"On Wednesday, the nineteenth of August, Corvigny, to the great satisfaction of the inhabitants, still thought that it would be spared the horrors of war. There was fighting in Alsace and outside Nancy, there was fighting in Belgium; but it looked as if the German thrust were neglecting the route of invasion offered by the valley of the Liseron. The fact is that this road is a narrow one and apparently of secondary importance. At Corvigny, a French brigade was busily pushing forward the defense-works. The Grand Jonas and the Petit Jonas were[Pg 95] ready under their concrete cupolas. Our fellows were waiting."
"And at Ornequin?" asked Bernard.
"At Ornequin, we had a company of light infantry. The officers put up at the house. This company, supported by a detachment of dragoons, patrolled the frontier day and night. In case of alarm, the orders were to inform the forts at once and to retreat fighting. The evening of Wednesday was absolutely quiet. A dozen dragoons had galloped over the frontier till they were in sight of the little German town of Ebrecourt. There was not a movement of troops to be seen on that side, nor on the railway-line that ends at Ebrecourt. The night also was peaceful. Not a shot was fired. It is fully proved that at two o'clock in the morning not a single German soldier had crossed the frontier. Well, at two o'clock exactly, a violent explosion was heard, followed by four others at close intervals. These explosions were due to the bursting of five four-twenty shells which demolished straightway the three cupolas of the Grand Jonas and the two cupolas of the Petit Jonas."
"What do you mean? Corvigny is fifteen miles from the frontier; and the four-twenties don't carry as far as that!"
"That didn't prevent six more shells falling at Corvigny, all on the church or in the square. And these six shells fell twenty minutes later, that is to say, at the time when it was to be presumed that[Pg 96] the alarm would have been given and that the Corvigny garrison would have assembled in the square. This was just what had happened; and you can imagine the carnage that resulted."
"I agree; but, once more, the frontier was fifteen miles away. That distance must have given our troops time to form up again and to prepare for the attacks foretold by the bombardment. They had at least three or four hours before them."
"They hadn't fifteen minutes. The bombardment was not over before the assault began. Assault isn't the word: our troops, those at Corvigny as well as those which hastened up from the two forts, were decimated and routed, surrounded by the enemy, shot down or obliged to surrender, before it was possible to organize any sort of resistance. It all happened suddenly under the blinding glare of flash-lights erected no one knew where or how. And the catastrophe was immediate. You may take it that Corvigny was invested, attacked, captured and occupied by the enemy, all in ten minutes."
"But where did he come from? Where did he spring from?"
"Nobody knows."
"But the night-patrols on the frontier? The sentries? The company on duty at Ornequin?"
"Never heard of again. No one knows anything, not a word, not a rumor, about those three hundred men whose business it was to keep watch and to warn the others. You can reckon up the Corvigny garri[Pg 97]son, with the soldiers who escaped and the dead whom the inhabitants identified and buried. But the three hundred light infantry of Ornequin disappeared without leaving the shadow of a trace behind them, not a fugitive, not a wounded man, not a corpse, nothing at all."
"It seems incredible. Whom did you talk to?"
"I saw ten people last night who, for a month, with no one to interfere with them except a few soldiers of the Landsturm placed in charge of Corvigny, have pursued a minute inquiry into all these problems, without establishing so much as a plausible theory. One thing alone is certain: the business was prepared long ago, down to the slightest detail. The exact range had been taken of the forts, the cupolas, the church and the square; and the siege-gun had been placed in position before and accurately laid so that the eleven shells should strike the eleven objects aimed at. That's all. The rest is mystery."
"And what about the chateau? And Elisabeth?"
Paul had risen from his seat. The bugles were sounding the morning roll-call. The gun-fire was twice as intense as before. They both started for the square; and Paul continued:
"Here, too, the mystery is bewildering and perhaps worse. One of the cross-roads that run through the fields between Corvigny and Ornequin has been made a boundary by the enemy which no one here had the right to overstep under pain of death."
"Then Elisabeth…?"
[Pg 98]"I don't know, I know nothing more. And it's terrible, this shadow of death lying over everything, over every incident. It appears-I have not been able to find out where the rumor originated-that the village of Ornequin, near the chateau, no longer exists. It has been entirely destroyed, more than that, annihilated; and its four hundred inhabitants have been sent away into captivity. And then…" Paul shuddered and, lowering his voice, went on, "And then… what did they do at the chateau? You can see the house, you can still see it at a distance, with its walls and turrets standing. But what happened behind those walls? What has become of Elisabeth? For nearly four weeks she has been living in the midst of those brutes, poor thing, exposed to every outrage!…"
The sun had hardly risen when they reached the square. Paul was sent for by his colonel, who gave him the heartiest congratulations of the general commanding the division and told him that his name had been submitted for the military cross and for a commission as second lieutenant and that he was to take command of his section from now.
"That's all," said the colonel, laughing. "Unless you have any further request to make."
"I have two, sir."
"Go ahead."
"First, that my brother-in-law here, Bernard d'Andeville, may be at once transferred to my section as corporal. He's deserved it."
[Pg 99]"Very well. And next?"
"My second request is that presently, when we move towards the frontier, my section may be sent to the Chateau d'Ornequin, which is on the direct route."
"You mean that it is to take part in the attack on the chateau?"
"The attack?" echoed Paul, in alarm. "Why, the enemy is concentrated along the frontier, four miles from the chateau!"
"So it was believed, yesterday. In reality, the concentration took place at the Chateau d'Ornequin, an excellent defensive position where the enemy is hanging desperately while waiting for his reinforcements to come up. The best proof is that he's answering our fire. Look at that shell bursting over there… and, farther off, that shrapnel… two… three of them. Those are the guns which located the batteries which we have set up on the surrounding hills and which are now peppering them like mad. They must have twenty guns there."
"Then, in that case," stammered Paul, tortured by a horrible thought, "in that case, that fire of our batteries is directed at…"
"At them, of course. Our seventy-fives have been bombarding the Chateau d'Ornequin for the last hour."
Paul uttered an exclamation of horror:
"Do you mean to say, sir, that we're bombarding Ornequin?…"
[Pg 100]And Bernard d'Andeville, standing beside him, repeated, in an anguish-stricken voice:
"Bombarding Ornequin? Oh, how awful!"
The colonel asked, in surprise:
"Do you know the place? Perhaps it belongs to you? Is that so? And are any of your people there?"
"Yes, sir, my wife."
Paul was very pale. Though he made an effort to stand stock-still, in order to master his emotion, his hands trembled a little and his chin quivered.
On the Grand Jonas, three pieces of heavy artillery began thundering, three Rimailho guns, which had been hoisted into position by traction engines. And this, added to the stubborn work of the seventy-fives, assumed a terrible significance after Paul Delroze's words. The colonel and the group of officers around him kept silence. The situation was one of those in which the fatalities of war run riot in all their tragic horror, stronger than the forces of nature themselves and, like them, blind, unjust and implacable. There was nothing to be done. Not one of those men would have dreamt of asking for the gun-fire to cease or to slacken its activity. And Paul did not dream of it, either. He merely said: