The Wonder of War on Land

The windows rattled ominously as the first vibration from the cannon shook the school.

It was Tuesday, the Fourth of August, 1914.

The master laid down his book and rose. His shoulder crooked forward threateningly.

"The German guns!" he said.

There was a sharp indrawing of breath among the lads seated on the forms.

"It is War! Black, treacherous, murderous war!" exclaimed the master, his voice vibrant with passion. "Those shells, now falling on Belgian soil, are the tocsin for world-slaughter.

"You will remember, boys," he continued, his tones deepening, "that I told you, yesterday, how at seven o'clock on Sunday evening, without any provocation whatever, Germany announced she would invade Belgium on the false pretext that France was planning an advance through our territory.

"The dastardly invasion is accomplished. This morning a German force attacked us at Visé, bombarded the town and crossed the Meuse on pontoon bridges."

"How can Germany invade us, sir?" asked Deschamps, the head boy of the school. "You told us, sir, that Belgium is perpetually neutral by agreement of all the nations of Europe."

"She is so, by every law of international honor, by every pledge, by solemn covenants sealed and sworn to by Germany herself," came the reply. "Civilization, humanity, progress, liberty-all the things which men have fought and died for-depend on the faith of a plighted word. If a man's gauge and a nation's gauge no longer stand-then every principle that has been won by the human race since the days that the cave-man waged war with his teeth crashes into ruin."

"But what shall we be able to do, sir?" asked Horace Monroe, one of the elder boys.

"We can do what the cave-man did when the cave-bear invaded his rude home!" thundered the patriot. "We can fight with every weapon we have, yes, if we have to throw ourselves at the enemy's throat with naked hands. Such of our troops as we could mobilize at a moment's notice are ready, but every man who has served his time in training will be needed. I go to-night!"

"For the front, sir?" asked Deschamps.

"For the cave-bear's throat!"

The room buzzed with an excited whispering.

"Who will take the school, sir?" the head boy asked.

The old reservist looked down at the school, a somber fire glowing in his eyes. His gaze caught those of his pupils, one after the other. Some were bewildered, some eager, but all were alight with the response of enthusiasm.

He put both hands on his desk and leaned far forward, impressively.

"I wonder if I can trust you?" he said.

An expression of wounded pride flashed over the faces of several of the older boys.

"Not one of you can realize," the master continued, speaking in a low tense tone which none of the lads had ever heard him use before, "just what war means. It spells horrors such as cannot be imagined. It turns men into beasts, or-" he paused, "into heroes. There is no middle ground. There is patriotism and there is treachery. Either, one deserves trust, which is honor; or one does not deserve trust, which is infamy."

He looked at the boys again.

"I wonder if I can trust you?" he repeated.

"Trust us, sir!" shouted a dozen voices.

"Do you dare ask it," he replied, "knowing that any one who fails or breaks his trust will be a traitor?"

There was a moment's pause, as the master's solemnity sank deep into the boys' consciousness. Dimly they realized that the issue was something far greater and graver than anything they had known before.

Horace broke the silence.

"Have we deserved that you should distrust us, sir?" he asked.

The old patriot flashed a quick look at him.

"You are boys, still," he said, "that is all. It is your youth, not your disloyalty that I fear."

He studied the faces one by one. Each boy returned his gaze frankly and unflinchingly.

"I will trust you," the master said.

He leaned down to his desk and, with all the lads watching him, wrote in heavy letters on a sheet of paper that lay on his desk.

"There lack but ten days to the end of the term," the master said, when he had finished writing. "I am to trust you for that length of time. You give me your word of honor?"

A chorus of assent greeted him. Not a voice was missing.

"Hear me, then," the old patriot declared, straightening up from his desk. "As boys of Belgium, born and reared on Belgian soil; as boys of Belgium, sons of a land that has never known dishonor; as boys of Belgium, who have worked with me in this little village school of Beaufays together, I trust you. If any one of you fails in that trust, let the rest see to it!"

"We will, sir," they answered.

"I go to defend Belgium," said the master, "but I leave behind me a greater teacher than myself. That teacher is a boy's sense of honor."

He took a thumb-tack from a drawer of his desk and fastened the placard to the upper part of his chair.

It bore the one word:

PATRIE

"There is your master," he said. "School will meet daily, as usual, until the end of the term. My chair is not empty while that word stands there. Let no one be absent. Let none neglect his work. Let the older lads help the younger. As for your conduct, as for your work-I have your word of honor. Your Fatherland! Your Home-land! Your Belgium! There is no more to say."

In the great stillness that followed these words, the roar of the cannon was clearly heard in the distance.

"The guns, again!" said the master. "School is dismissed until to-morrow."

The boys filed out silently, despite their excitement, but, once outside, a babel of questions and exclamations arose. Deschamps' voice was heard above the rest.

"I know how to handle a rifle, sir!" he said, with eager determination.

The old reservist looked sharply at the lad.

"You have not had your military service, yet," he said.

"I could volunteer," the boy responded. "You said, sir, yesterday, that if there were an invasion, volunteers would be needed."

"Your mother-" the old patriot began, but Deschamps interrupted him.

"Mother is a Belgian, sir," he said. "She'll understand."

"I was counting on your example in the school," objected the master.

The lad shook his head confidently.

"There's no need of me, sir," he replied. "The fellows will all play square."

"I hope so," said the master, thoughtfully. Then, knotting his forehead, he asked, "Who is next in rank after you? Monroe, is he not?"

"Yes, sir," put in the boy named, "I'm next in place."

"That's what I thought. Let me think. You were not born in Belgium, Monroe, were you?"

"No, sir," responded Horace, "I'm an American."

The master pondered a moment.

"You have no part, then, in this war," he said slowly.

Horace flushed at the implication.

"I gave my word of honor with the others, sir," he said. "You don't think, sir, that means any less to an American boy!"

The master nodded in satisfaction at the retort.

"I beg your pardon," he replied, as though speaking to an equal, "I am satisfied."

He locked the school door and gave the key to Horace.

"Come with me to the house, Monroe," he added. "I want to give you some final instructions."

"Very well, sir," Horace replied.

"Deschamps," the master continued, turning to the head boy, "if you are really in earnest about volunteering, you had better go home at once and talk the matter over with your parents. I will call at your house on my way through the village. If your father and mother agree, you may accompany me."

"Oh, I'll persuade them to let me go!" announced the lad with assurance.

"And your ambitions to become an artist?" queried his old teacher.

"Belgium first!" Deschamps declared.

The master smiled indulgently at the tone of boyish bombast, but, none the less, it was evident that he was well pleased.

"Very well, Deschamps," he said, "in that case I will see you in an hour's time."

"Can't we go with you part of the way, sir?" asked half a dozen of the smaller lads, clustering around him.

"No," came the decided reply, "most certainly not."

"But we want to see the fun!" piped up one of the smallest boys in the school.

The master put his hand kindly on the youngster's shoulder.

"Ah, Jacques, Jacques," he said, "pray that you may never see it! I am sick at heart to think of what may happen to this little village if the red tide of war rolls over it. Good-bye, boys; remember your trust. Come, Monroe, we must be going."

Some of the elder pupils stopped to shake hands with their old master, but most of the younger ones went running in groups along the village street, with fewer shouts than usual, eager to tell at home the strange happenings of that day at school. Horace and the master turned toward the end of the village, the old patriot taking the opportunity to warn the American lad against allowing the boys to go to extremes in exercising their new-found responsibilities.

"They are much more likely to be too strict than to be too slack," he said, "balance and judgment come with age and experience. They will need the curb, not the whip. I am torn with the idea of leaving the school when no one knows what may happen, but I cannot stay away from Liége. Hear how those guns continue!"

"Just what are you going to do there, sir?" asked Horace.

"Whatever I am told to do," was the answer. "A soldier only obeys orders. I served my time with the artillery and my old battery is at Fort Boncelles. I hope they will let me go there, but guns have changed a great deal since my time, and perhaps my experience may be of little use. Yet the principles are the same, still."

"Does Madame Maubin know as yet that you're going, sir?" asked Horace, as they neared the house.

"No," said the master, "she does not. Of course, we have talked about the possible German invasion, but I said nothing which would alarm her. She will have to be told now."

Like all boys, Horace had a deep dislike for emotional scenes, especially of a domestic character, and he would have given a good deal not to be compelled to go into the house, but there was no help for it. Mme. Maubin had seen them coming, and she opened the door.

"Are those German guns?" she asked.

"Yes," said the master, halting on the threshold.

"Then it is all true?"

"The invasion?" he sighed. "Alas, it is all true."

She turned and walked into the house, the others following.

On a chair, near the window, lay the old uniform.

"Lucie!" cried the master, understanding.

"Did you think that I would fail you," she said, "or try to hold you back?"

They went into the inner room together.

In a few moments, the woman came out.

"You will drink a cup of milk before you go, won't you?" she asked, addressing Horace. "M. Maubin tells me that you are going to walk part of the way with him. You do not go all the way?" she added, wistfully.

"I'd like to, Madame," answered the boy, "I'd love to volunteer. But they wouldn't let me. You see," he continued, "I'm an American and that counts me out. Deschamps is going, though."

The woman looked at Horace with a sudden intensity that frightened him for a moment. He remembered having heard that the master's wife possessed strange gifts. But she shook herself out of her fixity of pose and continued,

"And the school is closed?"

"No, Madame," answered Horace, "the school is not closed. M. Maubin has put the school in our trust."

"In your trust? In the boys' keeping?" she queried. "I don't quite understand."

Whereupon Horace told the story of the appeal to the honor of the school and the One Word on the master's chair.

The woman's face glowed with pride.

"I will help you," she said, impulsively, "I will come to the school."

Horace stiffened up.

"Pardon, Madame," he said, "but the master's chair is not empty."

The master's wife smiled at the lad's quick defense of his charge.

"I had forgotten," she said, "it is a trust, yes? Then I will not come. But perhaps, after school hours, if there are any of the younger children who need help in their lessons, they may come here? This house will always be open to them."

Courtesy of "The Graphic."

"Please, Colonel, Can't I Join?"

The Boy Scouts of England, France and Italy have been of invaluable service during the war.

At this point, the door of the inner room opened and the master entered, in uniform. He looked quizzically at his wife.

"I was afraid," he said, "that it would not fit. It is twenty years since I wore it last. And I am not as slim, dear, as I was then."

"I altered it yesterday," she said, quietly.

"Yesterday we knew nothing!" exclaimed the master, in surprise.

"When the army was finally ordered to the front on Friday," she replied, "it was not difficult to guess that danger was very close. And, Jean, if there were danger, I would not need to be told that you would go."

The schoolmaster put his arm around his wife as he handed her to her seat at the table.

"Mark you this, Monroe," he said, "and remember it: The strength of a country is in proportion as its women are strong."

"M. Maubin," asked the lad, as they sat down to their hasty meal, "before you go, I wish you'd explain to me a little what this war is about. Being an American, I'm not up on European politics, and I can't quite make head or tail out of the muddle. So far as I understand, Austria quarreled with Servia because the Crown Prince was shot by a Servian. That's natural enough, although it doesn't seem enough to start a war. Suddenly, Germany invades Belgium. What's Germany got to do with Servia? And where does Belgium come in?"

The master glanced at his pupil.

"It's impossible to explain the tangle of European politics in a few words," he said, "but you are right in wanting to know the causes of the war. I'll put them as simply as I can.

"Every international war in the world's history has been an aggressive war, waged either to win new territory or commerce, or to take back territory or commerce which had been wrested from its former owner. Very often, this indirect but real cause is cloaked by some petty incident which looms up as the direct cause, and, not infrequently, the antagonism of one nation to another has a powerful effect. Civil wars, on the other hand, are generally due to money conditions."

"Was our American Civil War due to that?" Horace asked.

"Yes," the master answered, "it was due to the disturbed balance of economic conditions between slave-holding and non-slave-holding States."

"And was our Spanish-American War a war of aggression?"

"Certainly, on the part of Cuba. The Cubans tried to shake off the yoke of Spain and possess the territory for themselves, and Spain, not altogether unnaturally, resented America's sympathy with the rebels."

"And this war?" asked Horace. "Is it for commerce or for territory?"

"For both," the master answered. "The main, though indirect, cause of this war is Germany's need for commercial expansion. The direct cause of the war is Austria's desire for revenge on Servia's plotting against her, which, in its turn, grew out of Austria's theft of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"In this war, not only are great empires opposed, but two great international principles also are opposed. Belgium, France, and England hold the belief that international affairs can be regulated by honorable agreements, as between gentlemen. Germany holds the belief that international affairs can be regulated only by force, as between ruffians.

"Germany has always proclaimed the doctrine of 'blood and iron' or the policy that 'might makes right.' In accordance with this belief, Prussia has built up the greatest army the world has ever seen. She has done more, she has made militarism a part of the very fiber of the German soul. It is not the Mailed Fist which rules Germany, it is the Mailed Fist which is Germany. The Kaiser's Army, for the last dozen years, has been coiled like a snake, watching its chance to strike.

"Austria-Hungary is a ramshackle empire. Her people are disunited. Only one-third of her people are of Teutonic stock, though Austria is German in her rule. More than one-half of the population is Slav. The empire is a mass of disorganized units held together by force and since Austria lacks this force, she is compelled to depend on German force as an ally. Hence, whatever is done by Austria entangles Germany and Austria cannot take any action without Germany's permission."

"So that is where Germany comes in!" exclaimed Horace. "I begin to see, now."

"Next," continued the master, "consider Servia, a country about half as large again as Belgium. She gained her autonomy, under Turkey, a century ago. At the end of the Russo-Turkish War, by the Treaty of San Stefano, a strip of territory inhabited by Servians was given to Bulgaria. The Treaty of Berlin, supported by all the European Powers, declared Servia's independence but did not return the territory. For years Servia had struggled to get an outlet to the sea and when, after a sharp war, she succeeded, Austria opposed her and was backed by Europe. A Servo-Bulgarian war followed, in which Austria again intervened.

"In 1908, Austria, without rhyme or reason, annexed the great territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had been put under her protection by the Treaty of Berlin. This act of national dishonor almost precipitated a European War. To Servia's ambitions it was a death-blow, for it placed Austria between her and the sea. The result is that Servia harbors a grudge against Austria which is not less than her hatred for her old master, Turkey."

"No wonder Servia was spoiling for trouble," said Horace, thoughtfully.

"Unfortunately, she was," the master agreed. "The Pan-Serbs, who think Servia ought to include Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Old Servia, have long been a thorn in Austria's side. The Austrian emperor, himself, in an address from the throne, stated that 'the flame of the hatred of Servia for myself and my house has ever blazed higher,' and he declared-not without reason-that 'a criminal propaganda has extended over the frontier.' It must be remembered, however, that this propaganda was Austria's fault, for she tore up the Treaty of Berlin in 1908 just as Germany tore up her treaty with Belgium the day before yesterday.

"Just a word, Monroe, about the 'balance of power.' In order for Europe to live at peace, no one nation or group of nations must be allowed to get too strong. Since Germany and Austria are allies, other nations must form defensive alliances, and one of the strongest of these was between France and Russia."

"Why those two?" queried Horace. "They're not neighbors."

"No," the master replied, "but they are both neighbors of the Central Powers. France seeks revenge from Germany for the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, when Alsace-Lorraine was taken from her. Russia could never cope single-handed with the military forces of Germany and Austria. If, however, the Germanic powers attacked either France or Russia, by this alliance they would be confronted by an enemy on the opposite frontier."

"So when Russia had to back up Servia," said Horace slowly, "France had to back up Russia. Is that it?"

"Exactly. Now, see where England stands. By a naval agreement with France, the British possessions in the Mediterranean are watched over by a French fleet. The English Channel, which commands the north shore of France, is patrolled by a British fleet. On Saturday last, three days ago, England assured France that, in the event of trouble with Germany, she would protect French interests in the English Channel and the North Sea. This bottles up the German fleet. That, you see, my boy, is where the nations stand. Now let us come to the actual beginning of the war."

Horace redoubled his attention, leaning forward with one elbow on the table.

"On June 28, five weeks ago," the master continued, "the heir to the throne of Austria, the Grand-Duke Francis Ferdinand, together with his wife, were shot and killed by a Servian student. The crime occurred in the streets of Serajevo, capital of the province of Bosnia, which Austria had wrongfully annexed six years before. Austria claimed that the assassination was part of a plot known to the Servian government, but this charge was denied and has never been proved.

"For three weeks there were no outward signs of a storm. Probably the time was spent by Austria and Germany in arranging the details of war. On July 23, Austria sent an outrageous and peremptory ultimatum to Servia. That little country, realizing that the assassination had placed her in a false position, acceded to all Austria's demands save one, which she could not yield without giving up her own sovereign rights."

"Which, I suppose," interjected Horace, "she wouldn't do. No country would."

"The ultimatum," continued the master, "only gave Servia two days' time to reply. This haste was for the purpose of forcing the issue before the other Powers could take action. Russia, the next day, asked Austria to give Servia more time. Austria, in consultation with Germany, told Russia to keep 'hands off.' It was clear, then, that Austria intended to use the assassination as a pretext to gobble up Servia in the same way that she had gobbled up Bosnia and Herzegovina six years before. Russia commenced to mobilize her army to help Servia, if help were needed. The Austrian army was already mobilized on the Servian frontier."

"Just what is mobilization, sir?" asked the boy; "I've heard the word used so much during the last few days."

"Mobilization," answered the master, "means getting ready to move. It means the organizing of an army, bringing troops from distant garrisons, artillery from concentration points, arranging food depots from which provision trains can be run regularly, munition depots to feed the guns, preparation and equipment of hospitals in the field and at the bases, wounded transportation and ambulance systems, stables, forage depots and veterinary stations for the cavalry and artillery horses, repair shops for military machinery, supply depots for uniforms and equipment, and a thousand other things besides. Each of these must interlock and have its place. Each one must move along a route, mapped out in advance and by a time-table as rigid as that of a railroad. A modern army on the march is a segment of civilization on the move and almost every department of human industry is represented. The mobilization and handling of an army is the most staggering problem of organization known to the human race."

"One never thinks of all that," said Horace, thoughtfully.

"To proceed with the events that led to war," the master continued, looking at his watch and speaking more quickly. "On July 25, Austria notified Servia that she was dissatisfied with the reply to the ultimatum. This was equal to a declaration of war. The next day, Russia, seeing Germany's hand behind the Austrian plot, warned the Kaiser that interference would not be tolerated. This declaration from Russia imbroiled her ally, France. Belgium, being required to keep an army of defense on her frontier, commenced to mobilize also.

"The very next day, July 27, the Austrians invaded Servia. At almost the same hour, shots were exchanged between German and Russian sentries on the frontier. On July 28, war began between Austria and Servia. Great Britain, at this time, was striving with might and main to keep the war from spreading and had urged both Germany and Russia to keep the peace.

"On July 31 Germany forced the European War by simultaneous action at two points. She sent an ultimatum to Russia, ordering her to cease mobilization within 12 hours. She sent an ultimatum to France demanding neutrality and asserting that she would require the keys of the French fortresses of Verdun and Toul as guarantee of that neutrality."[1]

"By what right?"

"None in the world! It was impossible for Russia to demobilize, with her neighbor and ally Servia already under the fire of Austrian guns; it was equally impossible for France to hand over the keys of her main defensive positions to her arch-enemy.

"On August 1, Germany declared war on Russia, and advanced her army to striking distance of the Belgian frontier. On August 2-that was the day before yesterday-German troops crossed the French frontier at three points and invaded Luxemburg, an independent state. That evening, Germany notified Belgium that she intended to violate her neutrality."

"Why is Belgium supposed to be neutral? Can't she go to war? Isn't she an independent country?"

"She is," was the reply, "but her war-making powers are withheld by the universal agreement of the Powers. Belgium is the key to Western Europe. Peace depends on Belgium's good faith. According to a treaty signed in 1839, we form 'an independent state of perpetual neutrality,' this treaty being signed by France, England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Germany declared that this Belgian treaty could not be violated. In 1911, Germany repeated the assurance and again in 1913. All the while she had drawn maps for the invasion of Belgium and had built military railways to threaten our frontier.

"Germany has always stated that it was a matter of honor with her to keep Belgium intact. Those guns you hear, Monroe, mark Germany's denial of her national and international honor. History, with all its dark and bloody deeds, has never seen a more dastardly flaunting of disgrace and treachery. Observe that Germany had invaded Luxemburg, invaded France, invaded Belgium, declared war on Russia, and authorized Austria to invade Servia before a single hostile act had been committed by Russia, France, Belgium, or England.

"The Kaiser's armies count for victory on speed and surprise. For that reason, every day, yes, every hour that we can hold them back before Liége, gives Belgium and France the opportunity to prepare, gives the world a breathing space. Every minute counts, and that is why I am going to join the colors!"

"I wish I could go," pleaded Horace, as the master rose from the table.

"It is impossible," the master replied, "belonging to a neutral nation, it would not be permitted. The United States may be dragged into the war later-there is never any means of telling how long such a war may last-and then, perhaps, you will be called on. And now," he continued, "if you will step outside for a minute, I'll join you there, and we'll go on to Deschamps' house."

Realizing that the master wished to bid farewell to his wife, Horace put on his cap and waited in the village street. The master joined him in a few minutes and they walked along silently. At last the reservist spoke.

"I wonder," he said, musingly, "if I will ever see Beaufays again."

Horace was startled. This was bringing the war home to him with a vengeance.

"You don't mean that you think-" he stammered.

"That I may be killed?" queried the master, calmly. "Certainly. That is all War consists of-killing and being killed. Why should I expect to escape? One always hopes, of course."

For a few significant moments nothing more was said.

Deschamps' father and mother were standing at the door as the master and Horace approached. As they reached the gate, the would-be recruit came swinging out. He turned and kissed his father on both cheeks. His mother clung to him passionately.

"You will take care of him, M. Maubin?" she pleaded.

"Madame," he answered, "Belgium must take care of him. He is his country's son, now, not yours or mine."

His father said only,

"Shoot straight, my son!"

When, on the Friday before, the seventeen men in actual service in the Belgian Army who lived in Beaufays had marched from the little village to join the colors, there had been a certain air of martial gayety. This evening, however, the groups of villagers who passed the master and the two boys looked grave.

Courtesy of "J'ai Vu."

A Belgian Boy Hero.

Twice decorated by King Albert for service at the front and for discovering dangerous military spies.

One of the men, a hunchback, very powerful in build despite his distorted frame and who was known as the cleverest man in the village, came shuffling up beside them.

"You are going, M. Maubin?"

"It is evident."

"And where?"

"My old regiment is at Boncelles," the reservist answered, "I hope to be allowed to join it. They will know, at Liége, where I can be of the most service."

"Reynders and Vourdet also are going. They leave to-morrow," the hunchback said, naming two of the older villagers.

"It would be better, M. Croquier," rejoined the master, "if they went to-night."

"Why?" queried the other, in response, as he kept beside the three, his shambling gait keeping pace with their brisk walk. "You don't think a day will make any difference, do you, M. Maubin? Our good forts will keep the Germans back for a month, at least. Brialmont declared they were impregnable."

"Maybe," said the old patriot, "and maybe not. Brialmont's plans were made twenty years ago. This lad and I will help to keep the invaders back to-night. The Germans are prepared, we are not. Every rifle counts."

"I will see Reynders and Vourdet at once," the hunchback answered, eagerly. "They shall hear what you have said. Perhaps they, too, will go to-night. Good fortune!"

"Good-bye!" the master said.

The old reservist and the two boys, one on either side of him, passed the outskirts of Beaufays and struck out upon the road leading into Liége. It was a glorious evening, after a sultry day. The roads were heavy with dust, but a light breeze had sprung up.

Here and there a home with a little garden nestled beside a swift-flowing brook. The magpies flickered black and white among the thickets. The crows cawed loudly of their coming feast on early walnuts, not knowing that the plans of the German General Staff were providing for them a fattening feast on the horrid fruits of war. The crops were ripe for harvest. All was peaceful to view, but a sullen shaking vibration at irregular intervals told the cannons' tale of destruction and slaughter. Little, however, did any of the three realize that the smiling landscape was already ringed with steel or that the road they trod would, on the morrow, shake with the trampling of the iron-gray German hosts.

"I told them at home," said Deschamps, breaking the silence, "that you said every one would be needed. Why is there such a hurry, sir? Can't our regular army hold the forts?"

"No," said the master, "I am afraid not, because the Germans are counting on speed and surprise. They must take Liége and they must take it quickly."

"I don't see why," the lad objected. "Can't the Germans march either to the north or south of Liége and avoid the forts altogether?"

"They can, of course," the old reservist answered, "but that wouldn't do them any good. It is a question of the Line of Communication. An army is composed of human beings. First and foremost it must be fed. Remember Lord Kitchener's famous address to the Punjab Rifles:

"'You must not get into the way of thinking,' he said, 'that men can go on fighting interminably. Men get hungry, men get thirsty, men get tired. In real warfare, where many hours of hard marching and fighting may pass before you achieve success, you have to ask yourselves at the critical moment:

"'Can I trust my men, with gnawing pains of hunger in their stomachs, with a depressing sense of having suffered casualties and with fatigue in all their limbs; can I trust them to press upon the retreating enemy and crush him? Men cannot fight well unless they are fed well, and men cannot fight when they are tired. More than once on active service, I have taken the ammunition out of my ammunition carts and loaded them up with bully beef.'

"I could go on and point out to you that troops must be properly sheltered and properly equipped. Even without any battles, an army will have a considerable proportion of its men in hospitals from sickness, and, after the first battle, there are thousands of wounded to be surgically treated and nursed. What is true of men is true also of the horses for the cavalry and artillery; they cannot advance unless they are fed, nor when they are tired.

"Moreover, a modern army fights mainly with gunnery and rifle fire, very little with cold steel. Guns and rifles are useless without ammunition. Machine guns will fire 30,000 shots in an hour. Both light and heavy artillery depend for their results on continuous hammering. For every step in advance that troops make, they must be followed with food for the men, food for the horses, and food for the guns.

"Think, boys, of the size of a modern army. One single army corps of two divisions of three brigades each, contains over 43,000 combatants. Of this, over one half is infantry, the rest including the machine gun sections, the field artillery, the heavy artillery, the siege artillery and engineering and signal corps. It takes 9,000 non-combatants in the field to look after this army, the train including ten provision columns, with special field bakeries and field slaughter-houses, ten ammunition columns, twelve field hospitals, to say nothing of special bridge sections and a host of minor but essential units. Picture to yourselves the amount of food which has to be transported to feed these 52,000 men three times a day, most of which has to be brought from long distances to the front and there cooked and distributed. Conceive the thousands of tons of cartridges and shells needed to supply the infantry and the various kinds of artillery!

"The Line of Communication is the only thing which keeps an army going, which enables it to operate. If that be cut, the guns are silenced and the army starves. It is absolutely imperative to every advancing army that its rear, its Line of Communication, be safe from attack by the enemy. It is the artery which carries its life-blood. You can easily see that, for such an immense transportation work, control of the railways of a country is the first chief need of an invading army. No wagon system could provision an army or keep it supplied with munitions.

"Liége is Belgium's eastern railroad center. Six miles north of the forts of Liége lies the frontier of Holland. South of Liége lies the broken, mountainous country of the Ardennes, uncrossed by railways and impossible as a line of transport. Troops could only march through the difficult Ardennes country if they were sure of being able to secure supplies when they had reached the other side.

"Certainly, Deschamps, as you suggest, the German Army could divide and march by roads north and south of Liége. Suppose it did so. What then? After the main army had passed, we could sally forth from Liége, cut the Line of Communication and, by starvation and lack of ammunition, compel the surrender of the whole invading army.

"No, boys, not only must the Germans enter Liége, but they must capture every single fort before it is safe for them to proceed. Not until the last gun is silenced in Forts Loncin, Flemalle and Boncelles is Western Europe threatened. When Liége falls, Belgium falls, and if the fall comes too quickly, the whole of Western Europe may go."

"But will Liége fall?" asked Horace.

"That," answered the master, "is what we are going to see."

He held up his hand for silence.

"The shots are coming nearer," he said.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the ground shook with a heavy detonation and both the boys staggered.

"That was not a German shell," declared the old reservist; "that was one of our forts replying."

"Fort Embourg?" queried Deschamps.

"Undoubtedly." He turned to the younger lad. "You will have to go back, Monroe," he said. "If Liége is already in a state of siege, you have no right to enter the ring of forts."

"Can't I go at least as far as Embourg?" begged Horace. "You might let me see one shot, sir."

"I only hope you won't see too many," answered the master, "but, if you're so keen about it, you may come as far as the ring of forts. At the cross-roads leading to Tilff, you must turn back."

"By Mother Canterre's bakery?"

"Exactly," said the master, smiling a trifle grimly. "But you need not expect to buy any little cakes there, now that the guns of Embourg have begun to reply. You may be sure that Mother Canterre has been sent away into safety. The forts must be left clear."

"I wish I were like Deschamps," declared Horace, enviously, "going right into the very thick of it!"

"I'm not so sure that Deschamps will go 'into the thick of it,' as you call it," responded the old reservist; "a raw recruit is not likely to be sent direct to the fighting front. It is much more likely that he will be sent back to cover Brussels or Antwerp."

"But if we are defending ourselves and there is such need for haste," said Deschamps, "why do I have to enlist as a soldier at all? Why can't I just take a rifle and join in?"

The master listened intently to the explosion of a bursting shell some distance away, before he replied.

"It is one of the recognized rules of war," he said, when the sound of the shell-burst had died away, "that battles are fought between the armies of opposing countries, not between the civilian populations of those countries. A civilian, not in uniform, who is caught in the act of fighting with the enemy, is treated as a spy and shot. The Germans even refused to recognize the organized French franc-tireurs in the war of 1871.[2] True, the Hague Convention permits an invaded people to take up arms to defend itself, but it is not likely that Germany will pay any attention to the rules of civilized warfare, even though she signed them.

"Treaties mean nothing to the Kaiser's government, which has declared, 'the State is a law unto itself,' and again, 'Weak nations have not the same right to live as stronger nations,' and yet again, 'the State is the sole judge of the morality of its own actions.' Massacre and barbarism lie behind Germany's announcement that 'if a single non-combatant in a city or village fires a shot against occupying troops, that city or village shall be considered as having rendered itself liable to pillage.' That means, Deschamps, that if you should fire a single shot in defense of your own home, before you join the army, the Germans would deem that a sufficient excuse for burning and sacking the entire town of Liége."

A shell screeched over them, exploding on the further side of a small hill to their left.

The master looked startled, but neither of the boys showed any signs of fear.

"Is that what a shell sounds like?" asked Horace curiously. "I thought it was much louder."

The master cast a sidewise glance at him.

"Have you ever seen a large shell burst?" he asked.

"No," responded the boy.

"After you do," the old reservist commented, "you will feel differently."

Another shell, not quite as near, whistled behind them.

"They may hit us!" exclaimed Deschamps, with a nervous laugh, the incredulity in his tone revealing how little he realized his danger, nor the devastation wrought by a modern shell.

"Go back, Monroe," said the master, quickening his steps.

Horace kept step by step beside him.

"You said I might go to the corner," he protested; "it's only a little way further."

From over the hill came drifting a smell of acrid smoke.

"Do you think I'll see-" began Horace.

An earth-shaking detonation cut short his words, and, in the early dusk, the flash and the cauliflower cloud of smoke could be seen arising from the fort.

"We're replying," cried the old patriot, elation in his voice. "Wait till they come within range of our 6-inch guns!"

A turn of the road brought them within direct sight of Fort Embourg.

"Look!" cried the master, "they're going to fire again!"

The boys halted.

As they looked, from the smoothly-cropped grass mound slowly arose an enormous steel-gray mushroom, like the dream of some goblin multiplied a thousandfold. Then, suddenly, without a sign or sound of warning, this dome belched flame and smoke, rocking the earth around. Then down, down sank the grim gray mushroom, leaving no mark of its presence save the green mound on which, the day before, sheep had been grazing, and the drifting puff of smoke overhead.

The exhilaration of the boys dropped. There was something terrible and malign in the slow rising of that goblin dome, in its sudden ferocity and in its noiseless disappearance.

"That shell will strike several miles away," the old reservist said, "perhaps where men are now fighting. If so, then you have seen a burden of death, of suffering and of carnage starting on its way. War is a horrible thing, boys, a horrible thing! But," he added sadly, "it is a necessity from which the world will never be free."

A hundred yards farther brought them to the cross-roads.

"Here you must go back, Monroe."

Horace looked wistfully at the quiet road ahead of him, winding peacefully under its green cloud of trees.

"I've never been in a war," he said. "I do want to see a little bit of this one!"

Courtesy of "The Graphic."

Smoke, the Herald of Death.

A 12-inch howitzer behind the British lines on the Somme, smashing the German lines several miles away.

"Count yourself happy," said the old reservist solemnly, "for every hour of your life up to this time that has been free from sight or sound of war. You-"

A crash and a flare!

A blast of fire struck the boy in the face and all became blank.

Then, slowly, slowly, out from a black void, Horace felt his consciousness struggling back. It was as though his brain were a jagged mountain which his mind was trying to climb. With an inward panic, he opened his eyes.

He found himself in a clump of bushes, stunned and dazed. Gropingly he passed his hands over his face.

His eyebrows and eyelashes were gone, scorched away by the flame. There was a smell of singeing on his clothes. A terrific nausea possessed him, caused, though he did not know it, by the vacuum produced by the shell-burst. Otherwise he was unhurt.

Painfully and with a strong feeling of unreality, the boy staggered to his feet and looked around him.

In the road was a deep hole, upon which a cloud of dust was slowly settling. The air still seemed to rock backwards and forwards with the vibration, and the falling leaves whirled irregularly to the ground.

But-where were the others?

For the moment, Horace lost his nerve.

"Where are they? Where are they?" he screamed, his high-pitched cry rasping his blistered throat.

Then,

"Steady, Monroe," he heard a voice behind him. "You will need all your courage."

Horace turned at the words.

The master was kneeling at the side of the road, beside Deschamps, who was stretched out limply, the blood oozing from a wound in his forehead.

The sight steadied Horace at once. He got a grip on himself, though he was still dizzy and sick with the shock of the shell and his head was ringing painfully. One ear seemed deaf. A black giddiness seized him as he crossed the road with staggering, uncertain steps.

"Is he killed?" asked Horace.

"No," answered the master, "but badly hurt. His wound will need instant attention. Unhinge a shutter from the cottage over there."

Running with stumbling steps to the deserted bake-shop, Horace lifted from its hinges one of the long shutters and dragged it back to where his comrade lay.

"Put him on this," said the master softly.

Together they lifted the would-be recruit and laid him gently on the shutter, then picked up the burden, the master taking the head and Horace the feet.

"Where to, sir?" asked Horace, as he took a firm grip on the improvised stretcher.

"To Embourg Village," was the reply; "we must find a doctor at once."

They had not gone another two hundred yards when the screech of an approaching shell was heard.

"Put him down," cried the master, "and lie down flat yourself!"

Horace did not delay. Gently, but rapidly, he lowered his end of the stretcher and laid himself flat on the bed of the road. He had hardly touched ground when a shell hit a house not more than eighty yards in front of them. The boy saw the great shell, like a black streak, just before it struck. Then, even before he heard the explosion, he saw the whole house lift itself into the air, quite silently.

"Put your fingers in your ears!" cried the master.

Horace saw the gesture but the words were lost in a terrific roar which projected the air in waves which seemed almost solid as they struck. In the place where the house had stood there remained only a rising column of brick-dust, rosy red. Above this towered a petaled cloud of black smoke, and above this, again, a fountain compounded of particles of the house, of earth, and of shell driven upwards by the force of the explosion.

Horace no longer felt any eagerness to see shell-fire. He was thoroughly frightened. A look of panic had crept into his eyes. Not for the world, though, would he have admitted it. He did not try to speak. His throat was parched and the roof of his mouth was dry.

They picked up the stretcher in silence.

"Here is the doctor's house," said the master, as they entered the village, and, turning, met the young surgeon on his way out of the gate.

"Patient for you, Doctor!" said the master.

"Father will attend to him," came the reply, "I'm hurrying to Liége. They need me there. What is it? Accident case?"

"Shell splinter," said the master.

The doctor halted and turned back.

"Already!" he exclaimed.

Horace and the master carried their burden into the house, the doctor following them.

"I'll look at him," he said, "and let Father dress the wound. He hasn't practiced for ten years, but every medical man will have to work now, I'm thinking."

They laid Deschamps on the operating table.

Quickly and deftly the young surgeon unwound the bandages which the master had tied around the wounded lad's head, and examined the injury carefully.

Then he reached for his instruments.

"He will be blind," he said, "totally blind, without hope of recovery."

"He was to have been an artist," said the master.

"Yes," replied the surgeon. "War is made up of broken lives!"

* * *

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The master could not have said this in 1914, for the secret documents were not made public until 1918. The author makes him say it, here, to show the political moves clearly.

[2] Later in August, 1914, Germany declared that the Belgian Garde Civique would be considered as non-combatant. It was therefore dismissed, though afterwards reformed.

The whistling shells burst over Fort Embourg, near by, with ever-increasing frequency, while the surgeon, oblivious to their menace, worked over the wounded boy. The vibrations of the 6-inch guns, as the forts replied, shook the house, but no one flinched or spoke while the doctor busied himself with his patient. At last, having rebandaged the wound, he stepped back and said,

"There, now, I think he'll do."

"Where shall we take him, Doctor?" queried the master. "There isn't any hospital in Embourg, nor in Beaufays, and Liége will have sufficient problems to face in taking care of its own wounded."

"The boy can stay here," the doctor replied. "Father will treat him and Mother will do all the nursing necessary."

He looked off into the distance with lowered eyebrows.

"If all comes true that people have prophesied about the terrors of modern war," the surgeon continued, thoughtfully, "it's likely that every woman in Belgium will have to become a nurse."

"Couldn't I stay and help to take care of Deschamps, sir?" asked Horace.

"No," the master answered, "you're within the zone of fire as it is. You must return to Beaufays without delay."

Horace would have protested but that he knew the master's words were not to be gainsaid.

"Did you say that you were on your way to Liége?" asked the doctor abruptly, turning to the old reservist.

"Yes," was the reply.

"Let us go together, then," the doctor said, "for Belgium will need my case of surgical instruments as much as she will need your rifle. Wait a moment until I call Father."

He returned a minute or two later accompanied by a small and withered but keen-eyed old man, whom he introduced to the master and Horace, and to whom he described with technical detail the injuries suffered by the lad who was still extended, motionless, on the operating table.

"Very well, Hilaire," answered the old man, in a high, reedy voice, "leave the patient to me, my son. I have not forgotten all that I once knew. Not yet, oh, no!"

He turned to the master.

"My son, Monsieur, my son!" he said, paternally. "It is something of which we may be proud, is it not, when our children carry on the work which we have begun?"

The old man patted the young surgeon on the arm, talking garrulously the while.

"A good boy, Monsieur, a good boy," he said. "I was the first to teach him, but he has outstripped me. Then, too, his wrist has the steadiness of youth, while mine-"

He held out a shaking hand.

"But the brain is clear still, Monsieur," he went on, "do not fear. Your pupil shall have the best of care."

He walked feebly to the operating table. There, his whole figure changed. Unconsciously his back straightened, his hand ceased to tremble, and, as he bent over the patient, his eyes narrowed with the penetration that they must have borne twenty years before.

The master observed him closely.

"The lad is in good hands," he said, in a low voice; "come, let us go."

He turned to the aged physician.

"Monsieur," he said, "I feel it is an honor that we of the older generation can still serve Belgium. The first young victim of this war is in your keeping. I-" he paused, "I have no children, only the children of my school. It is my child, therefore, Monsieur, that I leave with you."

"He shall be as a child of mine," the old man answered.

Father and son embraced and the little party of three left the doctor's house.

At the gate the master paused.

"Monroe," he said, "you must get back to Beaufays as quickly as you can. Try to be there before it is altogether dark. Lose no time, but do not go by the road. Strike south across the fields from here until you come to the river (Ourthe), then follow the banks as far as the road from Tilff, whence it will be safe to take the Beaufays road."

"Why do you suggest such a roundabout way?" asked the surgeon. "The lad won't escape danger by making a circuit. Shells drop anywhere and everywhere. You can't dodge them by taking to the fields instead of the road."

The reservist shook his head.

"There you are wrong, Doctor," he said. "How many shells have fallen in Embourg Village? None. Yet we are but three-quarters of a mile from the fort. It is only in the immediate neighborhood of the fort that there is danger. Strange though it may seem to say so, I could wish that shells were dropping in the village."

"Why?" asked the surgeon sharply.

"Because," the master rejoined, "it would demonstrate that the Germans do not possess the exact range of the fort. Their very accuracy proves that they do. For that reason, at a distance of half a mile from the fort, the lad will be safe. Nevertheless, Monroe," he added, "if you should hear a wild shell coming in your direction, throw yourself flat on the ground. The burst of an explosion is always upwards."

"I'll be careful, sir," answered the boy.

"Will you please tell Mme. Maubin that I went on to Liége in the company of Dr. Mallorbes? Say that I do not wish her to come and see Deschamps, for I am sure she will wish to do so, and give as my reason that the road running below the fort is not safe."

"I will tell her, sir," said Horace.

"You will also inform the school to-morrow about Deschamps," the master continued. "It is a matter of pride to Beaufays, I feel, that Belgium's first wounded boy hero should be a lad from our own school. And so, good-bye!"

"Good-bye, sir; good-bye, Dr. Mallorbes," responded Horace.

He hesitated a moment, as though he would have said something more, then plunged across the fields, as the master had bidden him, back to the little village of Beaufays.

The two men watched him for a moment, until his figure was lost in the shadows of the wood on the other side of the field, then set their faces for Liége and-it might be-death.

"I am a good deal disturbed," the doctor began, as they swung out upon the road, "by your suggestion that the Germans possess the exact range of our forts. Where could they get the information?"

"Spies," the master answered. "Belgium is honeycombed with them, has been for years. You know-all the world knows-that Germany spends millions of marks yearly on her secret service system and nearly all her agents are military spies. The exact location of our forts cannot be hidden. It is not a secret. They are plain to see. What is easier for a spy than to search the neighborhood of a fort thoroughly, perhaps on a Sunday morning walk, to find some well-hidden position for a gun of a certain caliber, and to calculate, to the last inch, the exact distance of that position from the fort? It is simplicity itself."

"What of that," said the doctor, "when the gun itself is not there?"

"But when the gun is there!" the master retorted. "When the invasion is accomplished, think of the advantage which such information gives! There is no need to send out scouting parties to bring back estimates of distances; there is no need to waste energy, time, and ammunition in trial shots, during which time the battery might be subjected to fire from the guns of the fort. None of that. Secretly and silently, probably during the night or behind a screen of cavalry, a howitzer may be dragged up to the place selected by the spy and marked in detail on a large scale map. The officer commanding the battery knows the exact direction in which the fort bears and has already worked out the exact angle of elevation for the range. He has nothing to do but to order the aim and elevation and to fire, knowing, in advance, that his shells can fall nowhere but on the fort itself. It is not marksmanship, it is mathematics."

Belgian Official Photograph.

Armored Train Defending Antwerp.

Belgian Official Photograph.

Armored Car Harassing Invaders.

"You think this has been done with the forts at Liége!" ejaculated the doctor.

"That is evident," was the reply. "See, this is a night bombardment. There are no advance posts, no aeroplanes to report back the results of gun-fire. Yet the German shells are falling on the forts with deadly precision, falling on forts which the gunners have never seen. I doubt if there is a single fortified place in Belgium of which the Germans do not possess accurate plans."

"Then you think they will break through?"

"We cannot hope to prevent it," the master answered. "The Kaiser's generals would never attack Liége unless they were confident of success. Since they know exactly what we possess for defense, they would not be sure of success unless they knew that they possessed an infinitely stronger force of attack."

"But I have heard that the forts of Liége were impregnable!"

"They were when they were built," the master answered, "but that is twenty years ago. Against the guns of that period, notably the 6-inch howitzer, they were impregnable, for every possible gun-position for a weapon of that range was covered by the guns of the fort. But if pieces of heavier power can bombard the forts from positions outside the range of the fortress guns, then impregnability is gone. You must remember, Doctor, that the power of a gun increases as the cube of its caliber or diameter of its bore. Thus a 12-inch gun is not twice as powerful as a 6-inch gun, but eight times as powerful."

"Are there such heavy guns?"

"There are," was the answer. "Field guns of 8.4-inch and 10-inch caliber are known to exist, and the German War Party is reported to hold the secret of still more powerful engines of destruction, of which, as yet, the outer world knows nothing."

"Look, you, M. Maubin," said the surgeon, "you seem to know quite a lot about these things, while I've concerned myself mainly with my medical books and haven't paid much attention to military affairs. Explain to me, if you will be so good, the significance of this contest between the fortifications of Liége and the new German guns."

"It is the death-grapple which will decide the fate of Belgium-perhaps that of Europe-within a week," the master answered. "Its outcome will settle the greatest military controversy of our times. One way or the other, it will change the face of war forever. This question is whether modern artillery has become so powerful that no permanent masonry fortification can resist it. If so, the development of two thousand years of fortification must be thrown aside as useless and defense must become mobile.

"Liége is what is known as a ring fortress, that is, the city itself is not fortified but it is ringed round with twelve forts, between two and three miles apart from each other and averaging a distance of five miles from the city. Thus the forts form a circumference of 32 miles, so arranged that if any one fort is silenced the cross-fire of the forts on either side controls the gap. Six are forts of the first order, Pontisse, Barchon, and Fléron on the north and east, Loncin, Flemalles, and Boncelles on the west and south. The other six are fortins or small forts, like Embourg."

"Are they strongly armed?" the doctor asked.

"Moderately so. They have modern guns, though not of the largest caliber. There are four hundred guns in all the forts combined, mainly 6-inch and 4.7-inch guns and 8-inch mortars. The big 9-inch guns, which were ordered from Krupp's for delivery more than three years ago, have never reached us. We see, now, that Germany would not allow them to be delivered. She did not intend to run the risk of invading a well-armed Belgium."

"But isn't a 6-inch a fairly big gun?"

"Not for permanent works," the master replied. "The United States has two 16-inch guns in her coast defenses and there are plenty of 12-inch guns in permanent fortifications. Naval guns, of course, are bigger. They have to be. You can't 'take cover' at sea and long ranges therefore are necessary. Modern super-Dreadnoughts,[3] armed with 15-inch guns, regard their 6-inch batteries as merely secondary.

"Our principal weakness," he continued, "is that Brialmont's full design of infantry trenches and sunken emplacements for light artillery has never been completed. Besides, our army is in a state of transition, as you know, for it is only a year and a half since a new system was put into operation. That makes it difficult for us to mobilize quickly, while Germany has been completely mobilized for some time."

"Still," responded the doctor, trying to find some hope in the outlook, "we have the advantage of being on the defensive. I've read, somewhere, that it takes three times as many men to drive an attack as to hold a line of defense."

"That is true," agreed the master.

"They can't be more than three to one," said the doctor, "so as fast as they come, we'll smash them."

"Perhaps we might have a better chance," the old reservist said, doubtfully, "if General Leman and our Third Division were here. But it's not the German soldiers of which I'm afraid, but these new howitzers."

"Why?" asked the doctor. "Isn't a howitzer a gun? What's the difference between them, anyway?"

"I'll show you the difference in a minute," the master replied, "but I want, first, to give you a clear idea of one of our big forts, so that you can realize the problem that the Germans must tackle. Each of the six main forts around Liége is built in the form of a triangle, each is placed in a commanding natural position, and each, in addition, is approached by a steep artificial mound, in the interior of which lie the works of the fort. At the top of the earth slope, the edge drops suddenly into a deep ditch, of which the counterscarp is a massive masonry wall topped with wire entanglements. The entire earth slope and wall is exposed to the guns of the fort, throwing shrapnel, and to fire from machine guns and rifles."

"Before the Germans get a footing in the fort, then," said the doctor, "they will have to storm a stretch of ground absolutely riddled with fire."

"They will."

"That means a heavy loss of life."

"A terrible loss of life," the master agreed. "Moreover, even should they advance in such masses that we could not kill them fast enough and thus they should storm the slope and win the ditch, they would be in a still worse plight. Powerful quick-firing guns, mounted in cupolas at each angle of the triangle, sweep the sunken ditch with an enfilading fire. No troops could live through such an inferno of bullets.

"On the main inner triangle is the infantry parapet, shaped somewhat like a heart, pierced for rifle fire and with machine-gun emplacements at the angles. In the hollow of that heart-like space rises a solid central mass of concrete, on and in which are the shelters and gun cupolas. The mortar cupolas rise from the floor of the hollow, outside the central mass. These are invisible to the foe until raised by machinery within, when they command the entire neighborhood and can fire their 6-inch shells in any direction."

The doctor rubbed his hands briskly.

"If that's the way our forts are built," he said, "and if they are well provisioned and have plenty of ammunition, we ought to be able to snap our fingers at the Kaiser. All we have to do is to wait for the Germans to come and shoot them down by thousands. They'll go packing back to Germany quick enough if we give them a reception like that."

"Perhaps," said the old reservist, "but you have forgotten about the howitzers."

"Why, yes, so I had," the doctor answered, more gravely; "you were going to tell me about them."

"The difference in principle between a gun and a howitzer or a mortar," explained the master, "is that a gun depends for its destructiveness on its striking velocity, while a howitzer depends on the power of the exploding charge of its shell. An armor-piercing shell, fired from a 15-inch naval gun, will go through the heaviest and hardest steel known, because of the terrific speed at which it travels, with a muzzle velocity of three thousand feet a second or thirty-four miles a minute. In order not to lose speed, therefore, it must travel in as straight a line as possible. In other words, a missile from a gun must have a long low curve or trajectory."

"Yes," said the doctor, "I can see that."

"A howitzer, on the other hand," the master explained, "does not require any more velocity than just to carry the high-explosive shell to the point designed. Moreover, in order that their terrible effects may be the more destructive, mortars and howitzers drop their shells from overhead upon the object of fire by lobbing them up in the air with a very high trajectory. A howitzer generally looks as though it were shooting at the moon. It can be placed in a valley and fire over the hill. But, as you can see, its range is restricted. A naval gun throwing an 8-inch shell may have a range of sixteen miles, while the 8-inch howitzer operates best from three or four miles away.

"You see, Doctor," he continued, "if our defenses have been constructed upon the basis of attack from heavy field-guns and light howitzers-which is the system of most European armies-if our energy has been spent on disappearing cupolas and sunken masonry works which will resist gun-fire, is there not a terrible danger if we are attacked by heavy howitzers, dropping high explosive shells from overhead? To such shells it will make no difference whether the cupolas be raised or lowered.

"If it be true," the old reservist added, his voice rising with a note of presage, "if it be true what is whispered about these new German siege howitzers, then destruction will rain upon the forts of Liége as though the skies were a mouth of flame.

"Perhaps never before, in the history of the world, has so much hung upon the range and power of a modern weapon. We await the eruption of a man-forged volcano which may engulf us all in its fiery lava."

The doctor passed his hand over his face and looked up unconsciously, half in fear as though the doom was on them.

"You make it very ugly," he said.

The master paced on through the late dusk, a glow from the distant gunfire mingling with the faint starlight on his face.

"It matters very little if the End be ugly," he replied, "so long as the road be that of heroism."

The two men walked silently some little space, each following the trend of his own ideas, until, where the road branched off to Chénée, two men joined them.

"Have you any late news?" the master asked.

"The Ninth Regiment has been ordered forward between Fléron and Chaudfontaine," said the older of the newcomers, "and the Fourteenth is to be sent here, to cover Embourg and Boncelles."

"And you-where do you go?"

"To report," the stranger answered; "there will be work enough for us all to do."

"Have you any idea of what numbers we will have to face?"

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe one army corps, maybe two-maybe all Germany. Who knows?"

Darkness closed down upon Liége, the darkness of that August Fourth, such as even that ancient city had never known, a somber pall of shadow pierced with vivid streaks from the flaming fortress guns. Powerful searchlights hunted the countryside with their malevolent eyes. Death screamed and screeched in the trees. The horrible and cruel work of war hid its unloveliness that first night in the shelter of the woods surrounding the eastern forts of Liége.

The four men soon reached military headquarters. Already casualty cases had begun to arrive and Dr. Mallorbes was promptly assigned to one of the hospitals. The two reservists from Chénée were sent to the shallow trenches defending the approaches to Fort Chaudfontaine, and, at his earnest request, the master was allowed to join his battery at Boncelles.

When, however, the master found himself actually in the fort and under military discipline, much of his pessimism passed away. He fell, naturally, into the fatalism of the soldier, and, as he remarked the extraordinarily powerful machinery and defenses of the fort, said to his neighbor,

"They're counting on our not being ready. But everything here seems up to the minute!"

His fellow-gunner, also an old reservist who had served with the battery before, chuckled as he answered,

"Our silent general has fooled them. General Leman has reached here with the Third Division."

"But the Third was at Diest, eighty miles away, the day before yesterday!" exclaimed the master.

"It is here now, and taking up positions. And the Germans, for all their spies, don't know it. They'll try to rush the forts to-morrow, expecting to find them lightly held, and then we'll pepper them finely."

"How many men does that give us here at Liége?" the master asked.

"About twenty-two thousand."

"And the Germans?"

"Three army corps, probably; a hundred thousand men, at least,[4] and as many more as they like to bring."

"And all confident of breaking through?"

"Quite," said the other, nodding. "There was a young German officer captured yesterday at Visé who jeered at the mere idea of our daring to oppose them.

"'It is the idea of little children that Belgium can resist,' he said. 'In two days we take Liége, in a week we are before Paris. It is all arranged. It is like a time-table. Nothing can prevent victory. Nothing will stop us. If any one hinders, we will roll them into the sea.'"

"Time-tables have been disarranged before now," said the master thoughtfully, "and it is worth remembering that the more rigid is the organization the more hopeless is the confusion when something goes wrong."

"If we can check them here-"

"Then," said the master, "they will never get to Paris."

So, under the plucky but inadequate fire of their forts, the 22,500 Belgians awaited the attack of 120,000 Germans. They knew, those heroes, those martyrs to the ideals of honor, that Germany had untold millions to roll up against them, should their resistance prove to be an obstacle.

It was almost dawn when the first attack began at Evegnée and Barchon. There, the sentries on duty, watching the hillsides opposite to them, saw what seemed to be an undulation of the earth, as though the soil were heaving like the sea. As the morning light cleared the mists away, these waves were seen to be vast bodies of infantry, their iron-gray uniforms indistinguishable against the dawn-lighted grass.

Came a sharp order to fire.

Red mouths of death opened. From trench[5] and fort, rifle-fire ran its crackling harmony to the crash of the 6-inch guns and the insistent rattle of the ear-rasping machine gun. In this hideous repertory of noise, the Hotchkiss machine-guns, used in the forts, and the Berthier guns, used by the infantry and drawn by a dog team, joined their concert of destruction.

It was no discredit to the German soldiers that they fell back. No one, neither General von Emmich, his officers, nor his men, expected to find the Belgian trenches so strongly held. The check was only momentary, however, merely long enough to allow the face of the hills to grow a little brighter, long enough to show clearly to the gallant defenders the tremendous odds they had to face.

The iron-gray masses of the German infantry advanced stolidly into that maw of death. It was unlike all the parade conceptions of battle. There were no flaming colors, no horses curveting around a golden-tasseled standard, no blare of bands, none of the pomp and panoply of war. Only, above the hills which circled the forts, rose the slowly deepening rose of the dawn; only, on the ground below, crept the steady ant-like advance of thousands of men who would be dead before the rising sun had risen.

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 forward ruthlessly 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 displayed that 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 continuous duty. 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 the strain. 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 the tunnel 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 murderous cross-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, Flemalles and 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 re?nforced 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.

General Leman's army, with its numbers brought up to 36,000 men by re?nforcements, 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 extended northward 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 part being 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 the bombardment 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. We tried 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] The Queen 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.

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 which seemed 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 blood had 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 cloud of 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.

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 with his 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 half his 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 down at 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 a laugh 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, brag a 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 twisted shoulder 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 will tell them, as gently as I can, and you will answer what they ask you. Is not that best?"

Courtesy of "The Sphere."

The Charge Irresistible.

Bengal lancers in the open warfare of the first few months driving the Germans before them like chaff before the wind.

"Oh, Madame!" His voice was full of thankfulness.

She sighed long and heavily.

"We shall soon grow accustomed to telling and hearing sad news in Belgium," she said. Then, turning to Croquier, she added, "You have the bird safe?"

"Safe as the grave!" boomed the hunchback in reply and disappeared into the darkness.

The village street, usually so quiet at this hour, stirred feverishly. Lights glimmered in every house. One woman was kneeling at the foot of the great wooden cross which stood in the marketplace. Another came out from the church, weeping silently. Their husbands were in the army.

The boy's heart sank as he came up to the little house from which he had started a few hours before with Deschamps and the master. He opened the garden gate and Mme. Maubin entered. The click of the latch, as the gate closed behind Horace, had been heard. The door opened and the burly figure of Deschamps' father stood outlined. He welcomed the master's wife with hearty hospitality. The woman said nothing, but entered the house. She went straight to the mother, who had risen to her feet and was standing by the table, a frightened look in her eyes.

"You are of Belgium, Madame?" the master's wife began.

The mother winced.

"But yes," she said.

"Then you will know how to be brave."

Mme. Deschamps' lips trembled.

"Is it my boy?" she asked anxiously, turning to Horace.

"He is not killed, Madame," said the boy, chokingly.

"He is hurt! He is dying!"

"No, Madame," Horace answered, "the doctor said that he would soon get well. But-"

The master's wife intervened.

"Your son will need you now more than ever before," she said softly. "He is not lost to you. He is closer to you."

The mother struggled for composure.

"He is crippled?"

"He is blind, Madame," said Horace.

She staggered back a step and steadied herself with a hand on the table.

"My boy! My boy! Blind!" she cried.

No one moved. The distant guns beat their menace more insistently into the room.

"M. Maubin told me to say," added Horace, in a low voice, "that he bid you remember that your son was Belgium's first boy hero."

"Where is he?" broke in the father.

"At Embourg, Monsieur, at the house of Dr. Mallorbes."

"I will go see him. Tell me exactly how it happened."

So Horace, overcoming his embarrassment in the sight of the mother's courage, told the story of the bursting shell, of the splinter which struck the boy's forehead and of the removal to the doctor's house. Then he told of the surgeon's work and, finally, of the departure for Liége and his own return.

It was late before the boy had finished his story and he was beginning to drop with sleep. Moreover, he expected that all his adventures would have to be recounted anew at home, where, possibly, his old maid aunt would have begun to grow nervous over his non-return.

Leaving Deschamps' house, relieved of the strain of telling his tale of sorrow, Horace sank under a terrible fatigue. The sound of the guns rapped at his brain and the night air was heavy with the pulsing of evil destiny. He stumbled with weariness as he reached his own house, glad to find the place dark and his aunt asleep. Evidently, his return was not expected.

The boy's rest was troubled and disturbed by dreams of war. He wakened in the morning, stiff and sore, wondering where he was and what had happened. The tumult of the shells bursting on Fort Embourg, a mile away, brought all back to his remembrance. Besides, through the morning haze, which bore promise of a sultry day, a vicious drumming which had not been audible the night before betrayed itself to the lad's instinct as rifle-fire. He got up and dressed hurriedly.

His aunt was already seated at breakfast and was surprised at seeing the boy, for she had not heard her nephew's entrance the night before. Though eager to get out into the village and learn the news, Horace was compelled to tell the night's doings in detail, but his aunt was utterly unable to realize the significance of the breaking-out of war. Having lived nearly all her life in the United States, she was unable to grasp the serious importance of European alliances. Moreover, she possessed to the full a certain American love of words and Horace could not make her see that the time for speechmaking had gone by. Being, herself, always ready to bluff a little, she suspected the same in every one else. The guns, thundering near by, did not disturb her confidence a whit.

"Of course they'll fire a few rifles and shoot off some guns," she said, "that's always done for effect. But the governments will get together and fix it up; you'll see."

The boy groaned inwardly at this slack belief in the policy of "fixing things up" which he knew so well, but he replied, earnestly,

"I don't think so, Aunt Abigail, from what the master told us. He thinks it's going to be a big war, like the kind you read about in history."

"Nonsense," retorted the old maid, sententiously. "The world has got much too civilized for people to go around killing each other. Finish your breakfast!"

Horace knew that there was little likelihood of changing the ideas of Aunt Abigail. Though kindly and generous at heart, in spite of her brusque ways, she belonged to that class of Americans which is honestly convinced that everything in the New World is progressive and sound and that everything in the Old World is backward and decaying.

"Did you say that the schoolmaster had gone to the war?" she asked.

"Yes, Aunt."

The old maid sniffed.

"More fool he," she said crisply; "he's old enough not to get romantic. What's going to be done with the school?"

"That's all been arranged," the boy replied, without explaining further, for he knew that his aunt would regard the master's action as "high-falutin and romantic."

"Well, you'd better get ready," she said sharply, "though I don't see how you can do much study with all the noise those forts are making. I should have thought they'd have had sense enough to build them farther away from where folks live."

"Aunt," said Horace, "suppose the Germans should take Beaufays?"

"Well, what about it?"

"If they burn the houses and steal everything and kill everybody and-"

"Get along with your foolishness," his aunt replied. "I've known plenty of Germans. They weren't much different from any other kind of humans I ever saw. Burn and steal and murder? What next! Get on to school, Horace, or you'll be late."

The boy put on his cap and left the house.

The air was heavy with the smell of powder, drifting from the not-distant bombardment. Groups of villagers and peasants loitered aimlessly about the streets. Work was at a standstill. One of the old men called him.

"Was it you who caught the eagle?" he asked.

"Yes," Horace answered, "I caught him."

The old peasant chuckled with toothless gums.

"Perched on a pole he is," he said, "and we'll have the Kaiser himself there, presently."

"Where is the bird?" asked the boy.

"In front of the inn. Croquier's got it. He won't take his eyes off it."

A few steps brought Horace to the estaminet and there, blinking in the strong August sunlight, perched the eagle that he had captured the night before. During the night an excessively strong cage had been made of twisted strips of wrought iron. It would have resisted an elephant's strength. Welded into the top of the cage was a ring and to this ring was fastened a steel chain. The end was clamped around Croquier's wrist.

So much, at least, ensured that the bird would not escape, but there was a surer sign still, for Horace, looking on the hunchback's face, saw the face of a man who had been transfigured. The savage petulance, born of misfortune, had been replaced by an equally savage determination, born of confidence and trust. It did not need two looks to see that the man would be cut in pieces before he would betray his trust. He spoke as soon as the lad approached.

"I have been wondering," he said, "how you, with your little strength, managed to capture this bird. Bird! It is an evil spirit. I have never seen a bird so strong, and I know what is strength. Twice, last night, it tried to escape."

"How?" asked the boy.

"When I left you, I went home, put it in a huge cage of twisted wicker and closed my eyes, to see what would happen. I kept my fingers crooked for action, though. I did not close my eyes for more than ten seconds. There was a cracking sound and when I opened my eyes, the cage was a tangle of splinters and the bird was preening its wings to fly."

"But it can't fly!"

"I'm not so sure of that," the hunchback answered, "but it had no chance, my fingers were round its throat in a second. I had hard work to hold it and I am three, yes, ten times as strong as you.

"Then I put it in a wire frame in which a badger had once been kept. Its amber eyes glared, but it made no resistance. Again I closed my eyes, to tempt it, and when I opened them again, beak and talon had riven the frame apart and the body was rasping through. I grappled it again. It pecked at me, almost reaching my eyes, but my hands are strong, and it could not get away."

He looked down at his hands with a touch of pride.

"There's not another man in the village could have done it," he said.

"I believe that," said Horace, whose hand was still sore and bruised from the grip of the day before. "What did you do then?"

"I went to my brother, the blacksmith.

"'Pierre!' I said to him, 'get up! Get up at once and light the fire in your forge. We have a demon to cage.'

"'Are the Germans here?' he asked.

"'Come at once,' I said, 'you are needed.'

"So, when he came out, I showed him the bird and told him the words of the master's wife.

"'What do you want me to do?' he asked.

"'Make me a cage of bands of twisted iron,' I said, 'which would defy the beak and talon of Jupiter's eagle that wields the thunderbolts, and finish it before daybreak.'

"So, all the long night through, I sat there in the forge, while the fetters were being made to hold this evil thing a prisoner. There is no bolt or screw in the cage, every bar is welded on the other, save for one intricate opening. Just before daylight it was done.

"'Good,' said I, 'now come with me to the curé, Pierre, and we will speak to him.'"

"To the curé?" queried Horace, "why?"

"That was what my brother asked," the hunchback answered, "but to the church we went. The curé was there already, praying at the altar, though it was yet more than an hour before the service.

"'Bless me this cage, Monsieur le Curé,' I said to him, 'it has been made to hold an evil spirit, a demon, a German demon.'

"The curé looked at the eagle and crossed himself.

"'It is ill to traffic with demons, Croquier,' he said to me, 'but I have never heard of anything made by God or man which was the worse for a blessing. Give me the cage and I will bless it before the altar, as you ask.'

"He blessed the cage and gave it back to me. I got ready to put the bird in it. There followed such a fight as I have never seen. Into the wicker cage the bird had gone willingly enough, I had put it into the wire frame without difficulty, but when I tried to put it into the cage that the good priest had blessed, a thousand furies entered the bird's black heart and he fought with beak and claw as though he were inspired by fiends. It took the three of us, the curé, my brother, and myself-"

"The curé helped you?" interrupted the boy, in surprise.

"He said it was the business of a churchman to fight demons, whether in the spirit or in feathers," the hunchback answered, his hard face softening into a smile. "Together we forced it into the cage. There it is now and there it stays. My brother has riveted the door."

Horace looked at the bird.

"It certainly is curious," he said, "especially with that crippled left wing. It does seem symbolic of the crippled left arm of the Kaiser.[7] Perhaps it may be a prophecy. Perhaps Mme. Maubin's words may come true. Perhaps America may have to join in the war!"

The hunchback nodded portentously.

"Her words will come true," he said. "I don't know what she will say over the fact that the curé had to help us cage the bird. Will it turn into a Holy War?"

This was beyond Horace, but, just as he was about to answer, the "last bell" pealed from the little school building down the street.

Croquier started.

"But I saw the schoolmaster going to Liége!" he cried. "The boy has forgotten!"

"He hasn't forgotten," answered Horace; "I'll tell you about it after school," and dashed across the street lest he should be late.

The boys filed in quietly, with a profound solemnity. It is not easy to touch a boy's honor to the depth, but when it is reached, and especially when no adult is present, it is a force more sensitive and more ruthless than that of any man or woman. Which fact the master knew.

When the bell had stopped ringing, there was a moment's hesitation, for the masterless boys knew scarcely how to begin. Horace, rising in his seat, told the school the master's message and spoke of the blinding of Deschamps. A deft word led the boys to a voluntary resumption of their class-work.

One lad, less responsive to the spirit of boy-honor, whispered to his neighbor.

A roar of anger burst over the school and the culprit slunk into his book. It is not good to awake the primitive and rude justice of self-governing boys.

In spite of the distracting influence of the continuous bombardment, the morning passed without incident. Some of the boys wandered in their attention and many shuffled restlessly, but the sense that each one was on honor kept them in hand and the school dismissed itself at the regular hour, proud of its own accomplishment of self-control.

That evening Horace found his aunt in defiant mood.

"While you were at school to-day," she said, "the mayor came to tell me to go away, either to Brussels or Antwerp, where, perhaps, I could escape to America."

"And what did you say, Aunt Abigail?" the boy asked anxiously.

The old maid tossed back her head.

"I told them that the little finger of the American minister in Brussels was stronger than Germany a dozen times over. I told him that the United States wasn't looking for trouble, but was perfectly willing to whip any one when necessary. I said we could whip our weight in wild-cats, and we can.

"Then he had the nerve to talk the way you talked this morning. He said that the Germans would commit all sorts of horrible atrocities if they broke through Liége. I told him that just as I didn't think the Germans were fools enough to fight with Americans, so I didn't think they were brutes enough to fight against women and children."

"What did the mayor say to that?" queried the boy, regretting that he had not heard the discussion.

"He didn't tell me I was a fool, but I could see he thought I was, and I didn't tell him he was a fool, but he could see I thought he was, so the matter stopped at that."

"But, Aunt Abigail," said Horace, puzzled between the truth in the master's words and the grain of truth in his aunt's ideas, "suppose the army runs amuck and the officers can't control it?"

"Then it isn't much of an army," she snapped back. "I hear a lot of talk about discipline. If the officers can't keep the men from turning into savages, the way you and the mayor think they will, then it's time a war came along for somebody to beat sense into their heads. Not that that has anything to do with it. I told your father I'd be here when he came back, and it'll take more than a fight between two of these little European countries-which we could tuck into the State of Texas without noticing it-to make me break my word."

Horace realized the ignorant narrowness of his aunt's position. He had often deplored the arrogant Americanism which estranged her foreign friends. It hurt him, sometimes, when his schoolfellows made fun of America's boastfulness and bluff, for he knew that many of their criticisms were just. At the same time, he knew, too, that there were many things in America wherein his country was superior to Europe. And, while he raged inwardly at his aunt's prejudices, he could not but admire her pluck.

"Lots of people are leaving to-night," he ventured.

"I know. I've been helping them to pack. Some of them have gone with nothing more than the clothes they stood in, others wanted to carry their house, yes, their gardens, too, I reckon, on their backs. Such weeping and making a to-do I never saw. I'm not criticizing any one, understand, only-I stay. Do you want to go?"

"No," said Horace, "I stay, too."

"Good thing," she said, tartly; "I'd hate to see any nephew of mine show a yellow streak."

Horace spent a large part of that night in helping householders who had decided to flee from the German advance, every one having been warned by the mayor. Hardly any one slept that night in Beaufays. Up to midnight and after, the roads were thronged with the people of the little village, escaping for their lives. Every horse in the village or on the farms around was hitched to the largest vehicle that it could draw, while many walked, carrying their goods. It was the first installment of that host of misery which, for the next month, crowded Belgium from Liége to the sea. All night the bombardment grew heavier and heavier, and, toward morning, heavy cannonading to the west told that the fort of Boncelles was being attacked. Beaufays, lying just outside the line of defense, as yet had seen no other evidence of the battle than the drifting clouds of smoke by day and the flashes of fire by night.

Breakfast-time came on the morning of August 6 in the little village of Beaufays, the last breakfast its citizens would eat under their own flag for many a weary year. Horace was just finishing his meal when a bugle-call rent the air, followed by the clattering of horses' hoofs. He jumped up and went to the door.

"Aunt! Aunt! The Germans!" he called.

A party of Uhlans, lances raised, magnificently mounted and looking soldierly, every inch of them, scouted in advance. The officer in command summoned the mayor of the village and informed him that the village was in German hands. He ordered that every door be left open so that the houses might be searched for arms. The mayor had no alternative but to comply.

A short distance behind the cavalry came a company of cyclists and then the ground shook under the short slow tread of the infantry, swinging along the Verviers road.

Horace stood at the cottage door watching what was, at that time, one of the most perfect examples of human organization that the world had seen-the march of the German invading army. These troops had not seen action. As yet, they were not a fighting army, they were advancing into the plains of Belgium, to take up the forward charge when the fall of the Liége forts would enable the establishment of a sound line of communication.

In these marching men, there was no hint of parade. These troops were prepared for war. They swung along by tens, by hundreds, by thousands, by tens of thousands, grimly organized and made for slaughter. The eye reeled with the steady onward motion, the brain dizzied with the ponderous human force of it all. These were not a part of Von Emmich's advance divisions, which were busily engaged in the effort to reduce Liége, but divisions of the great army under General Von Kluck. Though, probably, less than a division passed Beaufays, to Horace it seemed that all the soldiers in the world were in iron-gray uniforms and pouring through the village street in front of him.

Courtesy of "The Sketch."

A Mammoth German War Car.

The terror of the road, armored with 6-inch Krupp steel, shell-proof, carrying 120 men and two 4.7-inch quick-firers; speed 25 miles per hour.

Rank by rank, company by company, regiment by regiment, weapons of death at their sides, messages of death in their cartridge belts, thoughts of death in their hearts, they passed, all dressed in the earthly iron-gray which betokened that the death they gave they would have to face and that it were well to be as protectively concealed as possible.

Rank by rank, company by company, regiment by regiment, the sun glinting on their field equipment, the sun burning the frames already wearied by the march from garrisons in Germany, the sun waiting to turn the slain bodies of those marching men to sights of which a soldier even fears to dream, years after the war is over.

By tens, by thousands, by tens of thousands they came. The details of organization were incredible. Waiting for each column to pass were men with buckets of drinking water into which the men dipped their aluminum cups. Temporary field post-offices were established so that messages could be gathered as the armies passed and forwarded back to Germany. Here and there men passed out handfuls of biscuits and prunes.

The infantry strode through in heavy marching order, many of them lame and footsore, heads and beards shaved under the spiked helmets, bearing the look of bestial stolidity which is the inseparable result of the deliberately brutalizing German discipline.

Two trucks passed by with cobblers at work on the march. When a soldier's shoes wore out on the road, he dropped out of rank, mounted the running board of the cobbler's truck until he received back his foot-gear, mended.

Machine-gun companies accompanied the infantry, sprinkled with a few quick-firers of 2.6-inch caliber, easy to man-handle in action, firing 15 shots a minute. Secondary batteries of this arm also accompanied the heavy artillery.

Behind the infantry came the field artillery, in which, at this time, the German Army was weaker than the armies of the other powers. The field gun was the .96NA, corresponding closely to the British 15-pounder which had been discarded, save for the Territorial Army. It could not be compared to the famous French "Soixante-Quinze," the most marvelous of all field-guns, with a 2.9-inch (75 mm.) caliber and the most mobile weapon known.[8]

On the other hand, the light field howitzers of 4.1-inch caliber and the heavier field howitzers of 5.9-inch caliber were far in advance of those of any other army. They were modern, formidable and admirably handled. This 5.9-inch howitzer shared with the French "Soixante-Quinze" the dubious honor of being the most death-dealing weapon of the war.

Following upon the light artillery came the heavy artillery, with 8.4- and 11-inch howitzers. Parts of a heavy siege train followed. Behind that, again, came the ammunition and provision columns, heavy horses attached to sections of pontoons for bridges, huge motor plows for excavating trenches, field hospitals, field motor repair shops, field forges and field kitchens of every sort. Behind these, again, came motor busses for the officers of the staff, whom Horace could see studying their road maps within, and high-powered automobiles for the military commanders. The stamping of the tens of thousands of feet, of the horses' hoofs, the grinding of the wheels, and the pounding of the caterpillar treads filled the air with a cloud of dust through which the army marched as though it had lungs of steel.

A small detachment, by prearranged orders, was detailed to search and occupy the village. Few resisted, but the spirit of Belgium was to find at least one exemplar.

At the door to her house stood Mme. Maubin. A soldier entered the house, went up-stairs, pulled things into general confusion, and left. Swiftly the woman reached from the outside through the open window, struck a match and set the fluttering window-curtains ablaze. In seconds the flames blazed up and threatened the house.

The officer in command sharply ordered his men to put out the fire, then turned to the master's wife.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"Because the house was defiled by a German foot," she answered.

The officer ground his teeth and turned away. Not for a few days yet did the Hun want to show his hand. Germany wanted first to seize the telegraph lines and means of communication before slipping the leash on the brute instincts of mankind.

"I suppose they'll want to search this house," Aunt Abigail remarked when the army had passed and the news was spread abroad that a search-party had been left behind to take possession of the village.

"Why, of course, Aunt, they're sure to," the boy replied.

"Well, they won't!"

She pointed to the Stars and Stripes which she had hung out over her door.

"I'm going to lock my door," she announced, "and never mind about any of their old regulations or military rules. If any German tries to break in under Old Glory, he'll be sorry he started. We've licked England twice and we'd lick Germany just as easy."

Several times since his aunt had come to keep house after his mother's death three years before, Horace had disputed this highly inaccurate historical reference, but always uselessly. He let the point pass by.

"They may respect the flag," he said, "but suppose they don't?"

The old maid faced him.

"There's been a power of soldiers gone by this morning, hasn't there?" she retorted. "Well, if the whole lot of them were drawn up in front of my house and they all shouted together 'Open the door!' I wouldn't open it. So there!"

Horace laughed admiringly. Decidedly his aunt had grit. The passage of the German Army had not shaken her nerve a scrap.

"Well, Aunt," he said, "if that's the way you feel about it, there's no need for me to stay. I've got to go to school."

"If you take care of yourself as well as I can take care of myself, there'll be no trouble," quoth she, and went back to wash her breakfast dishes as nonchalantly as though a detachment of men were not searching cottage after cottage.

When, a little later, there came a knock at the door, she went and looked out. The officer spoke to her in French.

Aunt Abigail, who, in the three years that she had been in the country, had only learned enough French to do her marketing, answered,

"Talk English!"

"Are you English?" the officer demanded in that tongue, a look of hate on his face.

"Is that an English flag?" she replied testily.

"We have come to search the house," said the officer and strode forward.

"Search nothing!" declared Aunt Abigail. "This is an American house!" and she slammed the door in his face.

There was a heated conference outside between the German officer and the mayor, but the result was that the search-party passed on. The telegraph lines were not yet closed and Germany was still trying to keep the friendship of the United States.

Meantime, school had opened with but few boys present, for almost half of the boys had fled with their families, and many of those remaining had been kept at home by their frightened parents. As the morning wore on, however, a few of the boys came straggling in. Jacques Oopsdiel, the bell-ringer, the youngest boy in the school, was one of those who had remained. The lads struggled hard to keep discipline under the strong spirit of the placard on the master's chair, but the excitement of the morning had been too great and little work was done.

Suddenly, an ominous figure darkened the wide-open door.

"What is this-a school?" the officer of the search-party asked, in German.

"Yes," answered Horace, taking the lead, as head boy, now that Deschamps was no longer there, but answering in French.

"Where is your schoolmaster?"

"At Liége."

Horace ached to add that he was probably aiding in the defense of the forts but thought that such a statement might bring vengeance on the school, and so he desisted.

"But where is the schoolmaster who is teaching you now?"

"In his chair!" replied Horace, a trifle defiantly.

The officer strode in, followed by six of his men. He clanked up to the chair and read the word on the placard. With a German oath he tore it off, threw it on the floor and ground it under his heel. Then he picked up a piece of chalk and wrote heavily on the blackboard the word:

DEUTSCHLAND

"There," he said. "That is your master now!"

Jacques Oopsdiel, the little lad, who was known throughout the village for his obstinate Holland ways, slipped off his chair. Without a word to any one, in absolute disregard of the German officer and the six soldiers, he took the sponge and erased the offending word.

"M. Maubin said before he went away," he declared in his high-pitched childish voice, "that no one was to write on the blackboard without his permission."

In the astonished silence that followed he returned to his seat.

The officer growled audibly, but he was only empowered to search for arms and had received strict instructions not to allow any violence to the civilian population until the invasion was actually accomplished. So, swearing vengeance on the school in general and on Jacques in particular, he did not order the child slain on the spot-as he would have done had it been a week later-but smothered his wrath and walked out.

The placard, showing the nail-marks of the invader's heel, was replaced on the master's chair, but it was out of the question to expect that the school could settle down to work after such intrusion. Jacques was the hero of the hour, and Horace, though he feared trouble would result, said nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of his fellows.

The next day witnessed the deepening of the hate between the invaders and the villagers. The story of the "captive Kaiser" had been spread abroad and, wherever the Germans went, the prophecy was dinned into their ears. Wherever they went, jeers and allusions greeted them, for as yet the people of Beaufays did not realize what malice the Germans brooded. The erection of a field hospital not far from the borders of the village increased the friction, for there the Germans saw their wounded being brought in such countless numbers that they could not be accommodated. The wounded were billeted in many of the houses of the village and such of the men and women as remained in Beaufays were ordered about like slaves.

Each succeeding day the cloud fell blacker. German surgeons and hospital orderlies strode here and there with kick and curse. Steel was drawn several times. And still, everywhere, the story of the "captive Kaiser" percolated, yet, though every house was searched over and over again, no trace of the crippled eagle could be found. Each day the restraint upon the soldiers grew slacker and deeds grew more reckless. The inn-keeper, who had asked for payment of wine drunk by an officer, was answered by a swordslash across his face. As yet no murder had been done, but savagery lurked in eye and lip.

One morning, a proclamation was posted on the village walls. It read:

The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, after having declared their peaceful intentions, have made a surprise attack on our troops.

It is with my consent that the Commander-in-chief has ordered the whole town to be burned and that about one hundred people have been shot.

I bring this fact to the knowledge of the City of Liége, so that citizens of Liége may realize the fate with which they are menaced if they adopt a similar attitude.

The General Commanding in Chief

Von Buelow.

From that morning on, terror ruled. Human wolves, emboldened by official permission, wrought whatever crime they would in Beaufays. The Germans, checked before Liége and held up to the world's scorn by a handful of Belgian soldiers, took their vengeance on women and children, on the aged and on babies alike.

Aunt Abigail, though doubting the evidence of her senses, was compelled to admit that the hysteria of blood had changed the bodies inside those iron-gray uniforms and made them something other than human beings. It was the were-wolf come again.

"These are not men," she said, to Horace, one dreadful night, "they are maddened machines marked with the Mark of the Beast."

On Saturday, August 15, the eastern forts fell and the troops which had been billeted in Beaufays received orders that they were to march westward the next day, but, before they left, they were given full liberty to ravage the village as they would.

The orgy of devastation began. The soldiers racked and pillaged every house, seizing every valuable article they could find and committing acts so vile that they cannot be told. They came, at last, to the house of Mme. Maubin. Remembering her defiance, the officer in command, in cruel jest, bade his men leave the house unpillaged and as they drew back in surprise at this unexpected mercy, he added,

"But she wished her house burned down!"

His men grinned comprehension.

With the special incendiary fuses and bags of compressed powder officially served out to the German soldiers for their work of "frightfulness," they set fire to the house, men with fixed bayonets being stationed at the door to drive the master's wife back into the flames should she try to escape.

Horace heard the cries of the woman, as she was being burned alive, and, boy though he was, vowed to avenge her.

The horrors of the day continued under a sky like blue-hot steel. The heat was terrific and rendered hotter by the flaming houses of the village. The wild delirium of license gleamed in the eyes of the soldiers. The school was among the buildings set on fire. It was the officer's poor revenge.

Late in the afternoon, darting out from some hiding-place, probably chased by the flames, suddenly the hunchback shot across the street carrying the black eagle which had been sought so long. At the sight of the iron cage a shout of rage went up. The officer would have ordered his men to fire, but the superstition that this might be regarded as an evil omen seized him. The "captive Kaiser" must be rescued, not killed.

"After him, men!" he cried.

The soldiers, most of them drunk and all of them blind with blood and fire, raced after the hunchback.

Into the open door of the church the fugitive turned-and disappeared.

The soldiers stormed in after him in a transport of fury and expectation, but the church was empty save for the figure of the curé standing at the altar. They searched for the hunchback, but he was nowhere to be seen. They threatened the curé, but he made no answer.

Then a corporal, avarice overcoming revenge, seeing a gold cross on the church wall above the pulpit, rushed up the pulpit steps and laid hand on it.

A "click" resounded through the church.

The curé said, quietly,

"The first man who robs the Church, dies, and dies with the sin on his head."

The words rolled down in German-the first German words ever spoken from those altar steps.

A peal of thunder crashed overhead and the soldiers paused as they gazed at the dimly-lit figure of the priest, standing in the chancel, in full vestments but-strange contrast-with a pistol in his hand.

The moment passed and then the corporal, with a rude oath, laid both hands on the cross and tore it from the wall.

There came a quick report and a cry.

While one might count five, the corporal stood erect, holding the cross, then slowly his body sank, collapsed, crumpled in a heap and he fell huddled down the pulpit steps-dead.

A howl of rage answered the shot and a dozen men rushed forward and leaped over the altar rail. The curé made no resistance and a bayonet thrust through his shoulder pinned him to the ground.

"Why did you shoot?" cried the officer, stamping his foot angrily.

The curé looked up calmly.

"Shall a man be less a patriot for his Church than for his country?" he asked, simply.

"Drag him out!" came the order.

In the market place, a few steps from the church, stood the great wooden cross. They dragged the curé there and set him against it, binding his hands.

Jacques Oopsdiel, who was one of the acolytes of the church, saw the curé, with the blood flowing over his white vestments, and ran forward to him with a cry, throwing his arms about him.

A non-commissioned officer caught hold of the lad and tried to pull him from the priest.

The boy turned like a flash and put his teeth into the soldier's hand.

There was a glint of steel and a bayonet passed through the child's body. He fell at the feet of the priest.

Overhead, the sky grew darker.

The firing party took up its position.

"Fire!"

The villagers, such as dared to listen, heard the crackle of the volley, but, before the sound died away, a vivid flash threw the scene into fierce relief, accompanied by a crash as though the vaults of heaven had been smitten asunder.

In that one second's glare, those who watched saw the German officer leap upwards, writhing, and then fall, struck by the thunderbolt.

The thunder pealed on and rolled into the distance, as the figure of the curé, which had remained for a moment supported by the cross, fell dead beside the moaning figure of the little acolyte.

* * *

FOOTNOTES:

[7] This happened in Alouville, on Dec. 11, 1914. The German eagle with a deformed left wing fluttered down in an exhausted state into the hands of a French gamekeeper. It was widely heralded as an omen of victory.

[8] Later (in 1915) the Germans added a 3.9-inch and a 5.1-inch field-gun, with ranges of 6 and 8 miles respectively.