Aix-la-Chapelle was more awake on that Wednesday morning at one o’clock than on any ordinary day at the same hour in the afternoon. The streets were alive with excited people, the taverns and smaller shops open, the main avenues crammed with torrents of troops streaming westward. Regimental bands struck up martial airs as column after column debouched from the various stations. When the musicians paused for sheer lack of breath the soldiers bawled “Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles” or “Die Wacht am Rhine” at the top of their voices. The uproar was, as the Germans love to say, colossal. The enthusiasm was colossal too. Aix-la-Chapelle might have been celebrating a great national festival. It seemed ludicrous to regard the community as in the throes of war. The populace, the officers, even the heavy-jowled peasants who formed the majority of the regiments then hurrying to the front, seemed to be intoxicated with joy. Dalroy was surprised at first. He was not prepared for the savage exultation with which German militarism leaped to its long-dreamed-of task of conquering Europe.
Irene Beresford, momentarily more alive than he to the exigencies of their position, bought a common shawl at a shop in a side street, and threw away her tattered hat with a careless laugh. She was an excellent actress. The woman who served her had not the remotest notion that this bright-eyed girl belonged to the hated English race.
The incident brought back Dalroy’s vagrom thoughts from German methods of making war to the serious business which was his own particular concern. The shop was only a couple of doors removed from the Franz Strasse; he waited for Irene at the corner, buying some cheap cigars and a box of matches at a tobacconist’s kiosk. He still retained the lantern, which lent a touch of character. The carriage-cleaner’s breeches were wide and loose at the ankles, and concealed his boots. Between the sabots and his own heels he had added some inches to his height, so he could look easily over the heads of the crowd; he was watching the passing of a battery of artillery when an open automobile was jerked to a standstill directly in front of him. In the car was seated Von Halwig.
That sprig of Prussian nobility was in a mighty hurry, but even he dared not interfere too actively with troops in motion, so, to pass the time as it were, he rolled his eyes in anger at the crowd on the pavement.
It was just possible that Irene might appear inopportunely, so Dalroy rejoined her, and led her to the opposite side of the cross street, where a wagon and horses hid her from the Guardsman’s sharp eyes.
Thus it happened that Chance again took the wanderers under her wing.
A short, thick-set Walloon had emptied a glass of schnapps at the counter of a small drinking-bar which opened on to the street, and was bidding the landlady farewell.
“I must be off,” he said. “I have to be in Visé by daybreak. This cursed war has kept me here a whole day. Who is fighting who, I’d like to know?”
“Visé!” guffawed a man seated at the bar. “You’ll never get there. The army won’t let you pass.”