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

The Baron de Neuville smiled, and shrugged his thickset shoulders.

“It is but my duty as a loyal Belgian. I cannot fight side by side with our brave men, as I certainly would if I were younger. So I will help as far as my means permit.”

And then Arnaud Rigaux, with those winds in his ears, waved his hand and descended the winding stairway to the great hall, outside which in the courtyard his fast, open car was in waiting.

Having put on his holland dust-coat, he flung himself into the bucket-seat next the driver, and then they moved away cautiously down the steep hill into the peaceful valley, where the summer twilight was fast darkening into night.

Many groups of homeless, despairing people, hauling along great packages and tramping towards an unknown bourne, were upon the road, and now and then suspicious cars passed without salute or challenge.

Once they met a patrol of Uhlans riding merrily along, big-booted fellows with lances, who chatted gaily, and who seemed to take no notice of them, knowing that in that particular area there was no opposition.

Suddenly Rigaux, who had now become very alert, remarked to the driver:

“Be careful. We are getting near Loverai, outside Charleroi.”

Before them had suddenly showed points of light from lanterns in the road, and then, a few hundred yards further on, they heard a gruff challenge in German, and a stern command to halt.

The driver drew up at once, and the car was instantly surrounded by half a dozen stalwart German outposts, their fixed bayonets shining in the headlights, demanding to know the destination of the travellers.

“To Brussels,” replied Rigaux, in German. “Here is my official permit from headquarters, signed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Meuse.”

The sentry, in his spiked helmet, examined it beneath the flickering light of a lantern held by one of his comrades, and while doing so a lieutenant strolled up and also carefully scrutinised it. Yet for the moment the motorists were under arrest.

“Herr Rigaux – eh? – and chauffeur?” the officer read. “A general secret service pass from headquarters. You are going to Brussels, I suppose?”

Arnaud Rigaux replied in the affirmative, whereupon the lieutenant gave an order and the half-dozen men drew up in the dark, clicking their heels together, and presented arms in salute.

“You are free to pass, Herr Rigaux,” said the officer. “Take the left-hand road, and you will avoid the outposts of Charleroi and get to Nivelles. Our lines are two miles farther on, but with your pass you will have no difficulty. I see that you are one of us.”

Rigaux remounted into his car, and with a merry good night they swept along the dark, wide road, which at that point ran between two rows of high poplars, which were swaying and rustling slightly in the cool night wind, so refreshing after the broiling day.

Half a dozen times the car had been challenged in as many miles, but on each occasion the permit to travel was scrutinised closely, and as they went forward they saw in the sky, on the far-off horizon, the dull, red glare of the fires of war. They had left Charleroi on their right – the town of hardware, which the Germans had now surrounded, and intended on the morrow to reduce – and had now set their faces straight for the capital.

The pass which that morning Rigaux had received, on application to the headquarters at the Hôtel Cosmopolite, in Brussels, proved an open-sesame everywhere, for it was one of those cryptic passports which the German Empire had issued to all its spies, from the lowly to the wealthy.

That small piece of grey paper, stamped, signed, and countersigned, rendered its bearer immune from arrest, and provided safe conduct everywhere. What would his friends the Belgians say, or do, if they had known he had possessed such a document?

Time after time, on that dark, straight road between Charleroi and Brussels, the car was held up by men in spiked helmets, who covered both master and chauffeur threateningly with their rifles. But sight of that paper was magical. Arnaud Rigaux was bowed to with politeness, and urged onward with cautionary words to the next post.

Brussels lay thirty miles from Charleroi. They were now within the enemy’s lines, and were passing many burnt-out cottages and villages, some of the débris of which, strewn in the roadway, still glowed red in the night. Before them, in the dark, heavy sky, showed the glare of the lights of Brussels, the gay little city which now lay crushed and invested by the Teuton invaders.

The reflection of the light was not red, as in the case of a burning town. The Germans were committing no atrocities there, for the simple reason that, in the capital, they were beneath the eyes of the representatives of neutral powers. In the country it mattered not, and could easily be denied, but in Brussels the Commander-in-Chief had decreed that all should preserve a correct attitude and present the quintessence of German “culture.”

It was nearly one o’clock in the morning when at last, Rigaux having pulled his cap over his eyes, they passed the sentries outside the station of Uccle, and were allowed to proceed down the long, straight Avenue Brugmann and the Chausée to the end of the Avenue Louise.

Half the street lamps of Brussels were out, and no one was in the streets save German sentries at the corners, acting as policemen, their fixed bayonets glinting in the brilliance of the car’s headlights. Brussels, with her Civil Guard disbanded, was in the grip of the invader, who modestly demanded eight millions as its ransom.

The car turned into the small Place Louise, past the café in the corner, and De Boek’s Hotel so long a famous “English house,” turned to the left, and then ran along the tree-lined boulevard to where Rigaux lived.

There was now no secrecy of presence of the fair-haired German naval wireless operator, for the enemy had occupied the capital. Indeed, as soon as Arnaud Rigaux arrived home he met him in the hall, and accompanied him to the room in the roof, in which was that powerful wireless plant run off the electric-light main.

The young fellow seated himself at once at his table, and, touching a Morse-key, a long blue spark was emitted and crackled across the big coil.

“Call up Nauen,” Rigaux said, his holland dust-coat not yet removed. “Give them this message: That the Baron de Neuville has consented, upon representations I have made, to negotiate the whole of the indemnity of eight millions levied upon the city of Brussels. Let me know of the acknowledgment of the receipt of the message by R.X.”

“Certainly, m’sieur,” was the operator’s reply in good French, and he began to tap out the preliminary “Da-de-Da-de-Da,” the call-signal, followed by the code-letters indicating that he wished to speak with Nauen.

Then he switched over, and adjusting his headphones to his ears, listened attentively.

Again he repeated the call, with dexterous rapidity, when, a few seconds later, he heard the answering ticks of the Telefunken near Potsdam, after which he reduced to code the significant message which Rigaux had given him for transmission, and tapped it out.

Chapter Ten.

The Hôtel de L’Épée

The quaint, old-world little town of Dinant, with its crooked cobbled streets – the resort of painters and dreamers – lay in a narrow ravine on both sides of the winding Meuse, connected by a long iron bridge. High limestone cliffs towered above the town, crowned by a good-sized but out-of-date citadel – a fort which dominated the whole country. Across the river lay the railway station, and some modern hotels, while the modern town was built upon the pleasant wooded slopes behind.

It was here that Edmond Valentin found himself with the Sixth Brigade. Five days ago they had arrived, after a forced march under the hot sun, from Gembloux, beyond Namur, and, having joined the French force which had crossed the frontier between Sedan and Givet, they were occupying the heights above the town. Indeed, from where Edmond stood on that bright, sunny morning, he could look down upon the tiny little white village of Anseremme, just beyond Dinant, the place where he had, on that memorable day before the war, lunched with Aimée so happily on the long rose-embowered terrasse beside the river, now sparkling in the sun.

Had the red tide of war yet reached high-up Sévérac, he wondered? It was not far off – perhaps fifteen miles or so beyond those blue hills. Daily – nay, hourly – he thought of her, wondering how she fared in those hot, breathless days when Belgium was fighting so desperately for her very existence as a nation.

The Sixth Brigade, under General Thalmann – the fine, grey-moustached, well-set-up man, who had been so grossly calumnified by Rigaux for his own crafty purposes – had been in the very thick of the fighting ever since that day when they had so suddenly arrived in Liège and found themselves in the firing-line. They had helped to repulse the German cavalry at Haelen, and had then fought their way desperately up to Tirlemont, to Gembloux, and back to the Meuse again. With scarce any sleep they had been in touch with the enemy practically the whole time, and were, indeed, “The Flying Column” of the Belgian army. Their losses around Charleroi had been considerable, and though so weary, dusty, and worn, not a man among them was dismayed. The spirit of the men was admirable.

General Joffré had already held council with the Belgian Commander-in-Chief, a council at which General Thalmann had been present, and from information they had gathered it was well known that the Germans intended to make an assault upon the town of Dinant, and take the citadel as one of the important and strategic points on the Meuse.

The peaceful inhabitants of the place – which, besides being a tourist centre, possessed a thriving trade in beaten brass-ware, and the making of those grotesquely-shaped cakes of honey and flour called conques, two industries which had survived in the place ever since the Middle Ages – were, of course, in ignorance, and the authorities did not deem it expedient to express their fears, in order, if possible, to avoid panic.

Edmond knew that the French army, on its way up the Meuse Valley, must have passed beneath the great old château of Sévérac. If so, Aimée must have watched those long, interminable lines of red-trousered infantry, trudging on with their piled-up haversacks, the squadrons of heavily-booted cavalry, and the snake-like processions of lumbering field-guns, motor transport wagons, and drab vans marked with the red cross.

Away across those blue hills, in the direction of France, Aimée was probably watching and waiting in patience. He longed to write to her, to send her words of hope and courage. But it was all utterly impossible. No letter could ever reach her now, unless he could find means to deliver it himself.

There was fighting in progress behind them – fierce fighting at Charleroi – for they had learnt, only an hour ago over the field-telephone, that the Germans were attacking the place, and that a big battle had already opened.

The first few hours of that hot, breathless day were hours of inactivity, welcome indeed to the hard-pressed Sixth Brigade.

Edmond’s company had piled their arms, and were lying about on the sun-scorched grass behind the citadel, smoking cigarettes and laughing as gaily as though they were at manoeuvres, when of a sudden a German Taube aeroplane, distinguishable by its shape, was seen crossing them at a great altitude, whereupon many rifles were raised at it. But it was far beyond range, and circled round and round over their camp, taking observations.

“The enemy must be near,” remarked a thin, little, dust-covered lieutenant to a brother-officer. “They intend to attack, without a doubt.”

Hardly had he spoken when the aeroplane dropped two smoke-balls, indicating the position of the defenders, and then sailed away across the hills and was lost to view.

The old fortress in front of Edmond was occupied by Belgian artillery ready for a desperate defence; but the force, though a gallant one, was, unfortunately, not large.

Another hour went by. The men were still at ease, for perhaps, after all, the enemy, with the strongly fortified town of Namur before them lower down the river, might not think Dinant worth attack.

Suddenly, however, the truth became revealed.

Somewhere over in the direction of Sévérac the enemy had taken up positions, and without warning a shell fell unexpectedly upon the railway station, narrowly missing the dock, crashing through the roof, and exploding with a crash which reverberated along the whole valley.

In a moment bugles sounded and the defenders were instantly on the alert. A second shell tore out part of the front of the Hôtel des Postes, opposite the station, and then, from the citadel the guns thundered in reply, sending shells in the direction where the grey masses of the enemy were seen to be.

To watch the battle from that height was fascinating to Edmond. Below, a French captain and a squad of couriers on motor-cycles crossed the bridge rapidly and disappeared on the road to Namur, while, in the town, a few French troops of the line regiments were marching. The inhabitants were all indoors with closed doors and shutters, most of them crowding into the cellars in fear.

Soon the cliffs resounded with rifle and gun fire, while away in the east could be heard the continual rumble of the field howitzers of the enemy. The Germans had, it seemed, also brought up several mountain-batteries along the hills.

The enemy were advancing rapidly.

The bridge was being defended strongly by the French troops, while, very soon, members of the Volunteer Hospital Corps began hurrying along the streets in search of the wounded.

In half an hour the quiet, prosperous little town where, from the bulgy slate-covered steeple of the church the bells had, for centuries, sent their sweet carillon over the river, became swept by lead. Beneath the pitiless shell-fire the houses in the narrow Rue Grande were suffering severely and, at certain spots the street were covered with falling débris, a rubble of stones and mortar mixed with articles of furniture.

Half-way down that long, narrow street, so well known to summer visitors to the Ardennes, there stood, on the left, a quaint old-fashioned little inn called the Hôtel de l’Epée – the Hotel of the Sword – one of the most ancient houses in Dinant, for it dated from the fifteenth century, and had then been part of a Franciscan Monastery. The rooms were small, with their original old oaten panelling; the floors were of great stone slabs hollowed by the feet of many generations, and though the little place was typical of the Ardennes, there was a curious medieval air about it which was genuine.

The Hotel of the Sword was kept by a stout, prosperous, red-faced old Belgian named François Mazy, who usually wore the blue linen blouse of the Ardennois. “Uncle François” was known to all Dinant, on account of his cheery good-nature and charitable disposition. And to his homely inn, each summer, went many well-known people of Brussels, because there they fared exceedingly well – Uncle François doing the cooking himself, and charging his visitors, in each of whom he took a real personal interest, only very modestly as compared with the more modern houses.

To Uncle François’ hundreds of the townspeople, men, women, and terrified children, now fled, because beneath the house, and running far under the cobbled street, were huge vaulted cellars hewn in the limestone rock – the cellars of the ancient monastery, the entrance to which had, only a few years before, been discovered behind a walled-up archway.

There, lit by flickering candles and one or two evil-smelling lamps, the great cavernous vaults of the monks of old, were filled by those poor excited and terrified people, who had taken refuge from the sudden horrors of war.

Many of them were women, anxious for their husbands’ safety, and little children with big wide-open wondering eyes, while Uncle François himself, with Marie, his stout, middle-aged daughter, moved among the crowd in that hot, stifling atmosphere, uttering cheering words in his native Walloon, and trying to comfort them.

“All will be well soon, my friends,” he declared. “It is only a skirmish.”

Meanwhile, the fight was growing hotter every moment. Edmond, with his ever-ready Maxim, had found cover behind a piece of thick, broken wall, one of the ancient earthworks of the citadel, and from there he and his men kept up a terrible rain of lead upon the oncoming Germans, who were now fighting in the Place below.

Of a sudden, a shell struck the spire of the church, blowing off part of the pumpkin-shaped top which fell into the Place with a heavy crash and clouds of dust, the beautiful bells, which had rung out there so musically for ages, coming down also.

On the long bridge, terrible fighting was now in progress. The defenders were in cover under the abutment wings of the bridge, which were about three feet high. Edmond could witness it all from where he was, three hundred feet or so above. Suddenly there was a red flash over the river, a great roar, and the air was filled with smoke and débris.

The defenders had retired suddenly and blown up the bridge across the Meuse, to prevent the enemy’s advance.

It was magnificent – yet it was terrible. On every side the town seemed to be now attacked by the enemy, who had sprung from nowhere. In the position they had taken up, the Belgian Chausseurs were barely two companies strong, and though they fought so bravely, they could see that the enemy were surely, if slowly, advancing upon the citadel.

For another hour the fearful fight went on. From behind the débris of the bridge the red-breeched French were replying gallantly to the enemy. One could hear nothing save the irregular explosions of rifles, the machine-like splutterings of the mitrailleuse punctuated by the shock of shell-fire, and now and then, on explosion which caused the earth to tremble.

Owing to the heavy firing, clouds now obscured the sun. The heavens darkened, and it began to rain, but the firing in no way abated. From where Edmond crouched behind his gun he could see what was happening below in the Place, and across beyond the blown-up bridge, which lay a mass of wreckage and twisted girders across the stream.

A sudden increase in the firing told that reinforcements had arrived, and he saw a half-company of a line regiment hurriedly enter the hotel opposite the station, expecting to find there a good field of fire. They brought with them a dozen terrified, shrieking women, whom they had found hiding in the waiting-room at the railway station.

An hour after noon the fire slackened, and the rain ceased. A few limping figures, the French in blue coats and red trousers – that unfortunately flamboyant uniform which always drew fire – staggered into the hotel, while, during the lull, a hatless woman in black calmly crossed the little Place and, quite unconcerned, dropped a card into the letter-box!

At that moment Edmond’s company heard the order to retire. Retire! Every man held his breath. Their spirits fell. Dinant had fallen, after all, notwithstanding the defence of the combined French and Belgian forces. It was hopeless. The Germans meant to crush them and to swarm over Belgium.

In perfect order the Sixth Brigade retired back, down the steep, grassy slopes behind the citadel, and within half an hour the hated German flag was, even as Edmond stood watching through his glasses a couple of miles away, hoisted over the captured citadel.

He uttered a malediction beneath his breath, and turned to hand his glasses to one of his men.

Sight of that flag was a signal for renewed fighting. Two French batteries had, happily, arrived, and having taken up a position close to them, opened fire upon the citadel from the rear. The enemy’s flag had roused the defenders to fury, and one of the first shots from the French field-guns cut the German flag right across, at which the Belgians cheered wildly to the echo. The French batteries threw their sheik upon the ancient citadel with marvellous accuracy, and the fire was heavy and incessant.

Another French line regiment arrived to reinforce the Belgians, marching gaily in those fatal red trousers of theirs, and then so smothering was their fire that, through his glasses, Edmond could see the heads of the Germans, dotting the ramparts of the fort, begin to gradually disappear.

For four long hot hours the desperate struggle continued without a moment’s cessation. The Belgians were determined to drive the enemy from their position, while the enemy were equally determined to hold it, and the slaughter on all sides became terrible. One of Edmond’s men fell forward, dead, with a bullet in his brow.

Suddenly heavier firing was heard from across the river. The French were shelling the citadel from the other side of the Meuse, and this they continued to do until, at six o’clock, a long pontoon bridge, just completed by the Germans a little higher up the river, was suddenly swept by a hail of shell and destroyed. A regiment of German infantry, who were at that moment upon it, in the act of crossing, were shattered and swept into the river, the clear waters of which became tinged with their blood. The French had waited until that moment, allowing the Germans to construct the pontoon, and had then wiped it out.

So heavy had now become the attack of the Allies upon the citadel, that not a living thing was to be seen upon the ramparts. Shell after shell fell upon them, exploding, shattering the thick masonry everywhere, and sending up columns of dense black smoke which hovered in the still evening air.

Then, of a sudden, there was a roar, and a terrific explosion of greater force than all the others before, which completely tore out one angle of the fortress, some of the heavy masonry falling with a huge crash down the hill-side into the Place below, which was already thick with dead and dying.

A great cheer sounded somewhere in French, for another fresh regiment had suddenly arrived.

Orders were swiftly given to the Sixth Brigade to re-advance, and in half an hour Edmond found that victory was theirs after all – they had retaken the fort! The German flag was hauled down and, in wrath, destroyed, and amid vociferous cheering, the Belgian red, black, and yellow tricolour was hoisted again in its place, Edmond at last regaining the position he had held in the early morning.

Looking down upon the stricken town once again, he saw at what frightful cost the fort had been retaken. That morning peace had reigned – but alas, now?

The streets and the river-banks were dotted with the dead, French, Belgian and German, lying in all sorts of contorted attitudes, the blue coats of the French infantry splashed with red, and their red trousers, alas! stained a deeper hue.

The Germans had retired away towards Namur, it was said. The fire had ceased, and some Belgian infantry – in their round caps and blue greatcoats – moving down the narrow street from the Place, were cheered lustily. But the yells of triumph died from their lips as they saw the ambulances eagerly and silently at work, and they paused at that grim, awful testimony of what war really meant.

A big grey armoured car of the French, with the muzzle of a machine-gun pointing out, tried to pass out of the town, but was unable to do so because of the bodies heaped in the streets, for the fronts of several houses were lying across the roadway. Then, at that moment, there was heard in the air, the whirr of a scouting aeroplane which, at a second’s glance, was seen to be French, observing what positions the enemy were taking up for the night.

The sun had set, and the red afterglow – that crimson light of war – was showing in the west over where lay Great Britain, the chief objective of the Kaiser and his barbaric hordes of brigands, hangmen, executioners, and fire-bugs – the men doing the bidding of that blasphemous antichrist who was daily lifting his hands to Heaven and invoking God’s blessing upon his hell-hound impieties.

In the twilight, sparks of fire were beginning to show in the shadows across the river, where the French were encamped, while below, in the town, after that thirteen hours of fierce bombardment, the Dinantais, much relieved, came forth from every cellar and every shelter to assemble in animated groups and discuss the terrible events of that never-to-be-forgotten day – a day unequalled since Charles the Bold reduced the old tower of Crève-Coeur – the Tower of the Broken Heart – opposite at Bouvignes, and the streets of the town had run with blood.