifted his hands as he told them the story of the German occupation.

“Ah! Baronne! It was terrible – very terrible,” he cried in his Walloon dialect. “Those pigs of Germans came here, took all the corn I had, smashed my piano and thieved two of my horses. But the brave English drove them out. We fled when the English shells began to fall, but, fortunately, not one did any damage to our house, though the big barn was set on fire with two haystacks, and destroyed.”

Having remained under the farmer’s hospitable roof for a day, Aimée, who had now completely recovered, resolved to leave her mother in Madame Labarre’s charge, and endeavour to reach Dinant where, it was said, the telephone with Brussels had been repaired. By that means she could, she hoped, communicate with her father, and ascertain what they should do.

The British soldiers in khaki were now in possession of Bourseigne, and that communication was open from Dinant to Brussels, Aimée had learnt from a lieutenant of the Gloucesters, a good-looking young fellow named Dick Fortescue, whom she had met in the little Place having some trouble with the Walloon language in a purchase of fodder he was making, and had offered to interpret.

What Fortescue had told her caused her to decide, therefore, two hours later, there being no trains nor any conveyance available, she set out alone, a slim, pathetic little figure in dusty black, wearing a black shawl borrowed from the farmer’s wife, and turned her face westward along that white road so familiar to her, a highway which ran over green hills and along deep valleys, and which was the main road over which the lumbering, old-fashioned post diligences, with their jingling bells, still passed, in peace time, between Sedan and Dinant.

With her face to the deep glow of the sunset she trudged forward, her thoughts reverting, as they always did, to Edmond – her Edmond!

“Where is he?” she murmured, as her white, hard-set lips moved. “What can have happened to him?”

Was he lying still and dead – buried perhaps in a nameless grave – or was he still fighting valiantly in defence of his country and his King?

If he were, he would, wherever he might be, still be thinking of her. Of that she was confident, for they loved each other with a firm, all-absorbing and eternal love, a love that could never be shaken, and that could never die.

The light of the fading day darkened into the blood-red afterglow, and before her there rose the lowering clouds of night, as alone and unprotected she still bent forward, with sixteen miles to cover ere she reached the narrow, cobbled streets of Dinant. Ten miles away on her left stood Sévérac, now, alas! but a smouldering ruin, and over in that direction she could hear the distant booming of heavy guns, for that evening the British, acquitting themselves so bravely, were fighting Von Kluck all along the line from Mons, through Charleroi, to near Mézieres. They were stemming the German invasion, and while the flower of the German Army was being hurled against them, they swept them off even though the Kaiser, in his insane arrogance, had issued as his “Imperial command” that General French’s “contemptible little army” should be crushed out of existence.

In her torn and dusty black gown, and patent leather shoes, worn badly down by the long tramp from Sévérac, Aimée, though weary and footsore, did not lose heart. She was gratified that her mother was in a place of safety, and now, if she could only communicate with her father, they would, no doubt, be able to get to Ostend, and perhaps over to England. So she went forward with the distant rumble of artillery ever in her ears, while as darkness fell, she turned aside to notice a fierce red glare in the sky far away across the Meuse, in the direction of Phillipeville. Over there another town had no doubt been given to the flames.

At the village of Malvoisin she met several thousands of refugees coming towards France, raising clouds of suffocating dust. They were peasants driven by the enemy out of the peaceful valley of the winding Ourthe, and were hoping to find shelter across the frontier in France. Now and then there passed clattering squadrons of Belgian cavalry, the little yellow tassels hanging gaily from the front of their caps, while ever and anon there lumbered past, in the dim light, great grey-painted siege-guns, long trains of ammunition-wagons, Red Cross motor-ambulances, and endless lines of transports of all sorts.

Squads of infantry marched gaily to martial airs, or the men sang the latest popular songs of the café-chantant, while there also passed several machine-guns drawn by their dog-teams.

Presently Aimée joined three tearful, homeless women, one of whom trundled an old rickety perambulator filled with her household goods. They had come from Rossignol, forty miles distant, which had been sacked and burned by a Uhlan patrol, and they described to her the terrible scene. Therefore, in company, the trio pushed forward until at length they entered a long dark street of shattered houses, which Aimée recognised, to her amazement, as that of Anseremme. Yes! There was the little Hôtel Beau Séjour where she and Edmond had spent so many sunny hours in secret together, but alas! its walls were now gaunt and roofless. It had been gutted by fire, while the pleasant little terrasse beside the river was heaped with the débris of fallen walls.

She sighed as she passed the place which held for her so many fond memories, and again pressed forward with blistered feet, on past that great high split rock, through which the road runs beside the river, known as the Roche Bayard, until at length she found herself in the long dark street of half-ruined houses that led straight into the little Place at Dinant.

Arrived there, she halted aghast. The long bridge had fallen, a wreck, into the river, and there were signs everywhere of the ruthless bombardment a week before, when happily the Germans had been driven out and had retired. But at that hour, about half-past ten o’clock, the place was as silent as the grave. Everywhere was ruin and desolation, while in the air was still the pungent odour of burnt wood, the woodwork of houses set on fire by the German shells.

There being neither gas nor electricity, an oil lamp had been hung upon a nail on a wall, and it was near this that the girl was standing. She was well known in Dinant as daughter of the Baron who held the purse-strings of Belgium, and, with her mother, frequently came to the little town in their car.

She stood hesitating as to whom she should ask a favour and allow her to telephone to Brussels, when she was suddenly startled by a familiar voice behind her, and holding her breath, she faced the man who had addressed her.

It was a Belgian soldier.

It was Edmond Valentin!

Chapter Thirteen.
Before the Storm

“Aimée?” he gasped. “You!”

“Dieu! Edmond. You! – fancy you here, just at the moment when – ”

“When – what?” he echoed. “Tell me, why are you here – in this place? Why are you not in Brussels? It is not safe for you here, my darling!”

And he placed his hand tenderly upon her shoulder and, in the dim light of the lantern, looked straight into her dear face.

She gazed at him. He was in his heavy military overcoat, with a rifle slung upon his shoulder, for he had come down into the town from the fortress above, where his machine-gun was posted, in order to take a message from his captain to the captain of infantry holding the head of the wrecked bridge close by.

A few brief, hasty words sufficed to explain the terrible scene at Sévérac; how she and her mother had fled, and the reason of her long tramp to Dinant. There, in that dark, silent little square before the ruined church, with the high ruined old fortress on the cliff above, he drew her weary head down upon his breast, imprinting upon her white brow a long, passionate kiss, and murmuring:

“Ah! my darling, I have prayed to God that I might be spared to see you once again – if only just once – for the last time!”

“No, no,” she cried, lifting her lips to his, and kissing him long and fervently. “No. We shall win, Edmond, and you will live. Right and justice are, surely, upon our side, and we shall vanquish this German enemy of civilisation. Brute force can never win in the face of Providence and God’s good-will.”

“True, darling. But you must save yourself,” he urged. And, hastily, he told her of the attack upon Liège, the retreat to the Meuse, the bombardment of Dinant, and the valiant manner in which the defenders had fought and retaken the citadel.

In those five minutes in which the devoted pair stood together in the dim, flickering light, he held her in his strong embrace. Their affection was a fierce and passionate devotion, the fire of a love unquenchable. He repeated in her ear his fervent love for her, and then he added in a hard voice:

“Aimée, if in this terrible fight for life I fall, and we do not meet again, I want you to promise me one thing. Will you, darling?”

“Of course, Edmond. What is it?”

“That you will never consent to marry that man, Arnaud Rigaux – our enemy?”

“I will never marry him, Edmond. I would rather die first?”

“You promise me that?” he asked eagerly.

“I promise you. Before I consent I would rather take my own life. I swear to you that I will never be the wife of Arnaud Rigaux.”

“Bien! Remember always that he is our mutual enemy – yours and mine,” he said in a hard, determined tone. Then he again kissed her, reassured by her fervent promise.

As they stood beneath the lamplight, a sentry passed them, his bayonet gleaming beneath the fitful light. But they were both in ignorance that, away in the shadow of a doorway, a man who had just entered the square had withdrawn to watch the affectionate pair – out of curiosity perhaps.

Lovers are always interesting to the curious, yet this man who had hitherto walked very briskly, had suddenly stopped and withdrawn to the shadow, so suddenly indeed, that the heavy-footed sentry had not detected his light steps.

Had Edmond Valentin known that he was being spied upon, then woe-betide the watcher! The Belgians were again in occupation of the town, and any suspicious character was at once arrested as a German spy, of whom there were so many hundreds swarming all over the country.

As it was, the pair stood in utter ignorance of the sharp watchful eyes upon them, and in the silence of the night, continued in low undertones their assurances of affection.

Away across the river – beyond the ruins of the old Château of Crève-Coeur – a fierce red light rose until it glared in the night sky, the toll of war paid by the poor defenceless peasantry, to those barbaric hordes of “kultur” who were sweeping across Belgium with rapine, fire, and sword. At no crime or outrage, torture or desecration, were those hirelings of the Master Criminal of Earth now hesitating. The modern Judas, who had stretched out the hand of friendship to Great Britain, to Russia, to France and to Belgium, falsely proclaiming himself the Apostle of Peace, and endeavouring to blind the world to his true intentions, had now revealed himself as the world’s bitterest, most dastardly, and most low-down enemy, who was making what he was pleased to term “frightful examples” in an endeavour to terrify and to stagger humanity.

“I fear that you will not be able to telephone to your father, darling,” Edmond was saying. “Only an hour ago communication was again interrupted. Some Uhlans have cut the wires, I suppose. They do so every day. Your only chance will be to try and get through to Brussels yourself – only it is so far away, now that there is no rail or motors – sixty miles, or more.”

“But what shall I do?” she asked. “What do you advise, Edmond?”

What could he advise? He stood before her, unable to reply.

So engrossed were they in their conversation that they did not notice that, after the sentry had passed across the square to the corner of the narrow Rue Grande, up which Aimée had trudged, the dark civilian figure in the doorway had slipped across the Grand Place, and was again engulfed in the shadows.

“You can go no further to-night, dearest,” he said. “You know this place – Dinant. Why not go to the Hôtel de l’Epée yonder, up the street, and remain there till morning? Then I will get permission to come and see you, and we can decide upon some plan.”

“Ah! yes!” she cried. “Uncle François! I know the dear old fellow. His son was in our service as chauffeur two years ago. What an excellent idea! Yes. I will go at once. But without money will he take me in?” she queried with hesitancy.

“Never fear, darling?” he laughed. “The daughter of the Baron de Neuville has unlimited credit in any town in Belgium. But alas?” he added, “I must go, sweetheart, for I have to deliver an immediate message, and obtain a reply. I may be too late if I do not hurry.”

“Yes – go, Edmond,” she said, just a little reluctantly. “Carry out your duty. I know my way to Uncle François’ quite well. Au revoir!”

“Till to-morrow, my own darling,” he said, and holding her again in his strong embrace for a few seconds, he imprinted upon her white, open brow, fond passionate caresses in all the ecstasy of their mutual love.

As he held her in his arms, in the dark silent Grand Place, the sharp sound of a bugle broke upon their ears. It was blown from the citadel above.

“The alarm!” gasped her lover breathlessly. “Dieu! What can have happened?” In a moment the call was repeated, and echoed across the river, while next second there was the rattle of rifle-shots in the darkness, and from the rock, above where they stood, opened out long white beams of intense light which slowly swept the valley up and down.

Suddenly the quick pom-pom-pom of a Maxim – Edmond’s Maxim – broke the quiet, followed by a red flash and a terrific explosion above them.

The Belgians had discovered that the enemy, under cover of darkness, were making another attack upon the town!

“You cannot stay here, darling,” Edmond cried, in frantic haste. “Run along to Uncle François’. He has big cellars there. Remain below in them until the storm has passed. I must get back to my gun.” And he kissed her again breathlessly, saying, “Good-bye, darling – till to-morrow.”

Once more the heavy guns upon the citadel flashed and roared. No time was now to be lost.

“We are attacked again?” cried Valentin. “Run along to the Epée! You will be safe there. Run quickly!” – and he kissed her in hasty farewell. Then they parted.

She had only a couple of hundred yards to go to gain the old-fashioned inn. He watched her disappear around the corner, then, as fast as his legs could carry him, he ascended the hill-side to where his men, posted with their machine-gun, were already firing.

By this time, however, the whole town was agog. The alarm signals had aroused everyone. It was, indeed, an awful nightmare. The barbaric enemy were again upon them for a second time!

A German armoured motor-car had suddenly swept down the Rue St. Jacques – which ran behind the Rue Grande – and was firing with its machine-gun into the windows of houses without warning or provocation.

Behind it, rode a large body of Uhlans, who at once ran through, with their lances, those of the peaceful inhabitants who opened their doors to ascertain the cause of the firing.

Aimée succeeded in gaining the door of the ancient inn only just in time, knocking frantically, and obtaining admittance, while Uncle François, recognising her, was at once eager for information as to what had happened to the Baron. At the moment the girl entered the shelter of the house, bullets were already sweeping up the streets.

Dinant had been attacked suddenly by a force under Lieutenant-Colond Beeger, one of the most arrogant Huns of the Kaiser – a monster, who dealt death upon defenceless women and children, and who had been sent by his superiors to repeat the “frightful examples” of Aerschot and of Visé. The sharp, relentless talons of the Prussian eagle had, alas! been set into the little place, peaceful, quiet, and unoffending as it had always been throughout the ages.

Within five minutes the town arose from its silence to a pandemonium of noise. Edmond, who had climbed up the four hundred steps leading to the citadel to his machine-gun, saw but little of the Dantean scene below. His pom-pom was now spitting death down into the Grand Place, but suddenly he slackened the fire in fear lest he might be sending to the grave any of those brave Dinantais, whom he could not distinguish from the enemy in the darkness.

Meanwhile, Aimée stood in the great cellars of the Hotel of the Sword, huddled with a hundred others of all ages and all classes, and fearing for her lover in that violent storm which had so suddenly burst upon them.

How would it end? What could the end be?