A New Standpoint
To Max and his chum these were days charged high with excitement. Their day's toil in the shops over, they raced away to the points where the most exciting events were to be seen. They were witnesses of most that went forward, and actually lent a hand in the rounding-up, from among the civil population of the city, of the band of armed Germans who attempted to assassinate the commandant of the fortress, General Leman.
The entry of the Germans was to both of them a fearful blow. They knew little of military matters, and vaguely believed that the town and forts were strong enough to stand a regular siege. And yet on the third day after the attack the town had fallen! As they watched the young German troops marching into the town they could not help feeling deeply disappointed and discouraged.
"I wish now that you had gone home, Dale," remarked Max in a gloomy voice as they slowly made their way towards the works. "Now that the place has fallen you can do no good here. And as you are not a native you may be taken for a spy and shot off-hand."
"Shut up, Max! We've agreed to go through this business together, and there's an end of it. Liége is lost, but the war's still on, and it will be hard if we can't find some way of giving our side a shove forward."
"Aye to that, Dale. Well, if you don't mind being here in a conquered town I'm jolly glad to have you. Now, I suppose we can still go on helping to cast shells—why no, Dale! We simply can't do any more of that work; it's absolutely useless."
"Of course it is. You may be sure the Germans won't let shells be sent away from Liége except to Germany. Your works had better get on with the other work. Shells are out of the question."
"I must see Schenk about this," replied Max thoughtfully. "It needs thinking out what work—if any at all—we can do without helping the Germans. It's an awkward business, but I have no doubt Schenk can see daylight through it."
"I should think so, but—hallo! What's that?"
Dale stopped suddenly, and stood gazing down a side street, the end of which they were just about to cross. A sudden burst of screams and shouts, quite startling in its intensity, assailed their ears, and made them look and look with a feeling of foreboding new to them. At the far end of the street they could see a group of men in the grey-green uniform surging to and fro before a house from which the screams seemed to issue.
"The Germans—doing the same dirty work as they did at Visé!" gasped Max, turning away his head and clenching his fists in his pockets. "I hardly know how to keep from rushing down there, utterly useless though it is."
"It is women they are ill-treating—how can we walk away?" cried Dale in acute distress. "Let us go down, and if we cannot fight, let us beg them to desist. Perhaps if we offered them money——?"
"Useless," muttered Max, though he stopped and gazed down the road in irresolution. "And yet how can we pass by, Dale?" he went on with a groan. "I know I shall always call myself a coward if I do nothing. Let's walk a little closer, and see if we can do anything."
Dale eagerly agreed, and they walked quickly down the road towards the group of soldiers and their victims. As they drew nearer, and could see something of what was happening, their anger increased, until they were almost ready to throw themselves upon the soldiers and oppose their bayonets with their bare fists.
The house before which the outrage was taking place seemed, for some reason, to have been singled out from the others which lined both sides of the street, possibly because the head of the house was well known as an opponent of the Germans or because of some act of hostility committed against the soldiers. At any rate, an elderly man, evidently dragged from the house, had been tied to the front railings, and was being subjected to treatment so cruel that it almost amounted to torture.
The womenfolk of the house had apparently rushed out and endeavoured to intervene, but had been forcibly held back, and were at that moment being subjected to brutal indignities that angered Max and Dale even more than the cold-blooded cruelty to the man himself.
The two had arrived within some forty yards of the scene, and were still pressing on as though drawn by a magnet, although neither knew what he was going to do, when one of the soldiers drew the attention of his fellows to the two young men advancing towards them. At the same time he picked up his rifle, took quick aim, and discharged it directly at them.
The bullet whizzed between them, and, on the impulse, Max seized Dale by the arm and dragged him through the open doorway of the nearest house. A roar of laughter from the soldiers at their rapid exit followed them, and made the anger of one at least of them burn with a still fiercer resentment.
"Right through and out at the back," cried Max in urgent tones, and the two passed through the house, which appeared to be deserted, and found themselves in an open space intersected only by low garden fences.
Max laid his hand on his friend's arm. "I am going to move quietly along until I reach the back of the house where those curs are at work," he said in a hard, suppressed voice. "I must do something, but do not you come, Dale. There is no need for you——"
"I am already in it, I tell you," almost shouted Dale as he impatiently shook him off. "It's as much my affair as yours. Come on."
The two made their way rapidly but cautiously along until they reached the house they sought. The doors were open at the back, and the shouts and screams were almost as audible there as at the front.
"We have no weapons; let us arm ourselves with these," cried Max, pointing to some blocks of ornamental quartz bordering a little fernery. Even in the midst of his excitement it struck Max how strangely the orderliness of the tiny, well-kept garden seemed to contrast with the deeds of violence being committed outside.
Rapidly but quietly the two lads filled hands and pockets with the heavy missiles. Then they crept inside the house and up the stairs to the floor above. The house was quite empty, for all within had rushed or been dragged to the scene in front.
The bedroom windows were wide open, and the instant they entered both lads began with one impulse to hurl with all their strength the great stones upon the German soldiery below. They were both wild with rage at what they had witnessed, and utterly reckless what fate might ultimately be theirs, so long as they could inflict some punishment upon the cowardly wrongdoers.
