the forest of sword 12

the forest of sword 12

"I'm not so sure. I've an intuition that it is he. Besides, he looks

like just the kind of prince from whom I'd like to take his best

automobile, also everything else good that he might happen to have. I

shall feel much disappointed if this proves not to be our prince."

 

"You Americans are such democrats."

 

"I don't go so far as to say a man is necessarily bad because of his

high rank, but as I reminded you a little while ago, there are princes

and princes. The ancient house of Auersperg as it walks up and down,

indicating its conviction of its own superiority to everything else on

earth, does not please me."

 

"The Uhlans are coming back!" exclaimed Weber in tones of excitement.

 

"And that's von Boehlen at their head! I'd know his figure as far as I

could see it! And they've had a brush, too! Look at the empty saddles

and the wounded men! As sure as we live they've run into the French

cavalry and then they've run out again!"

 

The Uhlans were returning at a gallop, and the German officers of high

rank were crowding forward to meet them. It was obvious to every one

that they had received a terrible handling, but John knew that von

Boehlen was not a man to come at a panicky gallop. Some powerful motive

must send him so fast.

 

He saw the Prussian captain spring from his horse and rush to a little

group composed of the general, the prince and several others of high

rank who had drawn closely together at his coming.

 

Von Boehlen was wounded slightly, but he stood erect as he saluted the

commander and talked with him briefly and rapidly. John's busy and

imaginative mind was at work at once with surmises, and he settled upon

one which he was sure must be the truth. The French advance in the

center was coming, and this German army also must soon go into action.

 

He was confirmed in his belief by a hurried order to the guards to go

eastward with the prisoners. As the captives, the wounded and the

unwounded, marched off through the forest of Sénouart they heard at a

distance, but behind them, the opening of a huge artillery fire. It was

so tremendous that they could feel the shaking of the earth as they

walked, and despite the hurrying of their guards they stopped at the

crest of a low ridge to look back.

 

They gazed across a wide valley toward high green hills, along which

they saw rapid and many flashes. John longed now for the glasses which

had been taken from him when he was captured, but he was quite sure that

the flashes were made by French guns. From a point perhaps a mile in

front of the prisoners masked German batteries were replying. Fleury

with his extraordinary power of judging sound was able to locate these

guns with some degree of approximation.

 

"Look! the aeroplanes!" said John, pointing toward the hills which he

now called to himself the French line.

 

Numerous dark shapes, forty or fifty at least, appeared in the sky and

hovered over the western edge of the wide, shallow basin. John was sure

that they were the French scouts of the blue, appearing almost in line

like troops on the ground, and his heart gave a great throb. No doubt

could be left now, that this German army was being attacked in force

and with the greatest violence. It followed then that the entire German

line was being assailed, and that the French victory was continuing its

advance. The Republic had rallied grandly and was hurling back the

Empire in the most magnificent manner.

 

All those emotions of joy and exultation that he had felt the day before

returned with increased force. In daily contact he liked Germans as well

as Frenchmen, but he thought that no punishment could ever be adequate

for the gigantic crimes of kings. Napoleon himself had been the champion

of democracy and freedom, until he became an emperor and his head

swelled so much with success that he thought of God and himself

together, just as the Kaiser was now thinking. It was a curious

inversion that the French who were fighting then to dominate Europe were

fighting now to prevent such a domination. But it was now a great French

republican nation remade and reinvigorated, as any one could see.

 

The guards hurried them on again. Another mile and they stopped once

more on the crest of a low hill, where it seemed that they would remain

some time, as the Germans were too busy with a vast battle to think much

about a few prisoners. It was evident that the whole army was engaged.

The old general, the other generals, the princes and perhaps dukes and

barons too, were in the thick of it. John's heart was filled with an

intense hatred of the very name of royalty. Kings and princes could be

good men personally, but as he saw its work upon the huge battle fields

of Europe he felt that the institution itself was the curse of the

earth.

 

"We shall win again today," said Fleury, rousing him from his

absorption. "Look across the fields, Scott, my friend, and see how those

great masses of infantry charging our army have been repulsed."

 

It was a far look, and at the distance the German brigades seemed to be

blended together, but the great gray mass was coming back slowly. He

forgot all about himself and his own fate in his desire to see every act

of the gigantic drama as it passed before him. He took no thought of

escape at present, nor did Fleury, who stood beside him. The fire of the

guns great and small had now blended into the usual steady thunder,

beneath which human voices could be heard.

 

"We don't have the forty-two centimeters, nor the great siege guns,"

said Fleury, "but the French field artillery is the best in the world.

It's undoubtedly holding back the German hosts and covering the French

advance."

 

"That's my opinion, too," said John. "I saw its wonderful work in the

retreat toward Paris. I think it saved the early French armies from

destruction."

 

The German army was made of stern material. Having planted its feet here

it refused to be driven back. Its cannon was a line of flaming

volcanoes, its cavalry charged again and again into the face of death,

and its infantry perished in masses, but the stern old general spared

nothing. Passing up and down the lines, listening at the telephone and

receiving the reports of air scouts and land scouts, he always hurled

in fresh troops at the critical points and Fritz and Karl and Wilhelm

and August, sober and honest men, went forward willingly, sometimes

singing and sometimes in silence, to die for a false and outworn system.

John as a prisoner had a better view than he would have had if with the

French army. In a country open now he could see a full mile to right and

left, where the German hosts marched again and again to attack, and

while the French troops were too far away for his eyes he beheld the

continuous flare of their fire, like a broad red ribbon across the whole

western horizon.

 

The passing of time was nothing to him. He forgot all about it in his

absorption. But the sun climbed on, afternoon came, and still the battle

at this point raged, the French unable to drive the Germans farther and

the Germans unable to stop the French attacks. John roused himself and

endeavored to dissociate the thunder on their flanks from that in front,

and, after long listening, he was able to make the separation, or at

least he thought so. He knew now that the struggle there was no less

fierce than the one before him.

 

The Kaiser himself must be present with one or the other of these

armies, and a man who had talked for more than twenty years of his

divine right, his shining armor, his invincible sword and his mailed

fist must be raging with the bitterness of death to find that he was

only a mortal like other mortals, and that simple French republicans

were defeating the War Lord, his Grand Army and the host of kings,

princes, dukes, barons, high-born, very high-born, and all the other

relics of medievalism. Dipped to the heel and beyond in the fountain of

democracy, John could not keep from feeling a fierce joy as he saw with

his own eyes the Germans fighting in the utmost desperation, not to take

Paris and destroy France, but to save themselves from destruction.

 

The afternoon, slow and bright, save for the battle, dragged on. Scott

and Fleury kept together. Weber appeared once more and spoke rather

despondently. He believed that the Germans would hold fast, and might

even resume the offensive toward Paris again, but Fleury shook his head.

 

"Today is like yesterday," he said.

 

"How can you tell?" asked Weber.

 

"Because the fire on both flanks is slowly moving eastward, that is, the

Germans there are yielding ground. My ears, trained to note such things,

tell me so. My friend, I am not mistaken."

 

He spoke gravely, without exultation, but John took fresh hope from his

words. Toward night the fire in their front died somewhat, and after

sunset it sank lower, but they still heard a prodigious volume of firing

on both flanks. John remembered then that they had eaten nothing since

morning, but when some of the prisoners who spoke German requested food

it was served to them.

 

Night came over what seemed to be a drawn battle at this point, and

after eating his brief supper John saw the automobiles and stretchers

bringing in the wounded. They passed him in thousands and thousands,

hurt in every conceivable manner. At first he could scarcely bear to

look at them, but it was astonishing how soon one hardened to such

sights.

 

The wounded were being carried to improvised hospitals in the rear, but

so far as John knew the dead were left on the field. The Germans with

their usual thorough system worked rapidly and smoothly, but he noticed

that the fires were but very few. There was but little light in the wood

of Sénouart or the hills beyond, and there was little, too, on the

ridges that marked the French position.

 

John kept near the edges of the space allotted to the prisoners, hoping

that he might again see von Arnheim. He had discovered early that the

Germans were unusually kind to Americans, and the fact that he had been

taken fighting against them did not prevent them from showing generous

treatment. The officer in charge of the guard even wanted to talk to him

about the war and prove to him how jealousy had caused the other nations

to set upon Germany. But John evaded him and continued to look for the

young prince who was serving as a mere lieutenant.

 

It was about an hour after dark when he caught his first glimpse of von

Arnheim, and he was really glad to see that he was not wounded.

 

"I've come to tell you, Mr. Scott," said von Arnheim, "that all of you