With Joffre at Verdun Part 17

"And so you chose flight! Good!" said Henri. "We chose the same.

Here we are, snug in this place, with plenty of ammunition, and ready and eager to continue fighting. If any of you men understand a machine-gun, get to the one we have, at once, and man it; the rest, who have no rifles, can a.s.sist in any way that appeals to them. Ah! Watch those fellows. They are streaming into the hall. There are fifty--more--perhaps a hundred of them."

There were indeed considerably more of the Brandenburgers to be seen when the dust from that shattered wall had subsided. They came streaming in to the darkened hall, dishevelled, their _Pickelhaubes_ gone in many cases, their rifles missing, their grey clothing now a ma.s.s of caked mud, and their hands and faces of the same colour.

Shouting and bellowing their triumph, they ma.s.sed in the room till an officer made himself apparent.

"Those men? Those Frenchmen who pa.s.sed before us?" he asked in the arrogant manner of the Prussian; "you killed them--eh?"

"No! They went on ahead of us, up those stairs yonder," one of the men answered.

"Then no doubt they are cut off, like rats in a trap. Go in and kill them."

Henri turned and whispered to his friends.

"You heard that?" he asked them. "But perhaps you do not speak German.

Then I will translate; they say they have us here like rats in a trap, and the order has been pa.s.sed to come and kill us. Well, personally, I have a great objection to being killed, and I have every wish indeed to kill our enemies. Get ready! Load! Two hundred Germans shan't turn us out of these quarters."

CHAPTER XV

Rats in a Trap

Douaumont Fort was captured. But for that handful of men who had nominated Henri as their leader, and who crouched behind the parapet of grain-bags at the summit of the narrow flight of steps within the fort, not a Frenchman remained to defend it. The "pillar of the defence of Verdun", as the Kaiser and his War Staff had termed it, was in their hands, and at once the news was flashed broadcast across the States of Germany and to every neutral country.

"Douaumont has fallen. We hold the fortress firmly in our hands. The resistance of the French before Verdun is almost broken, and in a short time we shall capture that city."

That was the gist of the _communique_ issued to the world--a _communique_ which set the people of Germany, at this time rendered anxious and despondent by the position in which they found themselves, rejoicing and flying flags. For, indeed, they needed some sort of encouragement. To east and west, and on the seas in all directions, the Central Empires were hemmed in by a line of soldiers, steadily growing stronger, and by s.h.i.+ps of the British Fleet which daunted those of the Germans. True, at this date, looking at the map of Europe, the Kaiser might crow and ask his people to behold the conquests their troops and those of Austria and Bulgaria had gained for them. There was the greater part of Belgium, all but that thin strip running from Ypres to Dunkirk; there was Luxembourg, that little State which had been captured without even protest; there were the north-eastern provinces of France, rich in iron ore and coal and iron industries; and to the east there was the whole of Serbia; while all Poland and a respectable slice of the Tsar's dominions were in his possession.

"See how we have succeeded! Behold our conquests; won for us by the blood and bravery of our soldiers!" the Kaiser had often called to his people.

And yet that was only one side of the picture. Territorial gains had no doubt been obtained--territorial gains of no mean dimensions; but, as we have inferred, and as the War Staffs of Austria and Germany knew well enough, the troops of the Allied Powers were unbeaten, were getting stronger every day, while those of the Central Powers were becoming less numerous; and more than that--far more perhaps--was the fact that trade for the Central Powers had ceased altogether. Nothing might come to either of these countries that did not first pa.s.s inspection by the s.h.i.+ps of the British fleet; and, as a consequence, food-stuffs, raw material, everything, in fact, had practically ceased to enter the country. Thus food was short: bread was hardly obtainable, though a subst.i.tute had been invented; while meat was a luxury to be enjoyed only by the richest. Yes, the condition of affairs in Germany and Austria was none too exhilarating, and Austrians and Germans alike needed some stimulus--something to hearten them, to keep up their spirits and their courage. And here was stimulus indeed.

The fort of Douaumont was captured--that fort which they had been led to believe was heavily armed, was deemed impregnable indeed, and the capture of which was a feat almost impossible of achievement, had fallen to the valour of the Germans, to the valour indeed of the Brandenburgers. What then could prevent the fall of Verdun itself?

That indeed would compensate them for the hunger they suffered, and for the cruel losses the French were inflicting upon their soldiers.

And but for Henri's little band, as we have said, the fortress of Douaumont was captured.

"See them down in the hall, Henri, mon garcon," said the bearded veteran, who crouched beside our hero, and who, indeed, seemed to have taken him under his own particular protection--not that Henri needed much protection from anyone, for at that moment as he sat there in command of his detachment, he looked as resolute and capable a young fellow as one might wish to meet.

"Yes, they are there, mon ami," he replied. "I see them, and, moreover, they too see us. We shall hear from them shortly."

And hear from the Brandenburgers Henri and his party presently did.

For an officer dragged a much-soiled handkerchief from his pocket and picked his way, over the tumbled ma.s.ses of masonry littering the floor of the hall beyond, towards the exit which gave access to the stairs.

Dapper and smart to a certain extent, though somewhat dishevelled by the charge in which he had taken a share; arrogant, like the majority of German officers, and bearing about his figure something which seemed familiar to Henri, he stopped at that exit, and, looking up the stairway, peered hard at the enemy.

"Above, there!" he called, and Henri and Jules instantly recognized his voice.

"Our friend of Ruhleben--the fellow who was so anxious to shoot us the other day when we tumbled into his bivouac in the forest. Well, the shooting will not be all on one side now," grinned Jules, his lips close to Henri's ear, as they both peered over the top of the barricade.

"Above, there!" the German officer snapped again. "Ah! You will not answer, then; though I know well enough that Frenchmen are there.

Well, let it be so! But don't say that I have not warned you. I give you one minute to come down and surrender--after that, I will blow you to pieces."

"How very violent!" laughed Jules, and his voice, reaching the ear of that German officer, sent the blood flus.h.i.+ng to his cheeks and his feet stamping with rage. "How very violent! 'Pon my word, Henri, this fellow needs a lesson, for every time we've listened to him he's been going to do something desperate--something desperate, that is, to other people. Shall we answer the beggar?"

"Yes. We'll do the square thing. A moment ago I had a mind to remain quite still and silent, and let the fellow find out for himself what sort of a place we had got; but we'll be quite fair with him, and then there can't be any complaints. Hallo, below there!" he called; "stand where you are, and don't move forward or one of my men will shoot you.

You ask us to surrender, eh?"

"Ask you!" came the arrogant answer. "Not at all--I command you!"

"And we take commands only from our own people. Come and take us,"

Henri told him delightedly. "Come and take us, if you can, but I warn you to look out for the consequences."

The man below turned about with that precision to be found in the ranks of the Kaiser's armies, and strutted back across the hall, his figure lit up by the beams of light entering through shafts by which the chamber was ventilated. In less than a minute he had rejoined his men, and for a while Henri and his friends watched as a consultation was held. Then, of a sudden, the men dispersed and were lost to view for quite five minutes.

It was perhaps five minutes later when first one and then, perhaps, a couple of dozen grey-coated figures slipped into view from behind the tumbled masonry at the far end of the hall, and, darting to right or to left or down the centre, flopped down behind ma.s.ses of stone and cement with which the floor was littered.

"Now keep down," Henri told his friends; "or, better still, keep right away from the barricade, and report instantly if bullets contrive to penetrate the sacks. Personally, I don't think they will, for we've piled them up two deep, and a bag of grain affords tremendous opposition even to a sharp-pointed bullet. Ah! There goes the first!

Well, has it gone through?"

"No. Nor will any others," the veteran told him, with a chuckle. "We are safe--safer, indeed, behind these bags, than if we had a stone wall before us. For, mon garcon, you understand there will be no ricochetting, no splintering of bullets, no splashes of lead about us."

In a few minutes, as the firing from the hall down below became more general, and thuds on the outer face of the wall of sacks became almost continuous, it was borne in upon Henri and his gallant little band that even bullets discharged at such point-blank range had for the moment little danger for them.

"Then we'll line our wall," said Henri. "It's not more than twelve feet across, so that six men lying flat on their faces will be sufficient for the purpose; six more will kneel down behind them, so as to be ready to fire over the top of the barricade in case of a rush; and our machine-gun man must squeeze himself into the midst of them.

Now, man the loopholes!"

It was a canny suggestion of the bearded veteran which had caused the men a.s.sisting him to build the barricade to leave loopholes for the rifles of the defenders, not only along the top of this improvised wall, with bags placed so that the heads of those who fired would be protected, but to leave apertures also just a foot from the bottom through which men lying flat on their faces might fire down into the hall. As for the machine-gun, it was piled round with bags, just the bare tip of the muzzle protruding, and, indeed, thanks to the dusk which occluded the top of the stairs, giving no indication of its presence to the enemy. Thus, with the wall manned, and the remainder of his little party squatting on the stone floor of the gun-chamber ready to support their comrades, Henri and his men waited for perhaps half an hour, during which time the fusillade from the men of the 24th Brandenburg Regiment sent a hail of bullets in their direction. They thudded against the bags continuously, while often enough a missile would strike the concrete ceiling of the chamber, and, ricochetting from it, would mushroom against the opposite wall; some even struck the walls limiting the stairway on either side, and, breaking off at a tangent and exploding from the impact, scattered strips of nickel and lead over the heads of the garrison.

"But it is nothing--nothing at all," that bearded veteran told his friends; and, indeed, he was as good as a reinforcement of a hundred men to them--so gay was he, so full of courage, so optimistic. "Poof!

Who cares for noise? Not you, my comrades, who have stood days now when torrents of German sh.e.l.ls were pouring on us, when our ears were deafened by the guns of either side. Then who cares for the scream and the hiss of these bullets? They are but a drizzle which follows a storm."

"Get ready to support the others!" Henri commanded of a sudden, having crept forward to the barricade and peered through one of the loopholes.

"That officer man is getting impatient, and, if the truth be known, he is beginning to wonder if any of us are left up here; for, remember, we have made no answer."

"An easy shot, eh?" Jules told his chum, gripping the rifle which he had thrust through one of the upper loopholes. "I could bring him down like a bird, as easy as winking! But I won't," he added of a sudden; "no, for that would hardly be fair fighting."

A whistle sounded down in the hall below, and fifty or more grey-coated figures rushed from the far end, where, no doubt, they were waiting out of sight and under shelter. Forming up across the hall, they were given a sharp order, and almost at once dashed forward.

"They are coming!" Henri called softly to his following. "Don't show as much as a finger, if you can help it. Open fire only when they get to the exit from the hall, and cease fire immediately you have checked their dash towards us."

Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat! The machine-gun opened with two short bursts just as the Brandenburgers reached the foot of the staircase, while the Frenchmen manning the loopholes opened a furious fire, which first checked the rush of the enemy and then drove the survivors backwards. Indeed, in one minute they were all out of sight, and even those who had been sniping at the barricade had disappeared entirely.

"But it will not be for long; no, my friends," Henri told his party.

"That dash is in the form of a reconnaissance, I expect; though, no doubt, they hardly expected to meet with such resistance."

"Bien! We shall hear from them again shortly," Jules laughed; while the bearded veteran banged one broad hand down on his thigh and chuckled loudly.

"Yes, indeed! Yes, indeed! We shall hear from them, and they shall hear from us, and our voices will be as loud as any Prussian's. But, my Henri, though you are already a commander, and have won our hearts, yet your inexperience of command has led you to forget one thing which is essential."