"Yes."
"Do you want money?"
"We have plenty."
"Farewell, then, and may G.o.d protect you!"
"Is there no chance of nearing the British force?" was Dalroy"s final and almost despairing question.
"Not the least. You would be following on the heels of a quick-moving and victorious army. Progress is slower toward the coast. You have a fighting chance that way, none the other. Good-bye, monsieur."
"Good-bye, best of friends!"
The sudden collapse of Namur, and the consequent failure of the Anglo-French army"s initial scheme, had served to alter this shrewd man"s opinion completely. His confidence was gone, his nerve shaken. The pressure of the jack-boot was heavy upon him. Dalroy was certain that he walked away with a furtive haste, being in mortal fear lest the people he had helped so greatly might put forth some additional request which he dared not grant.
Next morning they left the priory grounds separately, and strolled into the town, keeping some fifty yards apart. It was only after a struggle that Jan Maertz relinquished the notion of trying to see Leontine before going from Huy, but the others convinced him that he might imperil both the girl and their benefactors. As matters stood, her greatest danger must have nearly vanished by this time; it would be a lamentable thing if her lover were arrested, and it became known that he had visited the villa.
They crossed the river on pontoons. The Germans were already rebuilding the stone bridge. They seemed to have men to spare for everything. That the bridge was being actually rebuilt, and not made practicable by timber-work only, impressed Dalroy more forcibly than any other fact gleaned during his Odyssey in a Belgium under German rule. There was no thought of relinquishing the occupied territory, no hint of doubt that it might be wrested from their clutch in the near future. He noticed that the post-office, the railway station, the parcels vans, even the street names, were Germanised. He learnt subsequently that the schools had been taken over by German teachers, while the mere sound of French in a shop or public place was scowled at if not absolutely forbidden.
There were not many troops on the roads, but crowded troop-trains pa.s.sed on both sides of the Meuse, and ever in the same direction. Two long hospital trains came from the south-west, and Dalroy knew what _that_ meant. Another long train of closed wagons, heavily laden, as a panting engine testified, perplexed him, however. He spoke of it to Maertz, the three being on the road in company as they climbed the hill to Heron, and the carter promptly sought information from a farmer.
The man eyed them carefully. "Where are you from?" he demanded in true Flemish.
"What has that to do with it?" grinned Maertz, in the same _patois_.
The questioner was satisfied. He jerked a thumb toward the French frontier. "Dead uns!" he said. "They"re killing Germans like flies down yonder. They can"t bury them--haven"t time--so they tie the corpses together, slinging four on a pole for easy handling, ship them to Germany, and chuck them into furnaces."
"So," guffawed Maertz, "the swine know where they are going then!"
To Dalroy"s secret amazement, Irene, who understood each word, laughed with the others. Campaigning had not coa.r.s.ened, but it had undeniably hardened her nature. A month ago she would have shuddered at sight of these dun trucks, with their ghastly freight. Now, so long as they only contained Germans, she surveyed them with interest.
"Allowing forty bodies to one wagon," she said, "there are over a thousand dead men in that train alone."
The farmer spat approval. "I"ve been busy, and have missed some; but that"s the tenth lot which has gone east this morning," he remarked cheerfully.
"Is the road to Nivelles fairly open?" Dalroy ventured to inquire.
"One never knows. Anyhow, always give the next village as your destination. If doubtful, travel by night."
This counsel was well meant. In the silent bitterness of hours yet to come, Dalroy recalled it, and wished he had profited by it.
Roughly speaking, they had set out on a fifty miles" tramp, which the men could have tackled in two days, or less. But the presence of Irene lowered the scale, and Dalroy apportioned matters so that twelve miles daily formed their programme, with, as the _entrepreneurs_ say, power to increase or curtail. Thus, that first afternoon, the date being September 2nd, they pulled up at Gembloux, quite a small place, finding supper and beds in a farm beyond the village.
Next day they pushed ahead through Nivelles, and entered the forest of Soignies, that undulating woodland on which Wellington depended for the protection of a dangerous flank during the unavoidable retreat to the coast if Napoleon had beaten the British army at Waterloo.
Dalroy explained the Iron Duke"s strategy to Irene as they paced a road which provides an ideal walking tour.
"That a General was not worth his salt who did not secure the track of his army if defeated was one of his fixed principles," he said. "He would never depart from it, and his dispositions at Waterloo were based on it. In fact, his solicitude in that respect nearly caused a row between him and Blucher."
"Let me see," mused the girl aloud. "The Germans have never fought the British in modern times until this war."
"That is correct."
"And how far away is Mons?"
Dalroy smiled at the thought which had evidently occurred to her.
"We are now just half-way between Mons and Waterloo. Each is about ten miles distant."
"We were allied then with the Belgians, Germans, and Russians against the French. Now we have joined the Belgians, French, and Russians against the Germans. It sounds like counting in a game of cribbage. A hundred years from to-day our combination may be with the Belgians, Germans, and French against the Russians."
"You mustn"t even hint treason against our present Allies," he laughed.
"What are Allies? Of what avail are treaties? You men have mismanaged things woefully. It is high time women took a lead in governing."
"Awful! I do verily believe you are a suffragette."
"I am. During what periods has England been greatest? In the reigns of Elizabeth and Victoria."
"Why leave out poor Queen Anne?"
"She was a very excellent woman. As soon as she came to the throne she declared her resolution "not to follow the example of her predecessors in making use of a few of her subjects to oppress the rest." The common people don"t err in their estimate of rulers, and they knew what they were about in christening her "Good Queen Anne.""
"Now I"m sure."
"Sure of what?"
"You have never told me what you were doing in Berlin."
"You haven"t asked me," she broke in.
"Did it matter? I----"
Irene"s intuition warned her that this harmless chatter had swung round with lightning rapidity to a personal issue. Sad to relate, she had not washed her face or hands for eleven days, so a blush told no tales; but she interrupted again rather nervously, "What is it you are sure of?"
"You must have been a governess-companion in some German family of position. I can foresee a trying future. I must brush up my dates, or lose caste forever. Isn"t there a doggerel jingle beginning:
"In fifty-five and fifty-four Came Caesar o"er to Britain"s sh.o.r.e?
"If I learn it, it may save me many a trip."
"Here, you two," growled Jan Maertz, "talk a language a fellow can understand."
The road was deserted save for themselves, and the others had unconsciously spoken English. Dalroy turned to apologise to their rough but trusty friend, and thus missed the quizzical and affectionate glance which Irene darted at him. She was still smiling when next he caught her eye.
"What is it now?" he asked.
"I was thinking how difficult it is to see a wood for the trees," she replied.