CHAPTER XV

FACE TO FACE WITH THE HUNS

Yes, there they were! And when I found myself face to face with those five hundred advancing Germans, about two kilometres out of Enghien, I quite believed I was about to lose my chance of getting to Brussels and of seeing the man I was so anxious to see. Little did I dream at that moment, out there on the sunny Brabant hillside, seated in the old voiture, with that long, never-ending line of Germans filling the tree-lined white dusty highway far and wide with their infantry and artillery, their cannon, and the prancing horses of their officers, and their gleaming blue and scarlet uniforms, and glittering appointments, that it was not I who was going to be taken prisoner by "les Allemands" that brilliant Saturday afternoon, but Max of Brussels himself.

Up and down the long steep white road to Brussels the Germans halted, shouting in stentorian voices that we were to do likewise.

Our driver quickly brought his two bony horses to a standstill, and in the open carriage with me our queer haphazard party sat as if turned to stone.

The Red Cross Belgian lady had already hidden her Red Cross in her stocking, so that the Germans, if we met them, should not seize her and oblige: her to perform Red Cross duties in their hated service.

The guttural voice of an erect old blue-and-scarlet German colonel fell on my ears like a bad dream, as he brought his big prancing grey horse alongside our driver and demanded roughly what we were doing there, while in the same bad dream, as I sat there in my corner of the voiture, I watched the expressions written all over those hundreds of fierce, fair, arrogant faces, staring at us from every direction.

In a blaze of hatred, I told myself that if ever the brute could be seen rampant in human beings' faces there it was, rampant, uncontrolled, unashamed, only just escaping from being degraded by the accompanying expressions of burning arrogance, and indomitable determination that blazed out of those hundreds of blue Teutonic eyes. The set of their lips was firm and grim beyond all words. Often a peculiar ironic smirk, caused by the upturning of the corners of their otherwise straight lips, seemed to add to their demoniac suggestiveness. But their physique was magnificent, and there was not a man among them who did not look every inch a soldier, from his iron-heeled blucher boots upwards.

As I studied them, drinking in the unforgettable picture, it gave me a certain amount of satisfaction to know that I was setting my own small womanly daring up against that great mass of unbridled cruelty and conceit, and I sat very still, very still indeed, stiller than any mouse, allowing myself the supreme luxury of a contemptuous curl of my lips. Picture after picture of the ruined cities I had seen in Belgium flashed like lightning over my memory out there on the sunny Brabant hillside. Again I saw before me the horrors that I had seen with my own eyes at Aerschot, Termonde, and Louvain, and then, instead of feeling frightened I experienced nothing but a red-hot scorn that entirely lifted me above the terrible stress of the encounter; and whether I lived or died mattered not the least bit in the world, beside the satisfaction of sitting there, an English subject looking down at the German Army, with that contemptuous curl of my lips, and that blaze of hatred in my heart.

Meanwhile our driver's passport with his photograph was being examined.

"Who is this?" shouted the silly old German Colonel, pointing to the photograph.

"C'est moi," replied the driver, and his expression seemed to say, "Who on earth did you think it was?"

The fat Colonel, who obviously did not understand a word of French, kept roaring away for one "Schultz," who seemed to be some distance off.

The roaring and shouting went on for several minutes.

It was a curious manifestation of German lack of dignity and I tried in vain to imagine an English Colonel roaring at his men like that.

Then "Schultz" came galloping up. He acted as interpreter, and an amusing dialogue went on between the roaring Colonel and the young dashing "Baverois," who was obviously a less brutal type than his interrogator.

The old banker from Brussels was next questioned, and his passport to come in and out of Brussels being correctly made out in German and French, the Germans seized upon Jean and demanded what he was doing there, why he was going to Brussels, and why he had been to Grammont. Jean's answer was that he lived in Brussels and had been to Grammont to see his relations, and "Schultz's" explanations rendered this so convincing that the lawyer's passport was handed back to him.

"You are sure none of you have no correspondence, no newspapers?" roared the Colonel. "What is in that bag?"

Leaning into the carriage a soldier prodded at _my_ bag.

I dared not attempt to speak. My English origin might betray me in my French. I sat silent. I made no reply. I tried to look entirely uninterested. But I was really almost unconscious with dread.

But the Red Cross lady replied with quiet dignity that there was nothing in her bag but requisites for the journey.

Next moment, as in a dream, I heard that roaring voice shout:

"Gut! Get on!"

Our driver whipped lightly, the carriage moved forward, and we proceeded on our way, filled with queer thoughts that sprang from nerves over-strained and hearts over-quickly beating.

Only Jean remained imperturbable.

"Quel Chance! They were nearly all Baverois! Did you see the dragon embroidered on their pouches? The Baverois are always plus gentilles than any of the others."

This was something I had heard over and over again. According to the Belgians, these Baverois had all through the War, manifested a better spirit towards the Belgians than any other German Regiment, the accredited reason being, that the Belgian Queen is of Bavarian nationality. When the Uhlans slashed up the Queen's portrait in the Royal Palace at Brussels the "Baverois" lost their tempers, and a fierce brawl ensued, in which seven men were killed. All the Belgians in our old ramshackle carriage were loud in their expressions of thankfulness that we had encountered Baverois instead of Uhlans.

So at last that dread mysterious darksome quantity known as "les Allemands," ever moving hither and thither across Belgium, always talked of on the other side of the Belgian lines, but never seen, had materialised right under my very eyes!

The beautiful rich Brabant orchard country stretched away on either side of the road, and behind us, along the road, ran like a wash of indigo, the brilliant Prussian blue of the moving German cavalcade making now towards Enghien and Grammont.

And now the old professor from Liège drew all attention towards himself.

He was shaking and quivering like a jelly.

"J'ai peur!" he said simply.

"Mais non, Monsieur!" cried Jean. "It's all over now."

"_Courage! courage! Pas de danger_," cried everyone, encouragingly.

"It was only a ruse of the enemy, letting us go," whispered the Professor. "They will follow and shoot us from behind!"

Plaintively, as a child, he asked the fat Brussels banker to allow him to change places, and sit in front, instead of behind.

In a sudden rebound of spirits, the Red Cross lady and I laughingly sat on the back seat, and opened our parasols behind us, while the old Brussels banker, when the two fat men had exchanged seats not without difficulty, whispered to us:

"And all the while there are a hundred letters sewn up inside the cushion of the seat our friend from Liège is sitting on _now_!"