It was at a place called Oombergen, midway between Oudenarde and Alost, that the fugitives met the Death’s-Head Hussars. And with that ill-omened crew came the great adventure.
CHAPTER XII
AT THE GATES OF DEATH
Had Dalroy followed his own plans, supported as they were by the well-meant advice tendered by the farmer of the Meuse valley, he might have led his companions through the final barrier without incurring any risk at all comparable with the hair’s-breadth escapes of Visé, Argenteau, Andenne, and Huy.
But the weather broke. Rain fell in torrents, and Irene’s presence was a real deterrent to spending a night in a ditch or lurking in the depths of a wood till dawn. Maertz, too, jubilant in the certainty that the Belgian outposts were hardly six miles distant, advocated the bold policy of a daylight march. Still, there was no excuse for Dalroy, who knew that patrols in an enemy’s country are content to stand fast by night, and scout during the day. Unluckily, Irene was eager as their Belgian friend to rush the last stage. She was infected by the prevalent spirit of the people. Throughout the whole of September these valiant folk in the real Flanders held the Germans rather cheap. They did not realise that outpost affairs are not battles—that a cavalry screen, as its very name implies, is actually of more value in cloaking movements of armies in rear than in reconnoitring.
Be that as it may, in the late afternoon of 5th September the three were hurrying past some lounging troopers who had taken shelter from the pouring rain in the spacious doorway of a ruined barn, when one man called to them, “Hi! where are you off to?”
They pretended not to hear, whereupon a bullet passed through Dalroy’s smock between arm and ribs.
It was useless to think of bolting from cavalry. They turned at once, hoping that a bold front might serve. This occurred a mile or more from Oombergen. Maertz had “an aunt” in Oosterzeele, the next village, and said so.