The Forest of Swords: A Story of Paris and the Marne by Joseph A. Altsheler (i like reading TXT) 📖

a line of advancing infantry. When we were in the middle of the field a masked German battery of rapid-firers opened on us at short range. It was an awful experience, like a stroke of lightning, and I don't think that more than a dozen of us escaped with our lives. I was wounded in the arm and taken before I could get out of the field. I was brought here with some other prisoners and I have been sleeping on the ground just beyond that hillock. I awoke early, and, walking the little distance our guards allow, I happened to recognize your figure lying here. I was sorry and yet glad to see you, sorry that you were a prisoner, and glad to find at least one whom I knew, a friend."

John gave Weber's hand a strong grasp.

"I can say the same about you," he said warmly. "We're both prisoners, but yesterday was a magnificent day for France and democracy."

"It was, and now it's to be seen what today will be."

"I hope and believe it will be no less magnificent."

"I learned that you were taken just after you alighted from an aeroplane, and that a man with you escaped in the plane. At least, I presume it was you, as I heard the Germans talking of such a person and I knew of your great friendship for Philip Lannes. Lannes, of course was the one who escaped."

"A good surmise, Fernand. It was no less a man than he."

Weber's eyes sparkled.

"I was sure of it," he said. "A wonderful fellow, that Lannes, perhaps the most skillful and important bearer of dispatches that France has. But he will not forget you, Mr. Scott. He knows, of course, where you were taken, and doubtless from points high in the air he has traced the course of this German army. He will find time to come for you. He will surely do so. He has a feeling for you like that of a brother, and his skill in the air gives him a wonderful advantage. In all the history of the world there have never before been any scouts like the aeroplanes."

"That's true, and that, I think, is their chief use."

Impulse made John look up. The skies were fast beginning to brighten with the first light in the east, and large objects would be visible there. But he saw nothing against the blue save two or three captive balloons which floated not far above the trees inside the German lines. He longed for a sight of the Arrow. He believed that he would know its shape even high in the heavens, but they were speckless.

The Alsatian, whose eyes followed his, shook his head.

"He is not there, Mr. Scott," he said, "and you will not see him today, but I have a conviction that he will come, by night doubtless."

John lowered his eyes and his feeling of disappointment passed. It had been foolish of him to hope so soon, but it was only a momentary impulse, Lannes could not seek him now, and even if he were to come there would be no chance of rescue until circumstances changed.

"Doubtless you and he were embarked on a long errand when you were taken," said Weber.

"We were carrying a message to the commander of one of the French armies, but I don't know the name of the commander, I don't know which army it is, and I don't know where it is."

Weber laughed.

"But Lannes knew all of those things," he said. "Oh, he's a close one! He wouldn't trust such secrets not even to his brother-in-arms."

"Nor should he do so. I'd rather he'd never tell them to me unless he thought it necessary."

"I agree with you exactly, Mr. Scott. Hark! Did you hear it? The battle swells afresh, and it's not yet full day!"

The roaring had not ceased, but out of the west rose a sound, louder yet, deep, rolling and heavy with menace. It was the discharge of a great gun and it came from a point several miles away.

"We don't know who fired that," said Weber, "It may be French, English or German, but it's my opinion that we'll hear its like in our forest all day long, just as we did yesterday. However, it shall not keep me from bathing my face in this brook."

"Nor me either," said John.

The cold water refreshed and invigorated him, and as he stooped over the brook, he heard other cannon. They seemed to him fairly to spring into action, and, in a few moments, the whole earth was roaring again with the huge volume of their fire.

Other prisoners, wounded and unwounded, awakened by the cannon, strolled down to the brook and dipped into its waters.

"I'd better slip back to my place beyond the hillock," said Weber. "We're in two lots, we prisoners, and I belong in the other lot. I don't think our guards have noticed our presence here, and it will be safer for me to return. But it's likely that we'll all be gathered into one body soon, and I'll help you watch for Lannes."

"I'll be glad of your help," said John sincerely. "We must escape. In all the confusion of so huge a battle there ought to be a chance."

Weber slipped away in the crowd now hurrying down to the stream, and in a few moments John was joined by Fleury, whose attention was centered on the sounds of the distant battle. He deemed it best to say nothing to him of Weber, who did not wish to be known as an Alsatian. Fleury's heavy sleep had made him strong and fresh again, but he was in a fury at his helplessness.

"To think of our being tied here at such a time," he said. "France and England are pushing the battle again! I know it, and we're helpless, mere prisoners!"

"Still," said John, "while we can't fight we may see things worth seeing. Perhaps it's not altogether our loss to be inside the German army on such a day."

Fleury could not reconcile himself to such a view, but he sought to make the best of it, and he was cheered, too, by the vast increase in the volume of the cannon fire. Before the full day had crossed from east to west the great guns were thundering again along the long battle line. But in their immediate vicinity there was no action. All the German troops here seemed to be resting on their arms. No Uhlans were visible and John judged that the detachment under von Boehlen, having gone forth chiefly for scouting purposes, had not yet returned.

They received bread, sausage and coffee for breakfast from one of the huge kitchen automobiles, and nearly all ate with a good appetite. Their German captors did not treat them badly, but John, watching both officers and men, did not see any elation. He had no doubt that the officers were stunned by the terrible surprise of the day before, and as for the men, they would know nothing. He had seen early that the Germans were splendid troops, disciplined, brave and ingenious, but the habit of blind obedience would blind them also to the fact that fortune had turned her face away from them.

He wished that his friend von Arnheim—friend he regarded him—would appear and tell him something about the battle, but his wish did not come true for an hour and meanwhile the whole heavens resounded with the roar of the battle, while distant flashes from the guns could be seen on either flank.

The young German, glasses in hand, evidently seeking a good view, walked to the crest of the hillock behind which Weber had disappeared. John presumed enough on their brief friendship to call to him.

"Do you see anything of interest?" he asked.

Von Arnheim nodded quickly.

"I see the distant fringe of a battle," he replied amiably, "but it's too early in the morning for me to pass my judgment upon it."

"Nevertheless you can look for a day of most desperate struggle!"

Von Arnheim nodded very gravely.

"Men by tens of thousands will fall before night," he said.

As if to confirm his words, the roar of the battle took a sudden and mighty increase, like a convulsion.

CHAPTER VII THE TWO PRINCES

John sat with the other prisoners for more than two hours listening to the thunder of the great battle or rather series of battles which were afterwards classified under the general head the Battle of the Marne. He was not a soldier, merely a civilian serving as a soldier, but he had learned already to interpret many of the signs of combat. There was an atmospheric feeling that registered on a sensitive mind the difference between victory and defeat, and he was firm in the belief that as yesterday had gone today was going. Certainly this great German army which he believed to be in the center was not advancing, and something of a character most menacing was happening to the wings of the German force. He read it in the serious, preoccupied faces of the officers who passed near. There was not a smile on the face of the youngest of them all, but deepest anxiety was written alike on young and old.

John and Fleury sat together at the edge of the brook, and for a while forgot their chagrin at not being on the battle line. The battle itself which they could not see, but which they could hear, absorbed them so thoroughly that they had no time to think of regrets.

John had thought that man's violence, his energy in destruction on the first day could not be equalled, but it seemed to him now that the second day surpassed the first. The cannon fire was distant, yet the waves of air beat heavily upon them, and the earth shook without ceasing. Wisps of smoke floated toward them and the air was tainted again with the acrid smell of burned gunpowder.

"You're a mountaineer, Fleury, you told me," said Scott, "and you should be able to judge how sound travels through gorges. I suppose you yodel, of course?"

"Yodel, what's that?"

"To make a long singing cry on a peak which is supposed to reach to somebody on another peak who sends back the same kind of a singing cry. We have a general impression in America that European mountaineers don't do much but stand in fancy costumes on crests and ridges and yodel to one another."

"It may have been so once," said the young Savoyard, "but this is a bad year for yodeling. The voice of the cannon carries so far that the voice of man doesn't amount to much. But what sound did you want me to interpret?"

"That of the cannon. Does its volume move eastward or westward? I should think it's much like your mountain storms and you know how they travel among the ridges."

"The comparison is just, but I can't yet tell any shifting of the artillery fire. The wind brings the sound toward us, and if there's any great advance or retreat I should be able to detect it. I should say that as far as the second day is concerned nothing decisive has happened yet."

"Do you know this country?"

"A little. My regiment marched through here about three weeks ago and we made two camps not far from this spot. This is the wood of Sénouart, and the brook here runs down to the river Marne."

"And we're not far from that river. Then we've pressed back the Germans farther than I thought. It's strange that the German army here does not move."

"It's waiting, and I fancy it doesn't know what to do. I've an idea that our victory yesterday was greater than the French and British have realized, but which the Germans, of course, understand. Why do they leave us here, almost neglected, and why do their officers walk about, looking so doubtful and anxious? I've heard that the Germans were approaching Paris with five armies. It may be that we've cut off at least one of those armies and that it's in mortal danger."

"It may be so. But have you thought, Fleury, of the extraordinary difference between this morning and yesterday morning?"

"I have. In conditions they're worlds apart. Hark! Listen now, Scott, my friend!"

He lay on the grass and put his ear to the ground, just as John had often done. Listening intently for at least two minutes, he announced with conviction that the cannonade was moving eastward.

"Which means that the Germans are withdrawing again?" said John.

"Undoubtedly," said Fleury, his face glowing.

They listened a quarter of an hour longer, and John himself was then able to tell that the battle line was shifting. The Germans elsewhere must have fallen back several miles, but the army about him did not yet move. He