At the Sign of the Sword: A Story of Love and War in Belgium

When serving before with the Chasseurs he had been in charge of a machine-gun, and hence was thoroughly familiar with its mechanism. Therefore, quite calmly, as though no fight were in progress, he quickly unscrewed the parts, discovered that a pin was bent and knocked it straight, and within five minutes the pom-pom was again pouring forth, its rain of lead sweeping to and fro across the railway line opposite.

Suddenly, with a roar and flash, another earthquake occurred. The air instantly became filled with black acrid smoke and flying fragments of shell from one of the enemy’s howitzers beyond the hills, and at that moment the trench became a perfect inferno, for deadly shells were falling upon it, and dozens of Edmond’s comrades were being maimed or killed on every hand.

As the smoke cleared slightly he bent again to sight the gun, when his eye caught the bridge below, whereon the dastardly enemy had placed that vanload of brave Belgians as a parti-coloured screen.

Just as he looked, he saw a shell, fired deliberately by a German gunner, strike the van, explode, and next second there remained only a heap of wreckage, among which the twenty poor fellows who had been imprisoned in it were lying heaped, dead and dying, some of them shattered out of all recognition.

“The murderers!” cried Edmond, while his men, who also noticed what had happened, loudly cursed the ruthless barbarians with whom they now found themselves confronted.

Bang! The explosion was deafening. Edmond again felt the concussion where he was crouching. It knocked his shako aside, and for a second he believed he had been hit. Yet, by a miracle, he was unharmed.

Next second an order was shouted – the order to retire!

The Germans, now using their artillery and shelling the Belgian trenches, were advancing. They were crossing the bridge below, and a pontoon section had already begun its work under fire.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Shells were falling thickly now. Their defence had, alas! been all in vain. Edmond heard the order shouted in Flemish.

“Vlucht! Vlucht!” shouted the lieutenant. Edmond stood for a second like a man in a dream. The earth everywhere was being whipped by bullets.

Then he directed his men to dismantle the gun and, two others helping, each quickly shouldering a piece, the little party made off with the Chasseurs over the crest of the hill and down the other side, leaving behind them, alas! many hundreds of their poor comrades.

Bang! Yet another shell fell, rending a great hole in the trench at the very spot where, only a few moments before, Edmond Valentin’s gun had been standing.

Chapter Seven.

In the Eagle’s Claws

Two days later the Sixth Brigade, to which the Eighth Chasseurs belonged, had been christened by the men “The Flying Column,” for it had been designed to support the other brigades in action. Since their retreat from the Meuse, Edmond Valentin had marched with his regiment hither and thither; marched until he was footsore, with few intervals of rest, sometimes engaging the enemy, and then moving forward again to some new position, blindly, but with the knowledge that it was upon some general, previously conceived plan.

War is truly a strange experience. The mere man in the fighting-line shoots in a trench, lies low, smokes a cigarette and chaffs his comrades, shoots again, then advances – or retreats, as the case may be. Rumours pass from mouth to mouth of success or of defeat; he knows not which is the truth. Retire or advance, what does it matter? If one retires it is for strategic purposes; if one advances it does not mean victory. Edmond Valentin, sous-officier of infantry, was but a mere little pawn in that colossal game of world-power.

They had made a great détour around Liège, behind the forts of Lanlin, Loncin, and Flémalle, and as the fighting had now become intense near Fort Boncelles, they had been called up to assist the attacked brigade.

It was night when they reached the little village of Esneux, prettily situated on the river. On the previous day the place had been occupied by the Germans under Von Emmich, but the big guns from Boncelles had been turned upon them, and the Bavarians had been compelled to evacuate the place, not, however, before they had driven out the poor frightened inhabitants and sacked it. But the heavy shell-fire from the Boncelles fort had wrecked the town and set fire to it, so that when the Chasseurs arrived they found it only a heap of still smoking ruins.

About nine o’clock that evening Edmond’s company took up a position in a dark wood close to an old ruined château above the burnt-out village, but presently, with about thirty others, he was ordered out to the edge of the wood where the highroad ran to Liège. Once there, every one of them was left to his own thoughts, and Edmond, having fixed his gun in position in a ditch well covered behind a wall, sat back with his men, lit a cigarette and reflected.

He was thinking of Aimée, as he thought of her always every hour, wondering whether she had fled from Belgium, now that invasion was an accomplished fact. That day the wildest rumours had reached them – rumours of German successes everywhere, save at Liège. It was declared, from mouth to mouth, that the French had been driven back all along the line, and that the enemy were already marching through Holland on to Antwerp – German-made lies which were, later on, proved to have been circulated to create panic.

As they waited there, gazing anxiously across the river where blood-red glares showed away in the distance – farms and homesteads fired deliberately by the Uhlans – the moon rose brightly in the clear sky. Now and then could be heard the distant rumble of heavy artillery, while at infrequent intervals the forts of Embourg across the river and Boncelles on their left roared forth, showing sharp, angry flashes in the night.

Close by where Edmond had taken up his position was a small stone-built hut, roofless and in ruins; but upon its walls he noticed that a big white paper had been pasted.

He strode up to it, and in the moonlight examined it. The poster was one of the enemy’s proclamations which had been printed in Berlin in readiness months before, and he read as follows:

AU PEUPLE BELGE!

C’est à mon plus grand regret que les troupes Allemandes se voient forcées de franchir la frontière de la Belgique. Elles agissant sous la contrainte d’une nécessité inévitable la neutralité de la Belgique ayant été déjà violée par des officiers français qui, sous un déguisement, aient traversé le territoire belge en automobile pour pénétrer en Allemagne.

Belges! C’est notre plus grand désir qu’il y ait encore moyen d’éviter un combat entre deux peuples qui étaient amis jusqu’à présent, jadis même allies. Souvenez vous au glorieux jour de Waterloo où c’étaient les armes allemandes qui ont contribué à fonder et établir l’indépendance et la prospérité de votre patrie.

Mais il nous faut le chemin libre. Des destructions de ponts, de tunnels, de voies ferrées devront être regardées comme des actions hostiles. Belges, vous avez à choisir.

J’espère donc que l’Armée allemande de la Meuse ne sera pas contrainte de vous combattre. Un chemin libre pour attaquer celui qui voulait nous attaquer, c’est tout ce que nous désirons.

Je donne des garanties formelles à la population belge qu’elle n’aura rien a souffrir des horreurs de la guerre; que nous payerons en monnayé les vivres qu’il faudra prendre du pays; que nos soldats se montreront les meilleurs amis d’un peuple pour lequel nous éprouvons la plus haute estime, la plus grand sympathie.

C’est de votre sagesse et d’un patriotisme bien compris qu’il dépend d’éviter à votre pays les horreurs de la guerre.

Le Général Commandant en Chef l’Armée de la Meuse!

Von Emmich.

It was a proclamation which was now posted everywhere, not only in the districts occupied by the Germans, but it had also been secretly affixed to walls by spies in Liège, Louvain, Charleroi, and even in Brussels itself. By it, the Germans were hoping to secure the allegiance of the Belgian people.

While this proclamation expressed regret that the German troops found themselves obliged to cross the Belgian frontier, it pointed out that only necessity compelled them to do so because French officers had violated Belgian territory by crossing from France into Germany by motor-cars. A poor excuse surely for the burning and sacking of all those little undefended frontier towns – Visé, Argenteau, Soumagne, Poulseur, and the rest.

“Belgians?” it went on. “It is our great desire that there may still be means to avoid a combat between two peoples who were friends until now, and were formerly even allies. Remember the glorious day of Waterloo, where fought the German armies who contributed to found and establish the independence and prosperity of your country.

“But we must have an open road. Any destruction of bridges, tunnels, or railways must be regarded as hostile actions. Belgians, it is for you to choose!

“I hope, then, that the German army of the Meuse will not be compelled to wage war with you. An open way to attack those who wish to attack us: that is all we desire.

“I give these formal guarantees to the Belgian population: that it will suffer nothing from the horrors of war; that we will pay in gold for the provisions that we find necessary to take from your country; that our soldiers will show themselves to be the best friends of a people for whom we cherish the highest esteem and the greatest sympathy.

“By your wisdom and patriotism, which we fully recognise, your country will be spared the horrors of war.

“General Commander-In-Chief of the Army of the Meuse, —

“Von Emmich.”

And yet the poor inhabitants of Visé had been outraged and shot by the Kaiser’s unrestrained savages! In all those villages lying across the rippling Ourthe and the broad Meuse, the treatment of the inoffensive civilians had been ruthless and merciless. Removal from the face of the earth – a favourite phrase of the Germans themselves – was, from the first, the invader’s idea of how best to deal with the unarmed, unoffending villagers, the only crime of whose hard-working people was that they had fallen in the path of the blasphemous Prussian militarism.

A private who was reading the proclamation remarked to Edmond:

“What trickery – eh? I hear that the Uhlans yesterday shot the Burgomaster of Esneux, over yonder, and propped his body against a wall all day as a warning – because he had carried a revolver. Thirty men were afterwards shot in the Place without any trial whatever, and women and children were outraged and bayoneted and their bodies flung into the river. Our women, they say, are being treated infamously, and all the possessions of the villagers are being destroyed. May God curse those Germans!”

“Yes,” replied the sous-officier, and as he turned away with a sigh a red light behind the hill gradually appeared, and then quickly grew brighter. “There is another village on fire, over there. I suppose the Uhlans will drive our people to reprisals so that excuse for further cruelty may be found.”

“And yet they post up this proclamation!” cried the man in Flemish, and with the point of his bayonet he succeeded in tearing holes in the notice, and eventually mutilated and obliterated it, saying:

“Death to the Alboches! Death to the Kaiser’s murderers and brigands! After all, the Emperor who makes war upon women and children is only a brigand, just like those in Sicily. Surely a prize should be offered for his head!”

Just as the man spoke they both saw, in the distance, sudden little red flashes, which told that the troops were vomiting death upon the enemy again, so they dashed back to their ditch, while in the trees above them could already be heard the “phit” of the enemy’s bullets as they struck the branches.

Ere a few moments the order was given to fire, and quickly Edmond’s pom-pom again began its regular spitting of death, whilst on the flank their invisible batteries also opened fire with destructive shrapnel.

The night grew darker, and the moon became, for a time, obscured behind a bank of swiftly-drifting cloud. In the distance the fires lit up the battle scene with a red, sinister glare, while, far away upon the hills on the right, could be seen moving masses of Belgian soldiers, a Dantean vision of hell, and whilst the men lay in their shallow ditch firing away with monotonous regularity, bullets were whistling past, striking the trees, or flattening themselves with muffled noise in the earth.

The fight was a hot one. In front were the millions of the Kaiser, oncoming like a great irresistible tide, yet the gallant little Belgian army, which for years had been jeered at by every Frenchman, soldier or civilian, as a comic-opera force, were defending their country in a manner so patriotic and desperate that it held the whole world in surprise.

Confronted by a big and arrogant Empire, which for years had laid its cunningly-devised plots for their destruction, the Belgian army stood undaunted, and meant to strive on and defend their soil until France and Great Britain could come to their aid.

That the Germans should never take Belgium had been resolved in the hearts of all King Albert’s subjects, while His Majesty himself, in the uniform of a private of infantry, was daily in the trenches, and often spoke quiet, homely words of encouragement to private and general alike. The whole army knew how, two days before, he had been in the trenches at Herstal, and had given private soldiers cigarettes with his own hands. In some cases he had not, at first, been recognised, dressed in a shabby, dusty uniform, just like themselves.

But he was a king – a king eventually without a country – and his name will for ever go down in history as a wonderful example of self-denial, personal bravery, and of human sympathy with his crushed and desolated nation.

Suddenly, while Edmond was commanding his gun, a shrapnel burst just behind him. A bullet struck his water-bottle, and a splinter passing through it the water ran out down his leg. But at the same moment another bullet struck in the head a man to whom he was giving an order and he fell heavily forward on his face – dead.

In a moment the place seemed swept by lead. Two or three shells fell in quick succession, the enemy having apparently advanced to a long copse just across the river-bank.

“The brutes have occupied Esneux again, I believe,” remarked a man close by.

Away on the crest of one of the hills a small but very bright light showed. It was flashing in Morse code. A signaller quite near read it aloud.

“The enemy!” he shouted. “The message is in German!”

Yet they still plugged away with their rifles, undaunted at the enemy’s advance. The forts were speaking more frequently now, and continually the very earth trembled beneath the great crashes of modern artillery of the Brailmont system of defence.

Along that dark line of low hills was seen constant flashing in the blackness; storm clouds had arisen to obscure the moon, and rain was now threatening. The whole sky was now a deep, angry red, with patches of crimson heightening and dying down – the reflections of the inferno of war. The noise was deafening, and on every hand the gallant defenders were sustaining heavy losses.

Of a sudden, before indeed they were aware of it, the whole edge of the wood became lit up by an intense white brilliance, so dazzling that one could not discern anything in front. A thousand headlights of motor-cars seemed to be there focussed into one. The Germans had turned one of their great field searchlights upon them, and a second later shells fell and burst in all directions in the vicinity.

Handicapped by want of such modern appliances, the Belgians were unable to retaliate. They could only remain there, in the actual zone of the enemy’s pitiless fire. Dozens of brave men fell shattered or dead amid that awful whirlwind of bullets and fragments of steel, as slowly the long ray of intense light moved along the line, searching for its prey, followed by the enemy’s artillery which never failed to keep up a pitiless, relentless fire, with wonderful accuracy for a night engagement.

From end to end swept that white line of brilliancy; then slowly – very slowly – it came back again, causing the men to lie flat upon their stomachs and wait in breathless anxiety until it had passed. Time after time that long, shallow trench which was, after all, only a ditch, for no opportunity had been afforded for military engineering – was swept by both light and fire from end to end, and each time Edmond’s comrades were being placed hors de combat. That the situation was critical, he knew. Yet not a single man stood dismayed. Their Mausers crackled with just the same regularity, and, thanks to the fine spirit of his men, his pom-pom continued to rain lead upon the trenches of Von Emmich’s walls of men across the river.

At last the “retire” was sounded. The position had by this time become quite untenable. Edmond Valentin bit his nether lip. The same order always. They retired, but never advanced. For them, the Teuton tide seemed utterly overwhelming. Yet their spirit was never broken. The Belgian is ever an optimist.

Surely Belgium would never fall beneath the Kaiser’s rule, to be ground under his iron heel and smashed by that “mailed fist” which had so long been the favourite joke of the great caricaturists of Europe.

Impossible!

With alacrity the Maxim was dismounted, and with calm orderliness the retirement was commenced at a moment when that annoying searchlight had turned its attention to the right flank, and the great white beam lay full upon it.

They were to withdraw towards Liège, first retiring into the wood.

“Wat sullen wy doen?” (what is to be done?) asked one of Edmond’s men in Flemish – the thickset man who had read the proclamation.

“Our general knows best, my comrade,” Edmond reassured him in his own language. “This may be only a strategic move. We shall sweep them off our soil before long – depend upon it.”

“Gy 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.