The Forest of Swords by Joseph A. Altsheler

J >> Joseph A. Altsheler >> The Forest of Swords

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

"All right, I yield," said John, "but kindly take your lance away. It's
so sharp and cold it makes me feel uncomfortable."

As he spoke he continued to look upward. The _Arrow_ was soaring higher
and higher, and the Uhlans were firing at it, but they were not able to
hit such a fleeting target. In another minute it was out of range.

John felt the cold steel come away from his throat, and satisfied that
Lannes with his precious message was safe, he looked at his captors.
They were about thirty in number, Prussian Uhlans.

"Well," said John to the one who seemed to be their leader, "what do you
want with me?"

"To hold you prisoner," replied the man, in excellent English--John was
always surprised at the number of people on the continent who spoke
English--"and to ask you why we find an American here in French
uniform."

The man who spoke was young, blond, ruddy, and his tone was rather
humorous. John had been too much in Germany to hate Germans. He liked
most of them personally, but for many of their ideas, ideas which he
considered deadly to the world, he had an intense dislike.

"You find me here because I didn't have time to get away," he replied,
"and I'm in a French uniform because it's my fighting suit."

The young officer smiled. John rather liked him, and he saw, too, that
he was no older than himself.

"It's lucky for you that you're in some kind of a uniform," the German
said, "or I should have you shot immediately. But I'm sorry we didn't
take the man in the aeroplane instead of you."

John looked up again. The _Arrow_ had become small in the distant blue.
A whimsical impulse seized him.

"You've a right to be sorry," he said. "That was the greatest flying man
in the world, and all day he has carried messages, heavy with the fate
of nations. If you had taken him a few moments ago you might have saved
the German army from defeat today. But your chance has gone. If you were
to see him again you would not know him and his plane from others of
their kind."

The officer's eyes dilated at first. Then he smiled again and stroked
his young mustache.

"It may be true, as you say," he replied, "but meanwhile I'll have to
take you to my chief, Captain von Boehlen."

John's heart sank a little when he heard the name von Boehlen. Fortune,
he thought, had played him a hard trick by bringing him face to face
with the man who had least cause to like him. But he would not show it.

"Very well," he said; "which way?"

"Straight before you," said the officer. "I'd give you a mount, but it
isn't far. Remember as you walk that we're just behind you, and don't
try to run away. You'd have no chance on earth. My own name is Arnheim,
Wilhelm von Arnheim."

"And mine's John Scott," said John, as he walked straight ahead.

They passed through a wood and into another field, where a large body of
Prussian cavalry was waiting. A tall man, built heavily, stood beside a
horse, watching a distant corner of the battle through glasses. John
knew that uncompromising figure at once. It was von Boehlen.

"A prisoner, Captain," said von Arnheim, saluting respectfully.

Von Boehlen turned slowly, and a malicious light leaped in his eyes when
he saw John on foot before him, and wholly in his power.

"And so," he said, "it's young Scott of the hotel in Dresden and of the
wireless station, and you've come straight into my hands!"

The whimsical humor which sometimes seized John when he was in the most
dangerous situation took hold of him again. It was not humor exactly,
but it was the innate desire to make the best of a bad situation.

"I'm in your hands," he replied, "but I didn't walk willingly into 'em.
Your lieutenant, von Arnheim here, and his men brought me on the points
of their lances. I'm quite willing to go away again."

Von Boehlen recognized the spirit in the reply and the malice departed
from his own eyes. Yet he asked sternly:

"Why do you put on a French uniform and meddle in a quarrel not your
own?"

"I've made it my own. I take the chances of war."

"To the rear with him, and put him with the other prisoners," said von
Boehlen to von Arnheim, and the young Prussian and two Uhlans escorted
him to the edge of the field where twenty or thirty French prisoners sat
on the ground.

"I take it," said von Arnheim, "that you and our captain have met
before."

"Yes, and the last time it was under circumstances that did not endear
me to him."

"If it was in war it will not be to your harm. Captain von Boehlen is a
stern but just man, and his conduct is strictly according to our
military code. You will stay here with the other prisoners under guard.
I hope to see you again."

With these polite words the young officer rode back to his chief, and
John's heart warmed to him because of his kindness. Then he sat down on
the grass and looked at those who were prisoners with him. Most of them
were wounded, but none seemed despondent. All were lying down, some
propped on their elbows, and they were watching and listening with the
closest attention. A half-dozen Germans, rifle in hand, stood near by.

John took his place on the grass by the side of a fair, slim young man
who carried his left arm in a bandage.

"Englishman?" said the young man.

"No, American."

"But you have been fighting for us, as your uniform shows. What
command?"

"General Vaugirard's, but I became separated from it earlier in the
day."

"I've heard of him. Great, fat man, as cool as ice and as brave as a
lion. A good general to serve under. My own name is Fleury, Albert
Fleury. I was wounded and taken early this morning, and the others and I
have been herded here ever since by the Germans. They will not tell us a
word, but I notice they have not advanced."

"The German army is retreating everywhere. For this day, at least, we're
victorious. Somebody has made a great plan and has carried it through.
The cavalry of the invader came within sight of Paris this morning, but
they won't be able to see it tomorrow morning. Whisper it to the others.
We'll take the good news quietly. We won't let the guards see that we
know."

The news was circulated in low tones and every one of the wounded forgot
his wound. They spoke among themselves, but all the while the thunder of
the hundred-mile battle went on with unremitting ferocity. John put his
ear to the ground now, and the earth quivered incessantly like a ship
shaken at sea by its machinery.

The day was now waning fast and he looked at the mass of Uhlans who
stood arrayed in the open space, as if they were awaiting an order.
Lieutenant von Arnheim rode back and ordered the guards to march on with
them.

There was none too severely wounded to walk and they proceeded in a file
through the fields, Uhlans on all sides, but the great mass behind them,
where their commander, von Boehlen, himself rode.

The night was almost at hand. Twilight was already coming over the
eastern hills, and one of the most momentous days in the story of man
was drawing to a close. People often do not know the magnitude of an
event until it has passed long since and shows in perspective, but John
felt to the full the result of the event, just as the old Greeks must
have known at once what Salamis or Plataea meant to them. The hosts of
the world's greatest military empire were turned back, and he had all
the certainty of conviction that they would be driven farther on the
next day.

The little band of prisoners who walked while their Prussian captors
rode, were animated by feelings like those of John. It was the captured
who exulted and the captors who were depressed, though neither expressed
it in words, and the twilight was too deep now for faces to show either
joy or sorrow.

John and Fleury walked side by side. They were near the same age. Fleury
was an Alpinist from the high mountain region of Savoy and he had
arrived so recently in the main theater of conflict that he knew little
of what had been passing. He and John talked in whispers and they spoke
encouraging words to each other. Fleury listened in wonder to John's
account of his flights with Lannes.

"It is marvelous to have looked down upon a battle a hundred miles
long," he said. "Have you any idea where these Uhlans intend to take
us?"

"I haven't. Doubtless they don't know themselves. The night is here now,
and I imagine they'll stop somewhere soon."

The twilight died in the west as well as the east, and darkness came
over the field of gigantic strife. But the earth continued to quiver
with the thunder of artillery, and John felt the waves of air pulsing in
his ears. Now and then searchlights burned in a white blaze across the
hills. Fields, trees and houses would stand out for a moment, and then
be gone absolutely.

John's vivid imagination turned the whole into a storm at night. The
artillery was the thunder and the flare of the searchlights was the
lightning. His mind created, for a little while, the illusion that the
combat had passed out of the hands of man and that nature was at work.
He and Fleury ceased to talk and he walked on, thinking little of his
destination. He had no sense of weariness, nor of any physical need at
all.

Von Arnheim rode up by his side and said:

"You'll not have to walk much further, Mr. Scott. A camp of ours is just
beyond a brook, not more than a few hundred yards away, and the
prisoners will stay there for the night. I'm sorry to find you among
the French fighting against us. We Germans expected American sympathy.
There is so much German blood in the United States."

"But, as I told Captain von Boehlen, we're a republic, and we're
democrats. In many of the big ideas there's a gulf between us and
Germany so wide that it can never be bridged. This war has made clear
the enormous difference."

Von Arnheim sighed.

"And yet, as a people, we like each other personally," he said.

"That's so, but as nations we diverge absolutely."

"Perhaps, I can't dispute it. But here is our camp. You'll be treated
well. We Germans are not barbarians, as our enemies allege."

John saw fires burning in an ancient wood, through which a clear brook
ran. The ground was carpeted with bodies, which at first he thought were
those of dead men. But they were merely sleepers. German troops in
thousands had dropped in their tracks. It was scarcely sleep, but
something deeper, a stupor of exhaustion so utter, both mental and
physical, that it was like the effect of anesthesia. They lay in every
imaginable position, and they stretched away through the forest in
scores of thousands.

John and Fleury saw their own place at once. Several hundred men in
French uniforms were lying or sitting on the ground in a great group
near the forest. A few slept, but the others, as well as John could see
by the light of the fires, were wide awake.

The sight of the brook gave John a burning thirst, and making a sign to
the German guard, who nodded, he knelt and drank. He did not care
whether the water was pure or not, most likely it was not, with armies
treading their way across it, but as it cut through the dust and grime
of his mouth and throat he felt as if a new and more vigorous life were
flowing into his veins. After drinking once, twice, and thrice, he sat
down on the bank with Fleury, but in a minute or two young von Arnheim
came for him.

"Our commander wishes to talk with you," he said.

"I'm honored," said John, "but conversation is not one of my strong
points."

"The general will make the conversation," said von Arnheim, smiling. "It
will be your duty, as he sees it, to answer questions."

John's liking for von Arnheim grew. He had seldom seen a finer young
man. He was frank and open in manner, and bright blue eyes shone in a
face that bore every sign of honesty. Official enemies he and von
Arnheim were, but real enemies they never could be.

He divined that he would be subjected to a cross-examination, but he had
no objection. Moreover, he wanted to see a German general of high
degree. Von Arnheim led the way through the woods to a little glade, in
which about a dozen officers stood. One of them, the oldest man present,
who was obviously in command, stood nearest the fire, holding his helmet
in his hand.

The general was past sixty, of medium height, but extremely broad and
muscular. His head, bald save for a fringe of white hair, had been
reddened by the sun, and his face, with its deep heavy lines and his
corded neck, was red, too. He showed age but not weakness. His eyes,
small, red and uncommonly keen, gazed from under a white bushy thatch.
He looked like a fierce old dragon to John.

"The American prisoner, sir," said von Arnheim in English to the
general.

The old man concentrated the stare of his small red eyes upon John for
many long seconds. The young American felt the weight and power of that
gaze. He knew too instinctively that the man before him was a great
fighter, a true representative of the German military caste and system.
He longed to turn his own eyes away, but he resolutely held them steady.
He would not be looked down, not even by an old Prussian general to whom
the fate of a hundred thousand was nothing.

"Very well, Your Highness, you may stand aside," said the general in a
deep harsh voice.

Out of the corner of his eye John saw that the man who stood aside was
von Arnheim. "Your Highness!" Then this young lieutenant must be a
prince. If so, some princes were likable. Wharton and Carstairs and he
had outwitted a prince once, but it could not be von Arnheim. He turned
his full gaze back to the general, who continued in his deep gruff
voice, speaking perfect English:

"I understand that you are an American and your name is John Scott."

"And duly enrolled and uniformed in the French service," said John,
"You can't shoot me as a _franc tireur_."

"We could shoot you for anything, if we wished, but such is not our
purpose. I have heard from a captain of Uhlans, Rudolf von Boehlen, a
most able and valuable officer, that you are brave and alert."

"I thank Captain von Boehlen for his compliment. I did not expect it
from him."

"Ah, he bears you no malice. We Germans are large enough to admire skill
and courage in others. He has spoken of the affair of the wireless. It
cost us much, but it belongs to the past. We will achieve what we wish."

John was silent. He believed that these preliminaries on the part of the
old general were intended to create an atmosphere, a belief in his mind
that German power was invincible.

"We have withdrawn a portion of our force today," continued the general,
"in order to rectify our line. Our army had advanced too far. Tomorrow
we resume our march on Paris."

John felt that it was an extraordinary statement for an old man, one of
such high rank, the commander of perhaps a quarter of a million
soldiers, to be making to him, a young American, but he held his peace,
awaiting what lay behind it all.

"Now you are a captive," continued the general, "you will be sent to a
prison, and you will be held there until the end of the war. You will
necessarily suffer much. We cannot help it. Yet you might be sent to
your own country. Americans and Germans are not enemies. I know from
Captain von Boehlen who took you that you have been in an aeroplane with
a Frenchman. Some account of what you saw from space might help your
departure for America."

And so that was it! Now the prisoner's eye steadily confronted that of
the old general.

"Your Highness," he said, as he thought that the old man might be a
prince as well as a general, "you have read the history of the great
civil war in my country, have you not?"

"It was a part of my military duty to study it. It was a long and
desperate struggle with many great battles, but what has it to do with
the present?"

"Did you ever hear of any traitor on either side, North or South, in
that struggle?"

The deep red veins in the old general's face stood out, but he gave no
other sign.

"You prefer, then," he said, "to become a charge upon our German
hospitality. But I can say that your refusal will not make terms harder
for you. Lieutenant von Arnheim, take him back to the other prisoners."

"Thank you, sir," said John, and he gave the military salute. He could
understand the old man's point of view, rough and gruff though he was,
and he was not lacking in a certain respect for him. The general
punctiliously returned the salute.

"You've made a good impression," said von Arnheim, as they walked away
together.

"I gather," said John, "from a reference by the general, that you're a
prince."

Von Arnheim looked embarrassed.

"In a way I am," he admitted, "but ours is a mediatized house. Perhaps
it doesn't count for much. Still, if it hadn't been for this war I might
have gone to your country and married an heiress."

His eyes were twinkling. Here, John thought was a fine fellow beyond
question.

"Perhaps you can come after the war and marry one," he said. "Personally
I hope you'll have the chance."

"Thanks," said von Arnheim, a bit wistfully, "but I'm afraid now it will
be a long time, if ever. I need not seek to conceal from you that we
were turned back today. You know it already."

"Yes, I know it," said John, speaking without any trace of exultation,
"and I'm willing to tell you that it was one of the results I saw from
the aeroplane. Can I ask what you intend to do with the prisoners you
have here, including myself?"

"I do not know. You are to sleep where you are tonight. Your bed, the
earth, will be as good as ours, and perhaps in the morning we'll find an
answer to your question."

Von Arnheim bade him a pleasant good night and turned to duties
elsewhere. John watched him as he strode away, a fine, straight young
figure. He had found him a most likable man, and he was bound to admit
that there was much in the German character to admire. But for the
present it was--in his view--a Germany misled.

The prisoners numbered perhaps six hundred, and at least half of them
were wounded. John soon learned that the hurt usually suffered in
stoical silence. It was so in the great American civil war, and it was
true now in the great European war.

Rough food was brought to them by German guards, and those who were able
drank at the brook. Water was served to the severely wounded by their
comrades in tin cups given to them by the Germans, and then all but a
few lay on the grass and sought sleep.

John and his new friend, Fleury, were among those who yet sat up and
listened to the sounds of battle still in progress, although it was far
in the night. It was an average night of late summer or early autumn,
cool, fairly bright, and with but little wind. But the dull, moaning
sound made by the distant cannonade came from both sides of them, and
the earth yet quivered, though but faintly. Now and then, the
searchlights gleamed against the background of darkness, but John felt
that the combat must soon stop, at least until the next day. The German
army in which he was a prisoner had ceased already, but other German
armies along the vast line fought on, failing day, by the light which
man himself had devised.

Fleury was intelligent and educated. Although it was bitter to him to be
a prisoner at such a time, he had some comprehension of what had
occurred, and he knew that John had been in a position to see far more
than he. He asked the young American many questions about his flight in
the air, and about Philip Lannes, of whom he had heard.

"It was wonderful," he said, "to look down on a battle a hundred miles
long."

"We didn't see all of it," said John, "but we saw it in many places, and
we don't know that it was a hundred miles long, but it must have been
that or near it."

"And the greatest day for France in her history! What mighty
calculations must have been made and what tremendous marchings and
combats must have been carried out to achieve such a result."

"One of the decisive battles of history, like Plataea, or the Metaurus or
Gettysburg. There go the Uhlans with Captain von Boehlen at their head.
Now I wonder what they mean to do!"

A thousand men, splendidly mounted and armed, rode through the forest.
The moonlight fell on von Boehlen's face and showed it set and grim.
John felt that he was bound to recognize in him a stern and resolute
man, carrying out his own conceptions of duty. Nor had von Boehlen been
discourteous to him, although he might have felt cause for much
resentment. The Prussian glanced at him as he passed, but said nothing.
Soon he and his horsemen passed out of sight in the dusk.

John, wondering how late it might be, suddenly remembered that he had a
watch and found it was eleven o'clock.

"An hour of midnight," he said to Fleury.

Most all the French stretched upon the ground were now in deep slumber,
wounded and unwounded alike. The sounds of cannon fire were sinking
away, but they did not die wholly. The faint thunder of the distant
guns never ceased to come. But the campfire, where he knew the German
generals slept or planned, went out, and darkness trailed its length
over all this land which by night had become a wilderness.

John was able to trace dimly the sleeping figures of Germans in the
dusk, sunk down upon the ground and buried in the sleep or stupor of
exhaustion. As they lay near him so they lay in the same way in hundreds
of thousands along the vast line. Men and horses, strained to their last
nerve and muscle, were too tired to move. It seemed as if more than a
million men lay dead in the fields and woods of Northeastern France.

John, who had been wide awake, suddenly dropped on the ground where the
others were stretched. He collapsed all in a moment, as if every drop of
blood had been drained suddenly from his body. Keyed high throughout the
day, his whole system now gave way before the accumulated impact of
events so tremendous. The silence save for the distant moaning that
succeeded the roar of a million men or more in battle was like a
powerful drug, and he slept like one dead, never moving hand or foot.

He was roused shortly before morning by some one who shook him gently
but persistently, and at last he sat up, looking around in the dim light
for the person who had dragged him back from peace to a battle-mad
world. He saw an unkempt, bearded man in a French uniform, one sleeve
stained with blood, and he recognized Weber, the Alsatian.

"Why, Weber!" he exclaimed, "they've got you, too! This is bad! They
may consider you, an Alsatian, a traitor, and execute you at once!"

Weber smiled in rather melancholy fashion, and said in a low tone:

"It's bad enough to be captured, but I won't be shot Nobody here knows
that I'm an Alsatian, and consequently they will think I'm a Frenchman.
If you call me anything, call me Fernand, which is my first name, but
which they will take for the last."

"All right, Fernand. I'll practice on it now, so I'll make no slip. How
did you happen to be taken?"

"I was in a motor car, a part of a train of about a hundred cars. There
were seven in it besides myself. We were ordered to cross a field and
join 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.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19