A New Standpoint
To Max and his chum these were days charged high with excitement. Their day"s toil in the shops over, they raced away to the points where the most exciting events were to be seen. They were witnesses of most that went forward, and actually lent a hand in the rounding-up, from among the civil population of the city, of the band of armed Germans who attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate the commandant of the fortress, General Leman.
The entry of the Germans was to both of them a fearful blow. They knew little of military matters, and vaguely believed that the town and forts were strong enough to stand a regular siege. And yet on the third day after the attack the town had fallen! As they watched the young German troops marching into the town they could not help feeling deeply disappointed and discouraged.
"I wish now that you had gone home, Dale," remarked Max in a gloomy voice as they slowly made their way towards the works. "Now that the place has fallen you can do no good here. And as you are not a native you may be taken for a spy and shot off-hand."
"Shut up, Max! We"ve agreed to go through this business together, and there"s an end of it. Liege is lost, but the war"s still on, and it will be hard if we can"t find some way of giving our side a shove forward."
"Aye to that, Dale. Well, if you don"t mind being here in a conquered town I"m jolly glad to have you. Now, I suppose we can still go on helping to cast sh.e.l.ls--why no, Dale! We simply can"t do any more of that work; it"s absolutely useless."
"Of course it is. You may be sure the Germans won"t let sh.e.l.ls be sent away from Liege except to Germany. Your works had better get on with the other work. Sh.e.l.ls are out of the question."
"I must see Schenk about this," replied Max thoughtfully. "It needs thinking out what work--if any at all--we can do without helping the Germans. It"s an awkward business, but I have no doubt Schenk can see daylight through it."
"I should think so, but--hallo! What"s that?"
Dale stopped suddenly, and stood gazing down a side street, the end of which they were just about to cross. A sudden burst of screams and shouts, quite startling in its intensity, a.s.sailed their ears, and made them look and look with a feeling of foreboding new to them. At the far end of the street they could see a group of men in the grey-green uniform surging to and fro before a house from which the screams seemed to issue.
"The Germans--doing the same dirty work as they did at Vise!" gasped Max, turning away his head and clenching his fists in his pockets. "I hardly know how to keep from rushing down there, utterly useless though it is."
"It is women they are ill-treating--how can we walk away?" cried Dale in acute distress. "Let us go down, and if we cannot fight, let us beg them to desist. Perhaps if we offered them money----?"
"Useless," muttered Max, though he stopped and gazed down the road in irresolution. "And yet how _can_ we pa.s.s by, Dale?" he went on with a groan. "I know I shall always call myself a coward if I do nothing.
Let"s walk a little closer, and see if we can do anything."
Dale eagerly agreed, and they walked quickly down the road towards the group of soldiers and their victims. As they drew nearer, and could see something of what was happening, their anger increased, until they were almost ready to throw themselves upon the soldiers and oppose their bayonets with their bare fists.
The house before which the outrage was taking place seemed, for some reason, to have been singled out from the others which lined both sides of the street, possibly because the head of the house was well known as an opponent of the Germans or because of some act of hostility committed against the soldiers. At any rate, an elderly man, evidently dragged from the house, had been tied to the front railings, and was being subjected to treatment so cruel that it almost amounted to torture.
The womenfolk of the house had apparently rushed out and endeavoured to intervene, but had been forcibly held back, and were at that moment being subjected to brutal indignities that angered Max and Dale even more than the cold-blooded cruelty to the man himself.
The two had arrived within some forty yards of the scene, and were still pressing on as though drawn by a magnet, although neither knew what he was going to do, when one of the soldiers drew the attention of his fellows to the two young men advancing towards them. At the same time he picked up his rifle, took quick aim, and discharged it directly at them.
The bullet whizzed between them, and, on the impulse, Max seized Dale by the arm and dragged him through the open doorway of the nearest house. A roar of laughter from the soldiers at their rapid exit followed them, and made the anger of one at least of them burn with a still fiercer resentment.
"Right through and out at the back," cried Max in urgent tones, and the two pa.s.sed through the house, which appeared to be deserted, and found themselves in an open s.p.a.ce intersected only by low garden fences.
Max laid his hand on his friend"s arm. "I am going to move quietly along until I reach the back of the house where those curs are at work," he said in a hard, suppressed voice. "I must do something, but do not you come, Dale. There is no need for you----"
"I am already in it, I tell you," almost shouted Dale as he impatiently shook him off. "It"s as much my affair as yours. Come on."
The two made their way rapidly but cautiously along until they reached the house they sought. The doors were open at the back, and the shouts and screams were almost as audible there as at the front.
"We have no weapons; let us arm ourselves with these," cried Max, pointing to some blocks of ornamental quartz bordering a little fernery.
Even in the midst of his excitement it struck Max how strangely the orderliness of the tiny, well-kept garden seemed to contrast with the deeds of violence being committed outside.
Rapidly but quietly the two lads filled hands and pockets with the heavy missiles. Then they crept inside the house and up the stairs to the floor above. The house was quite empty, for all within had rushed or been dragged to the scene in front.
The bedroom windows were wide open, and the instant they entered both lads began with one impulse to hurl with all their strength the great stones upon the German soldiery below. They were both wild with rage at what they had witnessed, and utterly reckless what fate might ultimately be theirs, so long as they could inflict some punishment upon the cowardly wrongdoers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BOTH LADS BEGAN TO HURL THE GREAT STONES UPON THE GERMAN SOLDIERY]
The soldiers, completely taken aback by this sudden rain of missiles almost from the skies, immediately scattered to the opposite side of the road and took refuge in the gardens there. Not one of them had his rifle to hand, for their arms had been stacked against the wall of the house they were attacking, and even the man who had fired at Max and Dale had put down his rifle once more. Thus, for the moment, the soldiers were impotent, and Max shouted rapidly in the Walloon dialect to the women below to release the man tied to the railings and escape through the house.
With a prompt.i.tude that was wholly admirable, one of the women drew a pair of scissors from her pocket and cut the cords that bound the man to the fence. With a cry of joy the poor fellow staggered to his feet. But, stiffened by his bonds or exhausted by the cruel treatment he had received, he could barely stand, and had to be half supported and half dragged by two of the women back into the house.
"Tell them to be off, Dale," cried Max rapidly. "I will hold back these men for a minute. Take them right through into the street beyond and get them out of sight. I will follow in a moment."
Dale obeyed, and under his guidance the whole party made their way rapidly through the house, into the gardens, and through the houses opposite into the road beyond. At the disappearance of their prey the soldiers set up a howl of rage, and made a concerted rush for their weapons. But Max redoubled his efforts, and, his supply of quartz exhausted, rained down upon them jugs, mirrors, pictures, and everything movable he could lay hands upon, holding them in check for a few precious moments. Then, after one final fling, he bolted from the room into the bedroom at the back and leapt out of the window. Landing in a flower-bed unhurt, he rushed without a pause at the low garden fence in front of him, cleared it at a bound, and dashed through the house opposite in the wake of Dale and the fugitive people.
Meanwhile, out in the roadway, the soldiers had seized their weapons, and, hardly knowing what to expect, poured two or three volleys into the empty house. Then they cautiously reconnoitred, and by the time they had come to the conclusion that the house was indeed empty, the fugitives were completely beyond their reach. Characteristically enough, they vented their rage and disappointment on the inanimate objects within their reach. The crash of furniture soon rose above their shouts of fury, and in the end smoke rolled from the windows and poured upwards to the sky as a silent witness to the new spirit that had come to dominate the land.
Max and Dale hurried the people they had rescued away from the scene of the outbreak, and would not allow them to slacken speed until they had put a mile of streets between them and their savage foes. It was then, Max judged, high time to find a haven of refuge of some sort, for, with one exception, the women were half crazed with fear and the man quite exhausted with ill-usage. Any German soldiers or spies who pa.s.sed them could hardly fail to remark that they were fugitives, and they would soon find themselves in as bad a case as before. Questioning a woman who still retained a show of self-possession, Max learned that they had friends in another part of the town, and towards their house he promptly directed their retreat.
Without further misadventure they reached the house they sought, and Max and Dale saw their charges safely inside the door. Then they hurried away, for it was obviously dangerous both for them and for the fugitives to be in one another"s company a moment longer than necessary. Thanks were not thought of; the rescued were not ungrateful but were altogether too upset for expression, and the rescuers were only thankful to have been of use, without a thought of anything else.
"By George, Max, how I did enjoy that!" cried Dale with enthusiasm, as they turned their steps once more towards the works. "I feel an inch taller, and can face the world as an honest man."
"Aye, Jack, I feel like that too. How should we have felt had we let that business go on unchecked?"
"And it has done a bit of good, too, I imagine. Those cowardly Germans will not forget that rain of quartz in a hurry, and may leave the poor folk alone another time."
"I am not so sure. But the question is, what are we going to do now? We cannot go on casting sh.e.l.ls which will be certain to be seized by the Germans. If we make railway material it will only be used to convey soldiers into the field against our men. No. I must see Schenk, and get him to close all branches of the works that might be of use to the enemy. That is the only thing to be done. Then I shall try to get through to join the Belgian army."
"And I too, Max. I will join with you. We have started on this business together and we will finish it together."
CHAPTER VII
A Few Words with M. Schenk
Arrived at the Durend works, Max went straight to M. Schenk"s office.
Two men, whom Max had not seen before, were coming out as he entered, but the manager was at that moment alone. He looked up as Max came in, and, when he saw who it was, smiled in a way that our hero did not altogether like. It seemed less a smile of welcome than of tolerant amus.e.m.e.nt, and instead of commencing diplomatically, as he had intended, Max burst out rather heatedly:
"Monsieur Schenk, we must close the works. We cannot go on making sh.e.l.ls now that the Germans are in occupation of Liege. It is not loyal to Belgium, and I am certain my mother would not wish us to do such a thing."
The manager gazed at Max almost blankly for a moment, as though quite taken by surprise. Then he smiled again, almost pityingly, as he replied:
"I do not think you understand the position, Monsieur Max. The Germans are now masters here, and what they order us that we must do. The German commander only an hour ago sent word that he would hold the heads of the firm responsible for any decrease in the output of the Durend works; so what can I do? Would it help Belgium if you and I were replaced by men from Krupp"s? No; it were better that we--or at any rate I--remain, so that the firm"s interests are not wholly forgotten."
"But if we refuse to work, the workmen will do so too," cried Max earnestly. "If we continue at work, they may continue also. We have an example of patriotism to set, and set it we must."
"Bah! If Krupp"s run these works the workmen will have to work, make no mistake on that point. Now, Monsieur Max, pray leave me, for I must to work again. You may rest a.s.sured that I am looking after the interests of the firm. Think no more about such matters, but take heed to yourself, for your end will be swift indeed if the Germans think you actively hostile to their occupation of the town."