Courtesy of "Panorama de la Guerre."The First Clash.Belgians with the dog-drawn machine guns, disputing the invasion of their country by the hordes of the Hun. Note the open warfare without cover or trenches.
Courtesy of "Panorama de la Guerre."The First Clash.Belgians with the dog-drawn machine guns, disputing the invasion of their country by the hordes of the Hun. Note the open warfare without cover or trenches.
Courtesy of "Panorama de la Guerre."
The First Clash.
Belgians with the dog-drawn machine guns, disputing the invasion of their country by the hordes of the Hun. Note the open warfare without cover or trenches.
"As line after line of the German infantry advanced," wrote a Belgian officer, when describing this first day's fighting, "we simply mowed them down. It was all too terribly easy, and I turned to a brother officer of mine more than once and said to him,
"'Voila! They are coming on again in a dense, close formation! They must be mad!'
"They made no attempt at deploying, but came on, line after line, almost shoulder to shoulder, until, as we shot them down, the fallen were heaped one on top of another, in an awful barricade of dead and wounded men that threatened to mask our guns and cause us trouble.
"I thought of Napoleon's saying—if he ever said it, and I doubt it, for he had no care of human life—
"'C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre!' (Magnificent! But it is not War!)
"No, that plunge forward of the German infantry that day was not war, it was slaughter—just slaughter.
"So high became the barricade of dead and wounded that we did not know whether to fire through it or to go out and clear openings with our hands. We would have liked to extricate some of the wounded from the dead, but we dared not. A stiff wind carried away the smoke of the guns quickly, and we could see some of the wounded men trying to release themselves from their terrible position. I will confess I crossed myself and could have wished that the smoke had remained!
"But, would you believe it, this veritable wall of dead and dying actually enabled those wonderful Germans to creep closer and actually charge up the glacis (slope of the fort). Of course, they got no further than half way, for our Maxims and rifles swept them back. We had our own losses, but they were slight compared with the carnage inflicted on our enemies."
No, it was not war that day, it was slaughter.
What did this waste of life mean? What reason, what excuse could there be which would justify the reckless sacrifice of men against the gunfire, the machine-gun-fire and the rifle-fire of the forts of Liége?
There is only one answer. General von Emmich,Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Meuse, had been entrusted with the task of breaking through Liége quickly, at all hazards. Everything must be made subservient to speed. The loss of a few thousand men would not cripple Germany. The loss of a few days spelled failure.
Counting mainly on the element of surprise, for it was only thirty-four hours before that Germany announced her intention of violating neutrality, the Army of the Meuse was traveling light. It had not been hampered in its onward drive with the heavy siege guns. Those monsters were being laboriously dragged on to Namur, as lighter guns, it was thought, would suffice to reduce Liége, taken as it was by surprise.
Moreover, Von Emmich knew that General Leman and the Third Belgian Division had been far away the day before. Every hour, undoubtedly, brought them nearer; every hour rendered the element of surprise less valuable. Wherefore, as an advocate of the German theory of war which declares that any place can be rushed, no matter how strongly defended, if the attacking force be large enough and sacrifice of life is not counted, Von Emmich hurled his men forwardruthlessly and regardlessly into a revelry of carnage.
If Germany was staggered at her dead, the commander of the Army of the Meuse did not show it that day. From morning until evening the iron-gray infantry charged, were mown down, fell back and charged again. Wave after wave of men swept up those slopes, never to return. The human tide seemed endless. For not one moment, in all that day, did the billows of soldier victims cease to pound forward to their bloody doom; for not one moment, in all that day, did the Belgians, though with smoke-bleared eyes and dropping from exhaustion, fail to answer. Since morning there had been no respite, not even for a meal. At evening, the piles of German dead and wounded rose five feet high in long lines over the rolling landscape.
When night fell upon the Fifth of August, German power had suffered a severe blow. That first day's fighting of the war in the west had shown that 22,500 Belgians, though hastily mobilized, could hold back 120,000 Germans, prepared to the last detail. It disproved, forever, the German theory that masses of men can overcome machine-gun-fire by sheer weight of numbers. It displayedthat the German system of firing from the hip, instead of from the shoulder, resulted in bad marksmanship and a reckless waste of ammunition. It revealed that the German soldier fights with dogged and relentless driving force in a mass, but is weak as an individual and will not face cold steel. Most important of all, it shattered the reputation of the Kaiser's generals for infallibility and of the Kaiser's army for invincibility.
The first day's fighting was a German defeat. That, at least, stood out clear. To cap the triumph, two Belgian counter-attacks had been successful. German outposts were scattered by an assault on the heights of Wandre, the Garde Civique cut up and practically destroyed an attacking force near Boncelles, while the Belgian Lancers covered themselves with glory when, with one squadron, they charged upon six squadrons of German cavalry and put them to rout.
On the other hand, this one day's conflict justified the German theory of the power of high-explosive shell against permanent fortifications. The bombardment continued all day and all night without cessation. With an army of only 22,500 men, there was no relief. Every man was on continuousduty. It was evident from the first that the forts finally must fall, for the attacking 8.4-inch howitzers fired from points out of reach of the fortress guns and the destructive force of their shells was such that it gradually but surely reduced the strongest armor-steel and concrete masonry to ruins.
Yet, although the forts were doomed, they were not destined to immediate fall. The Germans had miscalculated. They had not deemed it necessary to bring their biggest siege guns to the demolition of Liége. Indeed, they could not spare them. Those monstrous behemoths of ordnance could only crawl, even when dragged by thirteen traction engines, and they were needed at Namur, which the Germans rightly expected would be defended by the French Army and would be a harder nut to crack.
A full moon rose on the night of the Fifth of August, revealing the artillery duel in savage continuance. At the end of nearly twenty-four hours' fighting, the master, at his post of duty in Fort Boncelles, was at the point of exhaustion. He realized that age was a serious handicap. Though as full of spirit and fire as the younger men, the physical stamina would hardly bear thestrain. He winced at every shell that struck, and, though his watchfulness was as keen and his ardor not abated, the frame was breaking down.
The commander of the fort, himself well on in years, touched the old reservist kindly on the arm.
"It is the courage of the old which stirs the young," he said. "To be able to give the last flare of our spirits to our country—ah, that is worth while."
But he found a corner where the old patriot might snatch a few hours' troubled sleep.
In order that the Belgian troops might not have a chance to rest, Von Emmich made feint after feint all through the night. The exhausted and harassed Belgians were rushed from point to point to fill in the defense as best they could. It was cruel, driving, killing work, when the muscles clicked from sheer fatigue and the men moved leadenly as in a dream. Under such overstrain, men could not last, but every hour of delay meant ruin to Germany and gain to the Allies.
During the night, more and more German guns were put in place, and by the morning of August 6, several score 8.4-inch howitzers were hurling their shells directly on Forts Fléron and Evegnée.When daylight broke, Evegnée was a ruin and the Belgian infantry had fallen back. At eight o'clock, one of the huge shells shattered the gun machinery of Fort Fléron.
General Leman ordered the retreat of the Belgian army from its advanced position, realizing that it was absolutely impossible to defend a line 33 miles long with an exhausted army, now reduced by losses to 18,000 men. He summoned his officers to a military council to lay down the new dispositions on the farther side of the Meuse, under cover of the western forts.
Suddenly, during the council, the general was startled by loud shouting and the sounds of a struggle outside. Knowing that the Germans were hammering at the gates of the city and that Fléron had fallen, he feared an advance cavalry patrol. He ran down-stairs and out of the door, to find himself confronted by eight men in German uniform.
The general darted back.
"A pistol!" he cried.
The Germans surged forward to seize the general, a crowd of Belgian civilians behind. They did not dare to touch the invaders, knowing that any effort would be deemed a "hostile act by non-combatants"which would afford excuse to the Germans for making reprisals.
With a quick movement, General Leman slipped sidewise past his would-be captors, the crowd opening to let him through. The Germans plunged into the crowd after him, but a brother officer of the general caught up his chief bodily and slung him over a neighboring wall, which chanced to be the boundary of a foundry yard. At the same instant, the rest of the officers who had been at the council came clattering out. Swords flashed out. Three of the Germans were killed and, some members of the Garde Civique being attracted by the commotion, the rest were made prisoners. They were found to be spies, who had secreted German uniforms and arms in a house next door to military headquarters, with this very intention of capturing the Belgian commanders in a moment of surprise.
With the withdrawal of the troops from the advance trenches, the holding of the eastern forts became an impossibility. Thus, on receiving news of the retreat, Major Mameche, the Commandant of Fort Chaudfontaine, the strategic value of which lay in its controlling the entrance to the Chaudfontaine railway tunnel, blocked thetunnel by colliding several engines at its mouth and then fired his powder-magazine, blowing up the fort.
Towards midday a message was received from General von Emmich, demanding the surrender of the city. The civil authorities were willing, in order to save the city from destruction, but General Leman, as Military Commandant, curtly refused to abandon the forts. He was fighting for time. Already two days had passed and only one of the six larger forts had fallen. To France and to England—which had entered the war because of Germany's violation of Belgium—every day gained then was worth a week later.
A panic followed upon General Leman's refusal, citizens who feared the results of the bombardment of the city jamming every out-bound train. Every possible influence was brought to bear on the Military Commandant. His only answer was,
"The forts must hold."
At 6 o'clock that evening a slight bombardment began, not enough to damage the city seriously, but heavy enough to denote the fate that would come to Liége if a destructive bombardment were undertaken.
Steadily, with the persistence of final doom, the high-explosive shells dropped their volcanic furies upon the doomed forts. The continuous hail of bombs served a double purpose, not only wrecking the forts themselves but breaking down human resistance in the defenders.
On the morning of August 7 a small party of Germans appeared in front of the fort of Boncelles, and carrying a white flag.
"I don't trust them," growled the master.
"Oh, come," said his comrade, "that's a little too strong! Even the Germans wouldn't be so dishonorable as to violate a flag of truce. That's respected even by savages who fight with assegai and shield."
"I'm not so sure," was the master's reply, but he went with the party of twenty which sallied from the fort to receive the surrender of the Germans.
Suspiciously the Belgians approached, for the master's incertitude was shared by several of the men, but, as they came near, the Germans held up their hands.
"Kamerad!" they cried, in token of surrender.
Instantly, as though the throwing up of the hands had been a prearranged signal, a murderouscross-fire from the woods on either side was poured upon the advancing Belgians. Only seven of the twenty, the master among them, returned to the fort alive.
The commandant of the fort was livid with rage, and the Belgian infantry in the shallow trenches near by, in a crisis of fury, charged the woods with infinitely inferior numbers and slew every lurking German found there. No quarter was given that day.
Meanwhile, through the gap in the defenses formed by the fall of Forts Fléron and Evegnée, the Germans advanced into Liége. They occupied the town without opposition, and yet—and yet—five of the great forts remained unsilenced. The unique capture of a city when its defenses were still untaken was only possible because the Belgians, for patriotic reasons, did not wish to fire upon the town. Fort Barchon, one of the eastern forts, isolated from the new line of defense, fell later in the day.
Into the city poured the iron-gray masses of the German troops, but the satisfaction of the rank and file was not shared by the officers. They knew the truth of failure. It was the third day, already, and Forts Pontisse, Loncin, Flemallesand Boncelles were still holding out. Moreover, if the little Belgian army had defied them on a long line, it would be still better able to do so when holding a line only a third as long and reënforced by fresh troops. Von Emmich was savage, and his savagery showed itself later. True, he was in Liége, but that did him little good. Brussels and Paris were not far away, but Fort Loncin protected the main railway line to Brussels and Forts Flemalles and Boncelles defended the main railway line to Paris. The path was not yet clear.
British Official Photograph.Taking Soup to the Firing-Line.Dangerous duty, for the bearer cannot lie down on the approach of a shell. Note bags of grenades carried in case of surprise.
British Official Photograph.Taking Soup to the Firing-Line.Dangerous duty, for the bearer cannot lie down on the approach of a shell. Note bags of grenades carried in case of surprise.
British Official Photograph.
Taking Soup to the Firing-Line.
Dangerous duty, for the bearer cannot lie down on the approach of a shell. Note bags of grenades carried in case of surprise.
General Leman's army, with its numbers brought up to 36,000 men by reënforcements, now formed a dangerous menace to the advance. The Belgian general had out-maneuvered the German commander at every turn, and, in taking up a position on the farther side of the Meuse, he was prepared to make things still hotter for the invaders. He was not trying to stop the progress of the army but had concentrated his energies on the defense of the forts, for he knew that, as long as the forts stood, the German Army dared not debouch into the plain, leaving behind it an imperiled line of communication.
The German enveloping movement now extendednorthward to Fort Pontisse, bombarding it, however, from the eastern bank of the Meuse. For field-gun fire, however, the forts were well protected and there were no hidden positions available for the 8.4-inch howitzers. If the Germans were to take Pontisse, they must cross the Meuse. Over and over again they stormed the crossing, fighting like madmen. Ten pontoon bridges, one after the other, were built across the river in the face of an appalling gun fire, but, each time, the fortress guns succeeded in destroying them and those troops which had crossed were cut off and killed to a man.
Similar flanking strategy was attempted to the south, where Fort Flemalles was attacked, also from the eastern bank of the river. Here, after several hours of sharp fighting, the Germans secured a landing on the western bank, but could not bring over any heavy artillery. The little army of defense contested every foot of ground with reckless and gay bravery, and the larger howitzers were compelled to remain on the eastern side of the river.
Fort Boncelles, as the Commandant himself was heard to describe it, was "like the stoke-hold of hell." It had no river to support its defenses.All the forts to the east of it, save Embourg, had fallen, allowing a terrific concentration of enemy artillery. On the other hand, the ground around Boncelles was well adapted to the sweep of the larger fortress guns. If there was the slightest pause in the German attack, a cupola would rise and send a storm of shrapnel into the enemy's ranks. Then the tempest of death would sweep down upon Boncelles once more. Von Emmich was in Liége with 120,000 men, but little Belgium shook her fist in his face and he dared not go on.
The demolition of the forts began on August 13. On that day, the heavy siege guns (two, it is believed), which the Germans had not intended to bring into action against Liége, entered the city and crawled through it to take up positions against the western forts. So affrighting were these engines of war that the German artillery did not attempt to operate them. They were handled by mechanics from the Krupp factory, the artillery officers merely working out the ranges.
Prior to this time, such guns had never been dreamed of save in artillerists' nightmares. The weight of the great German siege gun is 71 tons. It is transported in four pieces, each partbeing dragged by three traction engines on caterpillar wheels, a thirteenth and larger engine going ahead to test the road and to assist each section in going up hills. The caliber of the gun is 16.4-inch (42-centimeter). The shell stands as high as a man's chin and weighs 1684 pounds. The percussion fuse is of mercury fulminate, which in its turn explodes nitro-glycerine, which explodes picric-acid powder, thus giving the bursting charge to the terrible force of an explosion of tri-nitro-toluol, one of the most destructive explosives known. About 280 pounds of this inconceivably powerful destructive is contained in the shell.[6]
Nothing so terrible had ever before been seen in war as the effect of these great shells. Men were not simply killed and wounded, they were blackened, burnt, smashed into indistinguishable pulp of bone and flesh.
When these engines of devastation arrived, General Leman knew that the end was near. Although severely wounded three days before, his spirit knew no thought of surrender. In Fort Loncin with a handful of men, he awaited thebombardment which could mean nothing but death. The fall of Fort Loncin was described by a German infantry officer who was attached to the Army of the Meuse.
"General Leman's defense of Liége," he wrote admiringly, "combined all that is noble and all that is tragic.
"As long as possible, he inspected the forts daily to see that everything was in order. By a piece of falling masonry, dislodged by our guns, both General Leman's legs were crushed. Undaunted, he visited the forts in an automobile. In the strong Fort Loncin, General Leman decided to hold his ground or die.
"When the end was inevitable, the Belgians disabled the last three guns and exploded the supply of shells kept in readiness by the guns. Before this, General Leman destroyed all plans, maps and papers relating to the defenses. The food supplies also were destroyed. With about 100 men, General Leman attempted to retire to another fort, but we had cut off their retreat.
"By this time our heaviest guns were in position and a well-placed shell tore through the cracked and battered masonry and exploded in the main magazine. With a thunderous crash,the mighty walls of the fort fell. Pieces of stone and concrete 25 cubic meters in size (as big as a large room) were hurled into the air.
"When the dust and fumes passed away, we stormed the fort across ground literally strewn with the bodies of troops who had gone out before to storm the fort and never returned. All the men left alive in the fort were wounded and most were unconscious. A corporal, with one arm shattered, valiantly tried to drive us back by firing his rifle. Buried in the débris and pinned beneath a massive beam was General Leman.
"'Respect for the general! He is dead!' said a Belgian aide-de-camp.
"With gentleness and care, which showed they respected the man who had resisted them so valiantly and stubbornly, our infantry released the general's wounded form and carried him away. We thought him dead, but he recovered consciousness, and looking round, said,
"'It is as it is. The men fought bravely.'
"Then, turning to us, he added,
"'Put in your dispatches that I was unconscious.'
"We brought him to our commander, General von Emmich, and the two generals saluted. Wetried to speak words of comfort, but he was silent—he is known as the silent general.
"'I was unconscious. Be sure and put that in your dispatches.'
"More he would not say."
Fort Boncelles disputed with Fort Loncin the honor of being the last to fall. It is not known, definitely, which of the two resisted longest.
The night before the fall of Fort Loncin, the electric-lighting system of Boncelles was destroyed. The men—the master among them—fought all night through in utter darkness, groping for the machinery of their guns and in momentary expectation of suffocation and death from the German shells.
The high-explosive charges tore and shattered the armor-steel and masonry as though they had been cardboard, and shortly before dawn, wide breaches in the walls showed the peaceful starlight shining through. Though the fort was a wreck, three guns were working still.
A fragment of shell struck the master. He fell.
His comrade, dropping to one knee beside him, heard the dying man whisper,
"Take this to my wife!"
The comrade reached his hand to the designated pocket, took out the little packet, put it inside his tunic and returned to his gun.
An hour after sunrise a shell tore through the rear cupola of Boncelles and plucked it up as a weed is torn up by its roots. The German officer who was directing the attack offered to accept a surrender.
The Belgian commandant answered,
"We have still two guns to fight with!"
Only one shell more fell on Fort Boncelles, but it landed full in the middle of the ruined structure, and was one of the shells from the 11-inch howitzers. The inner concrete walls fell to dust, pieces of armor-steel and gun shelters were hurled a quarter of a mile away and both the remaining guns were silenced.
Eleven men remained to surrender the fort, not one of them unwounded, all nearly crazed with the endurance of nine days and nights of the most terrific bombardment known to man. Dazed, deaf and exhausted to the verge of insanity, they were brought before their captors. Only three were able to speak, one of them the master's comrade.
"What have you there?" asked a junior officer, as the Belgian feebly resisted search.
A German soldier snatched the packet from his tunic.
"Only a message from a comrade," the Belgian mumbled, his words thick with collapse.
The officer opened the packet, ran his eye through the letter, looked at Mme. Maubin's photograph, and, with a contemptuous exclamation, tossed the photograph and letter into a little stream that flowed by the roadside.
The Belgian, enraged at this callous action, for the moment forgetful of his wounds and the lassitude of prostration, lurched forward to seize the officer's throat. He was promptly seized, and, as he was held there, almost swooning, a captive and unarmed, the officer drew his pistol and shot him dead.
In this wise the Germans took Liége.
FOOTNOTES:[3]TheQueen Elizabeth, under the British flag, the most powerful vessel at the opening of the war, carried eight 15-inch guns and sixteen 6-inch guns as an auxiliary battery.[4]General Von Emmich's advance force, irrespective of reserves, was 120,000 men.[5]This does not mean the trench of modern trench warfare, but the old-fashioned shallow rifle-pit.[6]These figures are not official, but are careful estimates from known facts by leading artillerists of the Allies.
[3]TheQueen Elizabeth, under the British flag, the most powerful vessel at the opening of the war, carried eight 15-inch guns and sixteen 6-inch guns as an auxiliary battery.
[3]TheQueen Elizabeth, under the British flag, the most powerful vessel at the opening of the war, carried eight 15-inch guns and sixteen 6-inch guns as an auxiliary battery.
[4]General Von Emmich's advance force, irrespective of reserves, was 120,000 men.
[4]General Von Emmich's advance force, irrespective of reserves, was 120,000 men.
[5]This does not mean the trench of modern trench warfare, but the old-fashioned shallow rifle-pit.
[5]This does not mean the trench of modern trench warfare, but the old-fashioned shallow rifle-pit.
[6]These figures are not official, but are careful estimates from known facts by leading artillerists of the Allies.
[6]These figures are not official, but are careful estimates from known facts by leading artillerists of the Allies.
THE CAPTIVE KAISER
When, on the night of that first bombardment, Horace Monroe struck across the fields to take the river path homewards, the boy's spirit thrilled with a keen eagerness for the future. To his very finger-tips he seemed to be a-quiver with life. Action and the clacking blare of the cannonade heightened his sensations.
Death had come near to him but it had not made him afraid, rather it had given him a sense of exultation. He was still partly deaf from the shock of the shell-burst and to his memory was continually returning the scene of Deschamps lying on the Embourg road, the blood trickling from his forehead.
"It's hard luck for Deschamps, though," he muttered to himself, "to be put out of everything, without even having seen the fighting!"
This, the fact that his chum had been debarred from participation in the Great War whichseemed to be bursting over his head, loomed up to Horace as far more lamentable than the wreck of his chum's life and the ruin of his ambitions to be an artist.
The footpath by the river, as the master had premised, was well protected. The Ourthe ran swiftly at the bottom of a wooded gully and the path closely followed the windings of the stream. The shells, Horace thought, would scarcely reach him there. The boy's mind, however, was not running on personal danger, but he was reviewing the tangled skein of circumstances which the master had explained to him as forming the cause of the war.
Ah!
From far away came a sound like the crushing of tissue-paper, which rapidly deepened and angered into a high droning hum suggestive of a hurricane of flying hornets.
A shell!
Facing it alone was a very different matter from when he had been with the master. In a flash the boy realized the value of companionship in peril.
Choking suddenly in panic and with a prickling sense all over his body as though the bloodhad gone to sleep and would not run in his veins, Horace threw himself down on the soft ground. The shell seemed to be coming straight for where he lay. The air quivered like a violin-string across which a demon-bow was drawn. One—two seconds passed, each apparently an hour long.
Then—a flash!
The shell had fallen on the other side of the river.
A frantic desire urged Horace to leap to his feet and run on, but his legs refused to obey.
"My legs are cowards," said Horace, half aloud, "but I'm not. I'm going to get up."
Yet he lay there, and lay there for some time. It was fear, and he recognized it, but the cool, moist earth of the forest was very welcome. His forehead was hot and he rested it against the mulch of the fallen leaves.
Another shell buzzed in the distance.
Again the soft swish, again the loud hum and again the deafening crash, this time within the little valley of the river itself. Stones and earth flew in every direction. The boy could hear them snitch through the trees. He flattened himself closer to the ground.
With a certain tranquillity he watched the cloudof dust settling, not sure whether his inward quietness was the regaining of control or a certain numbness of the senses. Gradually he realized that it was the former. This was the fourth shell which had struck quite near him and he was still unhurt.
French Official Photograph.The Modern Ogre Of The Forest.Mammoth French howitzer, well camouflaged in a dense wood.
French Official Photograph.The Modern Ogre Of The Forest.Mammoth French howitzer, well camouflaged in a dense wood.
French Official Photograph.
The Modern Ogre Of The Forest.
Mammoth French howitzer, well camouflaged in a dense wood.
A strange sense of safety took possession of the boy. If four shells had missed him, why not forty, why not four hundred?
With that thought, the strange fiber of life which welds will and muscle into action resumed its course, like a wire when electric contact is made, and Horace, ere he was aware, leaped to his feet and found himself walking along the path again.
Where the shell had struck, he stopped. The hole was twenty feet across. Dust was still sifting through the trees and the tearing radius of the steel splinters could be traced in the riven and mangled branches overhead.
Then, in his new spirit of confidence, Horace laughed aloud.
"How could I be killed now?" he said aloud. "I've got those messages to deliver. A chap can't stop to think about himself when he's got a job to do!"
Although he did not realize it, the lad had passed his baptism of fire, had learned the first great lesson of the battlefield—that only those things happen which are fated.
He broke into a smooth, easy run. The cloud lifted from his thoughts, the weakness from his body. A wonderful lightness and ease possessed him, a joy, an exaltation. Life took on new values. He had fought out his battle with himself, by himself, alone in the woods by the river, his teacher a high-explosive shell.
Again he heard the soft swish in the air, but, this time, the sound had a different character. Horace paused before throwing himself on the ground for safety, for the sound did not grow louder. It came nearer, however, rustling like the flutter of great wings.
Certainly it could not be a shell.
Nearer and nearer came the uncertain fluttering sound until it was directly overhead, and Horace, looking up, saw two amber eyes glittering in the fast-falling dark.
The pinions of the creature beat hard but with quick irregular strokes which failed to sustain the body, and down, down it came, striking ground heavily almost at the boy's feet.
The instinct of the chase welled up in the lad and he stretched out a hand to seize, but the bird sprang upwards from the ground, dealt him a blow in the face with its powerful wing and threw him headlong. At the same time, it cluttered away through the bushes.
Thoroughly roused, now, Horace dived into the undergrowth after the bird. The huge creature turned and faced him, with a vicious croak.
A flash from one of the guns of Fort Embourg lighted up the scene.
Boy and bird faced each other, and, when he saw his opponent, the lad's pulse beat quick and high.
It was an eagle, a black eagle from the forest of Germany!
Was it a symbol? Was this a personification of the ravening invader?
He, Horace, had seen the first boy victim of the war; he, Horace, would make the first prisoner. He set his determination to the task.
The baleful amber eyes followed the boy as he maneuvered round in the deepening dark. Horace feared for his face, for he knew that the eagle's method of attack would be an endeavor to peck his eyes out. In the faint light that remained,the bird's wings gave it the advantage, even though the fluttering fall suggested injury.
The boy slipped off his coat.
Advancing imperceptibly, inch by inch, until he felt that he was within reach, suddenly Horace threw himself forward, holding his coat outstretched before him as he fell with all his weight on the eagle.
The rending beak and talons of the savage bird entangled in the yielding cloth. Horace, dragged over the ground by his captive's struggles, felt blindly with his hands until he grasped the creature's neck.
"I meant to strangle it, then and there," said Horace, when telling the story afterwards, "but when I got hold of the neck, I found I couldn't choke it because of the layers of cloth. All my squeezing didn't seem to do any good. Then I thought that it might be more fun if I brought him in alive, but it was a tussle!"
The struggle lasted long and, before the bird was mastered, its talons had scored the boy's thigh. None the less, he succeeded in pinning the fierce beak and talons into the coat and tying the sleeves together in such wise that the bird was tightly nipped. Thus triumphant, he set out withhis capture. It was not long until he reached the Tilff road and turned off towards his home.
The flickering light from the flaming streaks of the guns of Fort Embourg gave the outlines of the village houses a queer look of unreality and Horace received a sudden shock.
How long was it—how many days, how many weeks—since he had passed by the school in that walk to Liége in the twilight? Not, surely not the same day, only three hours before! Three hours! Yes, three hours of experience, more than three years of untroubled boyhood life.
He had gone out of Beaufays seeking, as a matter of excitement, to see something of the war. He returned, one who had been under fire, a bearer of war tidings, ready to fight for Belgium. He had learned, besides, the soldier's fatalism which keeps him from flinching because of the belief that he will not be shot as long as he has his work to do.
From the task of notifying the parents of Deschamps he shrank.
If only his father were there! Horace was proud of his father, regarding him as the ideal of what he would like to be himself. It was one of his greatest sorrows that his father spent only halfhis time in Belgium, where he represented the interests of certain American manufacturers. He was expected back on the first of September, but that was nearly a month away.
On his way through the village, Horace met Croquier, the hunchback. He told his news.
"And what's queer about the bird," he said, "is that it seems to have one wing shorter than the other."
Croquier stopped dead.
"Is it the left wing?"
Horace thought for a moment.
"Yes," he answered, "I think it is."
"Show!"
Cautiously the boy loosened his grip, and, in the light from the guns, displayed his prize.
The eyes of the hunchback burned. He caught the lad eagerly by the arm.
"But you must tell Mme. Maubin at once!" he cried. "At once!"
"Why?" protested Horace, hanging back.
"She must know. She is the wise woman!" the other spluttered in his excitement. "She sees unseen things. She hears the voices of the future! Come! Come quickly!"
He half-led, half-dragged the boy on.
The hunchback's excitement was infectious. Besides, Horace remembered that he had a message to give.
The master's wife was standing a step or two from the door of her house. The window was open and the lamplight, shining through, fell on her spare figure. Few people were asleep in Beaufays that first night that red-eyed War stalked abroad.
"I hear footsteps that bear a message," she said, peering into the darkness as they approached.
"It is I, Madame, Horace Monroe," the boy answered.
"You carry news of disaster and triumph on your shoulders," she declaimed, "disaster that has been, triumph that is to come."
"I—I don't know, Madame," the boy replied, hesitatingly, surprised and a little afraid of this oracular form of address.
"Show her your capture!" ejaculated the hunchback, in a hard fierce whisper.
Horace stepped forward into the oblong of light shed by the lamp shining through the open window.
The woman advanced swiftly and looked downat the bird, which, pinned under the boy's arm, snapped at her viciously.
She looked long and movelessly.
"The Eagle of Germany!" she said at last, "hungry and exhausted, vanquished and a captive in Belgium."
"The left wing is withered," put in Croquier, but she did not seem to hear.
"Your news?" she asked, not turning to the boy but staring fixedly at the eagle, which glared at her evilly.
"M. Maubin is safe, Madame," the boy began, with a blunt desire to give good news first.
"Yes," she said, "as yet. But he will not return."
Horace jumped at this repetition of the master's prophecy.
"Deschamps—"
"I warned them that the lad would suffer. He is dead?"
"No, Madame, but he was struck by a splinter of shell, and—" the words stuck in his throat.
"Yes?" she queried, gently.
"The doctor says he will be totally blind, Madame!"
The bird croaked harshly, as though with alaugh of evil satisfaction. It never took its eyes from the woman nor did she relax her gaze upon the bird.
"So," she said, "he is blind, my husband has gone to his death, and you, an American, return safe, bearing a captive."
The woman's figure stiffened, as though in a trance.
The hunchback clenched the boy's arm in a grip so powerful that he had difficulty in repressing a cry.
"Listen to every word," warned Croquier.
Even the bird ceased struggling against his bonds, only the rumble of the cannonade and the irregular crashes of the replying guns ripping apart the stillness.
"It is much," the woman said at last, in a faraway voice, "for the Fates to show on the first day of the war. Look you," she continued, "the signs are clear.
"Our own dear Belgium will suffer, will suffer so terribly that for many years to come she will grope among the nations as one that has been blinded, but not as one that has lost courage or is mortally hurt. France will suffer, even unto death, but her spirit will be undefeated to the last.Germany shall come fluttering down to ruin only when a young America throws herself upon a famished and half-exhausted Germany."
Croquier listened with arrested breath. To him, every word of the prophecy was a gospel.
"Then America will come to the aid of Belgium, Madame?" the boy queried, eagerly.
The woman did not reply. She tottered back and rested her hand heavily upon the window-sill, as though her strength were spent.
Horace moved restlessly, with a certain disquieting fear of the supernatural, although his heedless American nature disregarded superstition. Could it be true that one might look into the future?
The woman spoke again.
"Croquier," she said, "you are a Frenchman. Take you the captive Kaiser with his withered pinion. See that it does not escape. You understand? It must never escape. Look you! Never!"
"Never!" said the hunchback, in a deep solemn voice that registered a vow.
Horace hesitated. A boyish pride held him back. The bird was his prize. He wanted to show his captive to the school, and, perhaps, braga little of his exploit. Suppose Croquier should let the bird escape! Then he remembered the hunchback's phenomenal strength and felt a momentary shame at his own desire to boast.
"You may not keep the bird, American boy," said the woman, "it is not for you. To win, but not keep, so runs the future."
"Give me the bird!" The hunchback's voice was rasping and authoritative.
Horace turned and held out the eagle.
The hunchback took it in his iron grip, catching the boy's hand with it. The clench was like a vise.
"You've my hand!" the boy cried out.
The grip relaxed. Horace withdrew his fingers. They were bruised as though he had been caught in a closing door.
"You'll kill the bird," said Horace, "if you grip it that way."
"I shall not kill the bird," boomed the hunchback. His tones became sinister, "And it shall not escape!"
There was a gripping prescience in the scene: in the figure of the master's wife, all in black, standing by the window, the light just catching the side of her chalk-white face; in the twistedshoulder and large head of the powerful hunchback; in the evil glitter of the eagle's amber eyes which, despite the change of owners, had not wavered from their intent malevolence upon the woman's face; in the overtones of sullen wrath vibrating from the cannonade.
The silence became unendurable and Horace, uncomfortable in the tension, blundered into the breaking of it.
"Madame," he hazarded, "about Deschamps?"
She turned her head slightly to listen.
The boy had a sudden plan.
"If you could come with me to tell his folks?" he pleaded timidly.
The expression and manner of the master's wife changed on the instant. From the personification of vengeance, she turned to tenderness and sympathy.
"Dear lad," she said, at once, "it is a hard thing for you to do, is it not? I will come at once. Shall I tell them, or will you?"
"If, Madame," begged Horace, "you could speak. I—I—" he broke off, with a lump in his throat. "You see, Madame, Deschamps and I were chums."
"I understand," she answered softly. "I willtell them, as gently as I can, and you will answer what they ask you. Is not that best?"