For the second time Dalroy heard a slang epithet new to him applied to the Germans. He little guessed how familiar the abbreviated French form of the word would become in his ears. Briton, Frenchman, Slav, and Italian have cordially adopted “Boche” as a suitable term for the common enemy. It has no meaning, yet conveys a sense of contemptuous dislike. Stricken France had no heart for humour in 1870. The merciless foe was then a “Prussian”; in 1914 he became a “Boche,” and the change held a comforting significance.
Dalroy, of course, did not share the Frenchman’s opinion as to the speedy discomfiture of the invader; but night was falling, the offer of shelter was too good to be refused. Nevertheless, he was careful to reveal a real difficulty. “Unfortunately, we have a dead woman in the cart,” he said. “Madame Stauwaert, too, is ill, but she has recovered from a fainting fit, I see.”
“Ah, poor Stauwaert!” murmured the other. “A decent fellow. I saw them kill him. And that’s his wife, of course. I didn’t recognise her before.”
Dalroy was relieved to find that the Frenchman and the bereaved woman were friends. He had not forgotten the priest’s statement that there would be a spy in every group in that part of Belgium. Later he ascertained that Monsieur Pochard was a well-to-do leather merchant in Andenne, who, like many others, refused to abandon a long-established business for fear of the Germans; doubtless he was destined to pay a heavy price for his tenacity ere the war ended. He behaved now as a true Samaritan, urging an immediate move, and promising even to arrange for Madame Joos’s burial. Dalroy helped him to carry the child, a three-year-old boy, who was very sleepy and peevish, and did not understand why he should not be at home and in bed.
Joos suffered them to lead him where they listed. He walked by the side of the cart, and told “Lise” how he had dealt with the Uhlan. Léontine sobbed afresh, and tried to stop him, but he grew quite angry.
“Why shouldn’t she know?” he snapped. “It is her affair, and mine. You screamed, and turned away, but I hacked at him till his wind-pipe hissed.”
Monsieur Pochard brought them to Huy by a rough road among the hills.
It was a dreadful journey in the gloaming of a perfect summer’s evening. The old man’s ghoulish jabbering, the sobs of the women, the panting of two exhausted dogs, and the wailing of the child, who wanted his father’s arms round him rather than a stranger’s, supplied a tragic chorus which ill beguiled that Via Dolorosa along the heights of the Meuse.
Irene insisted on taking the boy for a time, and the youngster ceased his plaint at once.
“That’s a blessed relief,” she confided to Dalroy. “I’m not afflicted with nerves, but this poor little chap’s crying was more than I could bear.”