FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124  
125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   >>   >|  
ere, or anywhere else where these brutes may be?" "Huy has been occupied by the Germans since the 12th, and is their temporary headquarters. From what I gather, they usually spare such towns. That is why we never dreamed of Andenne being sacked." Dalroy remembered the aged cure's exposition of _Kultur_ as a policy. "Is this sort of thing going on generally, then?" he asked. Monsieur Pochard was a Frenchman. He raised his eyebrows. "Where can you have been, monsieur, not to know what has happened at Liege, Vise, Flemelle Grande, Blagny Trembleur, and a score of other places?" "Vise!" broke in the cracked, piping voice of Joos. "What's that about Vise?" "It is burnt to the ground, and nearly all the inhabitants killed." "Is anything said of a fat major named Busch, whom Henri Joos the miller stuck with a fork?" "A Prussian, do you mean?" "Ay. One of the same breed--a Westphalian." "I haven't heard." "He tried to assault my daughter, so I got him. The second one, a Uhlan, killed my wife, and I got _him_ too. I cut his throat down there in the main street. It's easy to kill Germans. They're soft, like pigs." Though Joos's half-demented boasting was highly injudicious, Dalroy did not interfere. He was in a mood to let matters drift. They could not well be worse. He had tried to control the course of events in so far as they affected his own and Irene Beresford's fortunes, but had failed lamentably. Now, fate must take charge. Pochard's comment was to the point, at any rate. "I congratulate you, monsieur," he said. "I'll do a bit in that line myself when this little one is lodged with his aunt in Huy. If every Belgian accounts for two Prussians, you'll hold them till the French and English join up." "Do you know for certain where the English are?" put in Dalroy eagerly. "Yes, at Charleroi. The French are in Namur. Come with me to Huy. A few days, and the _sales Alboches_ will be pelting back to the Rhine." 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 c
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124  
125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Dalroy
 

French

 

Germans

 

Pochard

 

Frenchman

 

monsieur

 

English

 
killed
 

Prussian

 
Prussians

brutes

 

accounts

 

lodged

 

Belgian

 

eagerly

 
Charleroi
 

fortunes

 
Beresford
 

failed

 

lamentably


control

 
events
 

affected

 

congratulate

 

charge

 

comment

 

meaning

 
conveys
 

common

 

adopted


cordially
 

suitable

 
contemptuous
 

dislike

 

change

 

merciless

 

France

 

Stricken

 

humour

 

Italian


pelting

 

Alboches

 

epithet

 
Briton
 
abbreviated
 

applied

 
guessed
 

familiar

 

piping

 

places