Over There with the Marines at Chateau Thierry

by G. Harvey Ralphson

The driver had driven the car under a large and heavily pillared shelter at one side of the chateau, and he now honked his horn, evidently as a signal to someone inside. Presently a burly Prussian servant came out, carrying a powerful hand searchlight, with which he supplemented the front lights of the automobile. The rain continued to come down in torrents and the lightning to flash and the thunder to clap heavily. However, the travelers were well protected under the shelter, so that there was no need to hurry inside.

Phil would have broken loose and made a dash into the uncomfortable storm and the pitch-dark forest if there had been any opportunity for him to do so. But, evidently, “the count” anticipated that he might attempt such a move and kept a firm hold on one arm of his prisoner. The servant also, well schooled in his duties, took hold of the other arm of the boy, who was thus led through a massive entrance into the building.

It was a dingy looking place into which Phil was conducted. Undoubtedly this appearance was a result of two principal conditions, for, with quite as little doubt, this chateau had been kept in excellent condition before the war. First, the light was poor, being supplied principally with oil lamps and candles. The electric flash-light, in the hands of the servant, when switched on, caused the other lights to fade into insignificance. Second, the number of servants available for the maintenance of so large an establishment must have been small indeed.

But an unmistakable atmosphere of luxury, in spite of its mustiness, almost blew into Phil’s face as he entered. A breath of rich tapestries and soft velvety rugs met in sharp contrast the gust of wet-woods wind that forced itself in past the midnight arrivals. But for this contrast, perhaps the neglected richness of the interior would not have impressed itself so noticeably on the prisoner’s olfactory sense.

The room into which Phil was first inducted was a large reception hall, which opened upon two other apartments, one to the left and one straight ahead, through wide high-arched doorways, partly closed with heavy portieres. The boy was led straight forward through the latter doorway and into a large room whose rich decorations and furniture were only vaguely discernible by the light of two or three candles on a deep mantel over a great fireplace.

Here Topoff gave instructions in German to the servant and left the latter alone to proceed with the prisoner. Phil next found himself being conducted through a long hall and then down a flight of stairs to a basement floor. There he was thrust into a dark room and the door was closed and locked.

It was a most unceremonious proceeding, but Phil decided that he could hardly expect anything else under the circumstances. He forgot for the moment that he was wretchedly hungry, in his eagerness and anxiety to learn the character of his quarters. He began his examination of the place by getting down on his hands and knees. Then he realized for the first time that he was on a floor of cold, hard clay, like that of a deep cellar.

Suddenly his investigation was aided by a brilliant flash of lightning, which afforded him a good view of the floor of his prison. There was nothing of particular interest in it except a board platform at the farther side of the room, probably built there as a dry elevation for vegetables harvested from lands of the estate. No such articles of raw food, however, were on it now.

“That’ll be a much better place for me to sleep on than this pneumonia-and-rheumatism floor,” Phil muttered. “I think I’ll go over there and try to sleep. I wonder if I can.”

He had good reason to doubt his ability to forget his physical and mental distress in slumber, and the effort he made was therefore the more courageous. As he lay down on his back, another flash of lightning illuminated the room, so that he had now a fairly complete picture in his mind as to the size and character of his prison.