Thrifty Stock, and Other Stories

by Ben Ames Williams

The Frenchmen spoiled this sport by a stubborn refusal to run before the horses. Robbed of their weapons, they stood erect and faced their foe and took the steel in their breasts, so that the princeling was furious, and those with him were shamed, and the sport was broken off....

Of such things as this was existence for these men....

But I have been unjust in failing, before this, to speak of the peasants who helped them. Word of this regiment had gone abroad through the forest and the mountains. And wherever they went, they were welcomed, and given food, and shelter, and clothed.... And the peasants brought recruits to them, and brought them warnings, and information. They made endurance possible....

It was the peasants, in the end, who brought the word to Jacques Fontaine that told him his hour had come to strike. They came and they said the great battle to the southward was rolling nearer every day. This was at the time, you understand, when we had begun to push the German back; it was at the time when he was giving way each time a little more easily than the time before. We advanced one mile today, two miles tomorrow, three the day after....

And the word of this was abroad among the peasants in that part of France and of Belgium which the German still held. They were fermenting, as though these rumors of approaching liberation had been yeast cast among them....

They came, and they told Jacques Fontaine. And Jacques Fontaine, and wry-necked Lupec, cast about them to find a task for their hands.

The Germans were making up their mind, at this time, to draw back to a new defensive line, where, they counted on being able to hold us at last. And they were withdrawing slowly, a little here, and a little there, and a little yonder, day by day. Behind them they left a ruined country, every house destroyed, every fruit tree cut off at the roots.... But they were going back and back....

There was one line of railroad, along which the trains were pounding, day by day; and this line ran north and south past the fringe of the forest and the mountains where Jacques Fontaine and his regiment were hiding. The regiment was scattered, groups of four men and five and six dwelt here and there among the ravines. But when Jacques Fontaine and Lupec had considered, and had secretly scouted back and forth, and had decided upon what they wished to do, they sent runners to gather the regiment together.

There was a spot where the railroad line which the Germans were burdening so heavily crossed a little stream. On the north bank of this stream, and overlooking the bridge which spanned it, there rose a rocky hillock; and this hillock was topped by one of those ancient, ruined chateaus which were the chief beauty of France before the war. On three sides, sheer precipices fell away from the walls of this old chateau; on the other side, the way of ascent was steep and hard.

A dozen men could hold this spot against an army, so long as cannon were not concerned in the affair. And Jacques Fontaine believed the Germans had other uses for their cannon at this time.