The Forest of Swords: A Story of Paris and the Marne

"I had to do it, Marne, old fellow," he called. "You're so big and you stick up so high that you arouse attention, and that's just what I don't want."

He had decided to call the horse Marne, after the river near by, and he noticed that he did not go far. The animal, reassured by John's friendly after-word, began to crop the grass about twenty feet away. He had a human friend after all, one on whom he could rely. Man did not want to be bothered by him just then, but that was the way of man, and he did not mind, since the grass was so plentiful and good. He would be there, close at hand, when he was needed.

John was really moved by the interlude. The loneliness, and then the friendliness of the horse appealed to him. He too needed a comrade, and here he was. He forgot, for a time, the moaning of the shells over his head, and began to think again about his escape. So thinking, the horse came once more into his mind. He showed every sign of grazing there until dark came. Then why not ride away on him? It was true that a horse was larger and made more noise than a fugitive man slipping through the grass, but there were times when strength and speed, especially speed, counted for a lot.

The last hours of the afternoon waned, trailing their slow length, minute by minute, and throughout that time the roar of the battle was as steady as the fall of Niagara. It even came to the point that John paid little attention to it, but the sport of kings, in which thousands of men were ground up, they knew not why, went merrily on. None of the shells struck near John, and with infinite joy he saw the coming of the long shadows betokening the twilight. The horse, still grazing near by, raised his head more than once and looked at him, as if it were time to go. As the sun sank and the dusk grew John stood up. He saw that the night was going to be dark and he was thankful. The Marne was merely a silver streak in the shadow, and in the wood near by the trees were fusing into a single clump of darkness.

He stood erect, stretching his muscles and feeling that it was glorious to be a man with his head in the air, instead of a creature that grovelled on the ground. Then he walked over to the horse and patted him on the shoulder.

"Marne, old boy," he said, "I think it's about time for you and me to go."

The horse rubbed his great head against John's arm, signifying that he was ready to obey any command his new master might give him. John knew from his build that he was a draught horse, but there were times in which one could not choose a particular horse for a particular need.

"Marne, old fellow," he said, stroking the animal's mane, "you're not to be a menial cart horse tonight. I am an Arabian genie and I hereby turn you into a light, smooth, beautifully built automobile for one passenger only, and I'm that passenger."

Holding fast to the thick mane he sprang upon the horse's back, and urged him down the stream, keeping close to the water where there was shelter among the willows and bushes. He had no definite idea in his head, but he felt that if he kept on going he must arrive somewhere. He was afraid to make the horse swim the river in an effort to reach the French army. Appearing on the surface of the water he felt that he would almost certainly be seen and some good rifleman or other would be sure to pick him off.

He concluded at last that if no German troops came in sight he would let the horse take him where he would. Marne must have a home and a master somewhere and habit would send him to them. So he ceased to push at his neck and try to direct him, and the horse continued a slow and peaceful progress down the stream in the shadow of small trees. The night was darker than those just before it, and the dampness of the air indicated possible flurries of rain. Cannon still rumbled on the horizon like the thunder of a summer night.

While trusting to the horse to lead him to some destination, John kept a wary watch, with eyes now growing used to the darkness. If German troops appeared and speed to escape were lacking, he would jump from Marne's back and hunt a new covert. But he saw nobody. The evidences of man's work were present continually in the cannonade, but man himself was absent.

The horse went on with ponderous and sure tread. Evidently he had wandered far under the influence of the firing, but it was equally evident that his certain instinct was guiding him back again. He crossed a brook flowing down into the Marne, passed through a wheat field, and entered a little valley, where grew a number of oaks, clear of undergrowth.

When he saw what was lying under the oaks he pulled hard at the rough mane, until the horse stopped. He had distinctly made out the figures of men, stretched upon the ground, apparently asleep, and sure to be Germans. He stared hard at them, but the horse snorted and tried to pull away. The action of the animal rather than his own eyesight made him reckon aright.

A horse would not be afraid of living men, and, slipping from the back of Marne, John approached cautiously. A few rays of wan moonlight filtered through the trees, and when he had come close he shuddered over and over again. About a dozen men lay on the ground and all were stone dead. The torn earth and their own torn figures showed that a shell had burst among them. Doubtless it had been an infantry patrol, and the survivors had hurried away.

John, still shuddering, was about to turn back to his horse, when he remembered that he needed much and that in war one must not be too scrupulous. Force of will made him return to the group and he sought for what he wanted. Evidently the firing had been hot there and the rest of the patrol had not lingered in their flight.

He took from one man a pair of blankets. He could have had his choice of two or three good rifles, but he passed them by in favor of a large automatic pistol which would not be in the way. This had been carried by a young man whom he took to be an officer, and he also found on him many cartridges for the pistol. Then he searched their knapsacks for food, finding plenty of bread and sausage and filling with it one knapsack which he put over his shoulder.

He returned hastily to his horse, guided him around the fatal spot, and when he was some distance on the other side dismounted and ate as only a half-starved man can eat. Water was obtained from a convenient brook and carefully storing the remainder of the food in the knapsack he remounted the horse.

"Now go on, my good and gallant beast," he said, "and I feel sure that your journey is nearly at an end. A draught horse like you, bulky and slow, would not wander any great distance."

The horse himself immediately justified his prediction by raising his head, neighing and advancing at a swifter pace. John saw, standing among some trees, a low and small house, built of stone and evidently very old, its humble nature indicating that it belonged to a peasant. Behind it was a tiny vineyard, and there was a stable and another outhouse.

"Well, Marne, my lad, here's your home, beyond a doubt," said John. But no answer came to the neigh. The house remained silent and dark. It confirmed John's first belief that the horse belonged to some peasant who had fled with his family from the armies. He stroked the animal's neck, and felt real pity for him, as if he had been a child abandoned.

"I know that while I'm a friend I'm almost a stranger to you, but come, we'll examine things," he said.

He sprang off the horse, and drew his automatic. The possession of the pistol gave him an immense amount of courage and confidence, but he did not anticipate any trouble at the house as he was sure that it was abandoned.

He pushed open the door and saw a dark inside. Staring a little he made out a plainly furnished room, from which all the lighter articles had been taken. There was a hearth, but with no fire on it, and John decided that he would sleep in the house. It was in a lonely place, but he would take the risk.

The horse had already gone to the stable and was pushing the door with his nose. John let him in, and found some oat straw which he gave him. Then he left him munching in content, and as he departed he struck him a resounding blow of friendliness on the flank.

"Good old Marne," he said, "you're certainly one of the best friends I've found in Europe. In fact, you're about the only living being I've associated with that doesn't want to kill somebody."

He entered the house and closed the door. In addition to the sitting-room there was a bedroom and a kitchen, all bearing the signs of recent occupancy. He found a small petroleum lamp, but he concluded not to light it. Instead he sat on a wooden bench in the main room beside a small window, ate a little more from the knapsack, and watched a while lest friend or enemy should come.

It had grown somewhat darker and the clouds were driving across the sky. The wind was rising and the threatened flurries of rain came, beating against the cottage. John was devoutly glad that he had found the little house. Having spent many hours immersed to his neck in a river he felt that he had had enough water for one day. Moreover, his escape, his snug shelter and the abundance of food at hand, gave him an extraordinary sense of ease and rest. He noticed that in the darkness and rain one might pass within fifty feet of the cottage without seeing it.

The wind increased and moaned among the oaks that grew around the house, but above the moaning the sounds of battle, the distant thunder of the artillery yet came. The sport of kings was going merrily on. Neither night nor storm stopped it and men were still being ground by thousands into cannon food. But John had now a feeling of detachment. Three days of continuous battle had dulled his senses. They might fight on as they pleased. It did not concern him, for tonight at least. He was going to look out for himself.

He fastened the door securely, but, as he left the window open, currents of fresh cool air poured into the room. He was now fully revived in both mind and body, and he took present ease and comfort, thinking but little of the future. The flurries of rain melted into a steady pour. The cold deepened, and as he wrapped the two blankets around him his sense of comfort increased. Lightning flared at infrequent intervals and now and then real thunder mingled with that of the artillery.

He felt that he might have been back at home. It was like some snug little place in the high hills of Pennsylvania or New York. Like many other Americans, he often felt surprise that Europe should be so much like America. The trees and the grass and the rivers were just the same. Nothing was different but the ancient buildings. He knew now that history and a long literature merely created the illusion of difference.

He wondered why the artillery fire did not die, with the wind sweeping such gusts of rain before it. Then he remembered that the sound of so many great cannon could travel a long distance, and there might be no rain at the points from which the firing came. The cottage might stand in a long narrow valley up which the clouds would travel.

Not feeling sleepy yet he decided to have another look about the house. A search revealed a small box of matches near the lamp on the shelf. Then he closed the window in order to shut in the flame, and, lighting the lamp, pursued his investigation.

He found in the kitchen a jar of honey that he had overlooked, and he resolved to use a part of it for breakfast. Europeans did not seem able to live without jam or honey in the mornings, and he would follow the custom. Not much was left in the other rooms, besides some old articles of clothing, including two or three blue blouses of the kind worn by French peasants or workmen, but on one of the walls he saw an excellent engraving of the young Napoleon, conqueror of Italy.

It showed him, horseback, on a high road looking down upon troops in battle, Castiglione or Rivoli, perhaps, his face thin and gaunt, his hair long and cut squarely across his forehead, the eyes deep, burning and unfathomable. It was so thoroughly alive that he believed it must be a reproduction of some great painting. He stood a long time, fascinated by this picture of the young republican general who rose like a meteor over Europe and who changed the world.

John, like nearly all young men, viewed the Napoleonic cycle with a certain awe and wonder. A student, he had considered Napoleon the great democratic champion and mainly in the right as far as Austerlitz. Then swollen ambition had ruined everything and, in his opinion, another swollen ambition, though for far less cause, was now bringing equal disaster upon Europe. A belief in one's infallibility might come from achievement or birth, but only the former could win any respect from thinking men.

It seemed to John presently that the deep, inscrutable eyes were gazing at him, and he felt a quivering at the roots of his hair. It was young Bonaparte, the republican general, and not Napoleon, the emperor, who was looking into his heart.

"Well," said John, in a sort of defiance, "if you had stuck to your early principles we wouldn't have all this now. First Consul you might have been, but you shouldn't have gone any further."

He turned away with a sigh of regret that so great a warrior and statesman, in the end, should have misused his energies.

He returned to the room below, blew out the lamp and opened the window again. The cool fresh air once more poured into the room, and he took long deep breaths of it. It was still raining, though lightly, and the pattering of the drops on the leaves made a pleasant sound. The thunder and the lightning had ceased, though not the far rumble of artillery. John knew that the sport of kings was still going on under the searchlights, and all his intense horror of the murderous monarchies returned. He was not sleepy yet, and he listened a long time. The sound seemed to come from both sides of him, and he felt that the abandoned cottage among the trees was merely a little oasis in the sea of war.

The rain ceased and he concluded to scout about the house to see if any one was near, or if any farm animals besides the horse had been left. But Marne was alone. There was not even a fowl of any kind. He concluded that the horse had probably wandered away before the peasant left, as so valuable an animal would not have been abandoned otherwise.

His scouting—he was learning to be very cautious—took him some distance from the house and he came to a narrow road, but smooth and hard, a road which troops were almost sure to use, while such great movements were going on. He waited behind a hedge a little while, and then he heard the hum of motors.

He had grown familiar with the throbbing, grinding sound made by many military automobiles on the march, but he waited calmly, merely loosening his automatic for the sake of precaution. He felt sure that while he stood behind a hedge he would never be seen on a dark night by men traveling in haste. The automobiles came quickly into view and in those in front he saw elderly men in uniforms of high rank. Nearly all the German generals seemed to him to be old men who for forty or fifty years had studied nothing but how to conquer, men too old and hardened to think much of the rights of others or ever to give way to generous emotions.

He also saw sitting erect in one of the motors the man for whom he had felt at first sight an invincible repulsion. Prince Karl of Auersperg. Young von Arnheim had represented the good prince to him, but here was the medieval type, the believer in divine right, and in his own superiority, decreed even before birth. John noted in the moonlight his air of ownership, his insolent eyes and his heavy, arrogant face. He hoped that the present war would sweep away all such as Auersperg.

He watched nearly an hour while the automobiles, cyclists, a column of infantry, and then several batteries of heavy guns drawn by motors, passed. He judged that the Germans were executing a change of front somewhere, and that the Franco-British forces were still pressing hard. The far thunder of the guns had not ceased for an instant, although it must be nearly midnight. He wished he knew what this movement on the part of the Germans meant, but, even if he had known, he had no way of reaching his own army, and he turned back to the cottage.

Having fastened the door securely again he spread the blankets on the bench by the window and lay down to sleep. The tension was gone from his nerves now, and he felt that he could fall asleep at once, but he did not. A shift in the wind brought the sound of the artillery more plainly. His imagination again came into vivid play. He believed that the bench beneath him, the whole cottage, in fact, was quivering before the waves of the air, set in such violent motion by so many great guns.

It annoyed him intensely. He felt a sort of personal anger against everybody. It was past midnight of the third day and it was time for the killing to stop. At least they might rest until morning, and give his nerves a chance. He moved restlessly on the bench a half hour or more, but at last he sank gradually to sleep. As his eyes closed the thunder of the cannonade was as loud and steady as ever. He slept, but the murderous sport of kings went on.

CHAPTER IX

THE PUZZLING SIGNAL

When John awoke a bright sun was shining in at the window, bringing with it the distant mutter of cannon, a small fire was burning on the hearth on the opposite side of the room, a man was bending over the coals, and the pleasant odor of boiling coffee came to his nostrils. He sat up in amazement and looked at the man who, not turning around, went on placidly with his work of preparing breakfast. But he recognized the figure.

"Weber!" he exclaimed.

"None other!" said the Alsatian, facing about, and showing a cheery countenance. "I was in the boat just behind you when your own was demolished by the shell. In all the spray and foam and confusion I saw my chance, and dropping overboard from ours I floated with the stream. I had an idea that you might escape, and since you must come down the river between the two armies I also, for the same reasons, chose the same path. I came upon this cottage several hours ago, picked the fastenings of the door and to my astonishment and delight found you, my friend, unharmed, but sound asleep upon the bench there. I slept a while in the corner, then I undertook to make breakfast with provisions and utensils that I found in the forest. Ah, it was easy enough last night to find almost anything one wished. The fields and forest were full of dead men."

"I provided myself in the same way, but I'm delighted to see you. I was never before in my life so lonely. How chance seems to throw us together so often!"

"And we've both profited by it. The coffee is boiling now, Mr. Scott. I've a good German coffee pot and two cups that I took from the fallen. God rest their souls, they'll need them no more, while we do."

"The battle goes on," said John, listening a moment at the window.

"Somewhere on the hundred mile line it has continued without a break of an instant, and it may go on this way for a week or a month. Ah, it's a fearful war, Mr. Scott, and we've seen only the beginning! But drink the coffee now, while it's hot. And I've warmed too, some of the cold food from the knapsacks. German sausage is good at any time."

"And just now it's heavenly. I'm glad we have such a plentiful supply of sausage and bread, even if we did have to take it from the dead. I want to tell you again how pleasant it is to see you here."

"I feel that way too. We're like comrades united. Now if we only had your English friend Carstairs, your American friend Wharton, and Lannes we'd be quite a family group."

"I fancy that we'll see Lannes before we do Carstairs and Wharton."

"I think so too. He'll certainly be hovering today somewhere over the ground between the two armies—either to observe the Germans or more likely to carry messages between the French generals. I tell you, Mr. Scott, that Philip Lannes is perhaps the most wonderful young man in Europe. In addition to his extraordinary ability in the air he has courage, coolness, perception and quickness almost without equal. There's something Napoleonic about him."

"You know he's descended from the family of the famous Marshal, Lannes, not from Lannes himself, but from a close relative, and the blood's the same. They say that blood will tell, and don't you think that the spirit of the great Lannes may have reappeared in Philip?"

"It's altogether likely."

"I've been thinking a lot about Napoleon. There's a wonderful picture of him as a young republican general in a room here. Perhaps it's the conditions around us, but at times I am sure the heroic days of the First Republic have returned to France. The spirit that animated Hoche and Marceau and Kleber and Bonaparte, before he became spoiled, seems to have descended upon the French. And there were Murat, Lannes and Lefebvre, and Berthier and the others. Think of that wonderful crowd of boys leading the republican armies to victories over all the kings! It seems to me the most marvelous thing in the history of war, since the Greeks turned back the Persians."

Weber refilled his coffee cup, drank a portion of it, and said:

"I have thought of it, Mr. Scott, I have thought of it more than once. It may be that the Gallic fury has been aroused. It has seemed so to me since the German armies were turned back from Paris. The French have burned more gunpowder than any other nation in Europe, and they're a fighting race. It would appear now that the Terrible Year, 1870, was merely an aggregation of mistakes, and did not represent either the wisdom or natural genius of the nation."

"That is, the French were then far below normal, as we would say, but have now returned to their best, and that the two Kaisers made the mistake of thinking the French in their lowest form were the French in their usual form?"

"It may be so," said Weber, thoughtfully. "Nations reckon their strength in peace, but only war itself discloses the fact. Evidently tremendous miscalculations have been made by somebody."

"By somebody? By whom? That's why I'm against the Kaisers and all the secret business of the military monarchies. War made over night by a dozen men! a third of the world's population plunged into battle! and the rest drawn into the suffering some way or other! I don't like a lot of your European ways."

Weber shook his head.

"We've inherited kings," he said. "But how did you find this place?"

"Accident. Stumbled on it, and mighty grateful I was, too. It kept me warm and dry after standing so long in the Marne I thought I was bound to turn into a fish. Isolated little place, but the Germans have been passing near. Before sleeping last night, I went out scouting and as I stood behind a hedge I saw a lot of them. I recognized in a motor the Very High Born, his High Mightiness, the owner of the earth, the Prince of Auersperg."

Weber took another drink of coffee.

"An able man and one of our most bitter enemies," he said. "A foe of democracy everywhere. I think he was to have been made governor of Paris, and then Paris would have known that it had a governor. I've seen him in Alsace, and I've heard a lot about him."

"But all that's off now. I fancy that the next governor of Paris, if it should have a governor, will be a Frenchman. But the day is advancing, Weber; what do you think we ought to do?"

"I've been thinking of your friend Lannes. I've an idea that he'll come for you, if he finds an interval in his duties."

"But how could he possibly find me? Why, it's the old needle in the haystack business."

"He couldn't unless we made some sort of signal."

"There's no signal that I can make."

"But there's one that I can. Look, Mr. Scott."

He unbuttoned his long French coat, and took from his breast a roll of red, white and blue. He opened it and disclosed a French flag about four feet long.

"If that were put in a conspicuous place," he said, "an aviator with glasses could see it a long way, and he would come to find out what it meant."

"The top of a tree is the place for it!" exclaimed John. "Now if you only had around here a real tree, or two, in place of what we call saplings in my country, we might do some fine signaling with the flag."

"We'll try it, but I think we should go a considerable distance from the cottage. If Germans instead of French should come then we'd have a better chance of escaping among the hedges and vineyards."