CHAPTER III

FIRST BLOOD

Though none of the three in the wagon might even hazard a guess at the
tremendous facts, the German wolf had already made his spring and been
foiled. Not only had he missed his real quarry, France, he had also
broken his fangs on the tough armour of Liege. These things Dalroy and
Irene Beresford were to learn soon. The first intimation that the
Belgian army had met and actually fought some portion of the invading
host came before dawn.

The road to Vise ran nearly parallel with, but some miles north of, the
main artery between Aix-la-Chapelle and Liege. During the small hours of
the night it held a locust flight of German cavalry. Squadron after
squadron, mostly Uhlans, trotted past the slow-moving cart; but Joos's
man, Maertz, if stolid and heavy-witted, had the sense to pull well out
of the way of these hurrying troopers; beyond evoking an occasional
curse, he was not molested. The brilliant moon, though waning, helped
the riders to avoid him.

Dalroy and the girl were comfortably seated, and almost hidden, among
the sacks of oats; they were free to talk as they listed.

Naturally, a soldier's eyes took in details at once which would escape
a woman; but Irene Beresford soon noted signs of the erratic fighting
which had taken place along that very road.

"Surely we are in Belgium now?" she whispered, after an awed glance at
the lights and bustling activity of a field hospital established near
the hamlet of Aubel.

"Yes," said Dalroy quietly, "we have been in Belgium fully an hour."

"And have the Germans actually attacked this dear little country?"

"So it would seem."

"But why? I have always understood that Belgium was absolutely safe. All
the great nations of the world have guaranteed her integrity."

"That has been the main argument of every spouter at International Peace
Congresses for many a year," said Dalroy bitterly. "If Belgium and
Holland can be preserved by agreement, they contended, why should not
all other vexed questions be settled by arbitration? Yet one of our
chaps in the Berlin Embassy, the man whose ticket you travelled with,
told me that the Kaiser could be bluntly outspoken when that very
question was raised during the autumn manoeuvres last year. 'I shall
sweep through Belgium thus,' he said, swinging his arm as though
brushing aside a feeble old crone who barred his way. And he was talking
to a British officer too."

"What a crime! These poor, ino