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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all, save in the devastated villages themselves, and by Monsieur Carton de Wiart, the Minister of Justice in Brussels, who was preparing an official report to present to the Powers.
The hideous atrocities perpetrated during that bloody fortnight, from August 6th to the 20th, during which the country north of Liège was being swept by fire and sword, were being hidden from the gallant little nation.
In the great high-up Château de Sévérac they only knew of them by rumour, and whenever Aimée told what she had heard over the telephone to her father sitting there so grave and morose, he always shook his head and declared that they were only wild rumours.
“The German soldiers are civilised. They do not shoot women, my dear girl,” he would always declare. The true stories of the Kaiser’s “frightful examples” — which his bloody Majesty himself admitted — had not yet been told. The Baron and his family did not know how, at Aerschot, the male inhabitants who crossed their thresholds were seized and shot under the eyes of their wives and children; how poor Monsieur Thielemans, the Burgomaster, and his fifteen-year-old son, with a dozen prominent citizens, were set up against a wall and shot, and their bodies cast unceremoniously into a hole. They knew not how young girls, and even little children, had been raped at Orsmael; how wounded Belgian soldiers were tied to telegraph poles and shot; how, constantly, Red Cross waggons bearing doctors and wounded were deliberately fired upon; or how these Teuton apostles of “kultur” had actually mounted machine-guns in their own Red Cross vans and fired at the unsuspecting! Of the awful scenes in St. Trond, Velm, and Haelen, rumour only gave the faintest outline, which was dismissed as imaginary and without foundation.
Alas! however, it was the bitter and terrible truth. Abominable deeds were committed not only in those places, but at Sempst men had their arms and hands cut off; at Corbeek Loo women and girls were bayoneted; at Seraing the blood-guilty ruffians massacred several hundred people, and in more than one village terrified women were made to pass in front of machine-guns amid the laughter of the drunken German soldiers and their threats to blow them out of existence at any moment.
Was it any wonder that many poor wretches went stark mad with terror?
Over this stricken country, between Liège and Louvain, towards Brussels, the “Flying Column” were fighting — struggling along bravely from day to day against the most fearful odds.
While Aimée sat, hour after hour in silence, watching and wondering, Edmond with his Maxim was doing terrible execution. Yet of what use was it all? They were being gradually driven back towards Brussels, compelled to leave the villagers to their fate.
The roads were crowded by homeless men, women, and children, poor wretched people who had watched their homes sacked and burnt. For years they had been thrifty, and saved until they could live in quiet comfort, still working hard. Yet in one short fortnight all had gone from them; all they now possessed was piled into a wheelbarrow, perambulator, or cart, or else carried in a sack upon their backs.
The scenes on that wide, open main road leading through Louvain and Tirlemont to Brussels, a well-kept highway, lined in places by tall poplars, were enough to cause one’s heart to bleed.
Edmond looked upon them with a sigh. Beneath the pitiless sun the never-ceasing crowd moved westward, driven on by the advancing German army. All sorts of ramshackle vehicles were mixed up in the slowly moving mass of humanity who were tramping their way, day and night, on and on to some place of safety — where, they knew not — Brussels, Antwerp, or to Ghent, Ostend, or perhaps the sea. The iron of despair was in their souls.
Such a human tide as this, naturally, hampered the Belgian army severely. Weary, footsore, and sad-eyed, many old persons fainted by the wayside, and those who were friendless were left there to die. Everybody was thinking of his or her own family. They had no time for sympathy with others. Most of them were dressed in their best clothes — in order to save them — and all had fearful tales to tell of the behaviour of the Uhlans. Many of those poor, red-eyed, hatless women in black had seen their husbands, brothers, sons, or lovers shot down before their eyes. Some had been falsely accused of firing at the troops; some had simply been seized by drunken, laughing soldiers; some had been questioned by swaggering German officers, others had not. With all, trial or no trial, the end was the same — death.
And their corpses had been left to rot where they fell, and the village fired by those little black cubes of a highly inflammable chemical substance, which the brutes carried with them for that one purpose.
The fog of war was over everything.
“It is not warfare, father,” declared Aimée one evening, as she sat with her parents in a big, handsome salon, wherein the last blood-red light of the fiery afterglow was fast fading. “It is massacre. They have just told me, over the telephone, of fearful things that have happened in Aerschot. The Germans have wrecked the beautiful church, smashed the holy statues, desecrated the crucifix, and stabled their horses there. And these are the troops upon whom the Kaiser is beseeching God’s blessing. It is all too awful for words!”
“Yes, child,” replied the grey-haired Baroness, looking up from her embroidery — for in these days of excitement she tried to occupy her mind with her needlework. “The Kaiser respects neither the laws of nations, nor the laws of Almighty God, Whose aid he asks. His evil deeds cry aloud to Heaven, and to us who, horror-struck, are watching.”
“The Emperor is carrying out the policy, which I read yesterday in the Indépendance, advocated by Bismarck,” said the Baron. “The Iron Chancellor laid it down, as a maxim, that true strategy consisted in hitting the enemy hard, and in inflicting on the inhabitants of invaded towns the maximum of suffering, so that they might bring pressure upon their Government to discontinue it. He is declared to have said: ‘You must leave the people through whom you march only their eyes to weep with.’”
“The inhuman brute!” ejaculated the Baroness. “But our dear Belgium will never sue for peace.”
“Never,” declared the Baron fiercely, rising and passing to the window, an erect, refined figure. “We have the British on our side. They will quickly wipe the Germans from the seas, and then come here to our assistance. The speech of Asquith in the House of Commons shows their intentions. Besides, have we not Russia — a colossal power in Europe when she commences to move? So we may rest assured that for every evil and unwarrantable act committed upon our soil, ample vengeance will be exacted when the Cossacks are let loose upon our friends of Berlin.”
“They say that at Liège and in other places, German spies have been discovered,” Aimée remarked. “I hear that at the entrance to Liège, the German soldiers were actually met by spies — hitherto respectable inhabitants of the place — who acted as their guides through the city, and pointed out the principal buildings and the residences of the rich.”
“Exaggerated stories,” declared the Baron. “I do not believe in the existence of German spies in Belgium.”
“But they have arrested many both in Brussels and Antwerp.”
“Spy-mania seems to arise in every war,” was his reply.
“But Germany has been long preparing. Her spies are said to be everywhere,” declared the girl with emphasis. “No game is too low or despicable for the enemy to play, it seems.”
At that moment the liveried footman entered and, bowing, announced to the Baron:
“Monsieur Rigaux has arrived.”
“Ah! show him in. He may have news,” cried his master, eagerly.
Next moment the thin-faced, dark-haired man, wearing a smart grey suit and yellow gloves, came forward all smiles and graces, as he bowed low over the Baroness’s hand and then over Aimée’s.
“Well, my dear Arnaud?” the Baron commenced anxiously. “What is the latest from the front? Have you motored from Brussels?”
“Yes. And the news is disquieting — distinctly disquieting. Max, the Burgomaster, is already taking precautions in anticipation of the occupation of the capital by the enemy. Our troops are evacuating the city.”