The Girl Philippa
*CHAPTER XV*
Wheeling in spirals now above the river meadow, the great, man-made bird
of prey turned and turned, hanging aloft in the sky like a giant hawk,
sweeping in vast circles through the blinding blue, as though searching
every clump and tussock in the fields below for some hidden enemy or
victim.
Louder and louder came the rattling clatter from the sky, nearer swooped
the great plane on wide-stretched wings, until, close to the earth, it
seemed to sheer the very grass blades in the meadow, and the deafening
racket of its engines echoed and reechoed, filling the world with
outrageous and earsplitting noise.
Sister Eila had gone to the front door; Magda and Linette stood behind
her. And they saw the aeroplane alight in the meadow and a hooded
figure, masked in glass and leather, step out, turn its goblin head
toward the inn, then start rapidly toward them across the fields.
He was a tall thin man, and as he crossed the highroad and came toward
them, he lifted the glass and leather mask and drew it back above his
closely-fitting hood.
When he saluted Sister Eila's habit, he came to a full halt and his
heels clicked together. Then he spoke in French, pleasantly, perfectly:
"Mr. Halkett, if you please, Sister. Is he still residing here?"
"Monsieur Halkett has left."
"Oh, I am sorry. Was not Monsieur Halkett expecting a messenger?"
"Have you a message for Monsieur Halkett?"
The airman twisted his pointed, blond mustache:
"I expected that Monsieur Halkett would have a packet for me. Did he
leave none?"
"He left a letter," said Sister Eila.
He bowed ceremoniously:
"Would you be kind enough?"
"Will you not enter?"
"I thank you. If I may be permitted to remain here----" He had kept
continually glancing up and down the road while speaking; and it was
evident that he preferred to remain where he could watch the highway
both ways.
So Sister Eila brought the letter to him, and he bowed again with
tight-waisted ceremony, pocketed it, and asked again for the packet.
"Wait, if you please," she said. "The letter was to be read in my
presence."
"A thousand pardons! I had not understood----"
He drew the sheets of paper from the unsealed envelope, glanced sharply
up and down the highroad, then unfolded the letter.
Sister Eila's eyes were fixed on his face, but his features exhibited no
emotion whatever.
Every few moments he looked up and down the road, then bent his
pleasantly expressionless face again over the sheets in his gloved
hands.
Presently he looked up with a smile:
"I have read it and I understand it. Would you be kind enough to give
me the packet which Monsieur Halkett writes that he has left for me?"
"Please read first what is written on the envelope of this letter," said
Sister Eila very calmly.
He turned over the envelope, read the inscription in Latin, smiled as he
read it.
"Rather an ominous message, is it not, Sister?"
"Do you think so?"
He glanced sharply to right and left, then, still smiling, he read
aloud:
"Thou shalt go, thou shalt _not_ return, thou shalt die in battle----"
He turned his head with a jerk and gazed down the road as though
suddenly startled; at the same instant Sister Eila snatched the letter
from his fingers, sprang inside the house, and slammed the door.
As she bolted it, he threw his weight against it for a moment, then
turned and ran for the meadow where the aeroplane stood.
From a window Sister Eila saw him climb aboard; saw the machine move,
run over the ground like a great beetle, and rise from the grass,
pointing upward and eastward as it took wing and soared low over the
river.
And down the highway, pell-mell, galloped a dozen gendarmes in a storm
of dust and flying pebbles, wheeled in front of the inn, put their
superb horses to the ditch and the cattle gate beyond, and, clearing
both, went tearing away across the fields after the rising aeroplane.
Over the river bank they galloped, straight into the water, their big,
powerful horses wading, thrashing, swimming across; then they were up
the opposite bank and over and away, racing after the ascending
aeroplane.
From it was coming a redoubled rattle now; machine and machine gun were
both spitting fiercely as the winged thing fought upward toward the blue
zone of safety.
The gendarmes drew bridle now and began to shoot upward from their
saddles, then spurred on across the fields, taking ditches and hedges as
they came, until the strange chase was hidden by a distant rise of
ground and the quarry alone remained visible, high winging, still
rising, still pointed eastward toward the Rhine.
Then, far away across the hills, a heavier shot set the August air
vibrating--another, another, others following.
Faster and faster cracked the high-angle guns on the Barrier Forts,
strewing the sky with shrapnel; the aeroplane soared and soared, leaving
behind it a wake dotted with clots of fleece which hung for a while
quite motionless against the intense blue, then slowly dissolved and
vanished in mid-air.
From the Ausone Fort the gunners could hear, far to the southeast, the
sky-cannon banging away on the Barrier Forts; and the telescopes on
their signal towers swung toward the sky line above the foothills of the
Vosges.
But in the town below the fortressed hill no echo of the cannonade
penetrated. Ausone, except in the neighborhood of the railroad and the
office of the _Petit Journal d'Ausone_, lay still and almost deserted in
the August sunshine: a few children played under the trees by the
bridge; a few women sat knitting along the river quay; one or two old
men nodded, half asleep, fishing the deeper pools below the bridge; the
market square remained empty except for a stray dog, tongue lolling,
padding stolidly up the street about his business.
But before the office of the _Petit Journal d'Ausone_ a crowd stood,
covering the sidewalks and overflowing beyond the middle of the street.
Young men and old, women and young girls, were clustered there quietly
watching the bulletin boards.
There was no excitement apparent, no loud talking, no gesticulation:
voices were calm, tones were low; there was almost no movement in the
crowd except when people joined the throng or silently departed.
On one of these bulletin boards was nailed the order for general
mobilization; on the other a terse paragraph announced that on Sunday,
August 2, German soldiers had entered the city of Luxembourg, crossed
the Grand Duchy, and were already skirmishing with Belgian cavalry
around Liege and with French troops before Longwy. In other terms, the
Teutonic invasion had begun; German troops were already on French soil;
for Longwy is the most northern of the Republic's fortifications.
Another paragraph reported that King Albert of Belgium had appealed to
England, and that Sir Edward Grey, in the House of Commons, had prepared
his country for an immediate ultimatum to Germany.
Still a third paragraph informed the populace of Ausone that the British
battle fleet had mobilized and sailed, and that the Empire's land forces
were already preparing to cross the Channel.
And Germany had not yet declared war on either France or Belgium, nor
had England declared war on Germany, nor had Austria, as yet, formally
declared war on Russia, although Germany had.
But there seemed to be no doubt, no confusion in the minds of the
inhabitants of Ausone, concerning what was happening, what had already
happened, and what Fate still concealed behind a veil already growing
transparent enough to see through--already lighted by the infernal
flashes of German rifle fire before Longwy.
Everybody in Ausone knew; everybody in France understood. A great
stillness settled over the Republic, as though the entire land had
paused to kneel a moment before the long day of work began.
There was no effervescence, no voice raised, no raucous shout from
boulevard orators of the psychological moment, no attitudes, no
complaints.
Only, amid the vast silence, as the nation rose serenely from its knees,
millions of flashing eyes were turned toward Alsace and Lorraine--eyes
dimmed for an instant, then instantly clear again--clear and steady as
the sound and logical minds controlling them.
There was no _sonnerie_ from the portcullis, no salvo from parapet or
bastion, no fanfare blared at midday in square or stony street. No
bands of _voyous_ went yelling through boulevards, no seething crowds
choked the cafes or formed a sinister maelstrom around embassies or
government offices.
Down at the Gare de Chalons another crowd had gathered to watch the
young men of Ausone depart. They came alone, or two by two, or in
groups--sticks, bundles, suitcases, valises swinging--with serious,
unruffled features intent upon the business of the long, long business
day that was beginning for them at last.
Some were accompanied by parents, some by wives and children, some by
sweethearts: many had said good-by at home and were walking to the
station with brother or friend, saluting acquaintances en route.
But the mobilizing youths were undemonstrative, chary of gesture--shy,
serious young fellows preoccupied with the business on hand, conscious
that their term of service had equipped them for it--and in their
bearing was that modesty and self-respect which discounts
self-consciousness and self-assertion.
For there was no longer any excuse for France to be either noisy or
dramatic when she went about her business--no reason for posturing, for
epigrams, for attitudes, or for the loud laugh and the louder boast to
bolster faith with mutual and riotous reassurance in the face of an
unknown business venture concerning the conduct of which the entire
nation was excited, ignorant, and unprepared.
The Republic had been both instructed and prepared for the matter of the
business on hand. And was going quietly about it.
In Ausone itself there were few signs of war visible; the exodus of the
young men, the crowd before the bulletins, and the throng at the
station, and perhaps more mounted officers and gendarmes than usual
riding faster than is customary in the peaceful streets of a provincial
town.
But on the roads around the fortified hill dominating the rolling green
landscape in the heart of which Ausone nestled, cavalry patrols were
riding, infantry details tramped through the white dust, military wagons
and motor vans passed under dragoon escort; bridges over the Recollette
were guarded by line soldiers and gendarmes, while sappers and miners
and engineers were busy at every bridge, culvert, and railway cut.
Above the fort slim tentacles of wireless apparatus spread a tracery
against the sky, and a signal tower swam high against the blue. From it
sparkled blinding flashes in code. Officers up there were talking
business to the Barrier Forts, and the heliographs along the Vosges
brilliantly discussed the new business deal with other forts far to the
south and east, relaying reports, rumors, and quotations as far as
Paris, where the directors' meeting was being held; and even as far as
London, where stockholders and directors were gathered to add up profit
and loss, and balance policy against ethics, and reconcile both with
necessity.
In London a King, a Prime Minister, and a First Lord of the Admiralty
were listening to a Sirdar who was laying down the law by wireless to a
President and his Premier.
In St. Petersburg an Emperor was whispering to a priest while the priest
consulted the stars. Signs being favorable, they changed the city's
name to Petrograd, which imperial inspiration dealt a violent slap on
the Kaiser's wrist.
Led westward by a Grand Duke, marching Russia bent several million