“You must not talk in that style to a girl from Berlin,” she said icily. “You and your men will take what is given you, or I’ll find your oberleutnant, and hear what he has to say about it.”
She spoke purposely in perfect German, and the corporal was vastly surprised.
“Pardon, gnädiges Fräulein,” he mumbled with a clumsy bow. “I no offence meant. We will within come when the meal is ready. About—turn!” The enemy was routed.
The miller and his man worked hard until dusk. The fat officer turned up, and lost no opportunity of ogling the two girls. He handed Joos a payment docket, which, he explained grandiloquently, would be honoured by the military authorities in due course. Joos pocketed the document with a sardonic grin. There was some fifteen thousand francs’ worth of grain and forage stored on the premises, and he did not expect to see a centime of hard cash from the Germans, unless, as he whispered grimly to Dalroy, they were forced to pay double after the war. Meanwhile the place was gutted. Wagon after wagon came empty and went away loaded.
Driblets of news were received. The passage of the Meuse had been achieved, thanks to a flanking movement from Argenteau. Liège had fallen at the first attack. The German High Sea Fleet was escorting an army in transports to invade England, where, meanwhile, Zeppelins were destroying London. Visé, having been sufficiently “punished” for a first offence, would now be spared so long as the inhabitants “behaved themselves.” If a second “lesson” were needed it would be something to remember.
The first and last of these items were correct, inasmuch as they represented events and definite orders affecting the immediate neighbourhood. Otherwise, the budget consisted of ever more daring flights of Teutonic imagination, the crescendo swelling by distance. Liège was so far from having fallen that the 7th Division, deprived of the support of the 9th and 10th Divisions, had been beaten back disastrously from the shallow trenches in front of the outer girdle of forts. The 10th was about to share the same fate; and the 9th, after being delayed nearly three days by the glorious resistance offered by the Belgians at Visé, was destined to fare likewise. But rumour as to the instant “capture” of Liège was not rife among the lower ranks alone of the German army. The commander-in-chief actually telegraphed the news to the All-Highest at Aix; when the All-Highest discovered the truth the commander-in-chief decided that he had better blow his brains out, and did.
The fact was that the overwhelming horde of invaders could not be kept out of the city of Liège by the hastily mobilised Belgian army; but the heroic governor, General Leman, held the ring of forts intact until they were pulverised by the heavy ordnance of which Dalroy had seen two specimens during the journey to Cologne. Many days were destined to elapse before the last of the strongholds, Fort Loncin, crumbled into ruins by the explosion of its own magazine; and until that was achieved the mighty army of Germany dared not advance another kilomètre to the west.
When the Bavarian corporal had gone through every part of the house and outbuildings, and satisfied himself that the only stores left were some potatoes and a half-bag of flour, he informed the miller that he and his squad would be billeted there that evening.
“Your pantry is bare,” he said, “but the wine is all right, so we’ll bring a joint which we ‘planted’ this morning. Be decent about the wine, and your folk can have a cut in, too.”
Possibly he meant to be civil, and there was a chance that the night might pass without incident. Visé itself was certainly quiet save for the unceasing stream of troops making for the pontoon bridge. The fighting seemed to have shifted to the west and south-west, and Joos put an unerring finger on the situation when he said pithily, “Liège is making a deuce of a row after being taken.”