The Day of Wrath Part 3

The van, one among a score of similar vehicles, was backed against the curb of a raised path. At the instant Dalroy quitted the window-ledge a railway employe appeared from behind another van on the left, and was clearly bewildered by seeing a well-dressed man springing from such an unusual and precarious perch.

The new-comer, a big, burly fellow, who wore a peaked and lettered cap, a blouse, baggy breeches, and sabots, and carried a lighted hand-lamp, looked what, in fact, he was--an engine-cleaner. In all likelihood he guessed that any one choosing such a curious exit from a waiting-room was avoiding official scrutiny. He hurried forward at once, holding the lamp above his head, because it was dark behind the row of vans.

"Hi, there!" he cried. "A word with you, _Freiherr_!" The t.i.tle, of course, was a bit of German humour. Obviously, he was bent on investigating matters. Dalroy did not run. In the street without he heard the tramp of marching troops, the jolting of wagons, the clatter of horses. He knew that a hue and cry could have only one result--he would be pulled down by a score of hands. Moreover, with the sight of that suspicious Teuton face, its customary boorish leer now replaced by a surly inquisitiveness, came the first glimmer of a fantastically daring way of rescuing Irene Beresford.

He advanced, smiling pleasantly. "It's all right, Heinrich," he said.

"I've arrived by train from Berlin, and the station was crowded. Being an acrobat, I took a bounce. What?"

The engine-cleaner was not a quick-witted person. He scowled, but allowed Dalroy to come near--too near.

"I believe you're a _verdammt_ Engl----" he began.

But the popular German description of a Briton died on his lips, because Dalroy put a good deal of science and no small leaven of brute force into a straight punch which reached that cl.u.s.ter of nerves known to pugilism as "the point." The German fell as though he had been pole-axed, and his thick skull rattled on the pavement.

Dalroy grabbed the lamp before the oil could gush out, placed it upright on the ground, and divested the man of blouse, baggy breeches, and sabots. Luckily, since every second was precious, he found that he was able to wedge his boots into the sabots, which he could not have kept on his feet otherwise. His training as a soldier had taught him the exceeding value of our Fifth Henry's advice to the British army gathered before Harfleur:

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears Then imitate the action of the tiger.

The warring tiger does not move slowly. Half-a-minute after his would-be captor had crashed headlong to the hard cobbles of Aix-la-Chapelle, Dalroy was creeping between two wagons, completing a hasty toilet by tearing off collar and tie, and smearing his face and hands with oil and grease from lamp and cap. Even as he went he heard a window of the waiting-room being flung open, and the excited cries which announced the discovery of a half-naked body lying beneath in the gloom.

He saw now that to every van was harnessed a pair of horses, their heads deep in nose-bags, while men in the uniform of the Commissariat Corps were grouped around an officer who was reading orders. The vans were sheeted in black tarpaulins. With German attention to detail, their destination, contents, and particular allotment were stencilled on the covers in white paint: "Liege, baggage and fodder, cavalry division, 7th Army Corps." He learnt subsequently that this definite legend appeared on front and rear and on both sides.

Thinking quickly, he decided that the burly person whose outer garments he was now wearing had probably been taking a short cut to the station entrance when he received the surprise of his life. Somewhat higher up on the right, therefore, Dalroy went back to the narrow pavement close to the wall, and saw some soldiers coming through a doorway a little ahead. He made for this, growled a husky "Good-morning" to a sentry stationed there, entered, and mounted a staircase. Soon he found himself on the main platform; he actually pa.s.sed a sergeant and some Bavarian soldiers, bent on recapturing the escaped prisoner, rus.h.i.+ng wildly for the same stairs.

None paid heed to him as he lumbered along, swinging the lamp.

A small crowd of officers, among them the youthful prince in the silver _Pickel-haube_, had collected near the broken window and now open door of the waiting-room from which the "spy" had vanished. Within was the fat lieutenant of reserves, gesticulating violently at a pallid sentry.

The prince was laughing. "He can't get away," he was saying. "A bold rascal. He must be quieted with a bayonet-thrust. That's the best way to inoculate an Englishman with German _Kultur_."

Of course this stroke of rare wit evoked much mirth. Meanwhile, Dalroy was turning the key in the lock which held Irene Beresford in safe keeping until Von Halwig had discharged certain pressing duties as a staff officer.

The girl, who was seated, gave him a terrified glance when he entered, but dropped her eyes immediately until she became aware that this rough-looking visitor was altering the key. Dalroy then realised by her startled movement that his appearance had brought fresh terror to an already overburthened heart. Hitherto, so absorbed was he in his project, he had not given a thought to the fact that he would offer a sinister apparition.

"Don't scream, or change your position, Miss Beresford," he said quietly in English. "It is I, Captain Dalroy. We have a chance of escape. Will you take the risk?"

The answer came, brokenly it is true, but with the girl's very soul in the words. "Thank G.o.d!" she murmured. "Risk? I would sacrifice ten lives, if I had them, rather than remain here."

Somehow, that was the sort of answer Dalroy expected from her. She sought no explanation of his bizarre and extraordinary garb. It was all-sufficient for her that he should have come back. She trusted him implicitly, and the low, earnest words thrilled him to the core.

He saw through the window that no one was paying any attention to this apartment. Possibly, the only people who knew that it contained an Englishwoman as a prisoner were Von Halwig and the infuriated lieutenant of reserves.

Jumping on to a chair, Dalroy promptly twisted an electric bulb out of its socket, and plunged the room in semi-darkness, which he increased by hiding the hand-lamp in the folds of his blouse. Given time, no doubt, a dim light would be borrowed from the platform and the windows overlooking the square; in the sudden gloom, however, the two could hardly distinguish each other.

"I have contrived to escape, in a sense," said Dalroy; "but I could not bear the notion of leaving you to your fate. You can either stop here and take your chance, or come with me. If we are caught together a second time these brutes will show you no mercy. On the other hand, by remaining, you may be fairly well treated, and even sent home soon."

He deemed himself in honour bound to put what seemed then a reasonable alternative before her. He did truly believe, in that hour, that Germany might, indeed, wage war inflexibly, but with clean hands, as befitted a nation which prided itself on its ideals and warrior spirit. He was destined soon to be enlightened as to the true significance of the _Kultur_ which a jack-boot philosophy offers to the rest of the world.

But Irene Beresford's womanly intuition did not err. One baleful gleam from Von Halwig's eyes had given her a glimpse of infernal depths to which Dalroy was blind as yet. "Not only will I come with you; but, if you have a pistol or a knife, I implore you to kill me before I am captured again," she said.

Here, then, was no waste of words, but rather the ring of finely-tempered steel. Dalroy unlocked the door, and looked out. To the right and in front the platform was nearly empty. On the left the group of officers was crowding into the waiting-room, since some hint of unfathomable mystery had been wafted up from the Bavarians in the courtyard, and the slim young prince, curious as a street lounger, had gone to the window to investigate.

Dalroy stood in the doorway. "Pull down your veil, turn to the right, and keep close to the wall," he said. "Don't run! Don't even hurry! If I seem to lag behind, speak sharply to me in German."

She obeyed without hesitation. They had reached the end of the covered-in portion of the station when a sentry barred the way. He brought his rifle with fixed bayonet to the "engage."

"It is forbidden," he said.

"What is forbidden?" grinned Dalroy amiably, clipping his syllables, and speaking in the roughest voice he could a.s.sume.

"You cannot pa.s.s this way."

"Good! Then I can go home to bed. That will be better than cleaning engines."

Fortunately, a Bavarian regiment was detailed for duty at Aix-la-Chapelle that night; the sentry knew where the engine-sheds were situated no more than Dalroy. Further, he was not familiar with the Aachen accent.

"Oh, is that it?" he inquired.

"Yes. Look at my cap!"

Dalroy held up the lantern. The official lettering was evidently convincing.

"But what about the lady?"

"She's my wife. If you're here in half-an-hour she'll bring you some coffee. One doesn't leave a young wife at home with so many soldiers about."

"If you both stand chattering here neither of you will get any coffee,"

put in Irene emphatically.

The Bavarian lowered his rifle. "I'm relieved at two o'clock," he said with a laugh. "Lose no time, _schoene Frau_. There won't be much coffee on the road to Liege."

The girl pa.s.sed on, but Dalroy lingered. "Is that where you're going?"

he asked.

"Yes. We're due in Paris in three weeks."

"Lucky dog!"

"Hans, are you coming, or shall I go on alone?" demanded Irene.

"Farewell, comrade, for a little ten minutes," growled Dalroy, and he followed.

An empty train stood in a bay on the right, and Dalroy espied a window-cleaner's ladder in a corner. "Where are you going, woman?" he cried.

His "wife" was walking down the main platform which ended against the wall of a signal-cabin, and there might be insuperable difficulties in that direction.

"Isn't this the easiest way?" she snapped.