CHAPTER XXIII

A Bolt from the Blue

At seven the following morning the two guards were relieved. During the night they had been stolidly indifferent to everything that was taking place. They permitted their prisoners liberty of action within the limits of the room, but they maintained a ceaseless vigilance, keeping their loaded rifles within arm's-length the whole of the time.

The new guards were men of a different stamp. Their first act upon being left with their charges was to compel the lads to leave the window and take up a position in one corner of the room. At the first attempt at conversation between the two chums the Germans would shout threats which, although unintelligible as words, left no doubt as to their significance.

An hour later a very meagre repast was brought in for the prisoners, the soldiers making a thorough examination of the food before the lads were allowed to partake of it. This was a precautionary measure, lest some communication might have been secreted; but the fact that their food had been coarsely handled by the Germans did not make it any the more appetizing. Nevertheless Kenneth and his companion, now almost famished, attacked the meal with avidity.

Just before noon a motor-car drew up outside the house. The guards sprang to their feet, adjusted the straps of their equipment, seized their rifles, and drew themselves up as stiff as ramrods. The expected arrival they knew to be a person of consequence.

It was Colonel von Koenik. He was civil, almost apologetic, to the English prisoners.

"I trust that you were not disturbed by last night's business," he remarked. "There was a serious riot amongst the Belgian townsfolk. Our troops were treacherously attacked, and in self-defence they were compelled to fire some of the houses. Unfortunately the flames spread considerably, in spite of our efforts to the contrary.

"If you wish to write to your friends in England," he continued, "you are at liberty to do so, and I will see that the letters are forwarded to Holland. Paper and writing materials will be provided. You will understand that all communications must be left unsealed."

He paused for a moment, then in more deliberate tones said:

"It would doubtless be interesting to your fellow-countrymen if you mentioned last night's riot. Englishmen are supposed to pride themselves upon their love of fair play. Our act of necessary--absolutely necessary--self-defence will certainly be distorted by these Belgians. The written evidence of two Englishmen such as yourselves will do much to remove a wrong impression. Meanwhile, until writing materials can be produced, you are at liberty to take exercise in the garden."

"What is that fellow driving at?" asked Rollo, when the two chums, still watched by their guards, found themselves in a secluded garden enclosed on three sides by a high brick wall. "There's something behind his eagerness for us to write home."

"We'll take the chance anyway," replied Kenneth; "only I vote we make no mention of last night's affair. Of course his version might be right, but I doubt it."

Accordingly the prisoners spent half an hour in writing to their respective parents. The epistles were couched in guarded terms. There was nothing to indicate that they had been harshly treated; no mention of the manner of their arrest. Nor was there a word about the destructive fire in Louvain.

When the Colonel reappeared the unsealed envelopes were handed to him. Without a word or a gesture he read them through, then wrote something on the envelopes.

"These are in order, gentlemen," he remarked. "You may now seal them, and they will be carefully forwarded."

But months later the chums learnt that the letters had never been delivered. There was a good reason, for von Koenik took the first opportunity of destroying them.

"There is some news for you," remarked the Colonel. "Yesterday our armies occupied Namur. The forts were helpless against our wonderful siege guns. Our Zeppelins have destroyed nearly the whole of Antwerp; our fleet has signally defeated the British in the North Sea. Your flagship, the _Iron Duke_, is sunk, together with seven Dreadnoughts. Jellicoe is slain, and the rest of the English fleet is bottled up in the Forth. Your little army in Belgium is already on the retreat; it will be hopelessly smashed before it reaches Maubeuge. Our troops will be in Paris within a week--and then?"

The Colonel paused, expecting to see dismay painted on the faces of his listeners. Instead, Kenneth coolly raised his eyebrows.

"Indeed?" he drawled. "Do you, Herr Colonel, really believe all that?"

Von Koenik suppressed a gesture of annoyance.

"Certainly," he replied. "It is in our official reports. If you possessed sufficient culture to be in a position to read and speak our language, you could see it with your own eyes. We are winning everywhere. Now, perhaps, to save further unpleasantness you will tell me the actual reason why you were in the Belgian service?"

"Merely our inclination to help in a just cause. We happened to be on the spot, the opportunity occurred, and we took it."

The Colonel bit his lips. He was confident that the prisoners were actually persons of military importance, sent over to Belgium by the British Government, and possessing valuable information concerning the Allies' plan of campaign. He considered it well worth his while to cajole or threaten them into surrendering their secret, but, up to the present, he was forced to admit that his attempts had met with very little success.

Apart from the lax code of German military morals his procedure had been extremely irregular. The so-called trial was before an illegally constituted court. The proper authorities had not been informed of the Englishmen's arrest, trial, and sentence. Yet he considered that he was furthering the interests of the Kaiser and the German nation by wresting the secret of the object of the lads' presence in Belgium from them by the likeliest methods at his disposal.

Colonel von Koenik was on his way to take up a staff appointment at Verviers, a strategically important Belgian town on the German frontier, and a few miles from Liege, and on the direct railway line between that city and Aix-la-Chapelle. Here he could keep his prisoners in safety, relying upon the wearing-down tactics, backed by the threat of what would happen when the victorious Germans entered Paris, to compel the two Englishmen to surrender their supposed important secret.

It was not until after dark that same day that Kenneth and Rollo were conveyed in a closed carriage to the railway station at Louvain. Von Koenik was greatly anxious to conceal from them the stupendous amount of wanton damage done to the town. So far he succeeded; and, in partial ignorance of the fate of Louvain and the actual causes that led to its sack and destruction, the lads were escorted to a troop-train which was about to return to Aix, laden with wounded German soldiers whose fighting days were over.

For the next ten or twelve days Kenneth and Rollo existed in a state of rigorous captivity. They were placed in a small store-room of the commissariat department at Verviers. A sentry was posted without, but otherwise their privacy was not intruded upon except when a soldier brought their meals.

This man, a corporal of the Landwehr, was a grey-haired fellow nearly sixty years of age. A great portion of his life had been spent in England. Von Koenik had detailed him to attend upon the prisoners in order that he might communicate to them the progress of the victorious Germans towards Paris.

Max--for that was the corporal's name--was admirably adapted to the purpose. He could speak English with tolerable fluency; he implicitly believed all the stories that had been told him of the wide-world German success, and, believing, he retailed the information with such bland fidelity that at first his listeners had to think that he really was speaking the truth.

He was also genuinely attentive to his charges, and before long Kenneth and Rollo appreciated his visits although they did not welcome the news he brought.

"Ach, you English boys!" he would exclaim. They were always addressed as "English boys" by Corporal Max, somewhat to their chagrin. "Ach! It has been a bad day for your little army. Much more bad than yesterday. To-day the remains of the English army, it has fled towards Paris. Our Taubes have almost nearly the city destroyed by bombs."

The next day Max would appear with the tidings that General French was still running away. Vast numbers of English and French prisoners had been taken. The German losses had been insignificant.

This was followed by a lurid description of the retreat of the Allies across the Marne and then over the Aisne.

"Paris, too, is in panic. The French Government, it has run away to the south of France. And our navy, it is great. Yesterday a sea battle took place. The Admiral Jellicoe's flagship the _Iron Duke_ was sunk by our submarines----"

"Hold on!" exclaimed Kenneth. "Colonel von Koenik told us that the _Iron Duke_ was sunk more than a fortnight ago."

Max shrugged his shoulders.

"You English are so deceitful. Ach! They must have given to another ship the same name. Dover is in flames, and London bombarded has been by our Zeppelins. Ireland is revolted, and the Irish have proclaimed our Kaiser as King----"

"Steady, Max!" exclaimed Rollo expostulatingly.

"But it is so," protested the corporal.

The next day Max's report was one of indefinite progress. During the three following he made no mention of the brilliant feats of German arms. Kenneth rallied him on this point.

"How far are the Germans from Paris to-day, Max?"

For the first time Max showed signs of irritability. By accident he had seen in Colonel von Koenik's quarters a report of the check of the German armies' progress, and of their eastward movement. Following this came the news of von Kluck's defeat and disorderly retirement across the Marne. Too stupidly honest to keep the news to himself, Corporal Max blurted out the information that the advance upon Paris had been temporarily abandoned.

"If it were not for the treacherous English," he added--"they are always meddling with other nations' business--we would have walked through the French and in Paris have been. Peace would be forced upon the French, and then I could return home to my wife."

"But you told us that the British army was practically annihilated, Max," exclaimed Kenneth gleefully.

"You English boys, I tell you word for word what was told me," protested Max in high dudgeon. "If you mock, then no more will I say."

"Can we see Colonel von Koenik, Max?"

The corporal looked at Kenneth in astonishment.

"You have no complaint against me?" he asked.

"Not in the least," replied Kenneth affably. "But we should very much like to see the Colonel."

Max delivered the message, but von Koenik did not put in an appearance. Incidentally he discovered that the corporal had let out the momentous news of von Kluck's defeat, and Max had a very warm quarter of an hour in consequence. As a result, a surly Prussian was given the work of looking after the two English prisoners, and Max passed out of the lads' knowledge.

September had well advanced. Kenneth and Rollo still existed in captivity, without the faintest opportunity of effecting their escape. Had there been the slightest chance of breaking out of their prison they would have taken it, but the vigilance of the sentries posted outside the place seemed untiring.

About the twentieth of the month--the lads had lost all accurate idea of the date--there were signs of more than usual activity in Verviers. A cavalry brigade had arrived, accompanied by a huge transport column.

From the solitary window of their room the prisoners were able to witness many of the movements of the troops. The square in front of the range of stores was packed with transport wagons, both motor and horse. The horses were picketed in lines between the regular rows of vehicles. The drivers stood by their charges, instead of being billeted on the inhabitants. Everything pointed to a hurriedly resumed journey.

Presently Kenneth and his chum noticed that the Germans were deeply interested in something above and beyond the storehouse in which the lads were quartered.

A few men would point skywards, others would follow their example, till every soldier in the square was gazing in the air. Then above the hum of suppressed excitement came the unmistakable buzz of an aerial propeller.

"Air-craft!" ejaculated Kenneth.

"Taubes, most likely," added his companion; "otherwise the troops would be blazing away instead of merely looking on."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the scene underwent a complete change. Horses plunged and reared, some falling and kicking madly on the ground. Men ran hither and thither, seeking shelter, while several of them pitched upon their faces. Yet not a sound was heard of an explosion. A mysterious and silent death was stalking amidst the German transport. Overhead the drone of the propeller increased, yet the aeroplane was invisible from the lads' outlook.

Something struck the stones of the courtyard a few feet from their window. It was a small featherless steel arrow, one of thousands that a French aviator had let loose upon the astonished and terrified Germans.

Simultaneously there was a crash in the room. Turning, the occupants made the discovery that three of the darts had completely penetrated the tiles of the roof and had buried themselves three inches deep in the oaken floor.

"Keep close to the wall," exclaimed Kenneth; "it is the safest place."

"It's all over now," announced Rollo after a brief interval. "There she goes!"

He pointed to a monoplane gliding gracefully at an altitude of about five hundred feet. He could just distinguish a tricolour painted on each tip of the main plane. A desultory but increasing rifle-fire announced its departure, and, unruffled, the air-craft sailed serenely out of sight.

"Pretty effective weapon," remarked Kenneth, vainly endeavouring to wrench one of the darts from the floor. "They must hit with terrific force. I wonder how they were discharged?"

"Simply dropped by the hundred, I should imagine," replied Rollo. "The force of gravity is sufficient to give them a tremendous velocity after dropping a few hundred feet. I guess they've knocked these fellows' time-table out."

The drivers and several cavalrymen had now emerged from their hiding-places, and were carrying their less-fortunate comrades from the scene. A few of the latter were moaning, but most of them had been slain outright. The "flechettes", or steel darts, had in several cases struck their victims on the head, and had passed completely through their bodies. In addition to about thirty casualties, nearly a hundred horses were either killed on the spot or were so badly injured that they had to be dispatched. Several of the motor-wagons, too, were temporarily disabled by the terrible missiles. Clearly it was out of the question that the convoy could proceed that day.

Darkness set in. The work of repairing the damaged vehicles still proceeded briskly by the aid of the powerful acetylene lamps fixed upon the parapets of the surrounding buildings. Fresh animals were being brought up to take the horse-wagons away, in order to make room for the artificers to proceed with their work. The square echoed and re-echoed to the clanging of hammers and the rasping of saws, and the guttural exclamations of the workmen.

Kenneth and Rollo had no thoughts of going to bed. Usually, as soon as it was dark they would throw themselves upon their straw mattresses, for lights were not allowed them. But now the excitement, increased by contrast to their monotonous existence, banished all idea of sleep.

Crash! A blaze of vivid light that out-brillianced the concentrated glare of the lamps flashed skywards, followed almost immediately by a deafening report. Windows were shattered, tiles flew from the roofs. The walls of the room in which the two lads were standing shook violently.

"A shell!" exclaimed Rollo.

"A bomb!" corrected Kenneth, for in the brief lull that followed could be heard the noise of an air-craft. Either the same or another French airman was honouring the Germans at Verviers with a second visit.

Twenty seconds later another explosion occurred at the back of the building. With a terrific crash one of the outer walls was blown in; a portion of the roof collapsed; the floor, partially ripped up, swayed like the deck of a vessel in the trough of an angry sea.

Kenneth found himself on the floor, rendered temporarily deaf and covered with fragments of plaster and broken tiles, and smothered in dust.

Staggering to his feet he groped for his companion, for the place was in total darkness, the force of the detonation having extinguished all the lamps in the vicinity. His hand came in contact with Rollo's hair.

"Steady on, old man; don't scalp me," expostulated Barrington.

"What do you say?" asked his companion. Rollo repeated the protest, shouting in order to enable Kenneth to hear what he said.

"Hurt?"

"Not a bit of it; but we may be if we hang on here."

Another fall of rafters and tiles confirmed the speaker's surmise; then, as the cloud of acrid smoke and dust slowly dispersed, they could see a patch of starlight where a few moments before had been a blank wall.