Complete weird tales of.., p.61
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 61
As he left the park and cantered into the broad red highway, he turned in his saddle and looked towards the Château de Nesville. At first he could not see it, but as he rode over the bridge he caught a glimpse of the pointed roof and single turret, a dim silhouette through the mist. Then it vanished in the films of fog.
The road to Saarbrück was a military road, and easy travelling. The character of the country had changed as suddenly as a drop-scene falls in a theatre; for now all around stretched fields cut into squares by hedges — fields deep-laden with heavy-fruited strawberries, white and crimson. Currants, too, glowed like strung rubies frosted with the dew; plum-trees spread little pale shadows across the ruddy earth, and beyond them the disk of the sun appeared, pushing upward behind a half-ploughed hill. Everywhere slender fruit-trees spread their grafted branches; everywhere in the crumbling furrows of the soil, warm as ochre, the bunched strawberries hung like drops of red wine under the sun-bronzed leaves.
The sun was an hour high when he walked his horse up the last hill that hides the valley of the Saar. Already, through the constant rushing melody of bird music, his ears had distinguished another sound — a low, incessant hum, monotonous, interminable as the noise of a stream in a gorge. It was not the river Saar moving over its bed of sand and yellow pebbles; it was not the breeze in the furze. He knew what it was; he had heard it before, in Oran — in the stillness of dawn, where, below, among the shadowy plains, an army was awaking under dim tents.
And now his horse’s head rose up black against the sky; now the valley broke into view below, gray, indistinct in the shadows, crossed by ghostly lines of poplars that dwindled away to the horizon.
At the same instant something moved in the fields to the left, and a shrill voice called: “Qui-vive?” Before he could draw bridle blue-jacketed cavalrymen were riding at either stirrup, carbine on thigh, peering curiously into his face, pushing their active light-bay horses close to his big black horse.
Jack laughed good-humouredly and fumbled in the breast of his Norfolk jacket for his papers.
“I’m only a special,” he said; “I think you’ll find the papers in order — if not, you’ve only to gallop back to the Château Morteyn to verify them.”
An officer with a bewildering series of silver arabesques on either sleeve guided a nervous horse through the throng of troopers, returned Jack’s pleasant salute, reached out a gloved hand for his papers, and read them, sitting silently in his saddle. When he finished, he removed the cigarette from his lips, looked eagerly at Jack, and said:
“You are from Morteyn?”
“Yes.”
“A guest?”
“The Vicomte de Morteyn is my uncle.”
The officer burst into a boyish laugh.
“Jack Marche!”
“Eh!” cried Jack, startled.
Then he looked more closely at the young officer before him, who was laughing in his face.
“Well, upon my word! No — it can’t be little Georges Carrière?”
“Yes, it can!” cried the other, briskly; “none of your damned airs, Jack! Embrace me, my son!”
“My son, I won’t!” said Jack, leaning forward joyously— “the idea! Little Georges calls me his son! And he’s learning the paternal tricks of the old generals, and doubtless he calls his troopers ‘mes enfants,’ and—”
“Oh, shut up!” said Georges, giving him an impetuous hug; “what are you up to now — more war correspondence? For the same old Herald? Nom d’une pipe! It’s cooler here than in Oran. It’ll be hotter, too — in another way,” with a gay gesture towards the valley below. “Jack Marche, tell me all about everything!”
On either side the blue-jacketed troopers fell back, grinning with sympathy as Georges guided his horse into a field on the right, motioning Jack to follow.
“We can talk here a bit,” he said; “you’ve lots of time to ride on. Now, fire ahead!”
Jack told him of the three years spent in idleness, of the vapid life in Paris, the long summers in Brittany, his desire to learn to paint, and his despair when he found he couldn’t.
“I can sketch like the mischief, though,” he said. “Now tell me about Oran, and our dear General Chanzy, and that devil’s own ‘Legion,’ and the Hell’s Selected 2d Zouaves! Do you remember that day at Damas when Chanzy visited the Emir Abd-el-Kader at Doummar, and the fifteen Spahis of the escort, and that little imp of the Legion who was caught roaming around the harem, and—”
Georges burst into a laugh.
“I can’t answer all that in a second! Wait! Do you want to know about Chanzy? Well, he’s still in Bel-Abbès, and he’s been named commander of the Legion of Honour, and he’s no end of a swell. He’ll be coming back now that we’ve got to chase these sausage-eaters across the Rhine. Look at me! You used to say that I’d stopped growing and could never aspire to a mustache! Now look! Eh? Five feet eleven and — what do you think of my mustache? Oh, that African sun sets things growing! I’m lieutenant, too.”
“Does the African sun also influence your growth in the line of promotion?” asked Jack, grinning.
“Same old farceur, too!” mused Georges. “Now, what the mischief are you doing here? Oh, you are staying at Morteyn?”
“Yes.”
“I — er — I used to visit another house — er — near by. You know the Marquis de Nesville?” asked Georges, innocently.
“I? Oh yes.”
“You have — perhaps you have met Mademoiselle de Nesville?”
“Yes,” said Jack, shortly.
“Oh.”
There was a silence. Jack shuffled his booted toes in his stirrups; Georges looked out across the valley.
In the valley the vapours were rising; behind the curtain of shredded mist the landscape lay hilly, nearly treeless, cut by winding roads and rank on rank of spare poplars. Farther away clumps of woods appeared, and little hillocks, and now, as the air cleared, the spire of a church glimmered. Suddenly a thin line of silver cut the landscape beyond the retreating fog. The Saar!
“Where are the Prussians?” asked Jack, breaking the silence.
Georges laid his gloved hand on his companion’s arm.
“Do you see that spire? That is Saarbrück. They are there.”
“This side of the Rhine, too?”
“Yes,” said Georges, reddening a little; “wait, my friend.”
“They must have crossed the Saar on the bridges from Saint-Johann, then. I heard that Uhlans had been signalled near the Saar, but I didn’t believe it. Uhlans in France? Georges, when are you fellows going to chase them back?”
“This morning — you’re just in time, as usual,” said Georges, airily. “Do you want me to give you an idea of our positions? Listen, then: we’re massed along the frontier from Sierk and Metz to Hagenau and Strasbourg. The Prussians lie at right angles to us, from Mainz to Lauterburg and from Trier to Saarbrück. Except near Saarbrück they are on their side of the boundary, let me tell you! Look! Now you can see Forbach through the trees. We’re there and we’re at Saint-Avold and Bitsch and Saargemünd, too. As for me, I’m with this damned rear-guard, and I count tents and tin pails, and I raise the devil with stragglers and generally ennui myself. I’m no gendarme! There’s a regiment of gendarmes five miles north, and I don’t see why they can’t do depot duty and police this country.”
“The same child — kicking, kicking, kicking!” observed Jack. “You ought to thank your luck that you are a spectator for once. Give me your glass.”
He raised the binoculars and levelled them at the valley.
“Hello! I didn’t see those troops before. Infantry, eh? And there goes a regiment — no, a brigade — no, a division, at least, of cavalry. I see cuirassiers, too. Good heavens! Their breastplates take the sun like heliographs! There are troops everywhere; there’s an artillery train on that road beyond Saint-Avold. Here, take the glasses.”
“Keep them — I know where they are. What time is it, Jack? My repeater is running wild — as if it were chasing Prussians.”
“It’s half-past nine; I had no idea that it was so late! Ha! there goes a mass of infantry along the hill. See it? They’re headed for Saarbrück! Georges, what’s that big marquee in the wheat-field?”
“The Emperor is there,” said Georges, proudly; “those troopers are the Cuirassiers of the Hundred-Guards. See their white mantles? The Prince Imperial is there, too. Poor little man — he looks so tired and bewildered.”
Jack kept his glasses fixed on the white dot that marked the imperial headquarters, but the air was hazy and the distance too great to see anything except specks and points of white and black, slowly shifting, gathering, and collecting again in the grain-field, that looked like a tiny square of pale gilt on the hill-top.
Suddenly a spot of white vapour appeared over the spire of Saarbrück, then another, then three together, little round clouds that hung motionless, wavered, split, and disappeared in the sunshine, only to be followed by more round cloud clots. A moment later the dull mutter of cannon disturbed the morning air, distant rumblings and faint shocks that seemed to come from an infinite distance.
Jack handed back the binoculars and opened his own field-glasses in silence. Neither spoke, but they instinctively leaned forward, side by side, sweeping the panorama with slow, methodical movements, glasses firmly levelled. And now, in the valley below, the long roads grew black with moving columns of cavalry and artillery; the fields on either side were alive with infantry, dim red squares and oblongs, creeping across the landscape towards that line of silver, the Saar.
“It’s a flank movement on Wissembourg,” said Jack, suddenly; “or are they swinging around to take Saint-Johann from the north?”
“Watch Saarbrück,” muttered Georges between his teeth.
The slow seconds crept into minutes, the minutes into hours, as they waited there, fascinated. Already the sharper rattle of musketry broke out on the hills south of the Saar, and the projectiles fell fast in the little river, beyond which the single spire of Saarbrück rose, capped with the smoke of exploding shells.
Jack sat sketching in a canvas-covered book, raising his brown eyes from time to time, or writing on a pad laid flat on his saddle-pommel.
The two young fellows conversed in low tones, laughing quietly or smoking in absorbed silence, and even their subdued voices were louder than the roll of the distant cannonade.
Suddenly the wind changed and their ears were filled with the hollow boom of cannon. And now, nearer than they could have believed, the crash of volley firing mingled with the whirring crackle of gatlings and the spattering rattle of Montigny mitrailleuses from the Guard artillery.
“Fichtre!” said Georges, with a shrug, “not only dancing, but music! What are you sketching, Jack? Let me see. Hm! Pretty good — for you. You’ve got Forbach too near, though. I wonder what the Emperor is doing. It seems too bad to drag that sick child of his out to see a lot of men fall over dead. Poor little Lulu!”
“Kicking, kicking ever!” murmured Jack; “the same fierce Republican, eh? I’ve no sympathy with you — I’m too American.”
“Cheap cynicism,” observed Georges. “Hello! — here’s an aide-de-camp with orders. Wait a second, will you?” and the young fellow gathered bridle and galloped out into the high-road, where his troopers stood around an officer wearing the black-and-scarlet of the artillery. A moment later a bugle began to sound the assembly; blue-clad cavalrymen appeared as by magic from every thicket, every field, every hollow, while below, in the nearer valley, another bugle, shrill and fantastic, summoned the squadrons to the colours. Already the better part of a regiment had gathered, four abreast, along the red road. Jack could see their eagles now, gilt and circled with gilded wreaths.
He pocketed sketch-book and pad and turned his horse out through the fields to the road.
“We’re off!” laughed Georges. “Thank God! and the devil take the rear-guard! Will you ride with us, Jack? We’ve driven the Prussians across the Saar.”
He turned to his troopers and signalled the trumpeter. “Trot!” he cried; and the squadron of hussars moved off down the hill in a whirl of dust and flying pebbles.
Jack wheeled his horse and brought him alongside of Georges’ wiry mount.
“It didn’t last long — eh, old chap?” laughed the youthful hussar; “only from ten o’clock till noon — eh? It’s not quite noon yet. We’re to join the regiment, but where we’re going after that I don’t know. They say the Prussians have quit Saarbrück in a hurry. I suppose we’ll be in Germany to-night, and then — vlan! vlan! eh, old fellow? We’ll be out for a long campaign. I’d like to see Berlin — I wish I spoke German.”
“They say,” said Jack, “that most of the German officers speak French.”
“Bird of ill-omen, croaker, cease! What the devil do we want to learn German for? I can say, ‘Wein, Weib, und Gesang,’ and that’s enough for any French hussar to know.”
They had come up with the whole regiment now, which was moving slowly down the valley, and Georges reported to his captain, who in turn reported to the major, who presently had a confab with the colonel. Then far away at the head of the column the mounted band began the regimental march, a gay air with plenty of trombone and kettle-drum in it, and the horses ambled and danced in sympathy, with an accompaniment of rattling carbines and clinking, clashing sabre-scabbards.
“Quelle farandole!” laughed Georges. “Are you going all the way to Berlin with us? Pst! Look! There go the Hundred-Guards! The Emperor is coming back from the front. It’s all over with the sausage-eaters, et puis — bon-soir, Bismarck!”
Far away, across the hills, the white mantles of the Hundred-Guards flashed in the sunshine, rising, falling, as the horses plunged up the hills. For a moment Jack caught a glimpse of a carriage in the distance, a carriage preceded by outriders in crimson and gold, and followed by a mass of glittering cuirassiers.
“It’s the Emperor. Listen, we are going to cheer,” cried Georges. He rose in his saddle and drew his sabre, and at the same instant a deep roar shook the regiment to its centre —
“Vive l’Empereur!”
CHAPTER X
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
IT WAS A little after noon when the regiment halted on the Saint-Avold highway, blocked in front by a train of Guard artillery, and on either flank by columns of infantry — voltigeurs, red-legged fantassins loaded with camp equipment, engineers in crimson and bluish-black, and a whole battalion of Turcos, scarlet fez rakishly hauled down over one ear, canvas zouave trousers tucked into canvas leggings that fitted their finely moulded ankles like gloves.
Jack rested patiently on his horse, waiting for the road to be cleared, and beside him sat Georges, chatting paternally with the giant standard-bearer of the Turcos. The huge fellow laughed and showed his dazzling teeth under the crisp jet beard, for Georges was talking to him in his native tongue — and it was many miles from Saint-Avold to Oran. His standard, ornamented with the “opened hand and spread fingers,” fluttered and snapped, and stood out straight in the valley breeze.
“What’s that advertisement — the hand of Providence?” cried an impudent line soldier, leaning on his musket.
“Is it the hand that spanked Bismarck?” yelled another. The Turcos grinned under their scarlet head-dresses.
“Ohé, Mustapha!” shouted the line soldiers, “Ohé, le Croissant!” and their band-master, laughing, raised his tasselled baton, and the band burst out in a roll of drums and cymbals, “Partons pour la Syrie.”
“Petite riffa!” said the big standard-bearer, beaming — which was very good French for a Kabyle.
“See here, Georges,” said Jack, suddenly, “I’ve promised to be back at Morteyn before dark, and if your regiment is going to stick here much longer I’m going on.”
“You want to send your despatches?” asked Georges. “You could ride on to Saarbrück and telegraph from there. Will you? Then hunt up the regiment later. We are to see a little of each other, are we not, old fellow?”
“Not if you’re going Prussian-hunting across the Rhine. When you come back crowned with bay and laurel and pretzels, you can stop at Morteyn.”
They nodded and clasped hands.
“Au revoir!” laughed Georges. “What shall I bring you from Berlin?”
“I’m no Herod,” replied Jack; “bring back your own feather-head safely — that’s all I ask.” And with a smile and a gay salute the young fellows parted, turning occasionally in their saddles to wave a last adieu, until Jack’s big horse disappeared among the dense platoons ahead.
For a quarter of an hour he sidled and pushed and shoved, and picked a cautious path through section after section of field artillery, seeing here and there an officer whom he knew, saluting cheerily, making a thousand excuses for his haste to the good-natured artillerymen, who only grinned in reply. As he rode, he noted with misgivings that the cannon were not breech-loaders. He had recently heard a good deal about the Prussian new model for field artillery, and he had read, in the French journals, reports of their wonderful range and flat trajectory. The cannon that he passed, with the exception of the Montigny mitrailleuses and the American gatlings, were all beautiful pieces, bronzed and engraved with crown and LN and eagle, but for all their beauty they were only muzzle-loaders.
In a little while he came to the head of the column. The road in front seemed to be clear enough, and he wondered why they had halted, blocking half a division of infantry and cavalry behind them. There really was no reason at all. He did not know it, but he had seen the first case of that indescribable disease that raged in France in 1870-71 — that malady that cannot be termed paralysis or apathy or inertia. It was all three, and it was malignant, for it came from a befouled and degraded court, spread to the government, infected the provinces, sparing neither prince nor peasant, until over the whole fair land of France it crept and hung, a fetid, miasmic effluvia, till the nation, hopeless, weary, despairing, bereft of nerve and sinew, sank under it into utter physical and moral prostration.
