They were to withdraw towards Liège, first retiring into the wood.
“Wat sullen wy doen?” (what is to be done?) asked one of Edmond’s men in Flemish—the thickset man who had read the proclamation.
“Our general knows best, my comrade,” Edmond reassured him in his own language. “This may be only a strategic move. We shall sweep them off our soil before long—depend upon it.”
“Gy hebt gelyk,” (You are right), muttered the man, panting beneath his load—the barrel of the Maxim strapped across his shoulder.
“Ik stem geheel met U!” (I quite agree with you), murmured another of the men in his soft, musical Flemish. “We will never surrender to those brigands! Never, while there is breath left in us. They are assassins, not soldiers!”
They marched forward along the wide, dark, dusty road, safe from the enemy’s fire at that point because of the rising ground between them and the winding, peaceful valley of the Ourthe.
In their faces stood Liège, five miles distant. They were moving forward, still in high spirits. Many of the men were whistling to themselves as they marched, sturdy and undaunted. The Eighth Chasseurs was one of the first regiments of King Albert, all men of splendid bravery, and of finer physique than the average Belgian.
From Liège came still the continuous boom of artillery, for the forts untaken were keeping up a regular fire, and the enemy, it was known, were sustaining terrible losses both night and day.
The forts, built in a ring in the environs of the city, were safe enough. But not so the town. The Germans, aided by their swarms of spies in the place, had made a dozen attempts to take it during the past forty-eight hours, but had always been repulsed.
They had resorted to every ruse. One party of Germans had dressed themselves in British uniforms—whence they obtained them nobody has ever known—and on entering the town were at once welcomed enthusiastically as allies. But, fortunately, the ruse was discovered when one was overheard to speak in German, and all were promptly shot. Then another party appeared as Belgian Red Cross men, and they, on being discovered to be enemies, shared a similar fate: they were shot in the Place Cockerill. The Germans had requested an armistice for twenty-four hours to bury their dead. This, however, was refused, because it was well known that the big Krupp howitzers—“the German surprise to Europe”—were being brought up, each drawn by forty horses, and that the cessation of hostilities asked for was really craved in order to gain time to get these ponderous engines of destruction into position.