"Well, I"m--beg pardon, sir, but are you the Lieutenant Dalroy who rode the winner of the Civil Service Cup?"
"Yes, the Maharajah of Chutneypore"s Diwan."
"Good enough! You understand, sir, I _had_ to ask. Will you take command, sir?"
"No indeed, corporal. I shall only humbly advise. But we must rescue the lady."
"I heard and saw all that pa.s.sed, sir. The Germans are mounted. The lady"s in the car. We were watching through a hole in the roof. The last man remained there so as to warn us if any of "em came this way. As you know their lingo, sir, I recommend that when we creep out you tell "em to dismount. They"ll do it like a shot. Then we"ll rush "em. Here"s the officer"s pistol. _You_ might take care of the shuffer and the chap by his side."
"Excellent, corporal. Just one suggestion. Let half of your men steal round to the rear, whether or not the troopers dismount. They should be headed off from Oombergen, the village near here, where they have two squadrons."
"Right, sir.--Smithy, take the left half-section, and cut off the retreat on the left.--Ready, sir?--Douse that glim!"
Out went the torch. Fourteen shadows flitted forth into the darkness and rain. The car, with its staring head-lights, was drawn up about thirty yards away, and somewhat to the left. On both sides and in rear were grouped the hussars, men and horses looming up in spectral shapes. The raindrops shone like tiny shafts of polished steel in the two cones of radiance cast by the acetylene lamps.
Dalroy, miraculously become a soldier again, saw instantly that the troopers were cloaked, and their carbines in the buckets. He waited a few seconds while "Smithy" and his band crept swiftly along the wall of the barn. Then, copying to the best of his ability the shrill yell of a German officer giving a command, he shouted, "Squad--dismount!"
He was obeyed with a clatter of accoutrements. He ran forward. Not knowing the "system" perfected by the "lucky thirteen," he looked for an irregular volley at close range, throwing the hussars into inextricable confusion. But not a rifle was fired until some seconds after he himself had shot and killed or seriously wounded the chauffeur and the escort.
For all that, thirteen hussars were already out of action. The men who had crossed Belgium from Mons had learnt to depend on the bayonet, which never missed, and was silent and efficacious.
The affair seemed to end ere it had well begun. Only two troopers succeeded in mounting their plunging horses, and they, finding the road to Oombergen barred, tried to bolt westward, whereupon they were bowled over like rabbits. Their terrified chargers, after scampering wildly a few paces, trotted back to the others. Not one of the twenty got away.
Hampered by their heavy cloaks, and taken completely by surprise, the hussars offered hardly any resistance, but fell cursing and howling. As for the pair seated in front of the car, they never knew why or how death came.
"Now, then, Smithy, show a light!" shouted Corporal Bates. "Ah! there you are, sir! I meant to make sure of _this_ chap. I got him straight off."
The torch revealed Corporal Franz stretched on his back, and frothing blood, Bates"s bayonet having pierced his lungs. It were better for the shrewd Berliner if his wits had been duller and his mind cleaner. Not soldierly zeal but a gross animalism led him in the first instance to make a really important arrest. His ghoulish intent was requited now in full measure, and the life wheezed out of him speedily as he lay there quivering in the gloom and mire of that rain-swept woodland road.
Seldom, even when successfully ambushed, has any small detachment of troops been destroyed so quickly and thoroughly. This killing was almost an artistic triumph.
"Fall in!" growled Bates. "Any casualties?"
"If there is, the blighters oughter be court-mawshalled," chirped Smith.
A momentary shuffling of grotesque forms, and a deep voice boomed, "Half-time score--England twenty, Germany _nil_."
"Left section--look "em over, and carry any wounded men likely to live into the barn," said the corporal. "Give "em first aid an"
water-bottles. Step lively too! Right section--hold the horses."
This leader and his men were as skilled in the business of slaying an enemy as Robin Hood and his band of poachers in the taking of the king"s venison. Dalroy knew they needed no guidance from him. He opened the door of the car.
"Irene!" he said.
She was sitting there, a forlorn figure huddled up in a corner. The windows were closed. Each sheet of gla.s.s was so blurred by the swirling rain that she could not possibly make out the actual cause of the external hubbub. After the hard schooling of the past month she realised, of course, that a rescue was being attempted. Naturally, too, she put it down to the escape of Maertz. Although her heart was thrumming wildly, her soul on fire with a hope almost dangerous in its frenzy, she resolved not to stir from her prison until the one man she longed to see again in this world came to free her.
Yet when she heard his voice the tension snapped so suddenly that there was peril in the other extreme. She sat so still that Dalroy said a second time, with a curious sharpness of tone, "Irene!"
"Yes, dear," she contrived to murmur hoa.r.s.ely.
"It"s all over. A squad of British soldiers dropped from the skies.
Every German is laid out, Von Halwig with the rest."
"Von Halwig! Is he dead?"
"Yes."
"I am glad. Arthur, they have not wounded you?"
"Not a scratch."
"And Maertz?"
"We must see to him. Will you come out? Never mind the rain."
"The rain! Ah, dear G.o.d, that I should feel the blessed rain beating on my face once more in liberty!"
She gave him her hand, and they stood for a moment, peering deep into each other"s eyes.
"Arthur," she said, so quietly now that the storm seemed to have pa.s.sed from her spirit, "you have work to do. I shall not keep you. Tell me where to wait, and there you shall find me. But, before you go, promise me one thing. If we fall again into the hands of the Germans, shoot me before I become their prisoner."
"No need to talk of that," he soothed her. "We have a splendid escort.
In two hours----"
She caught him by both shoulders.
"You _must_ promise," she cried vehemently.
He was startled by the vibrant pa.s.sion in her voice. He began then to understand the real horrors of Irene"s vigil, whether in the rat-infested darkness of the barn or the cushioned luxury of the limousine.
"Yes," he muttered savagely, "I promise."
Taking her by the arm, he led her to the front of the car, where, clearly visible herself, she would see little if aught of the shambles in rear.
Corporal Bates hurried up.
"Her ladyship all right, sir?" he inquired briskly.
"Yes," replied Dalroy, conscious of a slight tremulousness in the arm he was holding.
Corporal Bates, though in all probability he had never even heard of Bacon"s somewhat trite aphorism, was essentially an "exact" man. He never erred as to distinctions of rank or t.i.tle. His salute was the pride of the Buffs. Blithely regardless of the fact that not more than five minutes earlier Captain Dalroy had confessed himself ignorant of Lady Irene Beresford"s actual social status, he alluded to her "correctly."
"I think, sir," he rattled on, "that we ought to be moving. It"s quite dark now, an" we have our route marked out."
"How?"
"We"ve been directed by a priest, sir. The Belgian priests have done us a treat. In every village they showed us the safest roads. Even when they couldn"t make us understand their lingo they could always pencil a map."
"I see. Do you follow the road to Oosterzeele?"
"For about a mile, sir. Then we branch off into a lane leading west to the river Schelde, which we cross by a ferry. Once past that ferry, an"