With Joffre at Verdun: A Story of the Western Front

by F. S. Brereton

And opposite that opening, peering through it, the upper part of his frame illuminated by the torches flaring down below him, was Max—Max, that sinister, dried-up, snappy German officer, who had already on more than one occasion given Henri and Jules some indication of his brutal nature. The man was gripping a heavy bag—a bag which undoubtedly required some effort to lift and handle—and, as he stood with his eyes glued upon the men down below, was slowly extricating some object from the bundle he carried.

"What on earth is it? What's he up to?" Jules asked breathlessly. "He's taking something out of the bag, and is fumbling. Look! He's put the bag down now, and has lifted the something so as to take a good look at it. It—it's——"

"A bomb—a hand-grenade of sorts. The beggar's got a whole bag of 'em! He's——"

They watched, rooted to the spot, as the German lifted that object in one hand till the light from the room below fell upon it. And then, fumbling at its base, presently extracted something. Then they saw him stoop over the heavy bag placed on the floor, lift the flap, and commence to insert the object. It was just then that Henri realized the villainy intended by this ruffian. Perhaps you will say that "all is fair in love and war", and that Henri himself had but a little while before given the Germans an exhibition of bomb-throwing. But that was in order to save his friend about to be executed, about to be murdered, indeed, by this selfsame ruffian. Now, taking a leaf from his book as it were, this Max was preparing a load of bombs to thrust down among the Bretons.

One grenade alone might be expected, exploding amongst them, to kill numbers, but what would happen if the whole bag of them, detonated by the one he had just prepared, fell into the crowded room below and exploded? It would mean death to every man there; death to many of those outside; and might easily break down the work already done by those gallant Frenchmen, and enable the Brandenburgers to push on again into the fort and eject them. Even Henri and Jules might not escape unscathed, and Max, too, might be injured. It was, indeed, a moment for action, for swift decisive action, and, though Henri had felt rooted to the spot a moment before, any hesitation there might have been was gone in an instant. His whirling brain cleared, as it were, as need for swift movement came, and, at once bounding forward, he gripped the German by the nape of his neck and seized the hand which was lifting the bag upwards.

And then commenced a struggle in that gallery, for, to do him credit, as we have already done indeed, this German was a tenacious fighter. Making frantic efforts to throw off Jules and Henri, and to toss the bag into the room below, he staggered about the gallery with the two Frenchmen hanging to him, and then, of a sudden breaking loose, he dashed away from them. It looked, indeed, as though he would make good his escape; but Jules raced after him, while Henri dipped his hand in the bag before he moved, and then went rushing down the gallery, shouting for the German to stop and deliver himself up as a prisoner.

A sharp crack, a flash in the darkness ahead of them, and the fleeting vision of a man pointing a revolver at them followed, and then a swift movement of Henri's hand. Bringing it back over his shoulder he suddenly jerked the grenade forward, and hurled it at the German, the flash which followed lighting up the gallery from end to end, while the blast of the explosion drove the two Frenchmen backward. As for Max, that sinister German who seemed to have dogged their footsteps from the very commencement, from the days, indeed, when they were helpless prisoners in Ruhleben, the bomb made short work of him—just as short work as it would have made of those gallant Bretons. He was dead! Hoist, indeed, by his own petard!

"And one isn't sorry!" Henri said, as the two of them returned and descended the stairs to join the Bretons. "I'd sooner kill a roomful of Germans than that one Frenchman should be hurt. And here, all that we've done is to reverse the numbers. Come along, Jules, and let's get out of the fort and back to an ambulance! My head's splitting, and we shall both want rest before we can take a further part in the fighting."

No need to follow them back to that ambulance, nor to tell how those two gallant young Frenchmen, now corporals, were soon promoted to the rank of lieutenant when they returned to their regiment, and for weeks and weeks saw fighting along the Verdun salient. As we write they are still there; for German attacks surge all round the trenches on the heights of the Meuse, and, though here and there the line has been dented, Verdun, that sleepy old town down by the river, is still French, still beyond the grasp of the Kaiser.

The ruthless War Lord who caused this terrific contest to break out, who has deluged Europe and Asia and Africa with blood, and who has been instrumental in the slaughter of hosts of people, is still thwarted. True, he has gained certain yards of land—French land—the steep, sloping sides of that plateau of Douaumont, and the lower ground opposite the Mort Homme and Hill 304. But at what a price! The slopes are thick with dead Germans. Returning again and again to the attack, hounded on by their War Lord, German soldiers still advance over fields carpeted with their fallen comrades; and still French guns and gallant French poilus smile grimly down at them, as if to say: