“He’s done a bunk!” he cried cheerfully. “You said he might go, Herr Unteroffizier, so he hopped it without even saying ‘Auf wieder sehn.’”
Meanwhile, as he was steadily masking the German’s aim, he might have been shot without warning. But the ready comment baffled the other for a few precious seconds, and the men in the barn helped unconsciously by chaffing their comrade.
“You’ve got your hands full with the girl, Franz,” said one.
“What’s she like?” bawled another. “I can only see a pair of slim ankles and a dirty face.”
“That’s all you will see, Georg,” said Franz, believing that a scared Belgian peasant had merely bolted in panic. “This little bit is mine by the laws of war.—Here, you,” he added, surveying Dalroy quite amicably, “be off to your aunt! You’ll probably be shot at Oosterzeele; but that’s your affair, not mine.”
“You don’t know my aunt,” said Dalroy. “I’d sooner face a regiment of soldiers than stand her tongue if I go home without her niece.”
If he hoped to placate this swaggering scoundrel by a display of good-humour he failed lamentably. An ugly glint shone in the man’s eyes, and he handled the carbine again threateningly.
“To hell with you and your aunt!” he snarled. “Perhaps you don’t know it, you Flemish fool, but you’re a German now and must obey orders. Cut after your pal before I count three, or I’ll put daylight through you! One, two——”
Then the hapless Irene committed a second and fatal error, though it was pardonable in the frenzy of a tragic dilemma, since the next moment might see her lover ruthlessly murdered. To lump all German soldiers into one category was a bad mistake; it was far worse to change her accent from the crude speech of the province of Liège to the high-sounding periods of Berlin society.
“How dare you threaten unoffending people in this way?” she almost screamed. “I demand that you send for an officer, and I ask the other men of your regiment to bear witness we have done nothing whatsoever to warrant your brutal behaviour.”