The Woman of Mystery Page 5

  At a little before twelve, the regiment was joined by a cyclists company riding ahead of the division. The order was given to advance at all costs.

  The regiment advanced, encountering no resistance, as it approached Brumoy, except a few rifle shots. The enemy's rearguard was falling back.

  The village was in ruins, with some of its houses still burning, and displayed a most incredible disorder of corpses, of wounded men, of dead horses, demolished guns and battered caissons and baggage-[Pg 66]wagons. A whole brigade had been surprised at the moment, when, feeling certain that it had cleared the ground, it was about to march to the attack.

  But a shout came from the top of the church, the front and nave of which had fallen in and presented an appearance of indescribable chaos. Only the tower, perforated by gun-fire and blackened by the smoke from some burning joists, still remained standing, bearing by some miracle of equilibrium, the slender stone spire with which it was crowned. With his body leaning out of this spire was a peasant, waving his arms and shouting to attract attention.

  The officers recognized Paul Delroze.

  Picking their way through the rubbish, our men climbed the staircase that led to the platform of the tower. Here, heaped up against the little door admitting to the spire, were the bodies of eight Germans; and the door, which was demolished and had dropped crosswise, barred the entrance in such a way that it had to be chopped to pieces before Paul could be released.

  Toward the end of the afternoon, when it was manifest that the obstacles to the pursuit of the enemy were too serious to be overcome, the colonel embraced Corporal Delroze in front of the regiment mustered in the square.

  "Let's speak of your reward first," he said. "I shall recommend you for the military medal; and you will be sure to get it. And now, my lad, tell your story."

  [Pg 67]And Paul stood answering questions in the middle of the circle formed around him by the officers and the non-commissioned officers of each company.

  "Why, it's very simple, sir," he said. "We were being spied upon."

  "Obviously; but who was the spy and where was he?"

  "I learnt that by accident. Beside the position which we occupied this morning, there was a village, was there not, with a church?"

  "Yes, but I had the village evacuated when I arrived; and there was no one in the church."

  "If there was no one in the church, sir, why did the weather-vane point the wind coming from the east, when it was blowing from the west? And why, when we changed our position, was the vane pointed in our direction?"

  "Are you sure of that?"

  "Yes, sir. And that was why, after obtaining your leave, I did not hesitate to slip into the church and to enter the steeple as stealthily as I could. I was not mistaken. There was a man there whom I managed to overmaster, not without difficulty."

  "The scoundrel! A Frenchman?"

  "No, sir, a German dressed up as a peasant."

  "He shall be shot."

  "No, sir, please. I promised him his life."

  "Never!"

  "Well, you see, sir, I had to find out how he was keeping the enemy informed."

  [Pg 68]"Well?"

  "Oh, it was simple enough! The church has a clock, facing the north, of which we could not see the dial, where we were. From the inside, our friend worked the hands so that the big hand, resting by turns on three or four figures, announced the exact distance at which we were from the church, in the direction pointed by the vane. This is what I next did myself; and the enemy at once, redirecting his fire by my indications, began conscientiously to shell the beet-field."

  "He did," said the colonel, laughing.

  "All that remained for me to do was to move on to the other observation-post, where the spy's messages were received. There I would learn the essential details which the spy himself did not know; I mean, where the enemy's batteries were hidden. I therefore ran to this place; and it was only on arriving here that I saw those batteries and a whole German brigade posted at the very foot of the church which did the duty of signaling-station."

  "But that was a mad piece of recklessness! Didn't they fire on you?"

  "I had put on the spy's clothes, sir, their spy's. I can speak German, I knew the pass-word and only one of them knew the spy and that was the officer on observation-duty. Without the least suspicion, the general commanding the brigade sent me to him as soon as I told him that the French had discovered me and that I had managed to escape them."

  [Pg 69]"And you had the cheek…?"

  "I had to, sir; and besides I held all the trump cards. The officer suspected nothing; and, when I reached the platform from which he was sending his signals, I had no difficulty in attacking him and reducing him to silence. My business was done and I had only to give you the signals agreed upon."

  "Only that! In the midst of six or seven thousand men!"

  "I had promised you, sir, and it was eleven o'clock. The platform had on it all the apparatus required for sending day or night signals. Why shouldn't I use it? I lit a rocket, followed by a second and a third and then a fourth; and the battle commenced."

  "But those rockets were indications to draw our fire upon the very steeple where you were! It was you we were firing on!"

  "Oh, I assure you, sir, one doesn't think of those things at such moments! I welcomed the first shell that struck the church. And then the enemy left me hardly any time for reflection. Half-a-dozen fellows at once came climbing the tower. I accounted for some of them with my revolver; but a second assault came and, later on, still another. I had to take refuge behind the door that closes the spire. When they had broken it down, it served me as a barricade; and, as I had the arms and ammunition which I had taken from my first assailants and was inaccessible and very nearly invisible, I found it easy to sustain a regular siege."

  [Pg 70]"While our seventy-fives were blazing away at you."

  "While our seventy-fives were releasing me, sir; for you can understand that, once the church was destroyed and the nave in flames, no one dared to venture up the tower. I had nothing to do, therefore, but wait patiently for your arrival."

  Paul Delroze had told his story in the simplest way and as though it concerned perfectly natural things. The colonel, after congratulating him again, confirmed his promotion to the rank of sergeant and said:

  "Have you nothing to ask me?"

  "Yes, sir, I should like to put a few more questions to the German spy whom I left behind me and, at the same time, to get back my uniform, which I hid."

  "Very well, you shall dine here and we'll give you a bicycle afterwards."

  Paul was back at the first church by seven o'clock in the evening. A great disappointment awaited him. The spy had broken his bonds and fled.

  All Paul's searching, in the church and village, was useless. Nevertheless, on one of the steps of the staircase, near the place where he had flung himself upon the spy, he picked up the dagger with which his adversary had tried to strike him. It was exactly similar to the dagger which he had picked up in the grass, three weeks before, outside the little gate in the Ornequin woods. It had the same three-cornered[Pg 71] blade, the same brown horn handle and, on the handle, the same four letters: H, E, R, M.

  The spy and the woman who bore so strange a resemblance to Hermine d'Andeville, his father's murderess, both made use of an identical weapon.

  ____________________

  Next day, the division to which Paul's regiment belonged continued the offensive and entered Belgium after repulsing the enemy. But in the evening the general received orders to fall back.

  The retreat began. Painful as it was to one and all, it was doubly so perhaps to those of our troops which had been victorious at the start. Paul and his comrades in the third company could not contain themselves for rage and disappointment. During the half a day which they spent in Belgium, they saw the ruins of a little town that had been destroyed by the Germans, the bodies of eighty women who had been shot, old men hung up by their feet, stacks of murdered ch
ildren. And they had to retire before those monsters!

  Some of the Belgian soldiers had attached themselves to the regiment; and, with faces that still bore traces of horror at the infernal visions which they had beheld, these men told of things beyond the conception of the most vivid imagination. And our fellows had to retire. They had to retire with hatred in their hearts and a mad desire for vengeance that made their hands close fiercely on their rifles.

  [Pg 72]And why retire? It was not a question of being defeated, because they were falling back in good order, making sudden halts and delivering violent counter-attacks upon the disconcerted enemy. But his numbers overpowered all resistance. The wave of barbarians reformed itself. The place of each thousand dead was taken by two thousand of the living. And our men retired.

  One evening, Paul learnt one of the reasons for this retreat from a week-old newspaper; and he was painfully affected by the news. On the 20th of August, Corvigny had been taken by assault, after some hours of bombardment effected under the most inexplicable conditions, whereas the stronghold was believed to be capable of holding out for at least some days, which would have strengthened our operations against the left flank of the Germans.

  So Corvigny had fallen; and the Chateau d'Ornequin, doubtless abandoned, as Paul himself hoped, by Jerome and Rosalie, was now destroyed, pillaged and sacked with the methodical thoroughness which the Huns applied to their work of devastation. On this side, too, the furious horde were crowding precipitately.

  Those were sinister days, at the end of August, the most tragic days perhaps that France has ever passed through. Paris was threatened, a dozen departments were invaded. Death's icy breath hung over our gallant nation.

  It was on the morning of one of these days that[Pg 73] Paul heard a cheerful voice calling to him from a group of young soldiers behind him:

  "Paul, Paul! I've got my way at last! Isn't it a stroke of luck?"

  Those young soldiers were lads who had enlisted voluntarily and been drafted into the regiment; and Paul at once recognized Elisabeth's brother, Bernard d'Andeville. He had no time to think of the attitude which he had best take up. His first impulse would have been to turn away; but Bernard had seized his two hands and was pressing them with an affectionate kindness which showed that the boy knew nothing as yet of the breach between Paul and his wife.

  "Yes, it's myself, old chap," he declared gaily. "I may call you old chap, mayn't I? It's myself and it takes your breath away, what? You're thinking of a providential meeting, the sort of coincidence one never sees: two brothers-in-law dropping into the same regiment. Well, it's not that: it happened at my express request. I said to the authorities, 'I'm enlisting by way of a duty and pleasure combined,' or words to that effect. 'But, as a crack athlete and a prize-winner in every gymnastic and drill-club I ever joined, I want to be sent to the front straight away and into the same regiment as my brother-in-law, Corporal Paul Delroze.' And, as they couldn't do without my services, they packed me off here… Well? You don't look particularly delighted…?"

  Paul was hardly listening. He said to himself:

  "This is the son of Hermine d'Andeville. The boy[Pg 74] who is now touching me is the son of the woman who killed…"

  But Bernard's face expressed such candor and such open-hearted pleasure at seeing him that he said:

  "Yes, I am. Only you're so young!"

  "I? I'm quite ancient. Seventeen the day I enlisted."

  "But what did your father say?"

  "Dad gave me leave. But for that, of course, I shouldn't have given him leave."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why, he's enlisted, too."

  "At his age?"

  "Nonsense, he's quite juvenile. Fifty the day he enlisted! They found him a job as interpreter with the British staff. All the family under arms, you see… Oh, I was forgetting, I've a letter for you from Elisabeth!"

  Paul started. He had deliberately refrained from asking after his wife. He now said, as he took the letter:

  "So she gave you this…?"

  "No, she sent it to us from Ornequin."

  "From Ornequin? How can she have done that? Elisabeth left Ornequin on the day of mobilization, in the evening. She was going to Chaumont, to her aunt's."

  "Not at all. I went and said good-bye to our aunt: she hadn't heard from Elisabeth since the be[Pg 75]ginning of the war. Besides, look at the envelope: 'M. Paul Delroze, care of M. d'Andeville, Paris, etc.' And it's post-marked Ornequin and Corvigny."

  Paul looked and stammered:

  "Yes, you're right; and I can read the date on the post-mark: 18 August. The 18th of August… and Corvigny fell into the hands of the Germans two days later, on the 20th. So Elisabeth was still there."

  "No, no," cried Bernard, "Elisabeth isn't a child! You surely don't think she would have waited for the Huns, so close to the frontier! She would have left the chateau at the first sound of firing. And that's what she's telling you, I expect. Why don't you read her letter, Paul?"

  Paul, on his side, had no idea of what he was about to learn on reading the letter; and he opened the envelope with a shudder.

  What Elisabeth wrote was:

  "Paul,

  "I cannot make up my mind to leave Ornequin. A duty keeps me here in which I shall not fail, the duty of clearing my mother's memory. Do understand me, Paul. My mother remains the purest of creatures in my eyes. The woman who nursed me in her arms, for whom my father retains all his love, must not be even suspected. But you yourself accuse her; and it is against you that I wish to defend her. To compel you to believe me, I shall[Pg 76] find the proofs that are not necessary to convince me. And it seems to me that those proofs can only be found here. So I shall stay.

  "Jerome and Rosalie are also staying on, though the enemy is said to be approaching. They have brave hearts, both of them, and you have nothing to fear, as I shall not be alone.

  Elisabeth Delroze."

  Paul folded up the letter. He was very pale.

  Bernard asked:

  "She's gone, hasn't she?"

  "No, she's there."

  "But this is madness! What, with those beasts about! A lonely country-house!… But look here, Paul, she must surely know the terrible dangers that threaten her!… What can be keeping her there? Oh, it's too dreadful to think of…"

  Paul stood silent, with a drawn face and clenched fists…

  [Pg 77]

  CHAPTER V

  THE PEASANT-WOMAN AT CORVIGNY

  Three weeks before, on hearing that war was declared, Paul had felt rising within him the immediate resolution to get killed at all costs. The tragedy of his life, the horror of his marriage with a woman whom he still loved in his heart, the certainty which he had acquired at the Chateau d'Ornequin: all this had affected him to such a degree that he came to look upon death as a boon. To him, war represented, from the first and without the least demur, death. However much he might admire the solemnly impressive and magnificently consoling events of those first few weeks-the perfect order of the mobilization, the enthusiasm of the soldiers, the wonderful unity that prevailed in France, the awakening of the souls of the nation-none of these great spectacles attracted his attention. Deep down within himself he had determined that he would perform acts of such kind that not even the most improbable hazard could succeed in saving him.

  Thus he thought that he had found the desired occasion on the first day. To overmaster the spy whose presence he suspected in the church steeple[Pg 78] and then to penetrate to the very heart of the enemy's lines, in order to signal the position, meant going to certain death. He went bravely. And, as he had a very clear sense of his mission, he fulfilled it with as much prudence as courage. He was ready to die, but to die after succeeding. And he found a strange unexpected joy in the act itself as well as in the success that attended it.

  The discovery of the dagger employed by the spy made a great impression on him. What connection did it establish between this man and the one who had tried to stab him? What was the c
onnection between these two and the Comtesse d'Andeville, who had died sixteen years ago? And how, by what invisible links, were they all three related to that same work of treachery and spying of which Paul had surprised so many instances?

  But Elisabeth's letter, above all, came upon him as a very violent blow. She was over there, amidst the bullets and the shells, the hot fighting around the chateau, the madness and the fury of the victors, the burning, the shooting, the torturing and atrocities! She was there, she so young and beautiful, almost alone, with no one to defend her! And she was there because he, Paul, had not had the grit to go back to her and see her once more and take her away with him!

  These thoughts produced in Paul fits of depression from which he would suddenly awaken to thrust himself in the path of some danger, pursuing his mad[Pg 79] enterprises to the end, come what might, with a quiet courage and a fierce obstinacy that filled his comrades with both surprise and admiration. And from that time onward he seemed to be seeking not so much death as the unspeakable ecstasy which a man feels in defying it.

  Then came the 6th of September, the day of the unheard-of miracle when our great general-in-chief, addressing his armies in words that will never perish, at last ordered them to fling themselves upon the enemy. The gallantly-borne but cruel retreat came to an end. Exhausted, breathless, fighting against odds for days, with no time for sleep, with no time to eat, marching only by force of prodigious efforts of which they were not even conscious, unable to say why they did not lie down in the road-side ditches to await death, such were the men who received the word of command:

  "Halt! About face! And now have at the enemy!"

  And they faced about. Those dying men recovered their strength. From the humblest to the most illustrious, each summoned up his will and fought as though the safety of France depended upon him alone. There were as many glorious heroes as there were soldiers. They were asked to conquer or die. They conquered.