Who Goes There!. Robert W. Chambers
two white flags and set them in sockets on either side of the hood. The hussar beside him produced a letter from his grey despatch-pouch.
"General von Reiter's orders," he said briefly. "You are to read them now and return the letter to me before the enemies' parlementaire answers our flag."
Guild took the envelope, tore it open, and read:
Orders received since our interview make it impossible for me to tell you where to find me on your return.
My country place in Silesia is apparently out of the question at present as a residence for the person you are expected to bring back with you. The inclosed clipping from a Danish newspaper will explain why. Therefore you will sail from London on Wednesday or Sunday, taking a Holland liner. You will land at Amsterdam, go by rail through Utrecht, Helmond, Halen, Maastricht. You will be expected there. If I am not there you will remain over night.
If you return from your journey alone and unsuccessful you will surrender yourself as prisoner to the nearest German post and ask the officer in charge to telegraph me.
If you return successful you shall be permitted at Eijsden to continue your journey with the person you bring with you, across the Luxembourg border to Trois Fontaines, which is just beyond the Grand Duchy frontier; and you shall then deliver the person in question to the housekeeper of the hunting lodge, Marie Bergner. The lodge is called Quellenheim, and it belongs to me. If I am not there you must remain there over night. In the morning if you do not hear from me, you are at liberty to go where you please, and your engagements vis-à-vis to me are cancelled.
von Reiter, Maj-Gen'l.
The inclosed newspaper clipping had been translated into French and written out in long-hand. The translation read as follows:
Russia's invasion of East Prussia, Posen and Silesia has sent a wave of panic over the eastern provinces of the German Empire, if reports from Copenhagen and Stockholm are to be credited. These reports are chiefly significant as indicating that the Russian advance is progressing more rapidly than has been asserted even by despatches from Petrograd.
A correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reports from Stockholm that the whole of eastern Germany is upset by the menace of Cossack raids. He hears that a diplomatic despatch from Vienna contains information that the civilian inhabitants of Koenigsberg, East Prussia, and Breslau, in Silesia, are abandoning their homes and that only the military will remain in these strongholds.
From Copenhagen it is reported, allegedly from German sources, that Silesia expects devastation by fire and sword and that the wealthy Prussian landholders, whose immense estates cover Silesia, are leading the exodus toward the west. The military authorities have done everything possible to check the panic, fearing its hurtful influence on Germany's prospects, but have been unable to reassure the inhabitants. Many of these have seen bands of Cossacks who have penetrated a few miles over the border and their warnings have spread like a forest fire.
For a long while the young man studied the letter, reading and re-reading it, until, closing his eyes, he could repeat it word for word.
And when he was letter perfect he nodded and handed back the letter to the hussar, who pouched it.
A moment later the car ran in among a horde of mounted Uhlans, and one of their officers came galloping up alongside of the machine.
He and the hussar whispered together for a few minutes, then an Uhlan was summoned, a white cloth tied to his lance-shaft, and away he went on his powerful horse, the white flag snapping in the wind. Behind him cantered an Uhlan trumpeter.
Toward sunset the grey automobile rolled west out into open country. A vast flat plain stretched to the horizon, where the sunset flamed scarlet and rose.
But it was almost dusk before from somewhere across the plain came the faint strains of military music.
The hussar's immature mustache bristled. "British!" he remarked. "Gott in Himmel, what barbarous music!"
Guild said nothing. They were playing "Tipperary."
And now, through the late rays of the afterglow, an Uhlan trumpeter, sitting his horse on the road ahead, set his trumpet to his lips and sounded the parley again. Far, silvery, from the misty southwest, a British bugle answered.
Guild strained his eyes. Nothing moved on the plain. But, at a nod to the chauffeur from the hussar, the great grey automobile rolled forward, the two Uhlans walking their horses on either side.
Suddenly, east and west as far as the eye could see, trenches in endless parallels cut the plain, swarming with myriads and myriads of men in misty grey.
The next moment the hussar had passed a black silk handkerchief over Guild's eyes and was tying it rather tightly.
CHAPTER IV
BAD DREAMS
His first night in London was like a bad dream to him. Lying half awake on his bed, doggedly, tenaciously awaiting the sleep he needed, at intervals even on its vision-haunted borderland, but never drifting across it, he remained always darkly conscious of his errand and of his sinister predicament.
The ineffaceable scenes of the last three days obsessed him; his mind seemed to be unable to free itself. The quieter he lay, the more grimly determined he became that sleep should blot out these tragic memories for a few hours at least, the more bewildering grew the confusion in his haunted mind. Continually new details were evoked by his treacherous and insurgent memory—trifles terrible in their minor significance—the frightened boy against the wall snivelling against his ragged shirt-sleeve—the sprawling attitudes of the dead men in the dusty grass—and how, after a few moments, a mangled arm moved, blindly groping—and what quieted it.
Incidents, the petty details of sounds, of odours, of things irrelevant, multiplied and possessed him—the thin gold-rimmed spectacles on the Burgomaster's nose and the honest, incredulous eyes which gazed through them at him when he announced checkmate in three moves.
Did that tranquil episode happen years ago in another and calmer life?—or a few hours ago in this?
He heard again the startling and ominous sounds of raiding cavalry even before they had become visible in the misty street—the flat slapping gallop of the Uhlan's horses on the paved way, the tinkling clash of broken glass. Again the thick, sour, animal-like stench of the unwashed infantry seemed to assail and sicken him to the verge of faintness; and, half awake, he saw a world of fog set thick with human faces utterly detached from limbs and bodies—thousands and thousands of faces watching him out of thousands and thousands of little pig-like eyes.
His nerves finally drove him into motion and he swung himself out of bed and walked to the window.
His hotel was the Berkeley, and he looked out across Piccadilly into a silent, sad, unlighted city of shadows. Only a single line of lighted lamps outlined the broad thoroughfare. Crimson sparks twinkled here and there—the lights of cabs.
The great darkened Ritz towered opposite, Devonshire House squatted behind its grilles and shadowy walls on the right, and beyond the great dark thoroughfare stretched away into the night, melancholy, deserted save for the slight stirring of a policeman here and there or the passage of an automobile running in silence without lights.
He had been standing by the window for ten minutes or so, a lighted cigarette between his lips, both hands dropped into the pocket of his pyjamas, when he became aware of a slight sound—a very slight one—behind him.
He turned around and his eyes fell upon the knob of the door. Whether or not it was turning he could not determine in the dusk of the room. The only light