THE TRENCH DAYS: The Collected War Tales of William Le Queux (WW1 Adventure Sagas, Espionage Thrillers & Action Classics). William Le Queux
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hebt gelyk,” (You are right), muttered the man, panting beneath his load — the barrel of the Maxim strapped across his shoulder.
“Ik stem geheel met U!” (I quite agree with you), murmured another of the men in his soft, musical Flemish. “We will never surrender to those brigands! Never, while there is breath left in us. They are assassins, not soldiers!”
They marched forward along the wide, dark, dusty road, safe from the enemy’s fire at that point because of the rising ground between them and the winding, peaceful valley of the Ourthe.
In their faces stood Liège, five miles distant. They were moving forward, still in high spirits. Many of the men were whistling to themselves as they marched, sturdy and undaunted. The Eighth Chasseurs was one of the first regiments of King Albert, all men of splendid bravery, and of finer physique than the average Belgian.
From Liège came still the continuous boom of artillery, for the forts untaken were keeping up a regular fire, and the enemy, it was known, were sustaining terrible losses both night and day.
The forts, built in a ring in the environs of the city, were safe enough. But not so the town. The Germans, aided by their swarms of spies in the place, had made a dozen attempts to take it during the past forty-eight hours, but had always been repulsed.
They had resorted to every ruse. One party of Germans had dressed themselves in British uniforms — whence they obtained them nobody has ever known — and on entering the town were at once welcomed enthusiastically as allies. But, fortunately, the ruse was discovered when one was overheard to speak in German, and all were promptly shot. Then another party appeared as Belgian Red Cross men, and they, on being discovered to be enemies, shared a similar fate: they were shot in the Place Cockerill. The Germans had requested an armistice for twenty-four hours to bury their dead. This, however, was refused, because it was well known that the big Krupp howitzers — “the German surprise to Europe” — were being brought up, each drawn by forty horses, and that the cessation of hostilities asked for was really craved in order to gain time to get these ponderous engines of destruction into position.
As they were marching, the moon again shone out over the doomed city of Liège, when of a sudden Edmond saw over it, in the sky, three black points which immediately changed into a light cloud, and soon flames were rising from the town. The Germans were now firing petrol-shells upon the place!
They gained a small village called Angleur, a quaint little whitewashed place, over which shot and shell had swept for the past three days, until the villagers now took no notice. Here generous hearts offered comfort to the tired soldiers, jugs of fresh milk and bread were brought out though it was the middle of the night.
But they had no time to accept those gifts.
Presently they met some terrified people — men, women, and children — fleeing from outside Liège, carrying bundles, all they could save from their wrecked homes.
“The Germans are in the wood!” they cried.
Before them lay a blazing village.
Edmond’s captain gave an order to halt, and they drew up. Then they saw the disappearance into the red furnace of entire companies, and soon afterwards the stretchers and ambulance corps following each other in quick succession told them of the splendid heroism of their glorious defenders.
Again they went forward, every man’s mouth hard-set and determined, yet in some cases with a grim joke upon their lips, for they resolved to defend the lives of their dearly-loved ones, and to account for as many of the enemy as they could.
“For God and Belgium?” shouted one man, a stout private from Malines, who had lost his shako and his kit.
Then they all ran to death with but little hope left in them. Such an illustration of bravery had been rare in this present century.
The remembrance of the Almighty, shouted by that fat private, had an effect upon the religious men in the ranks, officers and privates alike, and in that red glare of war, with blood showing in the very sky, they dashed on with renewed hope and a spirit of splendid patriotism unbroken.
They took cover in an orchard and, pulling down the hedges frantically, soon saw, descending from the hill on their right, the batteries and remains of their own much-tested regiments.
Stretchers were taken up to the woods on the left, and soon came down again with the wounded. Edmond’s “Flying Column” was protecting the transport of these “braves,” but an order was shouted that they had to withdraw away up on to the plateaux. Then they rushed to the fort of Flémalle, where they took up fighting positions. But the Germans did not want to make another attempt. The mission of the Eighth Chasseurs was over. Three hours later they moved forward again. The forts would now defend their position in the campaigning army.
Such was a typical night of the defence of Liège.
Chapter Eight
The Double Face
At the Château de Sévérac the hot, fevered days were passing but slowly.
Aimée and the Baroness were still there, and now they had been joined by the Baron, who had in Brussels been assured that the enemy would respect the houses of the rich, and that at his splendid home, perched high on that rock above the Meuse, they would have nothing to fear. Rigaux, indeed, had declared to his friend that at the château they would be far safer than in any of the towns, which might be invested or bombarded — safer even than in Brussels itself.
Hence they had remained there, full of hourly anxiety as to what really would be the outcome of it all.
The Baron de Neuville had suggested that his wife and Aimée should flee to England. But while Aimée felt that so long as she remained in Belgium she might at least have a chance of seeing Edmond very soon, the Baroness, on her part, refused to leave her husband’s side, while he, in his responsible position as financial adviser to the Government, could not leave Belgium.
From time to time they received scraps of terrifying news over the telephone from Brussels. Aimée, indeed, each hour rang up her father’s secretary in Brussels, and listened to the latest news from the scene of the fighting.
But, alas! it was a tale of repeated disaster, until she became sick at heart. Of the whereabouts of the Eighth Chasseurs she could glean nothing. She had heard nothing whatsoever of them since they passed through Liège on their way to the front. For aught she knew, they might have shared the same fate as that of other regiments, or been swept out of existence by the terrible fire of the enemy’s machine-guns.
Often she would step out upon the balcony which led from her own room and gave such a wonderful panorama of river and woods, and there she would listen attentively.
Sometimes she fancied she could hear the far-distant booming of the guns. And yet the world about her, warm and sunlit, without a cloud in the brilliant summer sky, seemed so very peaceful. The birds sang merrily, and the peasants, undisturbed after the first days of war, were now garnering in the yellow corn.
The first panic of war had passed, and the dull-eyed Walloons, who composed the major part of the population in that district, clattered along in their wooden sabots and declared that the enemy were going straight on towards Brussels. They would never come near them.
They were unaware as yet of the frightful deeds being done beyond Liège in those warm summer days, acts of merciless savagery and every refinement of cruelty which degenerate minds, filled with the blood-lust of war, could conceive. They knew not of the dastardly practice, made by the Kaiser’s “cultured” troops, of placing before them innocent women and children to act as a living screen, in the hope that the Allies would not, from motives of humanity, fire upon them.
The whole world was being thrilled and shocked by the unspeakable acts of these blonde beasts who, at the behest of their arrogant Kaiser, had