FIRST BLOOD
Though none of the three in the wagon might even hazard a guess at the tremendous facts, the German wolf had already made his spring and been foiled. Not only had he missed his real quarry, France, he had also broken his fangs on the tough armour of Liège. These things Dalroy and Irene Beresford were to learn soon. The first intimation that the Belgian army had met and actually fought some portion of the invading host came before dawn.
The road to Visé ran nearly parallel with, but some miles north of, the main artery between Aix-la-Chapelle and Liège. During the small hours of the night it held a locust flight of German cavalry. Squadron after squadron, mostly Uhlans, trotted past the slow-moving cart; but Joos’s man, Maertz, if stolid and heavy-witted, had the sense to pull well out of the way of these hurrying troopers; beyond evoking an occasional curse, he was not molested. The brilliant moon, though waning, helped the riders to avoid him.
Dalroy and the girl were comfortably seated, and almost hidden, among the sacks of oats; they were free to talk as they listed.
Naturally, a soldier’s eyes took in details at once which would escape a woman; but Irene Beresford soon noted signs of the erratic fighting which had taken place along that very road.
“Surely we are in Belgium now?” she whispered, after an awed glance at the lights and bustling activity of a field hospital established near the hamlet of Aubel.
“Yes,” said Dalroy quietly, “we have been in Belgium fully an hour.”
“And have the Germans actually attacked this dear little country?”
“So it would seem.”
“But why? I have always understood that Belgium was absolutely safe. All the great nations of the world have guaranteed her integrity.”