“Feldwebel Stoner. König, Kaiser, Vaterland, sie leben hoch!” whispered a voice.
The swarming spirits grew till they darkened the mist. We flew through the empty corridors of Malines, and on to Waelhem—first of the Antwerp forts to fall—up the ridge to Waerloos and Contich, toward Oude God and the inner forts. Still the swarms grew, crowding closer and closer. The eyes of the dead peered like cats’ eyes in the yellow dark, and my soul chilled to ice. The odour of dead clay was so strong I nearly fainted, and bony fingers seemed to press against my back and shoulders as if heavy wires were freezing into the flesh. “Light the dash-light, for God’s sake, Pierre!” I cried, hoping the new electric blur would banish the phantoms, but their sulphurous eyes glowed only the more in its feeble ray.
And the hissing, clicking, and rattling grew. “Feldwebel Stoner, aus Bayern, tot, Eppeghem, September dreizehn ... König, Kaiser, und Vaterland—hoch!” a voice shrilled; “De Deutschers! de Deutschers!” sobbed an echo after it. And then, with a sudden access of horror, I remembered the saying of the peasants; I knew what had wakened those unquiet spirits; knew that they wished to question me; knew that I must answer their questions in the brief hour of their release; all of them I must answer!
“... leben hoch!” screamed the German voice. “Are we in Paris?”
“No!” I shouted.
“... suis Français. Vive la France! ...Have we reached the Rhine?”
“No!”
“... Belge. Is Belgium free?”
“No!”