The Hosts of the Air, Joseph A. Altsheler [adult books to read .TXT] 📗

and then, as they opened out, the roar of the seventy-five-millimeters added to the terrible tumult. The Germans, withdrawing to the far edge and taking what shelter they could, replied, also with cannon, machine guns and rifles.

John saw Chastel already in ruins fairly melting away. Caught as it must have been in the former action it came tumbling, stone and brick walls and all to the ground. Detached fires were burning at many places, and a great pyramid of flame leaped up from a point where the Hôtel de l'Europe stood. The cathedral alone, as if by some singular chance, seemed to be untouched. The lofty Gothic spire shot up in the silver moonlight, and towered white and peaceful over fighting Gaul and Teuton. John looked up at it more than once, as he fired a rifle, that he had picked up, down the street at the fleeting shadows.

He was filled with an unreasoning rage. He did not hate any one of the Germans who were fighting on the other side of Chastel, but the anger that seized him when he found Julie missing was still heavy upon him. Before, whenever he had fired at an enemy he had usually felt a secret hope that the bullet would miss, but now he prayed that every one would hit. Bougainville pulled him down. "Not too fast! Not too fast!" he said. "You're worth more alive than dead. We'll soon drive them from Chastel anyhow. The seventy-fives are doing the work."

Bougainville had read the story of the battle aright. The great seventy-five-millimeter guns were too much for the German force. As the houses of Chastel were swept away the enemy on the other side was left exposed, and the Germans, despite their courage and energy, were cut down fast. Aid for the French was coming continually. New regiments rushed up the snowy slopes. John heard a shout behind him, and Captain Colton and the Strangers coming from afar rushed into the battle. As they were about to swing past John joined Wharton and Carstairs.

"We thought you were gone forever this time," shouted Carstairs. "There seems to be a special Providence for you Yankees!"

"It's skill, not luck, that counts!" exclaimed Wharton.

John joined them, and Bougainville, taking command of the whole battle, directed the charge upon the town. The spirits of the French were at the highest, and shouting tremendously they soon passed through Chastel and drove the enemy beyond it, headlong into the forest. Having superior numbers now, a better knowledge of the ground and led by a man of genius like Bougainville, they soon broke up the German force, capturing a part of it, while the rest fleeing eastward, burst through the French trenches, and, after further heavy losses, succeeded in getting back to the main German army.

The pursuit was carried on some time by the French cavalry which had appeared as the last charge was made, but Bougainville, with the clear note of trumpets, recalled the infantry. He was satisfied with the victory that had been won in Chastel, and he did not wish to exhaust his troops with vain rushes in the deep snow.

The Strangers halted with the rest, and John, coming out of the red rage that had possessed his soul, saw that Captain Colton was uninjured and that Carstairs and Wharton, who stood near him, had only scratches.

"Grazed four times," said Carstairs happily. "The bullets knew a good man when they saw him, and turned aside just in time to give him slight but honorable wounds."

"Two scratches for me, too," said Wharton.

"Which proves what I told you," said Carstairs, "that it was often luck, not skill, that saved you."

"Both count," said Captain Colton, tersely. "Napoleon had immense skill. Suppose bad luck had sent a bullet into his heart in his first battle in Italy. Would have been forgotten in a day. And if no bullet had ever touched him, wouldn't have amounted to much, without immense skill."

"Do we go back to Chastel, sir?" asked John.

"Back to what's left of it. Not much, I think. See nothing but Gothic tower!"

John looked up. The great Gothic spire hung over a scene of desolation and ruin, now complete save for the cathedral itself. Otherwise not an undamaged house remained in Chastel. Fires still smoldered, and the largest of them all, marked where the Hôtel de l'Europe had stood. The firing had ceased save for a distant murmur where the cavalry still pursued, and John choked as he gazed at ruined Chastel. He looked most often at the burning Hôtel de l'Europe where he had spent such happy hours, the happiest, in truth, of his life, hours that glowed. He could see as vividly, as if it were all real again, Julie and himself at the little table by the window, and Antoine and Suzanne serving. He choked, and for a little while he could not reply to Wharton's question:

"Why, Scott, what's struck you? You look as if you had lost your last friend!"

"Wharton," replied John at last, "I found Mademoiselle Lannes and her servants, Antoine and Suzanne Picard here, come as requested by letter, to meet her brother Philip. I found them in the cathedral waiting, and we went to the Hôtel de l'Europe, where she and I dined together."

"Good Heavens! You don't mean to say she was there under the awful fire of our guns?"

"No, else I should not have been with you. Weber, the trusty Alsatian, of whom you know, came to us in the town. It was he who had borne the letter from Philip to Mademoiselle Julie. We thought we saw Germans in the outskirts of Chastel. We did not find any, but when we came back to the Hôtel de l'Europe, where we left them, Mademoiselle Julie and her servants, the Picards, were gone."

"Perhaps they were alarmed by the German advance and have taken refuge somewhere in the woods. If so, it will be easy to find them, Scott."

"No, they're not there. They're in the hands of the enemy. I shouldn't mind it so much if she were merely a captive of the Germans, but that man Auersperg has taken her again."

"How can you possibly know that to be true, Scott?"

Then John told the story of the register, and of the successive writing of the names. Cotton heard him, too, and his face was very grave.

"It's a pity Bougainville couldn't have come earlier," he said. "We might not only have saved Mademoiselle Julie but have captured this Prince of Auersperg as well. Then we should indeed have had a prize. But the wireless could not talk through all the storm and we had no warning of the German movement until the snowfall died down."

"What are we going to do?" asked John.

"We'll stay on the site of Chastel at least until morning, which can't be far away."

John looked at his watch.

"It will be daylight in two hours," he said.

"Oh, by the way," exclaimed Carstairs, "what became of Weber?"

"We were making our escape in Mademoiselle Lannes' automobile when we ran into a detachment of Germans. Our car was riddled; we both dodged for shelter and that was the last I saw of him."

"He escaped. I wager a pound to a shilling on it. The Alsatian not only has borrowed the nine lives of a cat, but he has nine original ones of his own."

"I feel sure, like you, Carstairs, that he has escaped and I certainly hope so. He's a clever man who has the faculty of turning up at the right time."

"It promises to be a clear dawn," said Wharton. "You may not believe it, Carstairs, but I'm a fine weather prophet in my own country, and if I can do so well there I ought at least to do as well with the low-grade weather supplied by an inferior continent like Europe."

"It's no wonder they call you a mad Yankee, Wharton. Low-grade weather! Have you any fog that can equal our London variety?"

"It's quality, not quantity that counts with a superior, intellectual people such as we are."

"Intellect! It's luck! I don't remember his name, but he was a discerning Frenchman, who said that a special Providence watched over drunken men and Americans."

"A special Providence watches over only those who have superior merit."

"I think," said John, "that I'm bound to take a little rest, if Captain Colton will let me."

"Oh, he'll let you if you ask him," said Carstairs. "You're a particular favorite of his, although I can't understand why. Wharton and I are much more deserving. But you do look all played out, old fellow."

John had sustained a sudden collapse. Intense emotion and immense physical exertion, continued so long, could be endured no longer, and he felt as if he would fall in the snow. But a portion of the victorious force was to remain at Chastel, and some tents had been pitched. Captain Colton readily gave John permission to enter one of them and roll himself in the blankets.

It was still an hour of dawn, but the night was light. Fires yet burned here and there in Chastel, where not a single building now stood unharmed, save the cathedral. The mutter of the cannon came from the vast front both to east and to west.

John looked into the great misty world and his face was turned toward the east. He had no doubt that Auersperg had gone in that direction with Julie, and he meant to find her. But how? He prayed silently for the coming of Lannes with the Arrow. For such a search as this the swift aeroplane could serve while one might plod in vain over the ground. Lannes would come before the next night! He must come! If he had made an appointment for such a meeting nothing could delay him more than a day.

He did not have any great fear for Julie's present safety. The modern civilized world had suddenly broken loose from many of its anchors, but so conspicuous a man as Auersperg could not stain his name with a deed that would brand him throughout Europe. Weber, however, had spoken of a morganatic marriage, and fearful pressure might be brought to bear. A country so energetic and advanced as Germany had clung, nevertheless, to many repellent principles of medievalism. A nation listened with calm acceptance and complacency, while its Kaiser claimed a partnership, and not altogether a junior partnership either, with the Almighty. Much could be forgiven to an Auersperg, the head of a house that had been princely more than a thousand years. John shuddered.

He had not gone to the tent at once as he intended. His nerves were yet leaping and he knew now that they must become quiet before he could sleep. Men were moving about him, carrying the wounded or helping with the camp, but they were only misty forms in the white gloom. Looking again toward the east he saw a silver bar appear just below the horizon. He knew it was the bright vanguard that heralded the coming sun, and his imaginative, susceptible mind beheld in it once more an omen. It beckoned him toward the east, and hope rose strong in his heart.

"Wharton," he said, "I suppose we'll stay awhile in Chastel."

"So I hear. Until noon at least."

"Then you wake me three hours from now. It will be enough sleep at such a time, and I want to be up when Lannes comes. You promise?"

"Certainly, Scott, I'll do it, though you'll probably swear at me for bothering you. Still, I'm ready to do any unpleasant duty for a friend when he asks it."

John laughed, went into the tent, rolled himself in the blankets and in a minute was fast asleep. In another minute, as it seemed, Wharton was pulling vigorously at his shoulder.

"Get up, Scott!" exclaimed Wharton. "Your three hours, and a half hour's grace that I allowed you, have passed. Didn't I tell you that you'd be ungrateful and that you'd fight against me for fulfilling your request! Open your eyes, man, and stand up!"

John sprang to his feet, shook his head violently several times, and then was wide awake.

"Thanks, Wharton," he said. "You're a true friend but you're a wretched reckoner of time."

"How so?"

"You said it was three hours and a half when in reality it was only three minutes and a half."

But a clear wintry sun was shining in at the door of the tent, and he saw its gold across the snow. Beyond was a kitchen automobile at which men were obtaining coffee and food.

"Has Lannes come?" asked John.

"Not yet, but of course he'll be here soon; by noon, I fancy."

John went out and took his breakfast with his comrades of the Strangers. The morning was uncommonly bright. There was not a trace of cloud in the heavens, which had turned to the soft, velvety