The Frontier/Part 3/Chapter 4

... Sound the rally ... at the double ... and quietly."

It was Captain Daspry who now arrived, with a brisk gait, but with the grave and resolute face of a leader who is commanding at a solemn moment.

He said to Philippe:

"Is M. Morestal still unwell?"

Mme. Morestal ran out from the house:

"My husband is asleep.... He is very tired.... The morphia.... But, if there is anything you want, I can take his place. I know his intentions, his preparations."

"We shall attempt the impossible," said the officer. And, addressing his lieutenant, he added, "It would have been madness to stay over there, wouldn't it, Fabrègues? It's not a question of demolishing a few Uhlans, as we did, but of standing our ground against a whole brigade who were climbing the other slope.... Oh, it was all planned long ago! ... And M. Morestal is a jolly clever man! ..."

The bugle sounded a low call and the Alpine Rifles emerged from every side, through the terrace, the garden and the back entrances.

"That will do!" said the officer to the bugler. "They have heard ... and I don't want the enemy to hear as well."

He took out his watch:

"Twelve o'clock.... Two hours more, at least.... Oh, if I only had twenty-five minutes or half an hour in which to prepare my resistance.... But nothing will stop them.... The passage is free...."

He called:

"Fabrègues!"

"Yes, captain."

"All the men in front of the coach-house, on the left of the garden. At the back of the coach-house is a hay-loft. Break down the door...."

"Victor, show the gentleman the way," said Mme. Morestal to the servant. "Here is the key."

"In the loft," continued the captain, "you will find two hundred bags of plaster.... Use them to block up the parapet of this terrace.... Quick as you can! ... Every minute is worth an hour."

He himself went to the parapet, measured it and counted the balusters. In the distance, within rifle-range, the Col du Diable formed a deep gash between the great rocks. Saboureux's Farm guarded the entrance. As yet, not a single figure of the enemy showed.

"Ah, twenty minutes! ... If I only had twenty minutes!" repeated the officer. "The position of the Old Mill is hard to beat. One would stand a chance or two ..."

An adjutant and a couple more soldiers appeared at the top of the staircase.

"Well?" asked Captain Daspry. "Are they coming?"

"The vanguard was turning the corner of the factory, at five hundred yards from the pass," replied the adjutant.

"Are there any more of our men behind you?"

"Yes, captain, there's Duvauchel. He's wounded. They've laid him on a stretcher...."

"Duvauchel!" cried the officer, anxiously. "It's not a serious wound, I hope?"

"Upon my word ... I shouldn't like to say."

"Dash it all! But then one saw nothing but that devil in the front line.... There was no holding him...."

"Yes," chuckled the adjutant, "he has a way of his own of deserting in the face of the enemy! ... He charges straight at them, the beggar!"

But Mme. Morestal grew frightened:

"A man wounded! I will go and prepare some bandages, get out the medicine-chest.... We have all that's wanted.... Will you come, Marthe?"

"Yes, mother," replied Marthe, without budging.

She did not remove her eyes from her husband and tried to read on Philippe's face the feelings that stirred him. She had first of all seen him go back to the drawing-room and cross the entrance-hall, as though he were thinking of the way out through the garden, which was still free. The sudden arrival of the riflemen pushed him back; and he talked to several of them in a low voice and gave them some bread and a flask of brandy. Then he returned to the terrace. His inaction, in the midst of the constant traffic to and fro, was obviously irksome to him. Twice he consulted the drawing-room clock; and Marthe guessed that he was thinking of the hour of the train and the time which he would need to reach Langoux Station. But she did not alarm herself. Every second was weaving bonds around him that tied him down without his knowing it; and it seemed to Marthe as though events had no other object than to make her husband's departure impossible.

The resistance, meanwhile, was being organized. Swiftly, the riflemen brought the bags of plaster, which the captain at once ordered to be placed between every pair of balusters. Each of the bags was of the height and width corresponding with the dimensions of the intervals and left an empty space, a loop-hole, on either side. And old Morestal had even had the forethought to match the colour of the sacking with that of the parapet, so that it might not be suspected in the distance that there was a defence behind which sharpshooters lay hidden.

On either side of the terrace, the wall surrounding the garden was the object of similar cares. The captain ordered the soldiers to set out bags at the foot of the wall so as to make the top accessible from the inside.

But a sound of shouting recalled the captain to the drawing-room. The gardener's son came tumbling down from his observatory, yelling:

"Saboureux's Farm is on fire! You can see the smoke! You can see the flames!"

The captain leapt out on the terrace.

The smoke was whirling above the barn. Gleams kindled, faint as yet and hesitating. And, suddenly, as though set free, the flames shot up in angry spirals. The wind at once beat them down again. The roof of the house took fire. And, in a few minutes, it was a violent flare, accompanied by the quick blaze of the rotten beams, the dry thatch, the trusses of hay and straw heaped up by the hundred in the barn and in the sheds.

"To work!" shouted the captain, gleefully. "The Col du Diable is blocked by the flames.... They'll last for quite fifteen or twenty minutes ... and the enemy have no other road...."

His excitement communicated itself to the men. Not one of them broke down beneath the weight of the bags, heavy though these were. The captain posted the non-commissioned officers at regular intervals, so that his orders could be passed on from the terrace to every end of the property.

Lieutenant Fabrègues came up. The materials were beginning to fall short and the lofty wall remained inaccessible to the marksmen in several places.

Mme. Morestal behaved like a heroine:

"Take the furniture, captain, the chairs, the tables. Break them up, if necessary.... Burn them even.... Do just as if my husband were here."

"M. Morestal said something about a stock of cartridges," asked the captain.

"In the boxes in the harness-room. Here are the keys."

The men redoubled their activity. The Old Mill was ransacked; and the soldiers passed laden with mattresses, sofas, old oak chests, hangings also and carpets, with which they stopped up the holes and the windows.

"The flames are spreading," said the captain, going to the top of the staircase. "There's nothing left of Farmer Saboureux's buildings.... But by what miracle ...? Who set the place on fire? ..."

"I did."

A peasant stood at the top of the steps, in a scorched blouse, with his face all blackened.

"You, Saboureux?"

"Yes, I," growled Saboureux, fiercely. "I had to.... I heard you over there: 'If we could only stop them,' says you. 'If I had half an hour to spare!'... Well, there's your half an hour for you.... I set fire to the shanty."

"And very nearly roasted me inside it," grinned Old Poussière, who was with the farmer. "I was asleep in the straw...."

The captain nodded his head:

"By Jove, Farmer Saboureux, but that's a damned sportsmanlike thing you've done! I formed a wrong opinion of you. I apologize. May I shake you by the hand?"

The peasant put out his hand and then walked away, with his back bent in two. He sat down in a corner of the drawing-room. Poussière also huddled into a chair, took a piece of bread from his pocket, broke it and gave half to Saboureux, as though he thought it only natural to share what he had with the man who had nothing left.

"Here's Duvauchel, sir!" announced a rifleman. "Here's Duvauchel!"

The staircase was too narrow and they had to bring the stretcher round by the garden. The captain ran to meet the wounded man, who made an effort to stand on his legs:

"What's up, Duvauchel? Are you hit?"

"Not I, sir, not I," said the man, whose face was livid and his eyes burning with fever. "A cherry-stone tickled my shoulder, by way of a lark. It's nothing...."

"But the blood's flowing...."

"It's nothing, I tell you, sir.... I know all about it.... Saw plenty of it as a greaser! ... It won't show in five minutes ... and then I'm off...."

"Oh, of course, I forgot, you're deserting!..."

"Rather! The comrades are waiting for me...."

"Then begin by getting your wound dressed...."

"My wound dressed? Oh, that's a good one! I tell you, sir, it's nothing ... less than nothing ... a kiss ... a puff of wind...."

He stood up for an instant, but his eyelids flickered, his hands sought for support and he fell back upon the litter.

Mme. Morestal and Marthe hastened to his side:

"Let me, mamma, please," said Marthe, "I'm used to it.... But you've forgotten the absorbent wool ... and the peroxide of hydrogen.... Quick, mamma ... and more bandages, lots of bandages...."

Mme. Morestal went out. Marthe bent over the wounded man and felt his pulse without delay:

"Quite right, it's nothing," she said. "The artery is uninjured."

She uncovered the wound and, very tenderly, staunched the blood that trickled from it:

"The peroxide, quick, mamma."

She took the bottle which some one held out to her and, raising her head, saw Suzanne stooping like herself over the wounded man.

"M. Morestal is waking up," said the girl. "Mme. Morestal sent me in her stead...."

Marthe did not so much as start. She did not even feel as though an unpleasant memory had flitted through her mind, compelling her to make an effort to suppress her hatred:

"Unroll the bandages," she said.

And Suzanne also was calm in the face of her enemy. No sense of shame or embarrassment troubled her. Their mingled breath caressed the soldier's face.

Nor did it seem that any memory of love existed between Philippe and Suzanne or that a carnal bond united them. They looked at each other unmoved. Marthe herself told Philippe to uncork a bottle of boracic. He did so. His hand touched Suzanne's. Neither he nor Suzanne felt a thrill.

Around them continued the uninterrupted work of the men, each of whom obeyed orders and executed them according to his own initiative, without fuss or confusion. The servants were all in the drawing-room. The women aided in the work. Amid the great anguish that oppressed every heart at the first formidable breath of war, no one thought of anything but his individual task, that contribution of heroism which fate was claiming from one and all. What mattered the petty wounds of pride, the petty griefs to which the subtleties of love give rise! What signified the petty treacheries of daily life!

"He's better," said Marthe. "Here, Suzanne, let him sniff at the smelling-salts."

Duvauchel opened his eyes. He saw Marthe and Suzanne, smiled and murmured:

"By Jingo!... It was worth while! ... Duvauchel's a lucky dog! ..."

But an unexpected silence fell upon the great drawing-room, like a spontaneous cessation of all the organs at work. And, suddenly, a voice was heard on the threshold:

"They have crossed the frontier! Two of them have crossed the frontier!"

And Victor exclaimed:

"And there are more coming! You can see their helmets.... They are coming! They are in France!"

The women fell on their knees. One of them moaned:

"O God, have pity on us!"

Marthe had joined Philippe at the terrace-door and they heard Captain Daspry repeating in a low voice, with an accent of despair:

"Yes, they are in France ... they have crossed the frontier."

"They are in France, Philippe," said Marthe, taking her husband's hand.

And she felt his hand tremble.

Drawing himself up quickly, the captain commanded:

"Not a shot! ... Let no one show himself!"

The order flew from mouth to mouth and silence and immobility reigned in the Old Mill, from one end to the other of the house and grounds. Each one stood at his post. All along the wall, the soldiers kept themselves hidden, perched upright on their improvised talus.

At that moment, one of the drawing-room doors opened and old Morestal appeared on his wife's arm. Dressed in a pair of trousers and a waistcoat, bare-headed, tangle-haired, with a handkerchief fastened round his neck, he staggered on his wavering legs. Nevertheless, a sort of gladness, like an inward smile, lighted his features.

"Let me be," he said to his wife, who was endeavouring to support him.

He steadied his gait and walked to the gun-rack, where the twelve rifles stood in a row.

He took out one with feverish haste, felt it, with the touch of a sportsman recognizing his favourite weapon, passed in front of Philippe, without appearing to see him, and went out on the terrace.

"You, M. Morestal!" said Captain Daspry.

Pointing to the frontier, the old man asked:

"Are they there?"

"Yes."

"Are you making a resistance?"

"Yes."

"Are there many of them?"

"There are twenty to one."

"If so ...?"

"We've got to."

"But ..."

"We've got to, M. Morestal; and be easy, we shall stand our ground.... I'm certain of it."

Morestal said, in a low voice:

"Remember what I told you, captain.... The road is undermined at two hundred yards from the terrace.... A match and ..."

"Oh," protested the officer, "I hope it won't come to that! I am expecting relief."

"Very well!" said Morestal. "But anything rather than let them come up to the Old Mill!"

"They won't come up. It's out of the question that they should come up before the arrival of the French troops."

"Good! As long as the Old Mill remains in our hands, they won't be able to man the heights and threaten Saint-Élophe."

They could plainly see columns of infantry winding along the Col du Diable. There, they divided and one part of the men turned towards the Butte-aux-Loups, while the others—consisting of the greater number, for this was evidently the enemy's object—went down towards the Étang-des Moines, to seize the high-road.

These disappeared for a moment, hidden by the bend of the ground.

The captain said to Morestal:

"Once the road is held and the assault begins, it will be impossible to get away.... It would be better, therefore, for the ladies ... and for you yourself ..."

Morestal gave him such a look that the officer did not insist:

"Come, come," he said, smiling, "don't be angry.... Rather help me to make these good people understand...."

He turned to the servants, to Victor, who was taking down a rifle, to the gardener, to Henriot, and warned them that none but combatants must stay at the Old Mill, as any man captured with arms in his hands exposed himself to reprisals.

They let him talk; and Victor, without thinking of retiring, answered:

"That's as may be, captain. But it's one of the things one doesn't think about. I'm staying."

"And you, Farmer Saboureux? You're running a big risk, if they prove that you set fire to your farm."

"I'm staying," growled the peasant, laconically.

"And you, tramp?"

Old Poussière had not finished eating the piece of bread which he had taken from his wallet. He was listening and observing, with eyes wide open and an evident effort to attend. He examined the captain, his uniform, the braid upon his sleeve, seemed to reflect on mysterious things, stood up and seized a rifle.

"That's right, Poussière," grinned Morestal. "You know your country right enough, once it needs defending."

A man had made the same movement as the tramp, almost at the same time. One more division in the gun-rack was empty.

It was Duvauchel, still rather unsteady on his pins, but wearing an undaunted look.

"What, Duvauchel!" asked Captain Daspry. "Aren't we deserting?"

"You're getting at me, captain! Let the beggars clear out of France first! I'll desert afterwards."

"But you've only one arm that's any good."

"A greaser's arm, captain ... and a French greaser's at that ... is worth two, any day."

"Pass me one of them rifles," said the gardener's son. "I know my way about with 'em."

Duvauchel began to laugh:

"You too, sonnie? You want one? You'll see, the babes at the breast will be rising up next, like the others. Lord, but it makes my blood boil to think that they're in France!"

All followed the captain, who allotted them a post along the parapet. The women busied themselves in placing ammunition within reach of the marksmen.

Marthe was left alone with her husband. She saw that the scene had stirred him. In the way in which those decent folk realized their duty and performed it without being compelled to, simply and spontaneously, there was that sort of greatness which touches a man to the very depths of his soul.

She said to him:

"Well, Philippe?"

His face was drawn; he did not reply.

She continued:

"Well, go.... What are you waiting for? No one will notice your flight.... Be quick.... Take the opportunity while it's here...."

They heard the captain addressing his lieutenant:

"Keep down your head, Fabrègues, can't you? They'll see you, if you're not careful...."

Marthe seized Philippe's arm and, bending towards him:

"Now confess that you can't go ... that all this upsets your notions ... and that your duty is here ... that you feel it."

"There they are! There they are!" said a voice.

"Yes," said Captain Daspry, searching the road through the orifice of a loop-hole, "yes, there they are!... At six hundred yards, at most ... It's the vanguard.... They are skirting the pool and they haven't a notion that ..."

A sergeant came to tell him that the enemy had hoisted a gun on the slope of the pass. The officer was alarmed, but old Morestal began to laugh:

"Let them bring up as many guns as they please!... They can only take up positions which we command and which I have noted. A few good marksmen are enough to keep them from placing a battery."

And, turning to his son, he said to him, quite naturally, as though nothing had ever parted them:

"Are you coming, Philippe? We'll demolish them between us."

Captain Daspry interfered:

"Don't fire! We are not discovered yet. Wait till I give the order.... There'll be time enough later...."

Old Morestal had moved away.

Philippe walked resolutely towards the gate that led to the garden, to the open country. But he had not taken ten steps, when he stopped. He seemed to be vaguely suffering; and Marthe, who had not left his side, Marthe, anxious, full of mingled hope and apprehension, watched every phase of the tragic struggle:

"All the past is calling on you, Philippe; all the love for France that the past has bequeathed to you. Listen to its voice."

And, replying to every possible objection:

"Yes, I know, your intelligence rebels against it. But is one's intelligence everything?... Obey your instinct, Philippe.... It's your instinct that is right."

"No, no," he stammered, "one's instinct is never right...."

"It is right. But for that, you would be far away by now. But you can't go. Your whole being refuses to go. Your legs have not the strength for flight."

The Col du Diable was pouring forth troops and more troops, whose swarming masses showed along the slope. Others must be coming by the Albern Road; and, on every side, along every path and through every gap, the men of Germany were invading the soil of France.

The vanguard reached the high-road, at the end of the Étang-des-Moines.

There was a dull roll of the drum; and, suddenly, in the near silence, a hoarse voice barked out a German word of command.

Philippe started as though he had been struck.

And Marthe clung to him, pitilessly:

"Do you hear, Philippe? Do you understand? The German speech on French soil! Their language forced upon us!"

"Oh, no!" he said. "That can't be.... That will never be!"

"Why should it never be? Invasion comes first ... and then conquest ... and subjection...."

Near them, the captain ordered:

"Let no one stir!"

Bullets spluttered against the walls, while the sounds of firing reverberated. A window-pane was smashed on the floor above. And more bullets broke fragments of stone from the coping of the parapet. The enemy, surprised at the disappearance of the French troops, were feeling their way before passing below that house, whose gloomy aspect must needs strike them as suspicious.

"Ah!" said a soldier, spinning on his heels and falling on the threshold of the drawing-room, his face covered with blood.

The women ran to his assistance.

Philippe gazed haggard-eyed at that man who was about to die, at that man who belonged to the same race, who lived under the same sky as himself, who breathed the same air, ate the same bread and drank the same wine.

Marthe had taken down a rifle and handed it to Philippe. He grasped it with a sort of despair:

"Who would ever have told me ...?" he stammered.

"I, Philippe ... I was sure of you. We have not to do with theories, but with implacable facts. These are realities, to-day.... The enemy is treading the bit of earth where you were born, where you played as a child. The enemy is forcing his way into France. Defend her, Philippe...."

He clenched his fists around his rifle and she saw that his eyes were full of tears.

He murmured, quivering with inward rebellion:

"Our sons will refuse ... I shall teach them to refuse.... What I cannot do, what I have not the courage to do they shall do."

"Perhaps, but what does the future matter!" she said, eagerly. "What does to-morrow's duty matter! Our duty, yours and mine, is the duty of to-day."

A voice whispered:

"They're coming near, captain.... They're coming near...."

Another voice, beside Philippe, the voice of one of the women tending the wounded man, moaned:

"He's dead.... Poor fellow! ... He's dead...."

The guns roared on the frontier.

"Are you coming, Philippe?" asked old Morestal.

"I'm coming, father," he said.

Very quickly, he walked out on the terrace and knelt beside his father, against the balusters. Marthe knelt down behind him and wept at the thought of what he must be suffering. Nevertheless, she did not doubt but that, notwithstanding his despair, he was acting in all conscience.

The captain said, clearly, and the order was repeated to the end of the garden:

"Fire as you please.... Sight at three hundred yards...."

There were a few seconds of solemn waiting ... then the terrible word:

"Fire!"

Yonder, along the barrel of his rifle, near an old oak in whose branches he once used to climb, Philippe saw a great lubber in uniform throw up his hands, bend his legs one after the other and stretch himself along the ground, slowly, as though to sleep....