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Woman of Mystery

<h2 class="newchapter">CHAPTER IV A LETTER FROM ÉLISABETH</h2> It was nine o'clock; there was no holding the position; and the colonel was furious. He had brought his regiment in the middle of the night—it was in the first month of the war, on the 22nd of August, 1914—to the junction of those three roads one of which ran from Belgian Luxemburg. The Germans had taken possession of the lines of the frontier, seven or eight miles away, on the day before. The general commanding the division had expressly ordered that they were to hold the enemy in check until mid-day, that is to say, until the whole division was able to come up with them. The regiment was supported by a battery of seventy-fives. The colonel had drawn up his men in a dip in the ground. The battery was likewise hidden. And yet, at the first gleams of dawn, both regiment and battery were located by the enemy and lustily shelled. They moved a mile or more to the right. Five minutes later the shells fell and killed half a dozen men and two officers. [Pg 60]A fresh move was effected, followed in ten minutes by a fresh attack. The colonel pursued his tactics. In an hour there were thirty men killed or wounded. One of the guns was destroyed. And it was only nine o'clock. "Damn it all!" cried the colonel. "How can they spot us like this? There's witchcraft in it." He was hiding, with his majors, the captain of artillery and a few dispatch-riders, behind a bank from above which the eye took in a rather large stretch of undulating upland. At no great distance, on the left, was an abandoned village, with some scattered farms in front of it, and there was not an enemy to be seen in all that deserted extent of country. There was nothing to show where the hail of shells was coming from. The seventy-fives had "searched" one or two points with no result. The firing continued. "Three more hours to hold out," growled the colonel. "We shall do it; but we shall lose a quarter of the regiment." At that moment a shell whistled between the officers and the dispatch-riders and plumped down into the ground. All sprang back, awaiting the explosion. But one man, a corporal, ran forward, lifted the shell and examined it. "You're mad, corporal!" roared the colonel. "Drop that shell and be quick about it." The corporal replaced the projectile quietly in the hole which it had made; and then without hur[Pg 61]rying, went up to the colonel, brought his heels together and saluted: "Excuse me, sir, but I wanted to see by the fuse how far off the enemy's guns are. It's two miles and fifty yards. That may be worth knowing." "By Jove! And suppose it had gone off?" "Ah, well, sir, nothing venture, nothing have!" "True, but, all the same, it was a bit thick! What's your name?" "Paul Delroze, sir, corporal in the third company." "Well, Corporal Delroze, I congratulate you on your pluck and I dare say you'll soon have your sergeant's stripes. Meanwhile, take my advice and don't do it again. . . ." He was interrupted by the sudden bursting of a shrapnel-shell. One of the dispatch-riders standing near him fell, hit in the chest, and an officer staggered under the weight of the earth that spattered against him. "Come," said the colonel, when things had restored themselves, "there's nothing to do but bow before the storm. Take the best shelter you can find; and let's wait." Paul Delroze stepped forward once more. "Forgive me, sir, for interfering in what's not my business; but we might, I think, avoid . . ." "Avoid the peppering? Of course, I have only to change our position again. But, as we should be[Pg 62] located again at once. . . . There, my lad, go back to your place." Paul insisted: "It might be a question, sir, not of changing our position, but of changing the enemy's fire." "Really!" said the colonel, a little sarcastically, but nevertheless impressed by Paul's coolness. "And do you know a way of doing it?" "Yes, sir." "What do you mean?" "Give me twenty minutes, sir, and by that time the shells will be falling in another direction." The colonel could not help smiling: "Capital! You'll make them drop where you please, I suppose?" "Yes, sir." "On that beet-field over there, fifteen hundred yards to the right?" "Yes, sir." The artillery-captain, who had been listening to the conversation, made a jest in his turn: "While you are about it, corporal, as you have already given me the distance and I know the direction more or less, couldn't you give it to me exactly, so that I may lay my guns right and smash the German batteries?" "That will be a longer job, sir, and much more difficult," said Paul. "Still, I'll try. If you don't mind examining the horizon, at eleven o'clock precisely, towards the frontier, I'll let off a signal." [Pg 63]"What sort of signal?" "I don't know, sir. Three rockets, I expect." "But your signal will be no use unless you send it off immediately above the enemy's position." "Just so, sir." "And, to do that, you'll have to know it." "I shall, sir." "And to get there." "I shall get there, sir." Paul saluted, turned on his heel and, before the officers had time either to approve or to object, he slipped along the foot of the slope at a run, plunged on the left down a sort of hollow way, with bristling edges of brambles, and disappeared from sight. "That's a queer fellow," said the colonel. "I wonder what he really means to do." The young soldier's pluck and decision disposed the colonel in his favor; and, though he felt only a limited confidence in the result of the enterprise, he could not help looking at his watch, time after time, during the minutes which he spent with his officers, behind the feeble rampart of a hay-stack. They were terrible minutes, in which the commanding officer did not think for a moment of the danger that threatened himself, but only of the danger of the men in his charge, whom he looked upon as children. He saw them around him, lying at full length on the stubble, with their knapsacks over their heads, or snugly ensconced in the copses, or squatting in[Pg 64] the hollows in the ground. The iron hurricane increased in violence. It came rushing down like a furious hail bent upon hastily completing its work of destruction. Men suddenly leapt to their feet, spun on their heels and fell motionless, amid the yells of the wounded, the shouts of the soldiers exchanging remarks and even jokes and, over everything, the incessant thunder of the bursting bomb-shells. And then, suddenly, silence! Total, definite silence, an infinite lull in the air and on the ground, giving a sort of ineffable relief! The colonel expressed his delight by bursting into a laugh: "By Jupiter, Corporal Delroze knows his way about! The crowning achievement would be for the beet-field to be shelled, as he promised." He had not finished speaking when a shell exploded fifteen hundred yards to the right, not in the beet-field, but a little in front of it. The second went too far. The third found the spot. And the bombardment began with a will. There was something about the performance of the task which the corporal had set himself that was at once so astounding and so mathematically accurate that the colonel and his officers had hardly a doubt that he would carry it out to the end and that, notwithstanding the insurmountable obstacles, he would succeed in giving the signal agreed upon. They never ceased sweeping the horizon with their[Pg 65] field-glasses, while the enemy redoubled his efforts against the beet-field. At five minutes past eleven, a red rocket went up. It appeared a good deal farther to the right than they would have suspected. And it was followed by two others. Through his telescope the artillery-captain soon discovered a church-steeple that just showed above a valley which was itself invisible among the rise and fall of the plateau; and the spire of the steeple protruded so very little that it might well have been taken for a tree standing by itself. A rapid glance at the map showed that it was the village of Brumoy. Knowing, from the shell examined by the corporal, the exact distance of the German batteries, the captain telephoned his instructions to his lieutenant. Half an hour later the German batteries were silenced; and as a fourth rocket had gone up the seventy-fives continued to bombard the church as well as the village and its immediate neighborhood. 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. <hr class="thin" /> 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 children. 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 Château d'Ornequin, doubtless abandoned, as Paul himself hoped, by Jérôme 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 Élisabeth'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 Élisabeth!" 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? Élisabeth 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 Élisabeth 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 Élisabeth was still there." "No, no," cried Bernard, "Élisabeth 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 château 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 Élisabeth wrote was: <div class="blockquot">"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. "Jérôme 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. Élisabeth Delroze." </div> 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] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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