Роберт Чамберс: Who Goes There!

The young man in the golf–cap and knickerbockers heard them coming and bit his bloodless lip.

After a moment the rhythm of the heavy boots ceased. The street became very silent, save where window glass continually fell tinkling to the sidewalk and the feathery whisper of flames became more audible from within the row of empty houses.

The young man lifted his eyes to the sombre and sunless sky. High up there above the mist and heavy bands of smoke he saw the feathery tops of tall trees, motionless.

Presently through the silence came the clatter of hoofs; Uhlans cantered past, pennons whipping from lance heads; then a soft two–toned bugle–call announced an automobile; and presently it loomed up, huge, through the parted ranks of the infantry, a great grey, low–purring bulk, slowing, halting, still purring.

A grey–clad general officer sat in the tonneau, a grey–uniformed hussar was seated beside the grey–liveried chauffeur.

As the car stopped several officers were already beside the running–board, halted stiffly at attention. The general officer, his cigar between his gloved fingers, leaned over the edge of the tonneau and said something in a very quiet voice.

Instantly a slim, stiff infantry captain saluted, wheeled sharply, and walked straight to the little file of prisoners who stood with their wrists tied behind their backs, looking vacantly at the automobile.

"Which is the prisoner–hostage who says he is American?" he snapped out in his nasal Prussian voice.

The young man who wore a golf–cap took a short step forward, hesitated.

"You?"

"Yes."

"Fall in again!"

The officer nodded to a sergeant of infantry, and a squad of men shoved the prisoners into single file, facing not the fatal wall, but westward, along the street.

"March!" said somebody. And the next moment again: "Halt!" rang out with the snapping brevity of a cracked whip. The general officer leaned from the grey tonneau and looked steadily along the file of hostages until his glance fell upon the young man in the golf–cap.

"What is your name?" he asked quietly in English.

"My name is Guild."

"The rest?"

"Kervyn Guild."

"You say you are American?"

"Yes."

The general officer looked at him for a moment longer, then said something to the hussar aide–de–camp.

The aide threw open the car door and jumped out. A lieutenant took command of the escort. The hussar whispered instructions, turned and came to attention beside the running–board, then, at a nod from the general officer, jumped up beside the chauffeur. There came the soft–toned, mellow warning of the bugle; the grey machine glided off into the mist; the prisoners and escort followed it, marching briskly.

As they passed the end of the street two houses on their right suddenly roared up in one vast, smoke–shot tower of flame, and a brassy glare lighted up the mist around them.

Somewhere near by a woman began to scream; farther down the street, more windows and doors were being beaten in. From farther away, still, came the strains of military music, resonant, full, magnificent. A detail passed with spades to bury the dead who lay under the wall. All was order, precision, and cheerful despatch. The infantry column, along the halted flanks of which the prisoners were now being marched, came to attention. Company after company marked time, heavily; shouldered rifles. Uhlans in file came spurring through the centre of the street; a cyclist followed, rifle slung across his back, sitting at ease on his machine and gazing curiously about.

Out of the end of the village street marched the prisoners and their escort, but presently halted again.

Directly in front of them stood the grey automobile drawn up by the roadside before a pair of iron gates. The gates swung from high stucco walls. On top of the walls were soldiers sitting, rifle on knee; a machine gun commanded the drive, and across the gravel more soldiers were digging a trench, setting posts, and stringing barbed wire which they unwound from great wooden reels.

Through the gates escort and prisoners threaded their way, across a lawn already trampled by cavalry, and straight on toward a pleasant looking and somewhat old–fashioned house set amid older trees and shrubbery, badly broken.

Half a dozen grey–clad staff officers were eating and drinking on the low stone terrace; their horses picketed on the lawn, nibbled the crushed shrubbery. Sentries pacing the terrace and on guard at the door came to attention as the lieutenant in charge of the escort marched his prisoners in.

At a word from him an infantryman went from prisoner to prisoner untying the cords that bound their wrists behind them. Then they were marched into an old–fashioned drawing–room on the left, sentries were placed, the remainder of the escort sat down on the floor with their loaded rifles on their laps and their backs against the wall. Their officer, the lieutenant, walked across the hallway to the room on the left, where the sentry admitted him, then closed the door and resumed his heavy pacing of the black–tiled hall.

The sergeant in charge of the escort lifted his helmet with its grey–cloth covering, scratched his bullet head, yawned. Then he said, jerking a huge thumb toward the drawing–room: "There's a good wall in the garden behind the house. They'll make the fruit grow all the better—these Belgians."

The lieutenant, coming out of the room opposite, overheard him.

"What your crops need," he said in a mincing Berlin voice, "is plenty of good English filth to spade under. See that you bring in a few cart–loads."

And he went into the drawing–room where the prisoners stood by the windows looking out silently at a great pall of smoke which was hanging over the village through which they had just been marched.

"Which of you is the alleged American?" said the lieutenant in hesitating but correct English.

The young man in knickerbockers rose from a brocaded armchair.

"Follow me. General von Reiter does you the honour to question you."

The young man looked the lieutenant straight in the eye and smiled, stiffly perhaps, because his face was still pallid and the breath of death still chilled it.

"The honour," he said in an agreeably modulated voice, "is General von Reiter's. But I fear he won't realize it."

"What's that!" said the lieutenant sharply.

But young Guild shrugged his shoulders. "You wouldn't understand either. Besides you are too talkative for an underling. Do your duty—if you know how."

"Swine of a Yankee," said the lieutenant, speaking slowly and with painful precision, "do you suppose you are in your own sty of a Republic? Silence! A Prussian officer commands you! March!"

Guild dropped his hands into the pockets of his belted jacket. "You little shrimp," he said good humouredly, and followed the officer, who had now drawn his sword.

Out into the hall they filed, across it to the closed door. The sentry on duty there opened it; the lieutenant, very red in the face, delivered his prisoner, then, at a nod from the grey–clad officer who was sitting behind a writing desk, saluted, faced about, and marched out. The door closed sharply behind him.

Young Guild looked steadily at the man in grey, and the man in grey gazed as steadily back from behind his desk.

He was a man of forty–five, lean, well built, blond, and of regular features save that his cheek–bones were a trifle high, which seemed to crowd his light blue eyes, make them narrower, and push them into a very slight slant. He had the well–groomed aspect of a Prussian officer, dry of skin, clean–shaven save for the mustache en croc , which his bony but powerful and well–kept hands absently caressed at intervals.