Chapter XVI: Exchange No Robbery

In a small room in one of the houses at the foot of the hill village, bending over a table spread with papers, sat Lieutenant Axel von Schwank, an officer of a crack Prussian regiment, and a scion of an ancient and exalted family.

He had had an excellent dinner, without sparing the wine: what need was there to do so when so many cases had been obtained gratis in Champagne? He would have liked to remain with his brother officers, convivially employed in the room on the other side of the passage; but his colonel had given him some work to do. That was the penalty of being a musician.

For Lieutenant Axel von Schwank was accomplished in music. His rendering of the Waldstein sonata was wonderful for an amateur and a Prussian; he sang "The Two Grenadiers" with _eclat_, as his friends used to say before the authorities ordered the French language to be abolished; and he was renowned for his ability to read the most difficult score at sight. With all that he was full of martial spirit: his cheeks were seamed with no fewer than three scars, proud memorials of his student days.

But it was for his musical skill that the colonel had selected him for the piece of work on which he was now engaged. It was very elementary work for a man who could play the Waldstein sonata and read a score by Strauss; any school girl could have done it; but even the greatest philosopher has at times to perform the simple operation of washing his face, and the lieutenant need not have felt that he was demeaning himself by a task so much below his powers. For what Lieutenant Axel von Schwank was doing was simply to transcribe into musical notation, on a sheet of ruled music paper, the two lines of German with which the colonel had supplied him.

Surely that is difficult, you say? He has only seven letters, A to G, to employ, representing the seven notes of the scale, and the German alphabet has twenty-six. What about the v's, and w's, and z's in which the German language is so much superior to the French? But in the first place, remember that the German musician calls H the note which the less accomplished Englishman calls B, and in the second place that the range of most instruments, including the German flute, extends beyond a single octave.

So that if the lieutenant writes this

]

for A, there is nothing to prevent him writing

]

for I, and by means of the sharps and flats he can even arrive at Z, without exceeding the compass of that dulcet instrument.

He was busy with his transcription when he heard a scuffling of feet and the clank of swords in the opposite room. His fellow officers were hurrying to the street door. The colonel put his head in.

"We are called to the trenches," he said. "Go on with that, and follow us when you have done."

The lieutenant had sprung up, turned round and saluted. When his superior was gone, he sat down and set to work again. After all, he probably reflected, music has charms: it would preserve him for a few minutes more from the bullets of those hateful pigs the English.

The house was in silence.

A little while after the officers had departed, a strange, unshaven, unkempt face peered round the edge of the door, which the colonel had left open. It was a lined and somewhat careworn face; the eyes were bright and wild; the hair, very rough and tangled, was red. The face moved slowly forward; inch by inch a dirty, tattered khaki uniform showed itself; and the rays of the lamp on the table glinted on the blade of a long carving knife, held in the man's right hand. He wore no boots, and his stockings made no sound as he tiptoed across the room.

Lieutenant Axel, bending over the table with his back to the door, was absorbed in his occupation. But just as the intruder reached his chair he seemed to become aware that he was not alone. He turned suddenly, his right hand holding the fountain pen, his left, by some instinct, crushing the papers into his pocket, and found a determined face glaring at him, and a carving knife pointed at his breast. Before he could collect himself a sinewy hand clutched him by the throat, and a voice said in a hoarse whisper:

"Make a sound and you're a dead 'un."

Whether a knowledge of English was one of Lieutenant Axel's accomplishments or not, there was no mistaking the hand, the knife, the purport of the words. He turned pale; his eyes searched the room for a chance of escape; he was discreetly silent; and at a significant movement of the offensive blade he raised his hands above his head. A drop of ink fell on his nose.

The captor, in whose expression there was eagerness, anxiety, an air of listening, loosed his grip on the officer's throat.

"Take off your uniform and 'coutrements," he said, with a jerk of the knife.

Lieutenant Axel hesitated for a moment only. The Englishman's face was not pleasant. Hurriedly he stripped off tunic, trousers, belt and boots.

"That'll do," said Ginger, in whose eyes the look which the German had mistaken for fury really indicated that he was at his wits' end to know how to effect the change of clothes without putting down the knife and giving his captive an opportunity to dash for the door.

An idea flashed upon him. Still pointing the knife at the officer, he took up the lamp with his left hand, placed it on the chimney piece close by, and stripped the cloth from the table.

"Put it over your head," he whispered fiercely.

Again a movement of the knife abridged the lieutenant's hesitation. The shrouding table-cloth eclipsed the concentrated fury of his eyes. Ginger wasted not a second. He shoved the officer into a corner of the room, pulled a sofa across to bar him in, cut a bell-pull with the knife, and drawing the cord over his head, began to tighten it. The German began to struggle; for the first time he spoke.

"You shtrangle me!" came the muffled words.

"Shut up!" growled Ginger, with a premonitory dig of the knife. "I won't graze your skin if you don't make a fuss. But----"

Lieutenant Axel may have wondered: this hateful pig was certainly not expert in frightfulness; he was very soft, like all the English. But the struggles ceased; the officer was quiet while Ginger knotted the cord about his neck. And he stood there in the corner, a statue in table-cloth and pants, as Ginger, with a quickness learnt on raw mornings in the barracks at home, endued himself with the well-tailored habiliments of a Prussian officer. The boots were a trifle large for him.

He listened. All was quiet. He threw a dubious look at the rigid officer.

"Not safe," he muttered.

Hastening to the German, he loosed the cord, pulled off the table-cloth, and looking into the hot face said:

"You've got to be tied up. Make a row and you know what. Join your hands behind you."

While Ginger was tying his hands, and his feet to a leg of the sofa, Lieutenant Axel von Schwank cursed him in undertones in both English and German. Ginger made no reply. But as soon as this part of his work was finished, he caught up some papers from the mantelpiece--they were copies of the Hymn of Hate--twisted them together, and with a sudden movement thrust them into the German's mouth.

"There! Bite them," he muttered. "Such shocking language!"

He once more threw the table-cloth over the helpless man's head, put the pickel-haube on his own, and quietly left the room. Passing the open door opposite he hesitated for the fraction of a second, then went in, gulped a glass of wine, caught up the frame of a chicken from the table, and digging his teeth into it ravenously, hurried back, along the passage, down a dark flight of steps, and out through the back door into the garden. He drew quick breaths as he leant against the wall, gnawing the carcase. From somewhere on his right came low sounds he had learnt to recognise as signs of Germans in their trenches. On the left there was silence. In the distance guns boomed. After a few minutes he threw the chicken bones upon a neglected garden plot, sighed, drew his hand across his lips, and murmured:

"Blowed if I know!"

The village was a mile or more from his old trench; he knew that. It was, he supposed, wholly in possession of the Germans. He would have to go through it up the hill, or round it, and pass the enemy's trenches before he could reach his regiment. And at any moment the German officer might be discovered!

"I must skip," he said to himself.

The assuagement of his terrible hunger had seemed a necessity beyond all others. Now he realised his peril. Choosing the direction that was silent, he stole from garden to garden, scaling the fences, and presently found himself in a lane. It was uphill to the right: that was his way. The lane ended in a street. There he turned to the left, but had taken only a few steps when the tread of feet and the sound of guttural voices coming towards him sent him back hastily in the opposite direction. To his dismay, in a few seconds he heard other men approaching. There was no escape. On one side he was blocked by a high wall, on the other a house dimly lighted. The night was dark; he wore a German uniform; unless accosted by a real officer he might pass safely. With shrinking heart but an assured gait he walked boldly on, close to the wall.

Dark though it was, the soldiers returning from the trenches recognised the officer's uniform and went by stiffly at the salute. Ginger was bringing his hand up smartly when he remembered that he was an officer, eased the movement, and dropped his hand again, quaking lest some terrible blunder in the mode of his return salute should have betrayed him. But in the darkness it passed muster. No doubt the men were tired. They went on. Ginger, perspiring and limp, leant against the wall for a moment or two.

"Oh crumbs!" he murmured as he braced himself and set off again.

A few steps brought him to a lane that broke the line of houses on his left. It was quiet. He turned into it. The ground rose somewhat steeply.

"Must be going right," he thought.

Soon the houses were left behind. The lane became a track across even ground, with a few trees at the borders. Suddenly the silence was broken by the sharp crackle of rifle fire from the upper part of the hill. Ginger threw himself down and crouched behind a stout trunk. There was no reply from the German trenches, which must be somewhere below him, he thought. He waited patiently until the firing died away, then rose and crept forward.

His heart sank into his boots when he came unawares upon a trench and heard the murmur of guttural voices. Before he had time to retreat, a sentinel addressed him in German.

"Sssh!" Ginger hissed, sliding into the trench a few feet from the dark figure. Further down the trench there were dim lights. It was neck or nothing now. Stepping on to the banquette he began to clamber up to the parapet. The sentry, no doubt believing that the officer was engaged on some special scouting duty, came towards him, whispering, "Erlauben Sie, Herr Leutnant," and gave him a leg-up.

Ginger scrambled over, fell on hands and knees, and crawled over the ground. How far ahead were the British trenches he knew not; the night was too dark for him to be seen, but at the least noise he would certainly be taken for a German and become the invisible target for a dozen rifles.

While he was slowly wriggling forward he heard a commotion far in his rear--shouts, the sound of many men on the move. Probably the muffled lieutenant had been discovered; the men in the trenches would be advised of the outrage, and the no man's land between the hostile forces might be swept by a fusillade. Crushing himself flat he dragged himself on.

Now there were sounds in front of him. He stopped, panting, listening. Yes, they were British voices; were they those of his own comrades? What should he do? If he called, he might be riddled with shot. So many Germans could speak English. The Rutlands would know his voice, but what if the men in the trenches were not the Rutlands?

For a few moments he lay inert with hopelessness. Then an idea occurred to him. On again, inch by inch, feeling out for barbed wire. There was none; the position must have been hurriedly occupied. The voices were more distinct; his straining cars caught individual words.

"English, I surrender!" he called in a low tone.

The voices were hushed.

"Who goes there?" said a voice.

"Murgatroyd, of the Rutlands," he replied.

"Keep still."

There was a momentary flash of light.

"Don't fire!" called Ginger, instantly realising that his uniform must have been seen. "I surrender."

"Hands up and come on."

Ginger was just rising when bullets sang over his head from behind. He dropped down again; his last chance was gone; they would believe he was tricking them. But he heard an officer give an order. There was no answering fire from the trench in front, no repetition of the volley from the rear. He crawled on, dimly seeing the parapet a few yards away.

"I surrender," he repeated, and crawled on, over the sandbags, was seized by rough hands, hauled headlong into the trench, and held firmly by the neck.

"Got him, sir," said a voice.